Do you know where Hentai comes from? Well, to begin with, Japan have very strict rules regarding porn and video sharing is under rigid rules as well. So people had to find another way to make porn, specially the taboo ones. That said, someone had the ideia to turn it into a animation. "Wow! it's not ilegal now, I wanna see it!". Get my point? The same goes for these Siscon kind of series. It's harmless but it's different, interesting, uncommon, and you want to see it.
-My, my, bob-kun you're reviewing another fanservice harem, aren't you?
-It's not like it can be helped [...] No, wait. This is NOT a harem!
Suggesting title, a theme that resembles it, moe characters, loli-like maho shoujo?, tagged "seinen"... This gotta be a harem!! Well... yeah, it's not. Were you wondering if it is like KissXSis? Or you ended up here after a easygoing ecchi/fanservice?
If it was the first one, you're wrong. Try another one. If it was the second, congratz this is the right one for you!
Going straight to the point, this is a whole new interpretation of the seinen stories! HA. Who am I kidding, besides what they want you to think, this anime have nothing "new". There're some inovations but it ends up being the same.
The story goes around the bitter sweet day-by-day of Kirino and Kyousuke Kousaka (YES. blood-related). Kirino ends up having a "different" hobbie. She loves anime, doujinshi and... erogues of 'loli little sisters'.
Recently there've been a lot of animes of this kind (not loli little sisters) but instead, series that talk about themselves, was created even a category for it: "otaku culture" what is better to sell a product if not making the user indentify himself with it?
Being it a recurrent theme, OreImo's staff tried to diversify a little and twisted the main concept and layout of it. For this anime, as you can see, the otaku here is Kirino, a girl, not a NEET, popular, fashionable... I admit, it is interesting, that's why I watched it and now is reviewing.
It's reasonable to think a new approach to the theme, and this new kind of scenario would have some problems. The plot itself seemed broken sometimes and had lots of flaws in the background story. There's no development of it! They didn't care to explain for you some events prior to the 1st episode, for example, why Kirino and Kyousuke relationship was "frozen" like that. Or what about Saori? What is she? A damn billionaire?
Not even in a flashback. Seriously? This wasn't the kind of storyline I was expecting from Aniplex (cmon, they did AnoHana).
Only because it's a comedy anime it doesn't mean you're free from developing this part.
While reviewing the story, it's interesting to point out, that OreImo succeded at making the anime looks like a visual novel. You have the 1st season with 12 episodes that ends in one way, and another 4 eps special with a different ending.
For those in doubt, you can better enjoy it if you watch all together:
Main series: 1 to 12.a"good ending"
Specials: 12.b to 15"true route" [2nd season will pick up from here]
Comentary: 1 to 16 [you don't have to watch this one. Just chibi extras.]
The production staff had very nice and interesting ideias for the OP/ED and soundtrack. There's a different opening and ending song for every each one of the episodes and the animation of it is also slight different. This is something to give credit for, they reinvented the OP/ED in a way it was interesting to watch, not like other animes when you just skip it because it's repetitive and gets boring after a while.
The OP song was done by ClariS, (you probably heard about it already), they're two middle-schoolers girls who happened to debut as singers, another promissing new talent that fits with the concept of "inovation" the anime brought.
Another letdown of OreImo was definitely the characters. Not because they aren't nice, but because there is no development of it at all. It was completly left aside. MAYBE it will get better in the 2nd season but for this 1st, it was just painful to watch. A lot of strong supportive characters weren't developed as they could be. For some reason (maybe the fanservice) the staff sticked with KirinoXKyousuke and forgot about the others. Ayase for example, gets a lot of screen time but her development is left off to the side making her look like a stupid side-kick that have nothing to add.
On the other hand, the female lead, Kirino, is a horrible person. No matter how you look at it. She's 99% tsun, 1% dere. I thought they would change it during the story but it didn't. She stayed with the same despicable personality the whole story in a way that makes you anger about it. I felt like I was watching SchoolDays again.
Everyone was so hyper about this anime that I decided to give it a try.
This was a great anime about "otaku culture" but pretty much sucked at other things. They tryied to catch seinen viewers by using the "Siscon" stuff but in the end it turns out to be an average story that could be better developed.
It's not the best anime of its season. However, if you have free time and think of yourself as a otaku or a "erogamer" (whatever), you'll have a nice time with the tons of references and "visual" jokes they present in this anime.
Quoting my friend: "Watch it for the experience"
If you want a better enjoyment of the series, please read the manga.
Story: 7 | Art: 8 | Sound: 8 | Character: 7 | Enjoyment: 8 | Overall: 7
If you read until here BEFORE voting down (or up), thanks!!
Pleeease talk with me! I don't bite! I'm a needy person, I need comments to improve my reviews! These heartless buttons are useless. There's nothing like interacting with humans :3
