©中村力斗・野澤ゆき子/集英社・君のことが大大大大大好きな製作委員会
Let’s talk a little about kissing in anime. A fairly common observation about romance anime is that, outside of overt fanservice shows, the couples rarely show much physical affection. There are some cultural differences behind that—for example, PDA is generally more frowned upon in Japan—but as the genre has evolved and built upon itself, the complete lack of Physical intimacy has become a major factor. Sure, characters can fall on each other’s breasts and groins at will or accidentally see each other naked. However, something as vulnerable, as intimate as a mutually romantic kiss? Those are saved for the emotional climax at the end of the story, or maybe not at all. It creates a strange dichotomy where physicality that is unintentional, unwanted, or outright fetishized through fanservice is the only form of contact the characters are allowed outside of the occasional hand-holding together. Physical or sexual attention is not necessary for romance—I know many asexual friends can attest to that—but when the characters clearly like each other but remain completely chaste, that can feel alienating.
100 Girlfriends, oddly enough, eschews that dichotomy entirely. It most certainly has fan service, but nearly all of those chest compressions and face-to-faces are consensual acts between characters who are openly attracted to each other. There’s nothing precious about the characters kissing, because before this episode there had been more smiles on screen than in any romantic comedy other than Yamada-kun and the Seven Witches—and that entire show was built around a magic kissing gimmick. Even the other romances airing this season, where the couple meets in the first place, are lagging far behind in terms of kisses per episode. This puts 100 Girlfriends in a curious spot on the Healthy to Horny spectrum, existing anywhere and everywhere along that line at any given time depending on whether it’s sincere romance , insatiable horniness or both at the same time.
That also allows something as ridiculous and potentially scary as Kiss Zombie’s conceit in this episode to work. In most other series, having all these girls mind-wiped for their desire for the main character’s lips would likely be violated, taking away their ability to consent to that type of contact for fanservice teasing purposes. However, since everyone here has dated and spat on Rentaro multiple times, that removes that dirty subtext and allows the series to indulge in ridiculous comedy and cheesecake Cool without any unpleasant aftertaste. Rentaro’s resistance comes from trying to stop the crazy kissing-zombie apocalypse for his girlfriend, rather than not wanting to fight tongues, so when he inevitably gets caught by each among them, there will be room for real intimacy to puncture silly jokes.
Is it putting too much thought into a laughably stupid premise built around an eccentric mad scientist character and a thinly veiled excuse for some steamy kissing scenes? Sure. However, that’s the only way I can explain how funny I found this entire episode. It’s an astonishingly stupid joke built around a series of situations that are completely ridiculous even by the standards of this series, yet nearly every scene of “Resident Hazard: Kissage” makes I died laughing because it escalated that central joke or sprinkled in little character jokes. You’d think that with two-thirds of the cast being mindless zombies, there wouldn’t be room for character-driven humor, but little moments like Nano dragging Shizuka along on a desperate hunt for a kiss of them, or the double team of Hakari and Karane on offense, put their personalities first, even if they can only say the word “kiss” for most of the episode.
Ironically, the character lacking focus is Kusuri. In addition to being the cause of this predicament, she also disappears for long stretches of the episode, and the whole zombie thing prevents her from interacting much with the rest of the cast. We do have more emotional weight for her knowing that her crazy experiments have driven away any previous colleagues or friends, but that’s just a distance too far to take. doable for me. Perhaps Kusuri is still a little too far from the level of strangeness to be fully understood. While her solution was sweet, it wasn’t quite as passionate as the previous solutions.
Luckily, the rest of the episode is funny, cheeky, and weird enough to make up for it. Not to mention this episode means that the harem show about a guy with 100 girlfriends now has more kisses between girls than any of the many Yuuri anime that aired alongside it . Hakari and Karane’s extended get-together raises the possibility of square relationships within the larger harem, like intersecting constellations but for face-sucking anime girls. If that is also a possibility for this show then the power of 100 Girlfriends could truly be unlimited.
To honor the new couple’s first kiss, let’s offer some equally family-friendly alternative review photos
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100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You is now streaming on Crunchyroll.