Here’s the thing - yes, it is a story about a sister and her brother. But that’s not all - Oreimo isn’t just that. Oreimo doesn’t just explore the relationship between a brother and a sister, Oreimo divulges into everyday life, in this case I suppose, the everyday life of an otaku schoolgirl struggling through her slightly different lifestyle. It’s also the story of a very average brother trying to do his best to protect his beloved sister - in which their relationship, has long fallen apart. And again, that’s not all. It’s also the story of friends, friends joined by a common interest, friends joined together to enjoy life, and solve each other's problems. That, is Oreimo. Daily life. Of an otaku, or rather, several otakus and their non-otaku friends.
In that aspect, it’s not hard at all to call Oreimo simple. It really is, just the daily lives of a sister and her brother, and the people that surround them. There’s no intense magical girl fighting (at least, not *real* magical girl fighting), emotionally depressing family problems, no sword-wielding monster-slaying chicks that cross between worlds, no insane amount of unrealistic harem situations, no no, there’s none of that at all. Oreimo, is simple, yet enjoyable. Why? Because it speaks to it’s audience. I found myself divulged in Oreimo in the same way that Kirino was obsessed with Meruru. In the same way Kirino has her collection of Meruru figurines, I have my own personal collection of anime paraphernalia that I treasure and admire. Hell, even I want to go to Akihabara.
I suppose such a pretense leads to a few issues - like the fact that Oreimo slightly lacks focus. Although it’s undoubtedly true that Oreimo spends a lot of time focused on the brother-sister relationship between Kyousuke and Kirino, it also spends a lot of time exploring things that are slightly random. It’s like every once in awhile, Oreimo simply benches the brother-sister relationship backstory, and focuses on other aspects of it’s story. Of course, I’m not really complaining, because if it had not done that, it really would have been solely a story of a brother and a sister, and nothing more. And I for one, believe that such a story probably wouldn’t have been all too interesting. Because it’s not like this lack of direction really affects the anime at all - it’s not like we’re lacking character or story development, every single “arc” within Oreimo, does develop both the cast and the story. Everything somehow ties back to one main idea in the end, and there are no useless episodes.
In fact, if there was one thing about Oreimo that I really appreciated, was the cast. i don’t think I ever found myself in absolute hatred of a character after finishing the finale of Oreimo. In fact, I was pretty attached to the entire cast as a whole - they were fleshed out pretty well, and although in some places were underdeveloped, all in all, they were pretty well done. I suppose if I had to label a single problem to Oreimo, it would be that some of the characters, are slightly underdeveloped. If I were to label them, theres no doubt in my mind that I would have loved to see more of Kanako, the Akagi sister-brother pair, and a little more of Saori, although she was actually pretty well developed. I suppose to an extent, this lack of development is acceptable, since if Oreimo were to really develop all of these characters, the story really would have lost focus and became random to the point of being bad.
But, I’m not really complaining, because realistically, not only were the characters fleshed out pretty well, they were also drawn pretty well. The animation is pretty well done, although something like that is to be expected of an anime produced in 2013.
The other well-produced aspect of Oreimo, is more than likely the soundtrack. Like the animation, it’s to be expected that an anime produced in 2013 should have a good, acceptable soundtrack, and Oreimo is no exception, but to be honest, although it was well produced, there was nothing really special to it. The opening, on the other hand, is a great choice. It would have been bad for Oreimo to have broken the style of the opening theme from the original, first season of Oreimo. Although I do have to say that I’m not too sure about carrying over the concept of a different ending for EVERY episode from the first season of Oreimo was too good of an idea. I really think that it would have been better to just have another ClariS song as the ending. But then again, the ever-changing ending animation was pretty interesting, and I don’t doubt that a decent amount of work was put into it, because instead of pasting the same ending animation on every episode, Oreimo has a different ending animation, and song, for every episode, which I found mildly interesting.
Realistically though, between Oreimo 1 and Oreimo 2, I can strongly say that nothing has really changed. For me, Oreimo 2 is only better because it’s a continuation, and I get to see more of the Kirino that I’ve enjoyed for two seasons straight, and get to explore more of the relationships and stories of friends surrounding Kirino and her brother.
So, I suppose that Oreimo is one of those animes that never try to be overtly flashy. Oreimo didn’t try to provoke anything overtly powerful within it’s viewers. It merely set out to explore the lives of it’s cast, and in doing so, pleased it’s audience quite well. It’s the kind of anime that doesn’t need anything more other than more episodes to do the same thing it’s been doing for it’s entire life span. But the thing is, having said all that, Oreimo isn’t the kind of anime that you just bench once it’s done. Some would disagree with me, but I know for myself at the very least, Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai is the kind of anime that I probably wont forget, and given the choice to stick Kirino on my back windshield, or any other anime character, I’d probably pick Kirino.
She’s just that cute.
