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Jan 11 2014

Categories: episodic review
Tagged: imocho

2 Comments »

Recently, My Little Sister Is Unusual

One of my favorite anime series is Kamichu. It follows the charming life of Yurie as she discovers Godhood and boys and friendship and growing up. Tastefully. ImoCho is nothing like Kamichu— quite the opposite– with lawd jokes, fanservice, and a “Geez, this will never air on Cartoon Network, but maybe we can aim for Cinemax!” attitude. Quick premise from what I gathered in one episode: a dead girl possesses poor male lead’s little step-sister. Little step-sister is forced into indecent acts. Essence is collected via indecent acts and might be sold to Kyubey or a forty-five year Japanese salaryman in the near future. Basic jist. Andohbytheway, the step-sister has a chastity belt more magical than Senketsu.

(You’re probably like, “WTF man? Why’d you bring up Kamichu?” Well, in the eight years since Kamichu premiered, the director of it, Hiroyuki Hata, hasn’t worked as a director since. He’s done storyboards or animation, but ImoCho is his first directing gig since Kamichu.)

Things not explained in this episode? Well, for starters, the parents of Mitsuki (the sister) and Yuya (the brother) just decided to get married and move in together. Okay, that’s fine. Then they leave immediately, like that day. “Hey, we’ll just leave our two horny and unrelated teenaged kids home alone for months! Nothing could go wrong!” Worst. Parents. Ever.

(In second place? The parents in Chu2. Seriously? Yuta’s parents just have to go right when Rikka’s parents disappear? I was just saying that Yuta actually has parents around and then this happens. And Rikka’s parents and sister not giving a shit where she lives? They don’t arrange any housing for her? Terrible parenting and terrible plot forcing.)

(And why did the dad ask Mitsuki if she wanted any souvenirs from India? Dude, you’re taking off a fucking day after you moved in… and then leaving for a year. You’re not going to fly back at some point and visit? Or bring the kids over? You just abandoned your kids in a way that makes Dwight Howard and Scottie Pippin look like responsible parents, and you’re asking if you can make it up to her by bringing home some cheap gift? Wow.)

Another thing not explained? Why the ghost has a crush on Yuya, and why does she possess Mitsuki’s body? I can guess that she’s doing this because if she fills up the chastity belt’s heart with Mitsuki’s fluid, then she can go to heaven or come back to life or something. But why is she saying things like, “Ooooooh Yuya” right before she starts fingering Mitsuki? Wouldn’t it make more sense to say that before playing with Yuya? I figure that maybe this scenario occurs in later episodes…

(And, yes, she basically rapes/self-rapes Mitsuki in the first episode. I commented last season about how there were a lot of attempted rapes… nope, not here. We’re kicking off the season with some Shizuru x Natsuki action right off the bat.)

The animation by Project No.9 is not bad. There’s actual movement (not just mouths moving), and the characters are consistent. That’s good for a fanservice harem anime. However, the backgrounds need work. The look like they forgot about the backgrounds until the last minute and had to doodle them on the train to the studio.

The last seven minutes of this episode is a grueling endurance test of a joke of poor Mitsuki trying to use the bathroom while wearing the chastity belt, and we are literally starring at beige drywall for most of this time.

(The brother is also a twit. If your sister has been in the bathroom for the past half an hour, why the hell do you hang around the door asking for her to come out so you can check to see if she is okay? What could you possibly help with? Maybe she has food poisoning and has massive diarrhea? Are you going to take a stool sample and run it to the nearest hospital? What if she got imprisoned with a chastity belt that prevents her from peeing by a ghost who has the hots for you? What are you going to do? I mean, dude needs to chillax and go play some Call of Duty or something instead of pulling a Sasami-san@Gabaranai over her sister’s bathroom time.)

If you don’t like staring at drywall, there’s plenty of censorship and blackout screens. BD sales, here we come!

I like how the lesson the teacher was teaching is about how in ancient Japan, incest was okay. I also like how all of Yuya’s friends at school were asking him stuff like, “Dude, how’s the little sister?” like he just bought a new Miata.

Why are there two telephones so close to each other? And that fax combo machine probably has a phone built into it as well.

(Overall, the humor is hit or miss, and there’s a lot of fanservice elements– like Kaze no Stigmata or Sora no Otoshimono levels. Not much of a story except how terrible the parents are. Basically, typical fanservice harem show with a really dense male lead. )