Brothers Conflict is an anime adaption to the otome game series; I've played both Passion Pink and Brilliant Blue, where the numerous stepbrothers are split to the more "passionate" ones (ex. Fuuto, Tsubaki, and Kaname) to the more "mysterious" ones (ex. Azusa, Hikaru, and Iori). I personally prefer Passion Pink because of the route plots and the appeal of the cast.
Aside from watching this anime in respective Japanese, I've recently viewed the English dub episodes purely because I can appreciate English dub if they're good and Funimation has featured their talented voice actors in this one (J. Michael Tatum as Masaomi, Michael Solusod as Tsubaki, and Josh Grelle as Azusa are only a few of them). Other than that, I would never want to view this messy and nonsensical anime again. Below is why.
S H O R T C O M I N G S
I'll begin with the plot - poor, poor, poor. There's hardly an excuse to have every single brother fall in love with you, despite you being the only sister they have, unless they've previously known you (and only one of them has so they have an excuse I'll accept). The heroine is a dumb female lead, having too much optimism to the point of *SPOILER ALERT* being sexually harassed by her brothers and actually allowing it to happen. Hinata Ema's - or should I say Asahina Ema's - thoughts are too pure for her own good, and I suppose that's just her innocent personality, but it gets on my nerves. It doesn't make me care for her, and it definitely doesn't make me root for any of the guys to grow their romantic attraction to her.
As for the rest of the characters, I have to say this - the Asahina brothers' mother must've been absolutely insane to get pregnant to all 13 boys. You'd think that at least one of them would be a girl or that the mother herself would die. But no. This is anime, so it barely passes as a "silly what-if story," and it just so happens that all of the boys are completely different in personality and talent. The diversity in appearances and such makes you question if they really are related, but again, this is to be expected from an anime. I just don't like most of them; they aren't attractive either in looks or personality. If one is nice, they're either creepy or suspicious. If one is mean, they're annoying tsun about it. The ones I disliked the most were Kaname and Fuuto, who may I mention had the most screen time along with Tsubaki. Unfortunately enough, the few characters I did like a bit have very little screen time in this anime. Masaomi, Yusuke, and Subaru are very pure characters, but you can only see just how beautiful they are in the games. That's what I really don't like about this anime; I know that the characters have much more depth to them, and they're not shown adequately, if at all. Naturally, I wouldn't expect so much from an adaption, but this was below my hopes. Very sad.
P R O S
While I ranted to what seemed like forever above, there are some qualities that might still interest you some more if you think you want to watch it. For one thing, the OP is very catchy - something to be expected from a reverse harem, might you be aware - and the ED is sung by all of the seiyuus voicing the Asahina brothers. The sound effects aren't horrible and the art isn't overly cringeworthy either, although it can be inconsistent. The part that made me watch this anime to the end was the fact that all of the characters aren't introduced in the beginning, and it takes a few episodes for all of them to make an appearance. I personally think that this is a good decision, or else I'd be overwhelmed with all of these faces and names to connect them to and it'd just make this anime messier. The most redeeming quality is the seiyuus themselves, as they're very fitting to each character. The English dub cast is great as well, and they hardly skip a beat with their choices. The only thing with the English dub that I would've changed is that J. Michael Tatum should voice Kaname instead of Masaomi (if you don't know, he voices Ootori Kyouya from Ouran and Sebastian Michaelis from Black Butler). If this anime is anything close to enjoyable, it's the fact that the whole thing seems like a joke, enough to get you to laugh at serious moments.
C L O S U R E
If you thought that this anime would make sense as you watch it, you're so, so wrong. This anime is the definition of "wtf" (my friend said this and there isn't a better word for it). There're so many moments that just made me deadpan and apathetic. If you want to busy yourself and kill time, this shallow anime might do you some service, if anything.
Story: 1/10
Art: 6/10
Sound: 7/10
Character: 3/10
Enjoyment: 4/10
Overall: 22/50 ~ 42% ~ 4/10
