Ore no Imouto: From a Veteran’s Perspective

While there were some people who stated that it might not be the case, the fan opin­ion off what ‘My Little Sis­ter Can’t Be This Cute’ was going to turn out like was a wish-fulfillment for sib­ling deprived men who fan­tas­ise about hav­ing a little sis­ter. Those who did not under­stand what it was like to have a little sis­ter, the joys hav­ing a pre-pubescent girl wak­ing them up in the middle of the night to play eroge soun­ded like their idea of heaven.

Cer­tainly, there were folks who were eagerly anti­cip­at­ing their dreams being ful­filled in anime form. But for those of us not inces­tiously inclined, would there be any value? Would it, more import­antly, have any sort of real­istic brother/sister rela­tion­ship in a medium that lust­ing after your sib­ling is the rule rather than the excep­tion? Is hav­ing a little sis­ter who is an otaku really that great? Why not ask those with exper­i­ence then! So help answer that, I’m joined by meflo­raine from Paper Flower who, like myself, has a younger sis­ter who is an otaku (well, they watch anime, which is a start).

Scamp: Pre-discovery of her hor­rible, shame­ful secret (it’s always amused me how hor­rific the lable of otaku seems to be in anime. You’d swear from the reac­tions people have to the name that they had just implied someone was a pedo­phile or something…oh wait), it’s a fairly accur­ate depic­tion of fam­ily life. They acknow­ledge each oth­ers exist­ence but bey­ond that don’t really think about it. You get so used to their exist­ence that you stop think­ing about them. Which is kinda what the start of the anime is say­ing. No, your little sis­ter is not as cute as otaku cul­ture makes them out to be.

meflo­raine: Sis­ter?  What sis­ter?  You mean that creature I’m forced to drive all around town?  I too was impressed by the show’s real­ism in this aspect.  Little sis­ters are like a paper­weight until you need to use them for some­thing.  Or until they come up and start pes­ter­ing you for things.  And no, it’s not cute pes­ter­ing.  It’s an incess­ant, loud whine and a repe­ti­tion of your name that induces head­ache, not “d’awwww”.

Scamp: The whole scene where she reveals her hobby is actu­ally pretty real­istic too. I’m sit­ting there, wait­ing to unleash my hatred and squick­y­ness of the whole sis­con move­ment that I was expect­ing to take place, but this anime just refused to go that way. The sis­ter acted…normal! The awk­ward­ness when dis­cuss­ing some­thing uncom­fort­able fol­lowed by the total ease of con­ver­sa­tion that nat­ur­ally flows between the two. Prob­ably more import­antly is the broth­ers reac­tion. There’s no gaz­ing down the top, wild ima­gin­a­tions nor any of the typ­ical reac­tions anime tends to put in these situations.

meflo­raine: Unlike Scamp, I wasn’t afraid of poten­tial sis­con antics in this show at all, but it was much nicer to see what actu­ally tran­spired.  Not know­ing about your sister’s hobby, such as her mod­el­ing job, was prob­ably the easi­est thing for me to relate to.  Aside from the things I have to drive her to and what she’s watch­ing for the cur­rent anime sea­son, I have no idea what my sis­ter does with her free time.

I think the only thing about this part of the epis­ode that differed from what I would expect in real­ity was a lack of awk­ward laugh­ing.  Which would then trans­form into giggles and goad­ing, but I think that might be because I’m an older sis­ter, not an older brother.  The awk­ward­ness, how­ever, would be the same.  Either way, “My sis­ter is actu­ally very per­ver­ted?  Hoo­ray, maybe she’ll let me do weird things to her!” wouldn’t make any sense.

It was also pleas­ant to see: “And I don’t feel any love.  Only anger, usu­ally.”  Yes.  There is no moe, only irritation.

Scamp: But as real­istic as I found the rela­tion­ship between the two, this is still an anime that will toss out a gra­tu­it­ous, pre-pubescent ass shot. Make no mis­take, one of the main aims is still to make sibling-less otaku wish they had a little sis­ter this ‘cute’. She’s not the type of sis­ter that appears in one of her awful games, but the end res­ult on the viewer’s side is the same. If you were a cynic, you wouldn’t be unable to look bey­ond that fact. But for a change, they’re not act­ing in world like it’s a totally nor­mal thing to want and kawaii imouto that you not-so-secretly want to bone. That’s my main issue with the way most anime depict little sis­ters (includ­ing the “but she’s not blood related so it’s all right!” type) and to get one that actu­ally says the total oppos­ite is…refreshing I guess.

meflo­raine: It’s very, very refresh­ing.  In fact, this show takes that idea and spits on it.   Kyousuke doesn’t care that his sister’s butt is wag­ging in the air.  He just wants her out of his room.  Kyousuke doesn’t care that she was a model; he didn’t even know!  And then, Kirino sits and babbles about why she loves little sis­ters, and Kyousuke doesn’t under­stand it at all.  Much like when my little sis­ter rambles about why Hak­u­ouki is actu­ally watch­able, but I digress.

Kirino doesn’t even fit her own ideal little sis­ter char­ac­ter!  Black hair and twin tails?  Nope.  Clearly she must not be a little sis­ter.  She just isn’t that cute.

Scamp: So that’s a per­fect pass from two older sib­lings of sis­ters that are quite clearly ‘not that cute’. Which is exactly what this anime is try­ing to say. It actu­ally ended up hav­ing one of the strongest first epis­odes of the sea­son. Besides, if you actu­ally want brother and sis­ter get­ting it on, there’s Yosuga no Sora air­ing this season.