First Impressions / Series Introduction / Snapshots

「おにあい」 (Oniai)
“Well Matched”

So after a long time apart, little sister Himenokouji Akiko (Kido Ibuki) moves into the dorm where her older brother Himenokouji Akito (Ohsaka Ryota) is living. She’s cute, kind, well-mannered, great at cooking…and a total brocon. Great set up for some hilarity, right? (Or a hentai, but we’re not going down that route.)

Just because I feel like it, I’m going to use a little different format for this post. I’m going to use two bulleted lists, the first of which will list out things I liked about this episode, while the second will be of things I did not. Hopefully somewhere in there you’ll figure out whether this show is for you!

  • The imouto Akiko is totally shameless. I’ll admit, I have a fondness for shameless characters…if you’re going to be a brocon (Akiko is), or a siscon (Akito is not), or have a thing for tsunderes (I do), twintails (me again), thigh-highs (that one’s mine too), or lolis (I plead the fifth), then you might as well just admit it! It’s much more fun that way, and as such, most of the fun in this episode came from Akiko going after her older brother…who then swiftly shoots her down. Nice.
  • Speaking of, I like how quickly and definitely Akito shuts Akiko down. Like I mentioned in my first chu2koi post, I like seeing a girl be the ridiculous one while a guy gets to tsukkomi once in a while, since the situation is so often the reverse. It was also pretty funny seeing the other characters abuse Akiko as well. Poor imouto!
  • Speaking of, it’s refreshing that an imouto-love show actually had the balls to make them blood related. None of that step-siblings or really-close-childhood-friends crap, this one is 100% verifiable! That also means that we have a main male protagonist who has a reeeeeally good reason for turning down the main female protagonist. After so many shows where that happens just because he’s thick or spineless, that’s refreshing.
  • The seiyuu cast is pretty good. Strangely enough, most of the star power is in the secondary characters of Nikaidou Arashi (Kitamura Eri), Nasuhara Anastasia (Chihara Minori, and a bit in Sawatari Ginbee Haruomi (Shimoda Asami), whereas the main characters are voiced by comparative nobodies. Still, they all did pretty good, and Akiko was especially cute, so it works. Since I’m not going to mention seiyuu again, I will say that I felt like KitaEri was kind of phoning it in on this performance, though I enjoyed her “Nyahaha!” and her predator mode. Overall pretty good.
  • Fanservice! It’s not the most artfully done service I’ve ever seen (mostly they just focus the camera on different parts of the female characters’ bodies), but the girls are cute, so I’m a fan.

So a good episode, right? Well, not so fast, because there’s another list to go through.

  • The plot is so thin you can see through it. Really, there isn’t so much a plot as a setup for the jokes and fanservice, but even that’s barely there. Why were Akiko and Akito separated for so long? No idea. Is there a reason Akiko is suddenly on the student council after just transferring in? Search me. I know those kind of details aren’t important to this kind of story, but I would have liked a little effort paid. I don’t blame Silver Link, though…the source material was the same way.
  • The other girls all just randomly like Akito. Or maybe they’re just flirting with him because they like messing with him (that’s probably the case for at least Arashi), but seriously, what’s the point? I can accept a brocon lil sister if that’s the setup, but giving the guy a random harem just isn’t necessary. My suspension of disbelief, it’s straining!
  • Speaking of, while Akito has good reason to turn down Akiko, he has no such reason with the others. Now he’s back to being a spineless harem lead. Damn.
  • The jokes are pretty amusing, but the pacing was kind of slow. I think they could have made much better use of the material with a higher energy level and more rapid-fire jokes, but I suspect that’s just a stylistic preference of mine. What can I say, I like em ridiculous!
  • The fanservice is a bit too blatant for my taste. Yes, I said that! I just prefer shows like Sora no Otoshimono or Ben-to, where the male gaze (trope!) is justified by a male character who is a bit pervy. Not so much the case here. Someone needs to rein that camera guy in!

So that means it’s a terrible episode then? Once again, not so fast! This show isn’t exactly innovating the genre, but it’s still enjoyable if you take it for what it is. A little bit of funny, a little bit of ecchi, and a sort of casual, low-calorie snack to enjoy between meatier fare. I shant be covering this one, but I will be watching. Yes, the guy who tells people to call himself “onii-chan” is going to watch the imouto-love show. Gasp!

tl;dr: @StiltsOutLoud – Some good imouto rabu-comedy. Not innovative, but a low-calorie snack to enjoy between meatier fare. Also, fanservice! #OniAi

Random thoughts:

  • Yet again another post that will destroy my future political career. Worth it? Absolutely. Imoutos banzai!

Full-length images: 04, 07, 11, 21, 23, 24.

 

OP Sequence

OP: 「SELF PRODUCER」by 茅原実里 (Chihara Minori)

Preview

43 Comments

  1. Ah ha ha ha! You’re right, Stilts. That camera guy is so perv! With no many crotch/boob shots while the main guy going “huh huh huh, who are these horny girls?? Totally not interested, now if you excuse me, I have a date with my anime/game girl on my computer.” (okay the last bit is an assumption, but probably, since it’s Japan).

    deathtogenericshows
    Reply

  2. I had pretty much exactly the same list of likes and dislikes when I read a volume or so of the novel. I probably like the story best when it’s just the shameless cute sibling antics.

    Player
    Reply

  4. It’s almost become a requirement for incest harem romcoms to have incredibly unnecessarily long names. KissXSis doesn’t count because they’re not really related, but it’s still crap.

    -Ore no Imōto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai
    -Oniichan no Koto Nanka Zenzen Suki Janain Dakara ne—!!
    -Onii-chan Dakedo Ai Sae Areba Kankeinai yo ne!
    -Kono Naka ni Hitori, Imouto ga Iru!

    I’m just kind having trouble wrapping my mind around this new trend. Incest harem romcoms. They’re like regular romcoms except with the goal and endgame being incest and/or the main girl being the MC’s blood related sister.

    WHY DOES THIS EXIST. DAMMIT JAPAN.

    Da5id
    Reply

    2. It exists because of the psychological “forbidden fruit” effect. That which is taboo is mysterious, tantalizing, desirable.

      In a culture so rife with (and to some extent dependent on) the almighty taboo, that makes the reactionary effect all the more pronounced.

      (As for other contributing factors, it might be useful to bring up the legality of first-cousin inter-marriage, as well as the omnipresent “childhood friend” syndrome that permeates popular Japanese culture/fiction.)

      hoiut
      Reply

  8. The protag’s dry wit is like a never ending bounty. I’m going to keep watching until he gives up on applying tsukkomi to every situation. Until then, this should be hilarious.

    Does anyone else feel compelled to stare at the little sisters super tight “U” smile when ever it appears on screen? I just can’t look away from the hypno smile.

    DaSilva
    Reply

    2. I look forward to more from Arashi. Despite the probably KitaEri-phoning-it-in, just a lovely character. Plus, it’s been a while since anyone did the “nyahaha!” laugh but me. Hanekawa and now Arashi? I’m in good company!

      Stilts
      Reply

  10. I only picked this up for Nasuhara-chan. I do remember hearing this being a conversation based LN and all…but Nasuhara is lovely.

    Oh, and Stilts have you listened to some of Kyoukaisen’s OST 2 since it came out earlier today? Too many good tracks! TOO MANY!

    Mukyuu
    Reply

  14. Show Spoiler ▼

    Oh boy…

    The animation is good.
    The voice actors are good.
    The dialogues are being very loyal to the original.

    Why in the hell don’t they have more faith in themselves?

    They shouldn’t have skipped parts of the novel, it starts a little slow (if you are not into incest and you are more into the harem parts) but it starts getting better and better as the story progresses.

    They easily got rid of a couple of twists and from now on everything is going to be flasbacks unless they decide to spoil things further ahead before explaining what the hell happened in the first place.

    Antics
    Reply

  15. I’m not confident there’ll be flashbacks. The skipped parts are interesting for chara development but I don’t see much flashback materials.. Heck, they might end up changing the order of events..

    Btw, rather than Oreimo, the bro-sis feels more similar to Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei, especially considering the 2 MC’s background.

    acolyte
    Reply

  17. feel weird and funny when she was all shy and polite when she is outside and facing strangers, she is totally another person when talking to or about his brother. Her actions after she met her brother, left me wondering where is the “normal” girl on the train going to meet her brother?

    Tingster013
    Reply

  18. This episode did not do a good job of setting up the show – as the LN goes into more detail of the hows and whys of everything that the episode brings up. Though I wouldn’t call Akito spineless, he pretty much gets filed into the average harem protagonists.

    Grandier
    Reply

  20. I like the imouto’s mouth that goes (- A -)

    Sign me up for watching it just because I can. Who cares if they didn’t explain why they were separated and reunited again, why they’re in a dorm, why they’re living with all the SC members and why the SC members like the male MC. It’s all about the incest and the harem and the fanservice and the misunderstandings.
    *gets downvoted*

    belatkuro
    Reply

  22. “Ok, this is funny… wait. Who are these people? Why did we just skip a WHOLE MONTH?”

    Brain-dead anime needs to be more brain-dead. Stop trying to be clever, just be funny. No need for time skips in the first episode. -_-

    s_w
    Reply

  23. I have not watched the first episode yet and I probably will not pick up this series, but as soon as I heard the premise, I immediately looked up this review expecting two things:

    1. That Stilts will be covering it.
    2. There will be lots and lots of ecchi comments as Stilts drools over the imouto.

    And I was not disappointed. Stilts-oniichan no ecchi!

    MasterDragonKnight
    Reply

  25. Okay – time to cure everybody of ecchi right now! Doesn’t Akiko remind you of Yune
    (Ikoku Meiro no Croisée) grown up just a little? Ha! Bet that did it!!

    I guess if I have nothing better to do, I might follow this. But there are many other
    great starts this season. No kidding, I wish the series began with a little more
    substance – but it is what it is. So, unlike Yosuga no Sora, nuthin’s going to happen,
    and Akiko will be the butt of all of the jokes while nuthin’s happening with the other girls.

    mac65
    Reply

  26. I knew it. Somehow, I just knew when I came to this site looking for the post about episode 1 of this show, Stilts would be the one who wrote it. I just KNEW it.

    Anyway the show was okay, nothing too special. When it was funny it was real funny but I feel like this could get old fast so hopefully they have more than this up their sleeves.

    Beckett
    Reply

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