Ore no Imouto replicates real life in some strange ways that I wish weren’t real, but the internet has shown otherwise. Kirino has a million erotic games hidden in her closet with a bunch of statues of Meruru, some generic magical girl.
Kirino’s brother, Kyousuke Kousaka, finds out about her dirty hobby and decides he will help her hide it from her parents, who will probably disown her for owning explicit games. How does she get all this stuff? Well, she has a job as a model with her friends, a little feisty girl and a big feisty girl who aren’t important enough to care about. What really makes this weird is that Kirino has an obsession with little sister games. This makes for a lot of awkwardness between Kirino and Kyousuke that could be misconstrued as some sort of romance developing, which we all know is quite possible but we don’t want to happen. At least, I hope you’re not all for this brocon siscon stuff. It’s weird.
Through Kyousuke’s help, Kirino meets some new friends, one of whom is Kuroneko, and together they do otaku stuff. Since Kirino has been hiding her fandom for so long, it gives her an outlet with which to show her love. And that’s pretty much the whole plot. With the exception of a later section dedicated to Kirino writing a light novel, there’s not a ton of plot or anything too memorable. But it is an entertaining plot nonetheless.
The animation is pretty standard. It looks decent, but is nothing jaw dropping. Characters blush a lot and I don’t understand why Kirino’s hair is brown as a kid but orange-y as a teen. I mean, she could have dyed it or it could be the light, but it just struck me as odd.
The sound is…meh. The voices are good. But otherwise, the opening is very basic and dull. Upbeat pop song? Sounds like a plan! I must commend the series for having a lot of ending themes. Now, this isn’t exactly a good thing. You can take twenty poops on the side of the road and they’ll all stink. And that’s kind of the same for the ending themes here. Quantity does not equal quality. Music during the show is generic piano compositions that are about six keys being played in some sort of order that sounds somewhat like dramatic music. You know why Mozart didn’t do music for anime? Because he had talent. And anime hadn’t been invented yet, but that’s beside the point.
What’s there to say about the characters? A LOT! Kirino is a freaking fantastic little sister and I wish my little sister were like her! Instead I have to deal with my little sister complaining because Clannad is too mushy and Vampire Knight is the greatest anime ever made because it is like Twilight and Twilight is the greatest book ever written! Why can’t all girls be like Kirino? A model, a pervert, and an otaku? One of the funniest scenes is when she gets her body pillow of Meruru and starts rolling all over it. IT’S FUNNY BECAUSE SHE’S JUST LIKE US! SHE’S AN OTAKU! SHE LIKES BODY PILLOWS! HAHAHAHA! EXCEPT SHE’S CUTE AND ADORABLE AND POPULAR AND WE AREN’T!
“Who’s this we and us?” You ask from atop the highest apartment in the neighborhood, preparing to throw a tomato at me as if I were Dane Cook doing a comedy routine.
“SHUT UP!” I cry in an attempt at a retort that goes horribly south as your tomato sticks to my shirt. “I WANT TO FEEL INCLUDED!”
Now back to this. Kyousuke is a pretty solid character. He’s fairly generic, “I want to help people” and “Go with the flow” and “TAKE A FREAKING KICK TO THE BALLS FROM YOUR SISTER AND DON’T GIVE THAT BITCH A BACKHAND!”. His niceness is actually pretty funny. At one point he gets punched in the face by his dad, some sort of cop who doesn’t approve of anime or erotic games. All Kyousuke does is protect his sister and what she loves and you kind of grow to like him for being so selfless, even when he doesn’t get much in return. Plus, his conversion into a erogamer is pretty funny.
Another character of note is Kuroneko, who I bring up a lot because she’s just too damn adorable. She’s hilariously dark; the complete opposite of Kirino (which is, of course, a means for comedy gold occasionally) and I personally found her to be the best character. She cares about Kirino while simultaneously hating her guts, she’s a closet otaku who makes her own cosplays, and she’s also a sweet girl outside of being an otaku and pretty shy. While I loved Kirino and Kyousuke’s characters, I loved hers more.
Otherwise, the characters aren’t that impressive. Kyousuke has this girl who likes him and is a childhood friend, but she’s flatter than Minami’s chest (Baka and Test reference!)(My English teacher always told me that comparing media was the highest level of thinking). Her grandpa, on the other hand, is the greatest grandpa ever. He just wants his granddaughter and Kyousuke to bang. And he hides under the table like all good grandpas and tells them to do it. If he had his own anime, I’d watch it.
Ore no Imouto, in all seriousness, is not a bad anime. It’s a look at Japanese otaku culture (which is so impressive, I wish I could go to Japan through a portal and buy all that anime stuff) and also a decent character building adventure. The brother and sister thing does become kind of creepy at points, but a lot of the time it is pretty heartwarming and cheerful. You root on the characters and you grow to like them, not only for their subtle love for each other or because you can make parallels between themselves and you, but because you really want to see them do what’s best for themselves. They’re not totally realistic and barely take a life of their own, but the characters are still fun to be around. They’re like friends you want to hang out with all the time.
