I thought I hadn’t written about OreImo before, but apparently I have, and with almost the same title as this post, too. Oh well. I’m going to write about it again, then I’m going to watch the last two episodes that are disappearing from Crunchyroll at 9pm PT this evening, because I’m hooked.
OreImo, or, to give it its full title that I have to look up every time, Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai (My Little Sister Can’t Be This Cute) is a really interesting show that wasn’t at all what I expected it was going to be, and it made that fact abundantly clear within a few moments of it starting. I was expecting some sort of lighthearted slice-of-life anime with a long-suffering male protagonist dealing with the wacky behaviour of his moe moe little sister. Instead, what I got was an intriguing exploration of a number of interesting characters, and a genuinely surprising story that I found hard to predict — not in the sense that it was chaotic, but in that I was never quite sure which direction they were going to take it.
I’ll refrain from posting spoilers here in case you’re intending to watch it, but suffice to say it explores a number of interesting themes: what it means to be an otaku; dealing with the conflict between your public persona and your “true self”; what it means to confide in someone; the nature of true friendship; and the fickleness of teenage love. There is also an undercurrent of “will they, won’t they” incestuousness, which makes some people uncomfortable, but having watched (nearly) the whole series now I’m firmly convinced that this feeling of discomfort is entirely deliberate. I shall say no more on the matter for now.
The characters involved are all interesting to explore, too. The protagonist Kyousuke is a late-teens guy who clearly thinks he’s going nowhere, and appears to be quite depressed about it as a result — along with the fact that, at the outset of the series, his relationship with his little sister Kirino appears to be broken beyond repair. The two series then unfold as he tries to repair the rift between them by attempting to understand her and her tastes a little better.
It’s not just a two-hander, though — there are others involved, too, and they each have interesting roles to play. Kuroneko, for example, is a character even more obsessed with anime culture than Kirino is, and appears to live her life in a constant delusion that she actually is one of her favourite manga characters — or at the very least, puts across that impression in order to escape from reality. Saori, another “otaku” character that Kirino gets to know early in the series, is also escaping from reality, but for different reasons — to explain why, however, would be a spoiler, so I’ll refrain from talking further.
At the other end of the spectrum is Ayase, Kirino’s supposed best friend and someone who is not at all sympathetic to otaku culture and tastes. Seeing Ayase struggle to come to terms with the truth about her best friend — and her feelings for Kyousuke, for that matter — is one of the more interesting parts of the show. Plus she’s kind of a badass, too.
It’s nearly 1am here, but I have a couple of episodes to watch before sleep if I’m going to catch them before they’re gone, so I’m out of here. Good night!
