The Bus Stops Here

So...Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai episode 15 (True Route) has finally been subbed in standard quality by Mazui. This means that finally - finally - we have kicked, beaten, and flamethrower-ed the dead horse enough for us to get up and leave it. The incest wave is over. Glory Hallelujah.

Nono, that's an entire sub-forum that you're looking at.

I think as a whole this shit that started with series such as Aki-Sora and Akane iro ni Somaru Saka and ended up with Yosuga no Sora and that one series that starts with Onii-chan and ends with some ridiculously long name that nobody can type fully from memory handled the sudden trend towards this topic quite terribly. Instead of trying to drive it deeper or to treat it like a modified version of "I like your sister" type love triangle and thus create more tension, most of the series as a whole that have participated have either:

a) Done 12 episodes of lame shits n' giggles

or

b) Chickened out at the last moment

There is definitely a deeper dilemma to be found in the topic because the weighing becomes a bit more complex. Whereas many characteristics are just unique to each and every person, family is an intrinsic thing and thus has a heavier weight in moral calculations. In doing so, many of the series here had the potential to step it up and have the protagonist go through some good introspection while still doing the lovers' tug of war between whomever the studio wanted. Again, in a sense, it's like the Clannad ~After Story~: Kyou Arc. The situation is complicated not only because they're all friends, which is common, but because the familial factor is involved - hurting one person spreads the damage out more because of that link (more on this arc later - I finished the VN arc for it...)

Aw mang why I gotta choose

But no. The only series that's not ridiculously cornered to a special demographic is OreImo, and even that anime chickened out at the last moment and ended at a transitioning plot point in the novel - meaning that unless they pull out a 2nd season really really fast (which they could probably do due to the amount of material that they already have) they are pretty much doomed to mediocrity as "The Little Series that Could Not".

What I DO like about OreImo is that it tries to play nice, Disney-style. You can almost hear Randy Newman singing You've Got a Friend in Me as the protagonist, Kyousuke Kousaka, rides the train all the way to Frown Town after having helped his sister for what seems to be the 50-umpteenth time. The series emphasizes the friendly bond between brother and sister and I'm fine with that. What I'm NOT fine with is that it sometimes tries to imply incest in an effort to garner more views but fails in that aspect.

The brother in this series clearly takes action more than any other sane brother on this green, green Earth would. But the moments where Kirino (the sister) and Kyousuke interact with each other and conclude their blushing and doing random crap, you feel a wave of dissatisfaction washing over you, as if the studio was going, "HEY we have something GOING ON BRO-SIS WISE COME THIS WAY" and then they give you a Tootsie Roll, pat you on your head and tell you to go off somewhere else because it wasn't that serious. Doing that doesn't really appeal to the demographic at all and shows that the studio pretty much shied away from taking that one extra step and taking it well.

This is the farthest that they go. And no, those lines are NOT spoken by the sister.

Then it seems to follow the Light Novel and do stuff. But the note the series ends on - the "True Route" makes it seem like the series is trying to grab the people who just want a normal slice-of-life/romance and stuff them into the same room as the people who are hardcore Kirino/Kyousuke. It just doesn't work, ESPECIALLY when the series doesn't build upon either girl. Yes, there WERE indeed 4 episodes of the other girl (Kuroneko for now). That doesn't mean she was developed. We see 4 episodes of her dicking around and doing not a lot of things with the protagonist other than sitting down writing stuff - then in the last episode, apparently the net total +.001 affection that she got from the protagonist is enough to make her blush and confess. I don't care how emphasized the "sitting down together" is - it's not enough development in 4 episodes to make some random character confess. If it was, most romantic-comedy series would end after 4 lunch periods and 1 afterschool walk home. It just doesn't work like that. And I'm disappointed that OreImo did not try to stuff more in.

However, in the end (just like the LN), Kyousuke dashes off to his sister, implying his desperation (see last paragraph). In doing this, OreImo makes a weak argument for both cases and thus falls short of going for either ideal - the normal romance or the forbidden one. And the ending isn't even very conclusive since everybody's just randomly meeting each other and smiling and doing the same thing they did in episode 5 or whatever it was since the anime conclusion is SMACK DAB in the middle of the LN plot. This is why for me, as a series, OreImo - as the last hope of what was a retarded trend - failed miserably to appeal to anybody seriously.

And so it goes. Amagami SS tried it, went the VN way - that's fine. But I hope to only see sporadic series like this happen, and what's more, happen WELL. This topic could have had potential - if only studios didn't screw around with this just for fanservice. For now, the bus stops here. And it had better not start driving off in the wrong direction.

The go-to key for many 12-episode series.