Oniisama e...

When 16-year-old Nanako Misonoo enters the prestigious all-girls Seiran Academy, she believes a bright future awaits her. Instead, the unlucky girl finds herself dragged into a web of deceit, misery, and jealousy. On top of that, she is chosen as the newest inductee of the Sorority, an elite group whose members are the envy of the entire school. Having none of the grace, wealth, or talent of the other members, Nanako quickly draws the ire of her jealous classmates—especially the fierce Aya Misaki.

To cope with her increasingly difficult school life, Nanako recalls her days through letters to her former teacher, Takehiko Henmi, whom she affectionately calls "onii-sama" (big brother). She also finds comfort with her four closest friends: her childhood friend Tomoko Arikura, the sociable but erratic Mariko Shinobu, the troubled musician Rei Asaka, and the athletic tomboy Kaoru Orihara.

An impassioned drama about the hardships of bullying, Oniisama e... chronicles a young girl's harsh life at her new school, as she endures cruel rumours, heartless classmates, and countless social trials.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Shinobu, Mariko Main

Tamagawa, Sakiko Japanese

Asaka, Rei Main

Shimamoto, Sumi Japanese

Misonoo, Nanako Main

Kasahara, Hiroko Japanese

Orihara, Kaoru Main

Toda, Keiko Japanese

Ichinomiya, Fukiko Main

Koyama, Mami Japanese

Arikura, Tomoko Supporting

Kanda, Waka Japanese

Henmi, Takehiko Supporting

Genda, Tesshou Japanese

Ichinomiya, Takashi Supporting

Horiuchi, Kenyuu Japanese

Japanese Teacher Supporting

Shinohara, Daisaku Japanese

Nanako's Mother Supporting

Suzuki, Hiroko Japanese

Shioura, Masakazu Producer

Dezaki, Osamu Director, Storyboard

Yamada, Etsuji Sound Director

Shinohara, Toshiya Episode Director

Reviews

Jun 10, 2008

Meiling

Recommended

This early 90's anime addresses several controversial issues (especially considering the original manga was published in the 1970's) including drug abuse, homosexuality, bullying, incest and suicide. The story is set in a prestigious girls' highschool where the student body is obsessed with the school's Sorority and its leading members, dubbed "The Magnificent Three". The main character, Nanako, is a new student who became caught up in the affairs of the three most popular girls on campus and, with the help of her best friends, unlocks the secrets of their past as well as that of her own family. The title refers to the letters that ... she writes to her "brother" throughout the series, sharing with him the trials and tribulations of her highschool life.

While this series can be dark and depressing at times, it is not without its comedic moments. I felt the ending was uplifting and very satisfying, and I warmly recommend this series.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Sep 2, 2022

ProudElitist

Mixed Feelings

Funny

If you happen to have watched a lot of 80's action movies I'm pretty sure you'll remember the intro to one of the most reviled (not by me) flicks of the lot, Last Action Hero, where Arnold Schwarznegger made a spoof of Hamlet with the guy going guns blazing on the enemies of Denmark. This series, albeit having nothing of testosterone-action in it, feels a lot like that intro. Why, you ask? because this feels like a completely out-of-place lyrical opera adapted from the manga of a wanna-be (at the time) opera singer that was so in love with opera that she literally used it ... as the main base for all her shoujo works, being those the historically-based ones or the more earthbound ones like in this case. The problem is, lyric opera and its overdramatic tones can function well in the first case like it happened with the masterpiece Versailles No Bara (of which this series is, by admission of the director himself, a remake from head to toe just with characters being shells of their formers selves) because the setting and the scale of the action permits it, like it would permit it space opera, mythologically-based IPs like Saint Seiya or your typical Superhero world's end cosmic scenarios (not always in this case, see following example). In case of action fully taking place in a school with normal schoolgirls with no grandscale element to speak of inbetween, this doesn't happen, and the forced overdrama results in the receiver losing all its interest in what happens in the screen or the comic/book, like it happened for example in the godawful Crisis on Infinite Earths where the "impeding doom" is so much stressed by hacky Marv Wolfman that you lose quickly all the possible emotional investment in the action taking place. It's the same here, with the emotions of the characters screamed at you with no subtetly whatsoever to speak of, and the blame falls both on the director (whose incredible fame after three mediocre experiences with his output I sincerely don't understand, him being a key animator in the absolute masterpiece Kanashimi No Belladonna or not. Reiko Okuyama did FAR BETTER than him with just one movie alone) and the writer of the manga. Why the director? because it was the director's choice to include or not certain scenes from the manga, scenes that have no emotional impact whatsoever, and it was the director's choice too to press on the dated suicide trope being repeated at nauseam to the point of becoming the parody enemies of the european romantic movement made in the 19th century. Technically excellent with good OST and animation, it's a watchable series and fun in places, but generally speaking it's a mediocre/bad adaptation from (I guess) an already bad manga. Oh, I also liked the lesbian/BDSM subtext but, like it happened with the Yuri subtext in Versailles No Bara with the character of Oscar De Jarjayes, it ends in nothing, yet again with the man (who is just a reskinned Fernsen but nothing more than that) being the center of attention of both the gender-bender AND the reskinned, completely dumbed down Marie Antoniette (a character I utterly LOVE in her original, feminist-like Versailles No Bara form). I say this just for the westerner LGBT people who scream every time you see LGBT innuendos in animes of mangas speaking of "self-representation" that there isn't any except in rare cases, and this proves it again. On an ending note, if you're a fan of Shoujo Kakumei Utena you'll probably like this series more than I did, since Kunihiko Ikuhara clearly took a LOT for his work from here.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Sep 6, 2018

JuneNephthys

Not Recommended

Oniisama e… is an anime that I really wanted to like. Aesthetically, it’s right up my alley.

○ Beautiful flowers!
○ Musically talented and proper young women!
○ Lady Prince archetypes!
○ Creepy dolls?
○ Riyoko Ikeda's fabulous OG shoujo style!
○ Sexually ambiguous and lesbian overtones!

○ While my reasons for wanting to indulge seem terribly vapid, these are things that I have really enjoyed in the past. An example in anime is Maria-sama ga Miteru: a very simplistic, platonic, and elegant TV series about ordinary girls coming to terms with their blossoming sexual preferences and just generally being an adolescent.
...
○ Before I digress too much into insipid hatefulness, let me clarify the main hinderance to my enjoyment of Dear Brother was that I didn't really understand where the story wanted to go, and once I thought I knew, it was derailed from what it had spend thirty episodes preparing for.

○ The story is full of nightmare fuel (I felt seriously horrified during a few moments) and most of the characters should be checked into an insane asylum, (seriouslyーbitches are fucked up and crazy) all the while focusing on the prestige of the academy and the sorority's notoriety. So, I thought, 'Sure, this anime makes sense! It's deconstructing the usually beautiful, wealthy all-girl school fantasy. Now, all of these potentially pick ax-wielding psychopaths have a purpose! This anime might be the best shoujo deconstruction I've ever seen!'

○ After Episode 32: the build-up, drama, and horror is all diminished with a random tragedy that is reminiscent of an after school special, but there is absolutely no foreshadowing or build-up to it. THE TWIST CAME COMPLETELY OUT OF LEFT FIELD! Like, all of the anime fans who were complaining about Re:Zero's asspull tragedy, this is exactly the same!

○ In my opinion, if any of the sorority’s horrifying antics and murder attempts had actually lead to the climaxーit would have been fine, but it didn’t go that route at all.

○ I haven't read the manga, so I don't know if it has the same ending as the anime, but the ending seemed retconned to Hell and back. The anime came out in 1991, the same year as the infamous Midori: Shoujo Tsubaki, and THAT got banned in Japan and the creator was denied a production team, so I'm guessing that the same could have happened with Oniisama e… but this is pure speculation about things I don't know. It's like they told the script writer, "Um, this is getting a little too dark and controversial. Let's make it have a Dead Poet’s Society ending where all of the characters are suddenly straight!"

○ Another problem that I had is that the main character (Nanako) is so wide-eyed and bushy tailed that you would think that the second or third time someone tried to kill or rape her, she would have had some sort of trauma. Or at least had a different demeanor, but she keeps the unrealistic stance of a typical mahou shoujo protagonist, and is like, "Hey! Person A (name is withheld for the sake of spoilers) tried to drown me at their family's estate! I'm going to continue to talk to them because I see the absolute best in everyone behest my own life!" Or something stupidly forgiving. Really! She should have been filing a restraining order and transferring to a different school. The random death of one of her friends is the only thing that phases her, and even then she's overshadowed by an off-screen character screaming and crying at their funeral and seems to get over it rather quickly. I get that she's a sheltered, upper-middle class girl, but this is beyond unrealistic! Annotation: See Miaka Yuuki from Fushigi Yugi to learn how "realistic" shoujo heroines can be (I had to add a bit of sarcasm to this completely serious and professional review).

○ While the anime addresses a few real topics, such as: drug abuse, bullying, incest, divorce/affairs, and suicide (actually quite a lot). It doesn't save itself from the car crash of an ending that burrows into you like a disgusting pill bug. An ending that undermines the entire point of ever watching the damned anime to begin with! I mean, why were all of these romantic ties sewn, why all of the development? I'm going to leave off there and let you watch the show if you ACTUALLY insist on knowing after all of my regurgitated hatred, but I can’t even begin to fully voice my discontent at the unresolved relations and story arcs.

○ I think that the visual style is really the only reason for watching; I thought the surrealism in conveying certain scenes was very visually appealing. The animation is choppy, and there are action scenes that have the same frame repeated three or four times to compensate for the production team not being able to animate something due to the lack of budget or time, but because of the stop-motion style animation, all of the stills look gorgeous and none of them suffer from a deformed face, a qualm that many have with modern shows.

○ Overall, Oniisama e… is about mentally unstable lesbians (who really aren't lesbians, I guessーwith the exception of Rei), pointless melodrama, and a plot that could have gone somewhere but leaves you high, dry, and bereft of any long-lasting modicum of something called meaning. This is not a good series, I feel like I wasted time watching thirty-nine episodes of a gross exaggeration of female issues and adolescence, just to be left by the roadside with nothing. My rating: 4/10.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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	Poll: Onii-sama e... Episode 39 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Naivette - Dec 20, 2011	67 replies	by deltahalo241 »» Dec 10, 1:26 AM
	Poll: Oniisama e... Episode 33 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Sapphire2g3 - Jul 24, 2010	63 replies	by shikoiru »» Nov 10, 10:17 AM
	Poll: Onii-sama e... Episode 15 Discussion MagEarwhig - Oct 2, 2011	17 replies	by LastLuminescence »» Sep 20, 6:27 AM
	Poll: Onii-sama e... Episode 21 Discussion KWabbit - Sep 2, 2013	32 replies	by artwasamistake »» Sep 7, 10:18 AM
	Poll: Onii-sama e... Episode 27 Discussion Naivette - Nov 13, 2011	41 replies	by shikoiru »» Sep 6, 12:48 PM

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