Sorry Ore no Imouto, but Kuragehime has since taken your crown of ‘best new anime of the season’. It’s a tough world out there and only a privileged few can ever take that title of best in any given season, especially when you air in one of the equinox seasons. Ah well, at least you can keep hold of your ‘surprise of the season’ tag. While The World God Only Knows continues to fall flat on it’s face, Ore no Imouto picks up the slack for that anime. Par for the course then.
Now I’m going to instantly contradict my earlier statement by declaring the vast majority of this episode a bit of a bore. The first half was made up entirely of a young teenage girl doing young teenage girl things. Chatting on the phone in an extremely bitchy manner to ‘friends’ who merely serve as something to vent your opinions at. Getting all sparkly eyed at the latest merchandise on offer. All while remaining very insecure about herself and her secrets. Funny how similar otaku are to teenage girls eh. Combine the two together and you get one of the single most bitchy and insecure creatures on the planet. No wonder the two of them can’t stop going for each other’s throats.
But then big evil daddy discovers Kirino’s secret and things get interesting again. Well, not really. Kyousuke has to turn back to being Good Brother© one again, even going so far as to take a karate chop to the face. I’m still waiting for the guy to crack and tell his sister to bug off. In fact, I had thought that he would do that at the next available opportunity. However I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt in this situation. The proverbial big boss of the entire series, the Scary Father©, is unleashing his wrath and his sister is on the brink of defeat. The whole scene in the restaurant was sorta boring though. ‘Anime and Eroge are part of me’ has been established already. Repeating what we already know without much attempts at humour. So far so not that great.
Then we get a shounen inspired speech. Honestly I thought this came more out of Toradora field than any shounen anime. It’s the moe version of the dramatic speech. It’s got more in common with the shojo speech in terms of what is being said but is delivered in a shounen-esque way. Again though, we have Kyousuke still sticking up for his sister. I’d like to think his over the top speech was partly down to a long-harboured frustration at the iron fist his father controls the household, but there was little evidence of that. He seemed to be genuinely doing this all for his sister. Hmmm, right whatever. I was ready to pass this episode off as a bit of a dud, until this scene.
‘Save the Little Sisters’. With that, this show goes straight back to awesome again. The dads face in all this was priceless. The way he had to spell out what all this meant verbally because the idea of keeping such a thought inside his head was magnificent. His son sits in his sisters room on his sisters computer playing games about older brothers having sex with their younger sisters. No wonder the dad punched him in the face. Combine that all with the “I don’t have a son” face he shot him at the end, the whole scene was fantastic and, probably more remarkably, a scene I didn’t see coming at all. Because I’m an idiot who couldn’t see the obvious occurring.
Oh yeah. In the middle of the episode, he ignored a perfectly good lap pillow. Gormless idiot ftw.
The final scene of the episode bugged me though. My beef with the whole little sister thing in anime is the onii-chan fetish that seems ever present in anime. It is seen as perfectly natural for a brother to want to bone his younger sister and for the sister to want to jump into bed with her onii-chan. The very point of Ore no Imouto is that it’s making an anime in which that is quite patently not the case, and makes a big song and dance of that not being the case. Kirino is still sexualised but that’s never been a problem (well, she’s a 14 year old girl being sexualised, which is a whole different can of worms I don’t want to touch right now). The point of the show is that the main characters little sister isn’t that cute. They’ve created a world in which brothers do not want to bone their sisters. But the final scene shows Kyousuke being surprised that his sister might just be this cute after all! Please Ore no Imouto. Don’t go down that path. Don’t kill off your main selling point.
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Their dad seems extremely old fashioned, just for the sake of being old fashioned.
It would be like your english dad wearing a bowler hat and carrying a cane. A bit ott don’t you think
I for one have never doubted Oreimo would go down THAT path, and while it’s really too bad, I’m kind of looking forward to teh nerd rage when it does.
Why doesn’t someone just look at the original novels and see where it heads? Ir’s not like this is an original.
Got some bad news for ya…
If should be fine as long as the anime sticks to only the first 3~4vols like single-season adaptations usually go.
Yeah, the first few novels only have… subtle hints apparently. And that may be all the anime covers. Later volumes seem to be leaning more towards romance, though. With speculation that they’ll pull the “not blood related” card. It makes me nervous >_>. I’m not watching this for freaking romance, I just wanted a normal bro/sis relationship, which very few anime seems to have.
I was going to touch on this in the next episode post but I might as well mention it here:
What happens later on in the novels does have a significant effect on what’s going on now. If the end aim is some siscon, then that skews how current happenings are portrayed. It effects how certain acts will be taken and what light gets cast on events. That’s just good storytelling in action.
To use an example everyone should be familiar with, one of the only people who knew the events of the final Harry Potter book prior to its release was the guy who played Snape in the movies because it effects how he plays his character.
While what’s happening now may be taken as non-siscon, if the eventual aim is for them to get together, then it skews the direction of the series and casts everything in a different light. Of course, the creators of the anime could decide to deliberately shy away from that angle and tell the story specifically with bro/sis relationship in mind. Directors are more than capable of altering the direction of an anime to suit their story (for example, the Berserk anime ends long before the manga does, so the earlier events in the anime are skewed slightly to suit that version)
tl;dr we’ll have to wait and see what they plan to do with this
I think it will probably go that path, and I wont mind really,
if you can’t enjoy the destination then try to enjoy the journey.(I might even enjoy the destination =P )
My only concern is how a 14 year old can get her hands in a R-18 and still keep it a secret for such a long time??
If anybody knows please tell me HOW??
I still love the ost
torrent is your solution (>.<)b
when I said ost I meant background music,
and it really seems that torrent is my solution xP
I thought you were referring to where you can get R-18 games…yup, torrents are the only thing for us non-elevens. Although it’s pretty clear that Kiriko didn’t torrent those games, unless torrents now come with the official box as well =|
You’ll be surprised of what you can get away with by ordering games online, or through small vendors that often don’t bother to check your identity.
Agree with you that this episode turned out a bore. I ended up talking about myself when I wrote an episodic review about it. It was all kinda predictable.
If Kyousuke picked the path of the unforgiven, I would dropped this in an instance.
I’m not sure if I’d drop this. It’s too well written. But I’d be pretty fucking dissapointed
Nogizaka Haruka did a similar thing about half way through the first season (interestingly, also with a Gendo father… why, Gendo fathers, why can’t you just let your daughters be raging otaku), and it sucked balls. I guess it’s a matter of execution. This is executed so much better.
I’m confident at this point that an incest ending won’t happen. The first two episode were filled with these little messages from the universe constantly telling Kyousuke that his sister is hot (with impeccably awkward timing). I think what’s going to happen is that these messages won’t stop, but the closer the siblings become, the less effect they’ll have on Kyousuke. They’ll get past the point of awkward sexual tension, and just be siblings.
The thing is, this anime makes a song and dance at how he doesn’t fancy his sister. As you said, it has impeccable awkward timing in telling him his sister is hot. That’s why it would be even more annoying if they turned down the old incest route. Don’t make a big deal out of how you’re different only to turn back to the one thing you’re meant to be subverting
Let’s all just pray that no one in this anime gets the desire to bone their younger sister.
I’ll admit that I’m always VERY amused by any incesty-ness in anime, but what I love about OreImo is that it’s just ‘hahaha jk’ all the time, so no incest, please. But every anime is allowed a fumble, so I’ll let this episode slide so long as it doesn’t come to scary incesty-ness. I mean, maybe they just meant to portray that their sibling bond has gotten stronger in an innocent way. Eh, I’m sure this episode will make more sense in context of later episodes.
And I’ll get to Kuragehime soonish.
Do it yo.
The only way Kuragehime could have been better was if Three Kingdom’s Girl was the 10th Doctor, Train Girl was Rose, and they all flew off in a Jellyfish TARDIS >:|
The thing about incest in anime is it’s so ever present that neither the humour nor the forbidden nature of it work anymore. It’s gotten to the point that anime simply take it as given that older brother/younger sister will fancy each other.
(I get the feeling I’m repeating myself a bit too much…)
and yes, watch Kuragehime
I just realized that I don’t think I’ve really watched anime with a brother and sister, or if I have it’s usually a kid’s show or they’re separated in some way, so it doesn’t have the opportunity to be incestuous, like with Digimon or Darker than Black. Maybe that’s why I think about OreImo differently than others? I haven’t seen a whole lot of the incesty-ness (except in Last Exile, only it was the older sister lusting after the younger brother). So while most people are digging the trope-evasion, I’m just enjoying the realistic dynamic. I mean, I’ve always been aware that it’s kind of a cliche in anime, but I’ve never really had to deal with it.
I have no idea where I’m going with this. I think I’m just trying to say that I might be interpreting the series a little differently because my anime experience has been different.
Anyway, I finally watched Kuragehime and for the most part I was just going “oh, this is nice, nothing too special” until I got to the end and then it became absolutely amazing. I’m kinda dying for more.
The show doesn’t nessesarilly need to be about incest directly. It’s the common belief held in anime that characters have an onii-chan fetish. Not all instances of incestious feelings I’m talking about amount to Yosuga no Sora type material.
I guess it is possible to not come across any of that sort of stuff in anime, but you’d have to be mightly lucky with your viewing choices
Man, I think that dad’s old fashion is killing some otakus…
Kyousuke’s speech proved that old brothers are really there to protect their little sisters when harm comes the way[and still not look too overprotective].
I’d never tell my dad that I played those games just to cover up for my sister =|
I think what’s really happening there is Kyousuke is trying to get some form of recognition in the household where his sister attracts most of the attention. If you can’t be famous, be infamous sorta thing. It works pretty well if you approach it from that angle
I liked the episode! True, though, that Kirino and Kuroneko sure don’t look like long-term friend material.
So far, any romantic/sexual tension is still purely between the audience and the visuals. I read the last scene as Kyousuke being simply shocked that his sister could show gratitude in such a charming way. I think that should be all right, don’t you?
Either I’m being hyper sensitive or you’re dangerously optimistic. We’ll see who shall prevail come the end
I thought Gendou daddy was surprisingly level-minded — I know that if I had ever started yelling at my da the way Kyousuke was, I’d get a slap pretty sharpish regardless of if I was doing it for one of the siblings.
Kyousuke claiming the R-18 eroge as his own was a step too far — I really don’t think any normal older sibling would go that far, especially when the little-sister shouldn’t legally have such things.
I thought it was rather lulzy that they mentioned Kiriko shouldn’t have R-18 games after the show got in trouble from game manufacturers for putting their games in the show in the ownership of a minor
>While The World God Only Knows continues to fall flat on it’s face
Stopped reading right there.
Get a fucking taste.
Hmm~
I wonder what you guys would say if you would be reading the manga…
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[…] it wasn’t a siscon otaku pandering fest. But that started to change pretty darn quickly. Episode 3 sent off warning signs, but it wasn’t until this blasted scene did it finally reveal its true […]