A Can of Juice

It’s a little hard to believe that when the first season of Ore no Imouto aired, it was late 2010. About two years ago. A lot has happened in two years, hell, this blog has changed in two years. I’m probably much more pragmatic about anime these days, having done my fair share of ZOMG LOL FUCKING WIN with popular titles and things /a/ liked. It’s especially evident if you read my review of OreImo from back then:

“Then there is the whole Siscon thing. I will not get into the giant /a/ arguments or all, but really, the only people who have a Siscon are people who don’t have a sister. Debate it how you wish, but I have a younger sister and good fucking lord, Kirino reminds me exactly of the same shit, that same self-serving superiority complex all the time, until she realizes she needs help and goes all dere-dere for it.”

Well two years, and the episodes aired after I wrote that, it’s time to get a fresh perspective on everyone’s love/hate relationship of a show.

Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai or simply Ore no Imouto is a show by Aniplex and A1 and stars Taketatsu Ayana (notable for Azu-nyan in K-ON!) as Kousaka Kirino, a normal girl who hangs out with her friends, shops for clothes, fashion models, and everything a normal teenage girl might do. Beside her is her older brother Kyousuke, who likewise has no abnormal traits, just a normal high school boy with his friends, including childhood friend Tamura Manami. He’s never had a relationship with his sister after they passed childhood, as she had her own interests and rarely spoke. Then one day, he found an anime DVD in the mail that belonged to her, and was thrust into a secret world of hers full of anime, games, eroge, and visual novels. When no one was looking, Kirino indulged in everything normal girls did not, and immediately used him to both help feed her habit, and protect her secret from her friends.

The show follows the formula of a visual novel in a way, in the respect that everything is a flag and entirely too meta often for my tastes, such as the “True Route” episode. Of course, the fandom that swirls around this show can be hard to stomach sometimes for the same reason, as it becomes a game of who is the BEST girl, aka who Kyousuke should end up with. I honestly don’t care as long as it isn’t Kirino. I know WINCEST is fun in anime sometimes, but when girls like Manami and Kuroneko exist, Kyousuke can do better. But hey, I’ll play the BEST GIRL game. It’s amusing.

So for the second season? What should we expect? Don’t expect too much more than the first season. She went to America, came back, and things are looking like they’re just going to sort of come back around full circle to what they were before. The opening episode pretty much established that Kirino is still pretty much a bitch, though she opens up towards the end, poor Manami continues to be friend-zoned, and Kuroneko is hot for Kyousuke, but won’t outright admit it. Hilarity ensues, blah blah, and so on. The way I figure, this will be fun to watch as always for Kuroneko, everything else is a bonus.

TLDR Watch This: Kuroneko, Kuroneko, Kuroneko, and Kuroneko
TLDR Don’t Watch This: Any other girl
Sub Group: Horrible
First Rating: 7