Oct 22, 2022
My Stepmom's Daughter is My Ex, 7.5/10, I enjoyed it, but I understand if other people disliked it or thought it was mediocre.
Overall, fairly smart, fun, never boring, but falls short at a few places.
Fascinating story structure, romance is alright, lots of details and motifs, the ending wrapped things up well while leaving room for another season. If someone asked me about it, I would be honest, tell them it was good, and if they want to watch it, go ahead, but I wouldn't encourage or discourage either way. Also, the context of step-sibling romance is awkward, but the anime finds good ways of
...
making it more of an awkward romantic tension than weird incest.
There are lots of small details, and the visual puns and messages through books and who holds them goes hard. The dialogue is fairly smart, and I like all the quips the characters make at each other. For a show of its genre and context, it makes an appreciable but clear move to throw in existential elements and character introspection, and the plot is never stops moving, but always finds time to flesh out characters, often through short flashbacks at the start of an episode. The plot has parallel timelines, one of Yume and Mizuto's past romance, and one as step-siblings, and those two series play off of each other. I think the story and it's structure are great overall. The opening's motif of puzzles are not for show, as one sibling attempts to figure out the other one, a character study almost.
The other characters are fairly good, mainly providing foils for certain events or characters, and comparing and contrasting characters.Some details of some of the characters was a little off-putting or didn't make as much sense as I'd like, making for mostly compelling characters, one of which falls short at a critical moment. Existential motifs don't thrive as well in the fairly young cast of characters. As smart as the story is, it's not quite as smart as it could be. Still, it brings something to the table, and I respect and enjoy that.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
