Reviews

Jan 23, 2023
tl;dr: Decently varied and paced comedy, but lacking in substance even for a comedy manga.

*Note: This is a review of the main series, the Ebina spin off, and the sequel G because the Ebina spin off and G are short enough that it doesn’t make sense to review them separately, but they are important enough that it doesn’t make sense to ignore them either. *

This series is one centered around a girl named Umaru who is a Himouto, which the series defines as “a lazy little sister who never lifts a finger around the house”, with the word’s origin being a “portmanteau of imouto (little sister) and himono (a woman who is elegant and polished in public, but secretly a slob at home)”. Though it’s actually a bit more complicated than that in that there are three Umaru’s, the inside Umaru who’s a lazy slob, the outside Umaru who’s majestically perfect, and UMR who’s an expert gamer. There’s a large focus on the imouto aspect in that she lives solely with her brother, Taihei, who has to deal with her nonsense but does so as well as he can in the straightforward and kind manner he lives his life. But there’s just as much focus on Umaru’s bonds with her friends, which ultimately have a very interesting dynamic in that most of her main friends are closest to different Umarus and she’s doing her best to keep it a secret that all of them are the same person.

Due to this, the manga is very careful about slowly and steadily introducing new characters and establishing bonds between them and the already introduced characters. This manifests in both development of new friendships, but also in terms of revealing that two characters were actually already friends or related. At times this may be revealed to the reader long before it’s revealed to Umaru or Taihei, but it still stresses it when it is revealed. This may sound exhausting, but because this is pretty much entirely a comedy focused manga it works surprisingly well. Though there aren’t that many characters, by focusing on so many connections separately on top of the general group dynamic, it results in it always feeling like it’s adding something new which keeps things fresh. These connections also being partitioned off from each other to a degree also results in it being able to swap around at will to keep things varied despite it featuring the same characters. Thus, while the range of the comedy is pretty narrow, it rarely feels like it’s getting repetitive. Combine that with how all the main cast members are all really colorful and pretty likable and the manga ends up being reasonably amusing from beginning to end.

However, it should be emphasized that there is very little in terms of substance. The relationship between siblings is a constant theme, but it never ultimately feels like it does much with it or hits any good emotional beats. There are some hints here and there of what feel like plot related things that it felt like it was going to tackle later, like going more in depth into what happened with their parents or certain characters acting mysteriously and knowing things that there’s no explanation for them knowing and this being highlighted, but it just never does. There’s an emphasis put on the relationship between Umaru’s friends Ebina and Sylphyn and their brothers throughout the manga, but in the end they just suddenly get resolved super quickly off screen essentially. I think it was trying to give a lot of the cast character arcs, but the only one that felt like she actually had proper character development was another of Umaru’s friends, Kirie, and even that was only decent. What was especially a letdown is that it constantly felt like it was teasing Umaru growing up or her personalities merging or her revealing the truth to her friends, but in the end that never happens, and the series ends with her being pretty much exactly the same as she started.

As such, neither the ending to both the main series the sequel G feel like proper endings, rather the manga just stops as it would with any other chapter basically, and it’s just suddenly over. Interestingly enough, the Ebina spin off is the one that felt like it tried to take things most seriously in that it puts a surprisingly strong emphasis on romance. It even gives a full on time skip epilogue proper ending that’s reasonably satisfying as a conclusion, though the fact that it’s pretty rushed, ambiguous, and only an ending for two characters without telling you anything about the rest of the cast diminishes that.

The art is decent but not particularly great. It works pretty well for the comedy, especially the visual gags involving chibi Umaru and manga logic, but I never really thought it looked all that good, even in the color pages or covers. The character designs were surprisingly varied and distinct, but also somewhat plain and not used particularly well I felt.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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