Engage Kiss

Bayron City, a pioneering metropolis built on a newly discovered energy source, promises every citizen a luxurious and comfortable lifestyle. In reality, young demon exterminator Shuu Ogata's life is far from extravagant. Despite running a private military business, he often struggles to make ends meet due to reckless expenses. Fortunately, Kisara, his demon partner, is more than eager to help Shuu with household matters—albeit a little too forcefully for his comfort.

The two work side by side, taking countermeasures against demon hazards, which stand as the biggest threats to the city. With danger lurking in the shadows, Shuu and Kisara strive to grant the town's safety; however, exterminating the possessed comes with a price unbeknownst to others.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Kisara Main

Aizawa, Saya Japanese

Yuugiri, Ayano Main

Lynn Japanese

Holygrail, Sharon Main

Ookubo, Rumi Japanese

Ogata, Shuu Main

Saitou, Souma Japanese

Ogata, Kanna Supporting

Kitou, Akari Japanese

Takuhaigyousha Supporting

Kugimiya, Rie Japanese

Yuugiri, Akino Supporting

Watanabe, Akeno Japanese

Hachisuka, Linhua Supporting

Oonishi, Saori Japanese

Hachisuka, Mikhail Supporting

Oosaka, Ryouta Japanese

Hachisuka, Shenhua Supporting

Uchida, Aya Japanese

Nara, Shunsuke Producer

Tanaka, Tomoya Director

Takadera, Takeshi Sound Director

Sakuma, Takashi Episode Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Feb 12, 2025

hexashadow13

Recommended

Engage Kiss is an original anime written by Fumiaki Maruto with designs by Tsunako and animated by A-1. That’s definitely makes it sound like it has quite a lot going for it. But on the other hand, it wasn’t exactly reviewed all that well and it’s part of a mixed media project that culminated in a mobile game that ended service in less than a year. So that might make you want to stay away. I don’t know what’s up with anything beyond the anime, but the anime on its own isn’t as bad as the reviews suggest. Rather, I’d say it’s actually very good.

This ... anime takes place in Bayron City, an artificial island independent city state that is infested with demons. Due to various circumstances, the extermination of demons is handled by PMCs. Most of these PMCs are professional outfits, but one is composed of just a man named Shuu and his partner Kisara. They’re incredibly unprofessional, but they’re also the best PMC in Bayron due to the fact that Kisara is a powerful demon, and the only demon fighting on the side of humanity. However, that doesn’t make this an easy job for Shuu or Kisara, in that most all the other PMCs hate them and after damages are deducted they usually get paid so little they often aren’t able to make ends meet. Despite that, Shuu is determined to stay in this line of work because his true goal isn’t money, but rather to find a lead on who killed his family twelve years ago.

Shuu is an incredibly interesting character who has a lot of depth. He’s actually very similar to the protagonist of DameKoi, a visual novel also written by Maruto. He’s someone that can be incredibly proactive and willful when it comes to what he cares about, but when it comes to things he doesn’t he shrugs them off completely. In addition, he’s someone whose idea of doing the right thing is sacrificing himself for others. However, he completely ignores how that affects the people that care about him and he pays little attention to their concerns or them trying to help him. He’s incredibly immature and fundamentally hypocritical. However, that’s what makes him such a fun character.

Over the course of his character arc, he comes to value himself more and shows more appreciation for those that care about him, though it’s not like his good for nothing self disappears completely. This character arc sound simple, but it’s actually a very fascinating mess due to the fact that the primary way that Shuu sacrifices himself is through burning through his memories to empower Kisara. As such, over the course of the anime he becomes less and less himself and more and more oblivious. That made how things came together at the end pretty rough, but also much more impactful than a straightforward character arc.

The other main characters are the women that are interested in Shuu. The first is of course Kisara, who is a semi-yandere. The second is Ayano, the daughter of the owner of the largest PMC in Bayron, and also Shuu’s clingy ex-girlfriend that hasn’t been able to let him go. Neither of them really have much in the way of character development. Rather, the focus with both is primarily their relationship with Shuu and each other. It’s a great dynamic that’s really amusing due to the fact that they’re constantly bickering over him and due to this even straight up fighting each other at times, which is surprisingly rare when it comes to anime harem or love triangle antics. But at the same time, they’re still pretty close and help each other both physically and with emotional support when it truly matters. It’s somewhat similar to the relationship between Utaha and Eriri in Saekano, another work written by Maruto. Though here it’s definitely much more extreme. There’s another woman that kind of sort of fits into the dynamic, Sharon, who is a nun that had a one night stand with Shuu at some point. Her involvement was kind of weird though and just made things messier, for better or worse.

The plot of Engage Kiss is centered around Shuu and company slowly honing in on the truth behind what happened twelves years ago and then dealing with the emerging aftermath. It’s not especially well written, but it flows decently enough. The conclusion doesn’t resolve everything, but it resolves the main issues and ends at a point that felt like a pretty satisfying ending. However, despite that I still feel that this anime was too short. It doesn’t feel rushed per se when it comes to the main plot, but this feels like the type of story that needed more time to flesh out the world and let things sink in before actually dealing with the main plot.

I think a few arcs of the cast just dealing with random demons with the focus being on world building and expanding on side characters would have helped a lot. For example, I think an explicit explanation of what exactly is going on when Shuu is shooting teeth at demons would have been nice. Also, having more insight into the various other PMCs would have made their involvement in the final battle hit harder. And more time spent on things like Kisara being a highschool student that has friends at school or Ayano’s friendship with Linhua would helped round out their character.

The art and animation in this are really good. The action especially is really exciting and looks amazing. The character designs were pretty great too with the focus mainly being on the girls. The OP and ED both have pretty good songs and really fun visuals. The soundtrack was also pretty good, though I didn’t really find any single track especially memorable.

tl;dr: An anime with a fun protagonist, amusing heroines, and great action, though it could have benefit from being longer.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Dec 9, 2024

Ilung

Mixed Feelings

I don't like smokers or I can say I hate smokers because it's have bad influence from my country so I give it score 7/10 overall, because of the MC grow up with active smoker Iam understand the circumstances.

Also I don't really like his personality (the MC). 3-5/10

Normally if the MC is not smoker I would give it 8/10.


Iam just realised it after completing 13 episodes. This title is quite lack of fanservice like nudes scene or others, if coming out with more fanservice what I mean iam gonna give it 9/10

First episode animation really really awesome, I love it.This is need to be ... normalized when comes to make anime, you put a lot of efforts and love into it not just hanpa na kimochi. I don't understand why TF they make anime if their animation itself fucking worse. Run out budget? So don't animate it at all it's lot more better, fucking waste. Better to save money for other projects.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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May 15, 2024

BlackCrowGrows

Not Recommended

Funny

"Engage kiss" is what comes out after an anime is adapted from a fucked up story with no get-go.

After watching the first episode one would initially think that this is a erotica bundled with some fucked up sci-fi plot having just to cater the needs of lonely man and their bottom half, and well... it is exactly that. But the thing is that it fails to even do that, i.e the basic purpose for which it is made.

The protagonist of the story is a fucking loser with 0 talent and skills, but he is still able to maintain a harem of women head over ... heels over him just because of his fictional privileges. Not only that, but even the side characters just revolve around the MC and have no self care/ decision making abilities. And on top of that the MC is an asshole and a hypocrite who's basically living controlled by his dick each turn.

The fight scenes and the art being the only good thing about this garbage is what made me to stick around till the end. Otherwise, this is an absolute boring piece of trash not worth even looking.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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	Poll: Engage Kiss Episode 6 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Aug 6, 2022	101 replies	by rettamon »» Jan 30, 11:58 PM
	Poll: Engage Kiss Episode 13 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Sep 24, 2022	133 replies	by Kixyy »» Sep 24, 2024 3:35 AM
	Poll: Engage Kiss Episode 7 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Aug 13, 2022	89 replies	by KingOfPneumos »» Jul 6, 2024 5:05 PM
	Poll: Engage Kiss Episode 5 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Jul 30, 2022	136 replies	by KingOfPneumos »» Jul 5, 2024 6:47 AM
	season 2, just a thought (frieren continuation to engage kiss) weeaboo5008 - Jun 10, 2024	4 replies	by 1Akemi_ »» Jun 11, 2024 1:42 AM