First Look: Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai
Title: Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai
Genre: Comedy
Summary: For several years, Kyousuke's relationship with his younger sister Kirino has been cold, to the point that they only share greetings. But one day, Kyousuke finds a moe anime DVD fallen in their entry hall. His interest piqued, he looks for the owner, only to realize it belongs to Kirino. He's shocked, but more surprises lie just ahead...
First Look: Since the title is a bit of a hand full we will say Oreimo for short. Ok an anime about a brother finding his sister has moe and eroge games in her closet? Not only a couple but the the otaku dream collection? Can you really blame me for my mind wandering to the worst given some of the other anime series out this season (here’s looking at you Yosuga no Sora)? I was afraid to start watching. Thankfully the opening builds you up for such an event, then shatters it into a million blissful pieces of non-incest.
At this point I knew I was probably going to like this anime. Finally one that shows what siblings are actually like: bickering, mean and cold. It is clear that the creators thought this out well. The character modeling is exactly like a real life relationship of siblings at that age. They further took this character model to the side characters as well. The screen time for friends isn’t as lengthy, but they do a good job keeping them realistic. None of the friends have an over active imagination or overly hyper attitude all the time. They are strange, but isn’t everyone a little off? The relationship between the siblings isn’t all anger and hate in this very believable anime. We can thank Kyousuke for that. He probably should win the “Brother of the Year” award for his performance through the episodes. He has shown great encouragement to his sister to not worry about the social norm and do whatever she likes to do. I would also like to inform you viewers that Kyousuke also thought it should be a good idea to confirm the reasoning behind Kirino’s eroge game playing. To my delight all possibilities of incest have been erased.
Truly this anime is going to be great right? Well I would hope so. Despite the very borderline topic, it shows no signs of becoming one of my most feared anime. The comedy is another well done aspect of Oreimo. The first episode was a great laugh. I’m roughly four episodes into the anime from the time of righting this and I have to say that I am still enjoying the comedy. Kirino is getting on my nerves a bit because of her ungrateful attitude, but she is showing study signs of change. There is one last thing that I found poor about this anime, one scene specifically:
I understand why there was this long debate with the father, but it seemed to escalade way too fast. The normally level headed Kyousuke exploded on his father right off the bat. I understand talking to him about his sister and allowing her to follow her hobbies, but this was ridiculous! I commend him for his efforts, but there is a line. Especially after the father pointed out the eroge games are for 17+ and Kyousuke admitted that his father was absolutely right (in his head of course). There really is only so much you can do/should do when talking about such a subject. A very minor detail that didn’t wreck the anime for me, but I feel it should be noted.
Final statements: The character design is the best part of Oreimo and worth watching just for that. The anime seems pretty solid in terms of story and doesn’t look like it will make a turn for the worst. I am going to keep it on watch and suggest others to pick it up as well.