Well this is going downhill quickly. The only reason you still hold the ‘surprise of the season’ tag, Ore no Imouto, is that there’s nobody else out there to take it away from you. Unless the fact Panty and Stocking has managed to keep it’s jokes from going stale for 4 episodes running as a surprise. Maybe I should try watching Milky Holmes or Yosuga no Sora.
Right, let’s get this out of the way. Trip and grope. The oldest trick in the fanservice book. Still as facepalm worthy now as it ever was. The thing is, it isn’t ‘fanservice’. Just because a scene is sexually titillating in any way doesn’t automatically make it fanservice. For example, in Utena or Star Driver, the scenes are deliberately sexual characters are using sexual attraction to manipulate events. When a male character suddenly finds himself looking at the curves of a nearby female character, it’s often because he’s recognising a sexual appeal and often becoming slightly uncomfortable and nervous around her. In here, the trip and grope is to make Kirino’s friends think her brother is a lecherous, incestuous creep, just like his dad (as in, that his dad also thinks he’s an incestuous perv, not that his dad is also one himself. That would make this anime a whole lot weirder). It also heightens the awkwardness between the two.
Fanservice is Kirnio waving her bum around in the air. No effect on the plot. There’s a difference.
The whole scene is incredibly stupid, but there’s more to this show that’s getting on my nerves than just that scene. Take, for example, the idea that Kirino would be extremely freaked out by said groping. She’s straight back into her normal tsundere self. And Kyousuke is still taking it. He’s still sitting there and taking the constant coldness and bitching he has to take from Kirino. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt in the earlier episodes because he was helping his sister with her otaku side. But she’s fine with that now, so he shouldn’t be putting up with this crap. Why are you still carrying your sister’s bags like a you’re her lapdog Kyousuke?
Trying to explain this without going down the totally obvious route is difficult. One possible explanation I came up with is that he’s lazy. He’s putting up with it because he hasn’t the willpower to go against her. This theory doesn’t work when to take into account that he went far enough to have a pretty heated argument with his dad and run after his sister when she leaves the house. He’s more than willing to be a Good Brother© when the time calls for it. So I think we can cross that explanation off the list. I can’t really think of any other explanations for this, beyond plain bad writing and the obvious choice.
That is, he fancies his sister.
Let’s ignore the ‘eww squicky incest’ angle for now, because everything clunks into place nicely if you take that angle. The reason he puts up with his sister is for the ‘dere payoff to all the tsun side. Basic rule is that if you persue the tsundere flag for long enough, you’ll get the reward of her softer dere side. Which he already got at the end of episode 3, when he cops on that his sister really is that cute. It also makes that scene of her bum waving about in the air take on actual meaning. He already notices the attractiveness of his sister. He’s just annoyed that he’s never seen a cute side to her. His little sister can’t be that cute. Oh, and the reason Kirino didn’t seem all too bothered about Kyousuke playing siscon ero games or that he just so happened to grope her is that she secretly fancies him too. It all clicks into place quite nicely.
Again, let’s ignore the squicky side of incest for now. It’s such an overused trope in anime it’s about as tedious as amnesia by now. My problem isn’t so much that. It’s that Ore no Imouto paints itself as a subversion of that genre. It makes fun of stupid incest plots in anime with it’s nonsense tentacle loli imouto games. But it’s becoming exactly the genre it’s claiming it’s subverting. You simply cannot do that. That’s like The World God Only Knows meaning to subvert dating sims by having the character picking up real girls, only for the real girls to be at a level of genericness dating sim heroines strive for. It doesn’t work and it makes both sides of the show ring hollow.
What compounds this problem is that, on the surface, Ore no Imouto is still well written. The dialogue is clever. The character interaction is fun to watch. The animation is still the best I’ve ever seen AIC produce (not that much of a ringing endorsement I must admit, but it still has mighty fine animation). Kuroneko is the personification of everything that’s still good about this series. There’s a clever wit to her that doesn’t requite overreactions to make her jokes funny, while remaining an interesting character to work out. But when the core of your anime is fatally flawed, that will start to spread out to the rest of the anime.
The Cart Driver 
An anime starts off promising, but quickly descends into frustrating mediocrity. Where have we heard this story before?
Seriously, it’s like a plague. So many shows with strong beginnings, so few that follow through.
Preferable to the other option of starting crap and only getting better right at the end. At least then I get to watch the good eps then drop it
As for why Kyousuke puts up with Kirino, and vice-versa. I feel both of them have come to a point where they don’t really want to devolve back to existing very little between themselves. Kyou puts up with Kirino because he probably doesn’t feel comfortable leaving her be, until she’s ready. Kirino is a little sister after all, and now that she has Kyou’s attention, I’m sure she enjoys having a reason to pull him back in because he’ll be there.
I’m hoping that’s part of what this series is about: discovering the friendship/bond/relationship between brother and sister and later [in life] realizing that it was a good thing, because there comes a time where the relationship does devolve and each partake in very separate lives…. think that’s basically the way siblings work.
The problem is, every non-incest theory I’ve seen thrown out about their relationship is very vague and uncertain, sometimes contradicting. Once you toss in incest, the whole thing becomes a lot clearer. Is it wishful thinking, or are we hyper sensitive because of the content?
I dropped the show because I simply couldn’t bear to watch Kyousuke suck it all up like that. Oh well, it’s like Shin said…
I was denying the possibility of incest and counted on the simply poor writing, but I suppose you may be right. In any case, I can think of a number of things I’d rather do than watch this show.
Bad writing as an undercurrent. Or just relentless fence sitting. Actually it’s more the latter
By all accounts, you’re probably right. But still, I’ll point out that Kyousuke, while being annoyingly spinless when it comes to Kirino, may just be like that. You and I may not take junk from a sister like Kirino, but some people do. I can think of at least three guys I know who react similarly when people treat them that way. I wouldn’t consider them at all spineless; in fact, I think it takes a certain sense of strength to focus on what’s important and not on emotions and self.
That’s not to say Kyousuke is that deep. The show’s given us little to determine his motivations; we have to take small pieces of dialogue, here and there, to try to infer what he believes. It’s too early in the course of the anime series, I think, to tell Kyousuke’s intentions.
The animators’ intentions seem to reveal themselves, though, as they are trying to walk a narrow rope, as I think you infer. “Better” than going incest, yet titillating by touching the topic just slightly to keep some viewers watching. I try to ignore those little signs as I watch, and I hope that the first season goes by without delving deeper and deeper down that hole.
About fanservice…doesn’t showing underwear count? Totally unnecessary, but done for the sake of the audience? I’m remembering back to the famous similar scene in episode one of Love Hina – if I remember right, in the anime at least, Naru remains covered by a towel…or at least a hot springs fog, and thus it wasn’t so much a fan service scene. This one…I think the animators were giving fanservice while pretending to walk the high road by doing it in a funny situation and by making both characters vehemently and immediately deny any attraction for each other. What do you think?
But he isn’t just like that though. He’s willing to stand up for himself in other situations. It’s just he puts up endlessly with his sister that it gets annoying.
Also, I disagree that walking a tight rope, or fence sitting, is a preferred option. Endlessly sitting, not being capable of making up its mind what it’s really about. Yeah, that grates on my nerves. Make up your friggen mind what you’re about
I agree. There are better shows to focus on now, and Oreimo has confirmed my worst fears about where it might have been headed as of episode 3-4. I’m dropping this one.
Not many better shows this season though. I think it still has better writing than Star Driver, for instance. It’s just at least Star Driver seems to know what it’s doing
This episode, Kyousuke was pretty much being treated like a doormat by Kirino; somebody to just completely walk over and trample. While I’m personally enjoying this show, I found Kirino’s attitute towards Kyousuke somewhat annoying. Kirino is bossy, selfish, and a narcissist, though I guess those traits are somewhat common to tsundere archetypes.
There are several moments that don’t make logical sense, like the reaction to the groping that you mentioned, but I’ve pretty much reached the point where I just watch this show for entertainment value, and not for a clever and well thought out plot.
If I try to take this show too seriously, I know I’d be raging out over the little plot holes and details that would ruin the whole experience (x.x)
Characters who are annoying through character traits don’t actually bug me that much. I’ve never been annoyed personally by the loser harem lead for example. So long as the personality is well developed, I don’t care if they’re a git or anything. But Kirino is increasingly feeling false as the series goes on. Generic tsundere. When did such a great character archetype become such a lazy one? I blame Mayoi Neko Overrun for this
Surprise of the season: You Are Umasou. No one denies this.
You’re just biased because it has dinosaurs. I would forgive Ore no Imouto instantly if it had someone driving a cart
Ah dear, it was going so well but then they had to go for the lowest common denominator.
Kirino’s attitude and the way Kyousuke allows her to walk all over him is starting to bug me. Kirino may be a tsundere through and through, but Kyousuke has absolutely no reason to take orders from her – I know that as the eldest in my family I’d never take that kind of abuse from my siblings!
I get the feeling they will not develop from that character dynamic for the rest of the series. Kyousuke will always be Kirinos bitch. You heard it first here etc.
The only thing I really noticed throughout the episode, is Ayase’s necklace reminds me of Misato’s.
What.
Oh, and Panty and Stocking is less… /funny/ persay, but it’s just deliciously stupid.
Like a ghost with nipples for eyes.
And the cum episode.
Eh, Panty and Stocking does have some very clever stuff hidden in amongst all the nonsense. It’s been rather impressing me thus far
Check out Otome youkai zakuro maybe. It’s pretty good.
or Milky Holmes.
It’s just you have to accept how dumb the characters are in Milky Holmes. I mean they are seriously dumb. Like Ika Musume dumb. It’s enjoyable despite that and deceptively less kiddie than I initially thought.
Zakuro is shojo so I’m instantly biased against that
Maybe that is just how is he–he may find standing up to his father worth the time, but not his sister as she’s a temperamental teenage kid.
Or maybe he’s the personality that he enjoys helping other people, and that he likes the feeling he gets and the power he feels from helping her out, especially as she’s regarded as the superior sibling by his parents. I’ve helped out my older/twin sister before because I just like helping, and it turns out from the career path I’m going for, I’m a personality type that enjoys doing a service for other people. But I’m not an older sibling, so what do I know.
She seemed more ridiculous and overly mean in this episode compared to the past ones though. It was a nice episode, but not what it should have been.
But he doesn’t enjoy it. He bitches about it endlessly, but then proceeds to blush like the lovestruck teenager that he is. I love to entertain, even when it comes to my sister, but nobody would put up with that much shit just to get a blushing thanks. Unless they really wanted to get some, and even then this is a bit far.
As it turns out the light novels are going the incest route, erm, I lost all will to argue…you’re right.
This entire show is written like an otaku wetdream. It’s self-indulgent drivel, pandering to the DVD and BD buying consumer base of the anime industry. I can’t blame them, it’s how they make money nowadays.
These are the hopes and dreams of a class of individual in Japanese society, drawn in a 2D world, outside the reach of reality, and sold back to them at exorbitant prices.
A little sister that is really cute?
Who secretly partakes in a past-time strongly identified with it’s target demographic?
Incestuous undertones? (honestly just tones, there’s nothing under about them)
These otaku-genre fapestries (like a tapestry? :D) keep snowballing on themselves. Someone watches a new series and thinks “Oh! I have a good idea for a twist on the genre, I’ll write that.” Then someone makes an anime out of it, and the process repeats. But it’s still the same shit. A fucking shitstorm, a shit hurricane, of the same shitty ideas that only appeal to men who badly desire to escape into this fucked up version of reality.
Whoa, that turned into a rant, sorry. I just really miss good anime.
Side note: I can’t believe the TTGL people made Panty & Stocking. It’s like they had one great series in them with TTGL, then brainleeches fucked their brains for breakfast. So sad.
Most of these anime you’re referring to are either eroge or dating sim adaptations or LN adaptations. VN’s have always sucked, but LN’s sucking is a relatively new phenomenon. Moe is the cancer that is killing the industry etc.
Although if you think anime didn’t ever have this much suck, you clearly haven’t been looking hard enough. It’s just the good stuff gets remembered
I’m hoping Kyousuke putting up with it all is simply… heroes (first I typed heroines) putting up with whatever crap gets dished out to them.
But I’ll stick to this anime until the bitter end. :'[
I’m in until the bitter end. I figured it might be cool to nerd rage over it
It could be the train-wreck that you’ve always wanted to blog!
Hardly. More like a slow death than a gratifyingly stupid explosive one
Idiots It happens on the Light Novel, what did you expect? Oh yeah! they haven’t read the novel, sorry!
So? Still sux there too
It really shouldn’t come as a surprise. There hasn’t been an episode that’s gone by without someone commenting on how different they look. You know they’re going to end the season with Kirino being revealed as adopted or something like that.
The whole siscon thing aside (SisCaly? Really?) OreImo’s still one of the more entertaining shows this season. I just tune out the siscon stuff and assume she’s going bonkers over any other anime. You get some doujinshi for any anime, it doesnt matter whether it’s siscon or not. You definitely dont want it being revealed to your friends.
Yeah, even if it goes the incest route, I’ve enjoyed it so far, and I’m sure I still will enjoy it. 🙂
It’s not the fact that they are incestous that bugs me though.Neither is it the fact she has siscon dojinshi. It’s the fence sitting and acting like it’s a subversion when it’s quite blatantly not. You combine them all together and it’s like the show is pussying out of doing either.
Oh wow, way to overreact over one little fanservice scene. You’re making a mountain out of a molehill. If, as you say, the writing and dialogue is still good, then what the hell is the problem? The scene was superfluous… just some brief fodder to keep the imouto lovers on board. You’re reading way too much into it.
The story has continued going, the characters have already forgotten the incident even happened. The scene is worth about two seconds of attention, and hardly worth making this much of a deal out of. And it hardly means the show is decaying before our very eyes, no matter how you want to spin it.
-_- read the post fully man
The scene is dumb anyway. But what it does is act like Kirino is fair game. Then goes on to say ‘oh look at these stupid imouto games aren’t they dumb’. Also you can’t just pick and choose what scene you’re going to ignore when they effect the story! It’s not superflous when it’s effecting how her friends think and how Kirino thinks.
The decay is more than that scene. But that’s the most obvious sign of it
I found it really funny actually and eve thought I wouldn’t mind id this goes to the incest path, I didn’t see much of more than brotherly love in this episode, even if we had this wacky incident, the reason was of how awkward the situation is in itself, not because he fancies his little sister, (he fancies his little sister’s best friend).
The fact that he lets kirino be bossy and selfish is because he is used to it by now and takes care of her and as big brother you somehow have the responsibility to look after her.
That’s how I see it, I am not dropping it (yet) I find it very interesting, and I don’t see anything wrong with the hints of “what might happen next” but I don’t like the idea of putting every little thing into the incest basket because that looks just like paranoia to me.
Now with the world only god knows I had a look at the manga and it actually gets better, not epic or memorable but decent (the manga) the anime I am not sure yet but we are getting there, we are getting there.
Again, it’s the whole problem of whether we’re hyper sensitive to it because so many of us don’t want it to go down the incest route.
But it simply can’t be interpreted as anything other by this stage without really stretching your theories.
Been following this one mostly to see how long it would take another person to reach the conclusion I did after about 1.5 episodes. The answer was as I guessed 4. I figured that once they had finished with the melodrama in episode 3 they’d go launching right back into the otaku friendly stuff and people would be like “Oh…..welp” and that would be that.
For me the early warning sign was in how Kirino was constructed as a character. Tsundere, otaku, eroge playing, cute, fashion model, that griefs on her spineless brother and doesn’t really act like a person that feels insecure or persecuted outside of scenes where it’s needed to give the requisite dere effect. Kirino is contrived from the get-go to as VEEE put it be an “otaku’s wetdream” and once I acknowledged that it became impossible for me to sympathize with her because she doesn’t feel humanized in any way. That goes for all the characters….they lack real personality.
The groping scene really isn’t the issue here I think (even though it’s sure to be the lynchpin of many a rant against the show), it’s the indication of where the overall package is going. “What more does this show have to offer”, is going to be the biggest question and challenge facing it’s staying power and appeal to non-otaku viewers I think. If all the show has left in the tank are moments that pander to fans of eroge and people who like tsundere and implied incestuous relationships between brother and sister (basically gimmicks) then I can imagine many more disappointed faces.
You’ve hit what’s wrong with Kirino rather nicely here. She’s becoming an increasingly false character. As is her brother. They did start with the intention of making her identifiable but are gradually turning more down the path of a little sister that really is that cute. bleargh
He’s being a nice and caring older brother. There’s no hidden message to it. What’s wrong with being nice and caring?
You can clearly see his dismay when he’s playing eroge games and those are specifically tailored towards sister cons. Sure, he wasn’t a nice and caring brother before, but that was before he found out Kirino’s hobby. She asked for life counseling and as an older brother he obliged by helping her find friends. Naturally, he and Kirino were concerned about the meetup since it’s the Internet and all, so he tagged along and everything sort of snowballed from there.
He probably wants to bone Ayase, but that’s about it.
I feel so much rage watching this episode mainly because I am frustrated with Kyousuke’s attitude. This show would be more entertaining if he doesn’t take all the crap Kirino’s threw at him. Be a man, for fuck sake.
Dropped? Almost. Kuroneko saved this show for me. And possibly Ayase.
Milky Holmes is worth checking out if only because its so bizarre. It starts off looking like your average moe crap, but then it does really weird shit… like having a male character’s nipples get hard and another male character get bare-ass spanked by his teacher. Oh, yeah, and the main characters are so retarded its unbelievable.
….
That doesn’t really sound like much of an endorsement, huh? I can’t really say its good, but its just so weird you have to at least check it out, if only for the intense head-scratching that’s sure to follow.
I think I’ve had enough shirtless males in Utena to last me a lifetime. Although none of them had nipples for some reason.
I never expected OreImo to subvert anything from the beginning, or even painted itself as trying to go that direction.
This was going for the wincest route from the start…
And I am pleased.
Not wincest. Just ‘omg my sister is so hot’ route. Just like every other anime
Ah Ore no Imouto, it seems you have raised my hopes only to dash them quite expertly; well done!
Also, you like the animation? Up until this point it was the weakest link in the chain for me. It’s of a high standard but has easily the most generic looking characters of the season (and that’s saying something. All you need for a attractive(?) character to turn into an ugly geek is a change of clothes, hairstyle and possibly the addition of glasses. Ok, that may be true for most animes, but for some reason it’s just so much more obvious here, at least to me. I can’t look at the characters without ever thinking of mr. potato head!
Eh, the character designs aren’t amazing or anything, but they work and are attractive. idk, I’ve never been too bothered by how good the animation is
now you know why i was disappointed in the ouran host club manga and dropped it even when it went into “srs shoujo bznss” mode. maybe the author never intended to subvert anything, but meh. so stop making everything seem like it would ;/
good thing i didn’t pick this up. incest aside, i actually can’t stand the loser male lead archetype. i’ve known some rl guys like this and they make me rage all the time.
Yeah I can see that with Ouran. It was self-mocking in a way, but if it had really turned back into serious shojo it would have totally mucked up what they were aiming for (even if I don’t think they achieved what they were aiming for)
well thing is ouran actually never aimed for anything like that, technically ;/ so there was never anything to achieve in the first place?
just wish the author made this clear since volume 1 so that my money wouldn’t be wasted. i could have used those $120 ;(
Complian about sister-love when the name of the title is….?!!? Based on some comments too much MOE is a nono, too, so exactly what were you expecting from this series?
1 – The title have zilch to do with the content, I’m just punting yo
2 – The title have zilch to do with the content, I’m just punting yo
3 – It’s about sister love and i’m interested yo
4 – The title have zilch to do with the content, I’m just punting yo
This anime is based on the light novels. So far it’s been fairly faithful in the main but with a lot of cutting. So really the criticism has nothing to do with the anime, it’s simply the material they work with. Btw LNs are exactly that, they play on the cliches and readers derive easy gratifiction of certain tried elements. LNs are never meant to be literal masterpieces.
“I shall watch Japanese Animation of me own choice, though be warned mortals, I shall never stoop to the level of those Otaku monstriosities!”
Given the portrayal of Kirino as a closet Otaku who at the same time rejects other aspects of the Otakudom in her ‘real’ life, the comments are unintentionally ironic…
I did expect the anime to be like this before I watched it. But the first 2 episodes were surprisingly good so I got my hopes up. But yeah, it’s now sunk back down to your atypical moe LN adaption, albeit slightly better written than usual. My expectations have effectively been reset.
Also, LN’s are all trite moe cliche blobs that only serve to gratify? Durarara, Kino’s Journey, Bakemonogatari, Haruhi Suzumiya, Baccano and Full Metal Panic all disagree with you. It’s just the moecrap versions that toss out these cliches have been seriously on the up recently
I do agree that Oreimo may end up being another “incest-themed series”. I mean, the title says it all. I still think the series is an interesting look at sibling development & factors that could affect intimacy between them.
I did talk more the theme of incest in anime and manga in general. You can read it at:
http://www.mangatherapy.com/post/1467868478/incest-in-anime-manga
I wonder how the light novels are. I probably will watch the show until the end to see what happens.