Mamahaha no Tsurego ga Motokano datta
My Stepmom's Daughter Is My Ex

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Like many people, I was intrigued by the premise having seen an ad for the anime on Youtube, and wound up reading the manga followed by all eight (8) volumes of the Light Novel (thanks Hellping) because I grew invested in the story.

If I was to sum up the pith of the narrative, it is about two people finding their place with each other as sibilings / potential lovers, despite carrying the baggage of having broken up with each other some two weeks before the main narrative begins. The key questions are: what does it mean to be a lover, where does the line ... between former lovers / family get blurred, and the inbetween.

I will admit, while I was initially thrilled by the direction taken by the author for the first 6 - 7 volumes, I slowly came to realise what a train-wreck of a story it started to grow into by the final and most recent volume (8).

Being primarily a romance story, I will focus on that aspect in this review to see if it holds water as a "romance" story.

In terms of the romance between the titular main couple,

[spoiler]

my humble opinion is that the author has either totally lost the plot, or has decided, rather disingenuously, to string readers along with a patently meaningless love triangle, particularly WRT Isana, whom the author has expressly said in various of his afterwords for the earlier volumes, that she wasn't even in the race to begin with.

Having read all of the author's afterwords in from Vol. 1 - 7, and then finally reading Volume 8, I cannot help but feel that the author has totally betrayed his characterisation of the Mizuto in a complete volte face by causing him to suddenly develop feelings for Isana, when at least up to to the end of Vol 7, Mizuto states in no uncertain terms that he is interested / loves Yume.

I can appreciate that "love" is a complex things. Sometimes "side-baes" or love triangles in anime / manga / LNs receive characterisation so that they are not built as flat characters. And to that end, it is true that Mizuto condoning Isana's flirtations towards him ARE the source of his own destruction / the destruction of the Mizuto / Yume ship... but what I cannot accept is that the author has simply written Mizuto as a character that repeats again and again that he has no feelings for Isana, and that he has eyes only for Yume, and yet that catastrophe that was Vol. 8 could happen.

This coupled by the fact that the author's afterwords from Vol. 6 onwards seem to imply (to me at least) that he is extending the story for the sake of it. Money? Unclear... but this feels like a sus callback to what is happening with feaking Oregairu and its money-eyed author.

Call it "realistic" writing, but I feel cheated. [/spoiler]


*edited to make spoiler section clear - don't know how to blank out the spoiler portions.

One of the best LNs I've read. Remember THIS IS NEITHER INCEST NOR NTR, I've seen some rascals misunderstanding the title and commenting their own BS so do not get misunderstood. I really like the way author tries to bring out their true feelings through multiple POVs to the reader. From the beginning, one can see they're obviously still in love with each other but do not like to accept the fact in front of the other person, and their shared 黒歴史 ("Kuro Rekishi" meaning dark past/history) is kinda a new concept I've seen in anime/manga/novels. They're slightly different from osananajimi but I like their ... relationship. This is a very good novel for those who like romcom and we can expect for an anime adaption in the near future.

Came into this expecting an average rom-com with the standard cliches and nonexistent development as the author milks their content for fanservice—be it in the form of poorly written borderline smut showcasing the author's virginity on full display, or (a) love interest(s) that caters to the average LN reader's fantasies. Luckily that wasn't the case, although one can argue that there are little sprinkles of the above as they're staples to any fictional rom-com.

From what I've read of what's translated so far (end of V4), volumes 1-3 stick pretty strictly to a formula in which the first part of each chapter gives insight into some ... specific experience of the two protagonist's past while they were in a relationship. The remainder of the chapter then transitions back into the present day which ends up being a parallel of the past experience highlighted at the beginning of the chapter. The POV between the two protagonists generally alternates with each chapter, allowing us to see how each of them deal with their new relationship as ex's/stepsiblings—whether for better or for worse—in contrast to when they were lovers. This structure frustrated me at first since it plays out like a tug of war as the two protagonists struggle against each other and their own emotions that they're unable to express properly. This "tug of war" lends to what appears to be minuscule or nonexistent development, but it makes sense in hindsight. Volume 4 (my favorite volume by far), on the other hand, breaks from the pre-established formula and follows a standard chapter-by-chapter sequence. I won't spoil, but that should hint to you that it's a climactic volume.

The characters are great; it's clear that they're not one-dimensional—there are several layers as to how they are who they are or why they respond the way they do to certain situations. It sounds simple on the surface—after all, people in real life aren't one dimensional, but it isn't exactly an easy thing for writers to depict genuity and uniqueness in their characters since the author is one person at the end of the day and each character is their own creation. Characters in this LN may say one thing and mean another, they may give a certain reason for a specific action on the surface, when in actuality, there are several layers to that reason that isn't too apparent until later. You'd typically think that a character's inner dialogue reveals their truest selves, and that's true for the most part, but these damned characters are lying to themselves most of the time. With that said, don't believe what these characters are saying to others or even themselves; the author isn't going to spoonfeed you everything (I'd like to go more into detail on this, but that would go against MAL review guidelines). Many characters frustrate me, but that doesn't mean they're poorly written characters perse. A few times the author will dedicate some chapters to the side characters and their relationship(s), but I honestly can't care for them. I don't know if it's the author failing to captivate me with the side character's personal struggles or if it's just me, but I don't care for the side characters (Akatsuki and Kawanami namely, Higashira is good).

I'll be honest, if I wrote this review prior to reading Volume 4, I would probably score it on the lower end of a 7, maybe a mid 6. I'm not one to drastically improve my impression of a novel based off of one volume, but the redeeming factor here is that V4 ties in the previous volumes and sheds some light on many character interactions which didn't make too much sense to me previously. It isn't that V4 gave the previous volumes more depth, but more so that it revealed it and made things more clear. After reading V4, I've got high hopes for the next volumes.

With that all said, I give this LN an overall strong 8. I'd say 7-8 out of 10 rom-com readers will enjoy this LN; if you're into the genre, give it a shot until at LEAST the end of volume 4. If you don't like it by the end of volume 4, it's probably not for you.

Easily the best LN I have ever read. Watching the anime made me curious about how the relationship between the main two characters progressed.

The author does a great job of jumping between different character's perspectives throughout the story. I think that this makes the story more enjoyable since the author can decide the best perspective for us to see certain situations through.

For example - If one character is confessing to another, the author can decide for us to be experiencing this from the perspective of the character confessing or from the one being confessed to. Maybe the first half of the situation is told ... to us from one perspective. Then half way through the confession, it could jump to the other person's perspective.

I like that that is often how it happens rather than the same situation being told multiple times by different people for different perspectives. That would make the plot move too slowly.

The pacing of this feels just right to me. It moves fast enough to keep me interested but also takes an ample amount of time with finer details in the characters' inner monologues.

The Anime is a decent adaptation, but it just can't take the place of the details in this LN.

I feel that the novel's weakest point is the introduction of the student council. While it wasn't bad, I was a bit resistant to the change at first.

I enjoyed that this novel didn't contain too many characters. So the author was able to do a lot with the few characters we had.

With the introduction of so many new characters through the student council, it took a bit for me to adjust to. I thought that the execution was decent, but it wasn't as well done as the introduction of Mizuto's extended family. (Likely because there were less characters introduced all at once).

I did understand that the student council characters are essential for the growth of our main characters, though.

The progression of the love story is just right. You are first presented with the current situation the exes are in as they are forced into becoming step siblings. You then are able to get some background as to why they became exes. You then see how complicated their feelings are. Then you gradually see their present and how they start to move forward and how they feel about it.

The characters are also just great. While there are characters with some similar traits (some introverted and nerdy, some extroverted, etc.), they all have unique traits about them that make them stand out. Although I was a bit overwhelmed when so many student council characters were introduced almost all at once, I feel that they all serve an important purpose in the story. I don't feel that there are any filler characters.

Even more interesting than the characters themselves are the relationships between the multiple characters. The author does a great job showing the interactions between the different characters. Of course, since this is in a light novel format, sometimes it does get confusing when 3-4 people are having a conversation and you can't always tell who is saying what during a back and forth, if you re-read those conversations you can tell who is who by the way they are speaking.

This has just the right amount of humor, build up, satisfaction, and pacing. I'm not a big light novel reader, but I find myself reading this for hours at a time.

The story slowly unravels itself with such expertise and perfect pacing that I am constantly wanting to keep learning.

The translation is very good. I typically am not able to get too immersed in books, but with this, I find myself lost in this fictional universe as I read while hours go by.

I very highly recommend this light novel.