Saikin, Imouto no Yousu ga Chotto Okashiinda ga.

Saikin, Imouto no Yousu ga Chotto Okashiinda ga (or the shorter English title "Recently, My Sister is Unusual") follows the story of a young girl and an older boy who become step-siblings due to their parents marrying each other. The setup is pretty standard, but the catch is that the younger stepsister gets possessed by a ghost who's in love with the older brother, is forced to make moves on the brother to send her new poltergeist companion to the next life, and ends up falling in love with him in the process. Mysterious missing parents and ecchi, incesty hijinks involving a chastity belt then ensue.

The thing about this series is that it does not break any new ground whatsoever. The premise has potential, but the series never builds upon it, instead relying on tired tropes: dense/stupid main character (the brother), tsundere (the little sister), a childhood friend whose main features are her big breasts, a perverted best friend, an annoying ghost, a silent book-reading girl, etc., etc. It's all been done before. The aspect that could have been unique and set the series apart - the part about the ghost - is never fully explored. Instead, it's used simply as a device to make sure the "fanservice quota" for each episode is fulfilled. What results is a bland, tired, and frankly boring-to-watch incest fanservice show that is entirely forgettable.

Story: 5/10
The weak point of the series. All the plot points that get brought up along the way - why the ghost had to possess the sister, why the ghost loves the older brother, why the childhood friend came back and is hinted to be able to see the ghost, why the silent girl seems to know everything that's going on, etc. - are never really answered. This is second season baiting in its finest. Overall, nothing too interesting about the story.

Art: 6/10
The animation and character designs do their job. The characters look cute and appealing, the backgrounds are nice and detailed. It's not an action series, so there weren't any impressive feats either. The animation is simple but is sufficient in a fanservice show such as this.

One caveat, though: this is another one of those shows that censored its contents for the TV broadcast to bait gullible otaku into buying Blu-rays to see naughty bits, so keep that in mind. IF CENSORSHIP TURNS YOU OFF, THEN AVOID THIS SERIES ALTOGETHER unless you can get your hands on the Blu-ray version.

Sound: 7/10
The music is the high point of this series. The OP and ED are both very catchy and memorable, especially the ED, which coupled with the trippy/WTF/LOL animation makes for a pretty enjoyable closing segment to each episode. The sad thing is it was probably better than the actual show itself.

Character: 5/10
Like I said earlier, all of the characters follow archetypes and act according to tropes. Standard ecchi stuff: dense/clueless male MC protagonist, tsundere little sister who secretly likes her brother but abuses him because she doesn't accept that fact, the pervert best friend who wants to get into every girl's pants (even if they're a decade older), etc. Bland and forgettable characters that failed to leave an impression even after a fairly dramatic ending, especially since we were supposed to feel for the ghost near the end.

Enjoyment: 6/10
I'll admit the fanservice comedy got a few laughs out of me. Some episodes made me smile, mostly due to the characters' stupidity or the ludicrous plot. But mostly I watched this because I had time on my hands, but this show was not really something I looked forward to every week, in contrast to some of the other series that came out the same season.

Overall: 6/10
If you're looking for a mindless RomCom with incest undertones or an over-the-top and unnecessary fanservice series that allows you to turn off your brain and kill a few hours, then this series does fine. If you were hoping for a deeper story and good characters with fanservice only as cherry on top, then look elsewhere, because this is a completely standard, overdone ecchi anime that is a prime example of lazy fanservice-based series that seem to have burgeoned in numbers in recent years.

Other anime similar to this series:
NAKAIMO - My Little Sister is Among Them
OreImo
Listen to Me Girls, I Am Your Father!
Infinite Statos
Date a Live
High School DxD
Demon King Daimao read more

"Recently, My Younger Sister Is a Little Strange" is what you get when people try too hard to make an ecchi show. First of all, why would you even make a show revolving around a high school girl wearing a chastity belt if the chastity belt has to be blatantly censored almost every time?

This is one of those shows that you know is going to be horrible right from the premise. An extremely generic and oblivious guy, Yuuya, gets a new sister, Mitsuki, after his father remarries. Mitsuki soon runs into a ghost, Hiyori, who has amnesia and can only remember that she loves Yuuya. In order for Hiyori to go to heaven, she has to get Mitsuki and Yuuya to fall in love (or at least have Mitsuki get turned on by him enough times to fill up the "special" meter in the chastity belt). I have no idea what bizarre religion only lets spirits into heaven after making step-siblings fall in love... To top it all off, Mitsuki can only "open" up the chastity belt for three minutes at a time every hour. Hiyori's final goal is for Mitsuki and Yuuya to have sex so that she can go to heaven..... considering the chastity belt only opens for three minutes, they better make it fast. So the premise is absolutely stupid and I only watched it for the laughs. The plot is actually hilariously bad at times, but most times it'll just leave you shaking your head at how dumb everything is.

Speaking of dumb, the characters are horrible and stupid on top of that. Yuuya is oblivious to everything, Mitsuki is your generic tsundere, and Hiyori just causes trouble every episode. The minor characters are completely forgettable and only help to cause friction between Mitsuki and Yuuya and be even more generic than the main characters. There's not much to say about the characters other than that.

Well, except that the character designs are also terrible. The area in between the characters' foreheads and cheekbones is depressed so much it just looks strange, kind of like if they all slept with their heads on their hands when they were babies and caused a permanent skull deformation around their eyes. The backgrounds and the rest of the characters are cheaply designed, but the worst part is when it comes to the fanservice.

There are two things that are both problematic with this:

1. The censorship is over-the-top as I already mentioned (and it's not just bright light covering things, it's a giant lock).
2. Those weird eroge-style text boxes whenever Hiyori sexually assaults Mitsuki off-screen. That is the worst part of the show. It seems like they just decided to throw in a little yuri fanservice, but then told the audience to just imagine it themselves like they were reading a book and not watching a show.
The soundtrack is also boring and forgettable, and the opening and ending are typical j-pop songs for an ecchi show.

My recommendation is to not watch this show. The characters are generic and helpless, the animation is just bad especially for the character designs and fanservice, I have no idea why anyone would come up with such a bizarre story that defies any existing religious belief to create it's own stupid one, and it's really only enjoyable if you're going in expecting to laugh at it or if you really, really enjoy ecchi shows for the fanservice alone. read more

Recently this anime is sooooo unusual, why? co'z it simply doesn't amount to anything. Let's see, there is no story, its plot was sooooooooo lame, fanservice were poor, comedy was too corny, so overall this anime was just tooooo pathetic to say the least, now, I really don't dig as to why this story creator, Mari, Matsuzawa was thinking, but frankly she isn't doing a good job in anyways, and only her "Inukami" was the best thing she ever created. Also, I don't dig as to why studio "Project No 9" would ever think about making this into an anime when there are other mangas out there whose story line was far better than this one. Ok so lets get into this anime's character one by one:

Mistuki Kanzaki- Her character being this man hating girl kinda conflicts the part where she hates men but seems to have reserve feelings for Yuuya. At one point I kinda pity her that she has to be this stupid ghost's, Hiyori, love juice bearer just for her to construct a stair way to heaven. However, what I hate about her is how much of a bitch she is towards Yuuya that he has to get a lotta bitch slap from her. Frankly, to be this anime's fanservice object was just too lame to say the least.

Yuuya Kanzaki- Pretty much your generic harem boy, as usual his character was very boring to say the least.

Hiyori Kotobuki - If this anime would have a antagonist then she fits right in, though she doesn't act like one, the fact that she was the one who put Mitsuki in such predicament qualifies her to be one, also her character was very annoying since her role was full of dichotomy where at one point she doesn't remember anything as to how she died and yet she was able to describe details of her dead. Also, her role was to be this ghost who was suppose to posse Mitsuki and make lovey dovey with Yuuya so that the gauge in Mitsuki's chastity belt would be filled with love juice and yet she can achieve it by sexually pleasuring Mitsuki, what makes her qualify as an antagonist was that she more of a sexual predator rather than an loose soul.

Kiritani Yukina- Ok she suppose to complete this anime's harem genre, but unfortunately, her character was a disappointment as well. Let's face for someone who can see dead people, I really wonder why her role doesn't allow her to tell the male character or let alone help Mitsuki. The only consolation about her was her fanservice and that's as good as she gets.

Neko - Another disappointing character, like Yukina she can also sense Hiyori's presences and just like the latter her character doesn't allow her to tell the male character and just be a fence sitter.

So with the main character's mentioned, it was difficult to say as to what author Mari, Matsuzawa was on about as to there roles which for me the character part of this anime can be classified as pathetic.

So, without further adieu and I've already state my case with this anime, here are my ratings.

Story- pathetic 1
Since, it was base on a weak plot.
Art - poor 3.
Co'z Mitsuki's fanservce sucks.
Sound- Good 7.
The rating is for the opening theme.
Character-pathetic 1.
No need for me to mentioned.
Enjoyment - fair 6.
That's for Yukina's hotness.
Overall - pathetic 1.
Co'z Mari, Matsuzawa's didn't do a good job on it and frankly there's no point of going through the manga co'z this anime alone has already given the spoiler as how it will end.
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Incest is a very interesting genre in the world of anime. For some reason, the japanese love the idea of forbidden love in their animations, attempting to twist the idea so they can still have said forbidden love so it abides by the law, kind of, with well-known titles like "Oreimo" and "Onii-chan Dakedo" taking the spot as the more well-known incest related animes. Today I will be talking about one of the more recent introductions to the incest genre, Saikin, Imouto no Yousu ga Chotto Okashiinda ga, or, Recently, my little sister is unusual. Let's begin.

Story (6.45/10): The story of Saikin follows the story of Mitsuki, a 15 year old girl, who gains a stepfather and a stepbrother named Yuuta as a result of her mom marrying another man. It is from this point where Mitsuki hates her new life, and one day, when crossing a bridge, a ghost that goes by the name Hiyori tackles her and she blacks out. After a whole set of circumstances, Mitsuki finds out that this ghost, Hiyori, is possessing her, and that she must fill this heart gauge that is on the chastity belt that she is required to wear, with various, lustful actions with her older brother, whom she hates, in order to satisfy Hiyori's final wish, (which is basically having sex with Yuuta), and move her on to heaven. (You know, you would think that god or whoever's in charge would condone such sinful actions. Oh well, it's anime after all.)

Normally with incest animes, the story is a run of the mill one that would consist of 2 siblings, a brother an a sister, where the sister, (normally little sister), has an intense brother complex, and therefore would be in love with her brother, and it would stem off from there. Saikin, as I like to refer to the show as, has a unique twist to this "idea."

Compared to "normal" incest animes, the female loves the main male lead. This is not the case. The fact that I get to see a different approach in this genre, was enough for to see how this went, as Mitsuki seemed like a normal person, being unwilling to do something undecent, as well as having a moral compass, as well as an acurate interpretation to how a normal person would react to the situation. As far as a base idea goes, the series gets a plus, seeing as how the normal format on how the plot was written, was somewhat different.

In terms of pacing, the series never really felt too rushed. It had a rather decent pace that I could follow, and the series never felt overflowed with useless plot points and rushed areas of explanation. (There was still a complete filler episode that I thought was completely unnecessary.)

On the other hand, we still get that sort of incestuous relationship that you would get with an anime like this. (Bear in mind, these characters are siblings by name, not blood.) As the series goes on, the development for the series started to become what you would normally see. It was nice to see the characters develop a bit more, as Mitsuki started to be "ok" with having an older brother, but there were a few things that bothered me as the series went on. One, they don't explain anything. Saikin has an absurd amount of plot holes, ranging from little unexplained things, to an entire potential backstory being completely underminded, and even a whole character who's purpose I feel isn't completely explained.

Overview
+ Different approach to the incest genre, (sort of)
+ Decent pacing
- Unexplained plot points
- Generic story development as series continued on
- Side story and generic episodes (beach episode, hot springs, etc.)

Characters (5.78/10): When it comes to characters, this series has a wide array of them, most of the falling into the supportive and basically non-existent role, all of which have varying degrees of development and actual characteristics.

First off is our main character, Mitsuki. (At least I think so.) Mitsuki, is a very interesting character. Compared to what a normal female protagonist is in a romance anime, she doesn't really follow a standard troupe as one might think. At the beginning of the series, she is shown to be quite an independent character, not needing really anyone in order to be around her or be with her, as well as developing a stand alone personality. As the series goes on, she starts to learn more about this new brother that she has acquired, and starts to get closer to him with each passing episode, as little as it may be. (While also doing a bunch of things no real girl would ever do, or be caught doing.) She is more or less the most interesting character in the series, and more or less carries the show with her stand alone personality and originality as a character. Beyond that, it's downhill from here.

Yuuya, the main male is one of those guys you would want to punch in the face. Like any main guy in a romance anime, the godforsaken density of his mind makes for the most absolute infuriating and completely pointless and redone characteristics ever. (Seriously. Why the hell would they NEED to make the main guy so fucking oblivious to everything? It doesn't even make sense in a romance anime for the guy to not know there's a girl crushing on him, or something like that.) Apart from his sheer density, Yuuya is more or less a caring sort of person, having concern for his new sister and being as nice of a person as he can be. In my opinion, it was nice to see him as such a nice character, but his obliviousness was extremely facepalm worthy.

Hiyori, as the aforementioned ghost in the series is a rather "interesting" character. For starters, she died, painfully. Because in her life, she loved Yuuya, she attempted to confess to him, only to be run over by a drunk truck driver, never to breathe or confess to her one true love ever again. So, as the law of ghosts go, a spirit must be able to fulfill his or her last wish in order to move on to either heaven, or hell. In this case, it's to have sexy time with the dense guy mentioned above. Throughout the series, Hiyori is a mystery. She is constantly being mentioned to have amnesia of her past life, as well as being able to be seen by random characters here an there. Neither of these plot points, which would've added SO much to the story, are fully explained, and it made me mad, seeing as how they mention it, but forgot it in the series much later. Most of the time, Hiyori is this fun little character who can get a bit annoying at time, urging on Mitsuki to do things, so that Hiyori can move on. That's pretty much it.

In terms of supporting cast, we have what you would really expect in a show like this, one-noted and terrible character, aside from Yukina. The supporting character really weren't that terrible, but didn't add much in terms of development of the plot and really were just fodder to explain that this show has more people than the ones of the cover art. They're not fantastic, and mostly boring, (except Neko, who's purpose is a freaking mystery since she seems to have some sort of plot importance, which was never explained), and really are only just, there.

Overview
+ Decent female lead
- Another addition to the super dense male lead army
- Completely pointless supporting cast that didn't add much of anything
- relying heavily on the main lead for any sort of development
- Completely unexplained character that was teased to have plot significance. (i.e. Neko)

Art and sound (6.98/10 and 4.78/10): In terms of art, the actual animation in fairly decent. For one thing, the characters aren't overly moe and they have a very crisp looking design to them. Personally, I like the look of these characters and the way they were designed.

A little segment I do whenever talking about an ecchi show is to actually talk about the ecchi, since it does sort of fall into the art category. Saikin has an outstanding amount of ecchi, most of it coming from showing the chastity belt on Mitsuki, which is completely pointlessly covered up by an ornate heart-shaped censor bar compared to a normal black bar. This is something that made me a little upset. For starters, if you're going to make an ecchi show, you show the panties, like what most ecchi show does. To put in the effort of censoring it with your own censor bar, which is probably wasted money due to the fact on how ornate it was, seems like a waste of time to me.

The sound is completely generic and forgettable. It's your average happy-go-lucky sound which you'll forget about within a month unless you're like me, and watched the series week after week for the new episode.

Overview
+ Good character designs and artwork
- Completely unneeded ornate censor bar
- forgettable soundtrack that you probably won't bat an eye on

Personal Enjoyment (6.76/10): While for the most part, the show was terrible, I somehow enjoyed it way more than I should've. Because the exposition was somewhat intriguing, I continued watching it and wanted to know if it went anywhere, if at all. In the end, what I received at the end of this series, was an anime that more or less was what I expected, a generic mess that was somewhat different than what I had watched prior. The show does have a redeeming feature with what I feel like is a better female protagonist, but the rest of it was as dead as Hiyori, being just this loop of never-ending formula of the same thing, that was less than satisfactory.

A huge critique that I would give the show, is its lack of any real plot explanation. Throughout the whole anime, it was focused solely on the idea of making Mitsuki orgasm from her brother, in order to build stairs of light up to heaven for Hiyori. What made the show worse, was the addition of plot points and potential mysteries, that actually made me a bit more intrigued, as the story looked to be taking a different turn that actually seemed interesting. But in the end, those plot points were completely disregarded, and tossed to the side, making me wonder how the show would've turned out if it followed a different path. (i.e. both Mitsuki's and Yuuya's past, as well as how other people other than Mitsuki can see Hiyori)

All in all, Saikin was a rather interesting take on the incest genre, which ultimately, failed to grasp any favorites from fans like its predecessors. It had less than good writing, generic character, and a forgettable soundtrack. Personally, I feel like this show isn't as bad as it seems, but it is still pretty terrible nonetheless. If you're an ecchi fan, you might actually like this. Other than that, I would highly suggest you stay away. This really isn't a show for everyone, since it's mostly about boobs and a chastity belt that looks like it was bought from a pleasure place.

Overall Score: (6.40/10) Seriously though, terrible plot explanation. read more