Yosuga no Sora Review

Plot: Haru and Sora are a pair of recently orphaned twins. Deciding to return to their hometown to live together in their deceased grandfather’s old house after the tragedy, Haru finds love in many places in the village – and even at home.

Breakdown: I got onto this show through a very short but heated review on THEM where they shot it down to one star and basically called it poorly written disjointed non-hentai hentai. After giving the first episode a shot on Episode One-Derland, I was inclined to agree. After I watched another few episodes, I got confused.

Even though the review explained that this series tries to show all of the different routes of the visual novel on which this anime is based from, they didn’t explain that each arc was its own contained story. None of the arcs are supposed to run into each other outside of a few episodes that act as bases for the individual arcs.

The flow chart available on the Wiki explains it better, but I have already reviewed all of the arcs and the foundational episodes in the list below.

Episode One – Whole show foundation

Episode Two – Foundation of Kazuha and Akira’s arcs

Episodes Three and Four – Kazuha’s arc

Episodes Five and Six – Akira’s Arc

Episode Seven – Foundation of Nao and Sora’s Arcs

Episodes Eight and Nine – Nao’s Arc

Episodes Ten, Eleven and Twelve – Sora’s Arc

Here’s the thing, though – if you don’t realize this structure immediately, you’ll be left insanely confused and thinking Haru’s a heartless man-whore with lovers that conveniently develop amnesia after their stories are over.

Even if you do figure out the structure, they don’t point out beginnings and ends well enough for you to not be confused whenever a new foundation or arc starts. For example, episode seven is meant to start both the Nao and Sora arcs, but it acts so much like it’s just the start of Nao’s arc, made all the more confusing when Nao and Haru start dating in the end of the episode.

Many VN adaptations try to have their cake and eat it too, which usually results in a complete mess. The MC will have some degree of romance with each available love interest, making him come off like a total slut who couldn’t give a shit in a bucket about any of the girls he’s pursuing – most certainly not whichever one is meant to be the canon partner.

Amnesia, as much crap as I give the series, did it best because they had a structure where the MC would jump from one world or timeline to another where each world she visits is one where she’s dating another guy. She does technically get with all of the guys in some way – but she’s never really cheating on any of them at any point. Not to mention that she has amnesia, so if she is dating any of them in her real timeline, she wouldn’t know it. Despite having wet toilet paper for a MC, it’s a rather brilliant way of pulling this off.

Yosuga no Sora, on the other hand, is too sloppy. I appreciate that they try to show all of the routes and stories without making Haru into an unlikable whore, but their structure, without a literal guide helping you along, is too confusing. Even with the guide, it’s a little frustrating.

Amnesia clearly defined when they were changing arcs. Each arc change was triggered by the MC friggin’ dying in a terrible accident and then suddenly waking up in another world.

What does Yosuga no Sora have? Nothing to introduce anything and only a small ‘To be continued…’ or ‘fin’ at the end of each episode.

I would say that a sex scene will usually cap off an arc (It’s literally that way in every arc but Sora’s.) However, some arcs have sex in them even without ending the arc, so it’s still hard to tell.

Because each arc only has two (three for Sora) episodes to work with, obviously the relationship development is very fast, to the point of ridiculousness sometimes. They basically become lovers overnight much of the time.

The odd structure and pacing is made even worse by the fact that each episode is 20 minutes followed by the main theme song, and then we have an omake to go with the episode that also has its own ending theme song. Basically, a fifth of the episode isn’t even an actual episode.

Finally, even though I can see the weird structure being a benefit to whomever wanted to see the various routes animated, it’s disappointing because that means, in canon, none of the development that happened in the other three arcs actually happened. Canonically, Kazuha never dealt with her baggage regarding Akira nor did she come to see her father in a better light. Akira also never dealt with her parentage or found her mother’s necklace. The only one that doesn’t really matter to me is Nao’s arc because all of it was basically just her and Haru kissing Sora’s annoying ass the whole time.

I think the THEM reviewer was a bit harsh on the characters. I didn’t think they were as bad as the writer let on. Sora is definitely human feces in lolicon fodder form, but everyone else is pretty okay. Even Ryouhei, who I initially wrote off as being entirely the token pervert best friend, proves a couple of times that he really cares about his friends and tries to help them out. He’s still mostly just a massive pervert, but I’ll take whatever small victories I can get in this show. And, hey, he could be worse. He could be Daisuke from School Days….

Yeah, you can pretty much categorize all of the girls into their typical harem cliché types (Kazuha – prim and proper princess: Akira – energetic goofball: Nao – responsible glasses girl: Sora – useless lolicon bitch who can go die in a hole) but I think they have enough character to them for me to not just see them as that.

While you should read my full analyses on each arc to get a good grasp on my opinions of each route, here they are briefly.

Kazuha – Looking back, it’s kinda dull, but that’s really the worst of it. Kazuha’s relationship to Akira is a bit extreme, but also somewhat sweet. I think Haru’s at his best, boyfriend-wise, in this arc.

Akira – The story involving her origins was more interesting than her relationship with Haru, and they actually did make me give a damn about her parentage. Akira was definitely my favorite character, and she’s the most hilarious character in the omakes, so I enjoyed this one quite a bit. More interesting than Kazuha’s arc, but the relationship wasn’t as well done.

Nao – This arc is very uncomfortable and pretty much impossible for me to enjoy or support because it’s origins lie in Nao raping Haru when they were twelve. Then they pretty much sweep it under the rug like it wasn’t a rape. After a pathetic rape “apology,” they develop a sexual relationship, and the rest of the arc is dedicated to kissing Sora’s annoying bratty ass so she’ll accept Nao into their lives, which she doesn’t do because she’s a bitch.

I did like Nao because she makes an honest effort to both respect Haru’s relationship with his sister and legitimately build one of her own with Sora, having a bit of a badass moment in the end for her troubles, but the rape sitting in the back of my head won’t go away. If that didn’t exist, I would fully support this relationship, even if it is just enabling Sora’s terrible behavior even more. She has a good thing with Haru and she’s a pretty decent person. However, this arc is a chore to sit through because Sora’s such an annoying character and the focus is heavily on her.

Sora – The worst of the lot, made all the worse because it’s the canon arc, Sora is a horrible, garbage-tastic character who lines up well with the likes of characters such as Iku from BwInKwS and Heroine from Amnesia in being a useless tool – now with an added dose of ultra-bitch.

She’s completely useless in everything, is petty, lazy, disrespectful, possessive of her brother, treats her brother like crap, has massive tantrums over the smallest things, whines and moans about not wanting to be alone yet makes no effort to care about or hang out with their friends at school (only when Haru is there does she partake in anything, and even then it’s very unlikely) and causes nothing but problems whenever the focus is given to her.

She “loves” Haru out of dependency and lust, and Haru “loves” her because of lust and a love of her needing him because of the aforementioned uselessness. It’s like a much less interesting and very watered down version of Seh-Wah and Seh-Joon from Flowers of Evil, and they even have basically the same background story of the sister falling ill as a child and the brother becoming overly protective as a result.

There are no real emotions here. There’s no tender love. It’s all just sex and horniness, and we’re all supposed to feel bad for them in their struggle to be together against all odds. Kiss my ass.

I will admit that some of the drama involving Haru is done okay in this arc, because he actually acknowledges and feels the weight of such a taboo on his shoulders, unlike Sora who doesn’t give a shit, even if it hurts Haru, but that good point is very short lived.

I am forever annoyed that this is the canon route. In any other game, her route would probably be some messed up bad end type route, but nope. It’s canon, and it’s supposedly the best end. Pft.

Motoka (Omake) – Motoka, who is the maid of Kazuha’s family and a college student somewhere in her 20’s, Motoka stars in her own little non-canon arc in omakes that play after each episode. She develops a relationship with Haru, it becomes sexual very quickly, and they eventually get married. I won’t lie, these omakes were pretty entertaining, especially whenever Akira was on screen. They’re funny, and the way they’re animated is cute. I think the sex scenes are too out of place here, though. They switch to the regular art and animation style whenever a sex scene pops up because of course they do, and it kinda just takes me out of the whole thing.

Also, the age difference might put some people off.

Art and Animation: I think this show fares pretty well in this department. Some of the character designs are memorable, the backgrounds are quite nicely made, and everyone has decent proportions and details to them. While this isn’t the most animation-heavy show ever, it’s animated perfectly fine.

Music: Actually pretty good, but also fairly repetitive. The song that plays at nearly every slightly emotional moment is so frequently played that it got stuck in my head many times while I was in the process of watching the series.

Voice Acting: Japanese – While no one was really outstanding, no one got on my nerves either. Akira’s VA got grating sometimes when she was being overly excitable, and Sora’s VA was annoying just because it perfectly fit her shitty garbage can of a character….which…good…job? It’s childlike, low and whiny while also being shrill and obnoxious when she throws tantrums.

Bottom Line: I was surprised to see this show didn’t get panned across the board, but it’s also really difficult to find level-headed people who have both watched this anime and chose to review it. It’s weird when I can safely say the most well-written analyses on this show came from the comments section on the website I watched it on, and most of those comments were crap.

Most of the people who were having shining (10/10 ratings sometimes!) reviews for this show I just…don’t get.

First, most of them just seem to be out against the people who don’t like this show because of the incest. I know because that’s what most of their reviews start with. Like everyone’s just throwing this lost gem away because ew icky brother and sister. It’s like they want to brag about not caring about the incest aspect and want to seem more mature and refined because they look beyond such things.

Second, they seem to give WAY too much credit to Sora and Haru’s story, to the point where several said it was their favorite. I just check out after that because I cannot compute those words. I stated in my full review of Sora’s arc that, even if they weren’t related, their relationship is unhealthy bullshit built on lust and codependency – and it is. Even if they were as biologically and legally far away from each other as possible, I still wouldn’t support them.

Third, people keep claiming the sex scenes have meaning…..No…they don’t. Almost all of them are random and pointless.

Kazuha’s was, what, celebration sex after realizing her dad wasn’t as much of a douchebag as she thought he was initially?

Akira’s was ‘thank you’ sex for helping figure out the secret of her parentage, I guess.

Nao’s first one was pointless child on child rape. The second may have had a point just to call back to the rape, maybe at least where Sora is involved, but also could have gotten across in a better way. And the final one was…what? Celebratory ‘Sora gives us her blessing’ sex against a wall outside at the summer festival?

Sora’s masturbating scene had a point, I suppose, because it made Haru realize that Sora was all horny for him, though he could have been made aware of that any other way, like, say, her laying in the doorway nearly naked and asking in a flirty voice with a smirk if he’s turned on and then offering her naked body to him. Yeah, that might work. If only they did that—oh wait.

The first actual sex scene was just sex, the BJ scene was also just random sex – about the only one I’ll give credit to is the one where they do it in the doorway because it was the catalyst for them getting caught….and that was pureblooded stupid.

And don’t try to tell me that one of the main points of this series isn’t just flatout showing sex. At two points in the omakes, the writers apologize for not having ‘porn.’ They know what they’re making – stop trying to make this out like it’s so much deeper than it is.

I am really baffled, quite frankly, at how many reviews I keep seeing that make this anime out like it’s so poignant and beautiful. I don’t think it’s nearly as bad as the THEM review made it out to be, but it’s still loaded with significant problems and massive annoyances.

However, the ones that are in the opposite extreme seem just as bad. They don’t really give credit where I believe credit is due, and they write off everything as just being terrible and cliché without going into detail beyond many of the characters fitting archetypes. I think I’m one of very few who settled on the middleground here, even if it is more slanted towards the negative just because the negative parts take up more episodes.

If incest squicks you out or you’re looking for a fully well-written romance title with various routes to it, look elsewhere. Even if you don’t mind incest, there has to be better titles than this that you can enjoy.

I’d at least watch Kazuha’s and Akira’s arcs since their stories technically link and have some pretty interesting material in there, but skip Nao’s arc because it’s so uncomfortable and loaded with Sora being an immature twat, and skip Sora’s because it’s completely insufferable. It will be easy to separate the series like this since Kazuha and Akira’s arcs are on a completely different branch of continuity.

If you’re just in it for the sex scenes, might I direct you to inputting the word ‘hentai’ into Google?

I’ll be serious with you on this matter for the moment. The sex scenes are usually pretty tasteful and well-animated, even though Haru hardly ever takes his clothes off and that bugs me more than it should (I just don’t understand why he doesn’t do it). The second (or first non-rape) sex scene with Nao is a bit weird because, due to the way they censored it, it’s almost like Haru and Nao aren’t even in the same space. Like I don’t see how he’s in the position he’s in and she’s in the position she’s in without seeing either of them on screen together at all when they’re given focus. Not even a little shot of leg or arms. Nothing.

But really that’s not a good reason to watch this show. There are well-written and nicely animated hentai out there – they do exist. Go off and get off somewhere else.

Additional Information and Notes: Yosuga no Sora was based on an adult visual novel of the same name. The series was directed by Takeo Takahashi, who also directed Aki Sora (Which is another twincest nightmare that is basically non-hentai hentai…..Oh god, I feel like I have to review that now. Urgh.) Love Love?, Spice and Wolf and Citrus (Which is also basically incest and insanely problematic, which means I’ll probably also review this sometime in the future….When did I get on this weird, infuriating and icky train?)

It was written by Naruhisa Arakawa, who also wrote Blue Seed, DN Angel, Elemental Gelade, Spice and Wolf and a whole lot of episodes of Tokusatsu series.

Yosuga no Sora was animated by Feel, who also did work on KissxSis, Da Capo II, Corpse Princess and….Uh…Bikini Warriors.

Believe it or not, the series is indeed licensed in America.

Gee, I wonder who holds this license.

Golly, it’s Media Blasters.

I am shocked.

Just…..shocked.

Episodes: 12

Year: 2010

Recommended Audience: Just short of being hentai. You see plenty of boobs and full-on sex, complete with thrust motions. There are also two masturbation scenes, a blowjob, and the super uncomfortable child on child rape. The only thing that separates this from being hentai is that you never see genitals and usually Haru is cut out of the shot so you just see the girl moving, and when you see Haru moving, the girl is usually out of the shot. It’s basically as hardcore as ecchi gets. Also, I guess I’ll throw in incest here, since that is an iffy topic for people. 17+

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Yosuga no Sora Arc Breakdown Episodes 10, 11 and 12 (FINALE) Sora’s Arc

Plot: Even though he has started dating Nao, Haru finds himself struggling with increasingly lustful thoughts of Sora. When the tension comes to a head and the twins start a sexual relationship, they try to find bliss in secret, but such a taboo cannot be kept under wraps for long.

Breakdown: I’m going to cut my losses and just evaluate every episode as quickly as I can while still covering all of my bases.

Episode 10 – In episode seven, Haru started a romantic relationship with Nao. However, he keeps becoming preoccupied with thoughts of Sora. At this point, it’s not that bad. He has a dream about kissing her, one memory of kissing her when they were kids, and it’s implied that he revved up the crotch engine during that dream sequence. He’s very adamant about pushing these thoughts away, both because he realizes the taboo and social stigma involved and because he doesn’t want to be unfaithful to Nao.

Speaking of Nao, her personality is a little bit different from the way it is in her arc. There, she’s very much open if not insisting on trying to do things with or for Sora so she can be more accepted as Haru’s girlfriend. She’s still reserved and shy, but she’s also very open and caring.

Here, she’s a little on the obnoxious side. She becomes kinda clingy to Haru and there are even a couple of occasions where she’s overbearing and cringey. For instance, when she’s planning her date with Haru over the phone, she rolls on the floor and plays with the phone cord. This isn’t even in her bedroom – the phone is between the front door and the stairs. It’s not something unheard of for a teenage girl with a new boyfriend to do, but it seemed odd for Nao to do.

Even though she slightly tries to get on Sora’s good side, you can definitely tell that Haru’s preoccupation with Sora is quickly starting to bother Nao, especially when they go on their first date.

It’s not too bad of a shift in character, but it’s clear that they’re making her look a bit annoying so we’ll root for Sora more – not that that’s humanly possible. Not going to commit to saying Nao the rapist would be better than Sora just because she’s a terrible human being, but I am going to imply it quite a bit.

Granted, Haru’s not really being a good boyfriend. He goes on a date with Nao, and most of what he gets excited about doing he does for Sora like buying her a cute hair clip and buying something she’d like for dinner.

Speaking of that date, it’s time to talk about Sora. Guess what she’s doing. If you said ‘Being a useless, bitchy waste of oxygen’ you’d get a cookie for paying attention for the past ten episodes.

Sora lays in the doorway in nothing but a towel because she says it just felt nice and cool on a hot day (Go take a cold shower….and not for THOSE reasons.) and then she teases Haru, claiming he’s getting turned on by her.

When Haru makes the date with Nao, Sora lies to him and says he promised he’d take her shopping for a cute hair pin that day. I know she lied because she, for some reason, writes an apology for lying in her computer to Haru, saying she did it because he’s spending too much time with ‘that woman.’

Haru can’t find the heart to turn down Nao’s date, which he believes he’s keeping secret from Sora under guise of going out with Ryouhei, but of course she knows. When he tells Sora this, she has a temper tantrum and says she doesn’t want to go at all anymore, even though Haru offers to go any other day of the week.

Sora, you’re sixteen years old. Go shopping by yourself. I don’t care about your supposed illness we barely ever see actually existing. Does Haru think Sora is so frail that she can’t even do that by herself? In the Nao arc, she went to the beach alone just fine.

Nao and Haru come home to make curry for Sora, but Haru sends Nao home when he discovers Sora acting strangely. She had a nightmare that he left her all alone. After he hugs her and says that would never happen, he goes off to make her curry.

The next day, Sora and Haru are walking to school when they meet Nao. Haru has to cover up that he was on a date with Nao yesterday. Nao, realizing Haru hasn’t told Sora yet out of supposed embarrassment, helps with the coverup and says she just bumped into him while he was grocery shopping and meant to help Haru with the curry.

Sora suddenly stops and claims she’s too weak to walk very fast, so she sends Nao off ahead so she won’t be late for school. She legit says this with a bitchy smirk.

Sora: “You’ll be late if you wait for us.”

Nao, realizing Sora’s a cunt—oh excuse me, respecting that Sora will take a while to accept her, and later expressing that she was put off by Sora’s defensiveness, agrees to walk ahead. And then Sora grabs onto Haru’s shirt again like a toddler.

Later, when Nao and Haru are having lunch, Haru actually says that Sora works him really hard and it feels like she doesn’t respect him. Whatwhatwhat? Is that self-awareness I see? Will Haru realize that his feelings for his sister are—I’m not even going to do this sarcastic bit. This statement affects nothing.

And then we get to the end of the episode. Haru peeks in on Sora in her bedroom after hearing her call for him.

When he sees her, she’s masturbating and moaning Haru’s name.

Haru actually collapses in front of the door, covers his mouth with his hand….and starts crying. Yeah, that kinda threw me for a loop too. I thought he’d jack it at the door at least, if not take the opportunity to come in for the assist, but nope. I was impressed that they chose to actually have him struggle with this.

For a bit anyway.

Episode 11 – Haru is on his second date with Nao, but his mind won’t stop wandering to images of Sora masturbating to thoughts of him. Building on the fact that he reacted to this by crying and nearly collapsing in the doorway, you’d think maybe he’s just having a deep internal struggle about what to do with Sora because this is obviously insanely awkward.

Nope.

He’s just a horndog.

Did I mention attempted rape in my last post? I think I did. Well, here ya go.

Haru has one too many daydreams of Sora going to town on herself so he suddenly drags Nao into a love hotel and forces himself on her. Nao has to physically push him away before he stops.

Nao questions whether he really loves her. He claimed he did, past tense, back in episode seven (I don’t remember that, but okay), but ever since that first kiss, he’s been really distant and strange. We learn later that he responded by saying he honestly doesn’t know if he loves her, which is really shitty. Never, ever tell someone you love them and then say you don’t know if you love them. Feelings change over time, and if that happens, then fine, that’s just the way things go. But feelings of love don’t change in a period of a couple days.

Sora does the first useful thing she’s ever done ever when Haru comes home to several neatly folded stacks of laundry. In a surprising turn of events, Sora actually proclaims that she wants to do more to help him out since they only have each other now.

The next day at school, Haru does something kinda comical. He researches the history involved with incestuous relationships….in the school library. Discretion was never really his strong suit, was it? (As we’ll definitely find out at the end of this episode. Foreshadowing~~~)

Kozue, who is another girl in the group, but doesn’t get her own arc in the anime, catches him and asks about it. He, surprisingly, talks about what he was researching. She says it’d be shocking to see such a relationship in real life. Kozue is very averse to the whole idea of incest and has stated that in passing a couple times now. Keep that in mind because I guess it’s kinda important later maybe?

That following morning, Haru discovers Sora is sick with a severe fever. And of course it’s such a bad fever that she’s dripping with sweat. Only one thing to do. Guide her into a cool bath, get an ice pack, do what sensible people would do—I mean strip her naked in bed and wipe her down her whole body with a dry cloth.

After tending to Sora all day, Haru falls asleep by her bedside and Sora wakes him up with a kiss on the lips. Sora confesses her love for him, unable to hold back after all the naked rubdowns and whatnot. Haru gives in to his desires, kisses her back and confesses he also loves her too. They insert rod A into slot B (Eventually, because for some reason Haru has trouble finding slot B on Sora but no other girl. *shrug*) and start a romantic relationship.

Transition to the walk to school the next day. Sora is 100x more pleasant to be around now. I guess she just needed to get laid to cure her horrible virus of a personality.

Don’t believe me? When she gets home, she prepares dinner and vows to work hard to learn to cook well since all she can make is frozen food and instant soup right now. Then she asks for a kiss as a reward, which he gives her. Good dog—I mean, girl.

So is she really doing all of this just because she wants to help Haru or is she fishing for sex rewards?

Anyhoo, I should bring up that Haru is cheating on Nao. They never officially break up, even though what happened at the love hotel would break up any relationship, but she seems to want to still be friendly with him and they never outright say they’re ending it. Also, on the Wiki page, it says she ends the relationship later than this so I’m standing by my claim that he’s totally cheating on her….with his sister. Haru’s an asshole, yup yup.

Since Sora is apparently too dense to realize the social taboos involved with incest, and Haru still doesn’t understand discretion, the group at school quickly become suspicious of the twins’ overly friendly behavior and spending too much time together. Kozue even confronts Haru about it, but he covers it up by saying she spent so much time in the hospital when she was younger that getting sick like that again triggered his need to give her some extra attention.

And by “extra attention” I mean his dick.

And by “his dick” I mean the next scene is Sora giving Haru a blowjob at home.

Haru is apprehensive because of the confrontation with Kozue the previous day, but Sora pays it no mind, explaining that they’re special because they were apart for a really long time, so it’s fine for them to do it.

Before I get my psychology hat on again, Sora and Haru grew up with each other. He just didn’t see her as often because she spent so long in the hospital. But as far as I know he visited her fairly frequently, so this claim is just stupid.

Even if they were apart completely for however long she was in the hospital, which I think was for a couple years at most considering we know they spent plenty of time together out when they were little kids, that means nothing. You don’t make up for lost time with a sibling by plowing them.

They’re late for school because of the blowjob, and Haru gets to class just to have a daydream about more blowjobs.

He rushes out of school the instant the bell rings so he can go home with Sora and do the intercourse some more.

Now buckle up because they’re about to amp up the lack of common sense and discretion by about 1000.

They start making out in the doorway, which eventually leads to them starting to screw in the entryway of the front door.

The unlocked front door.

The unlocked front door that also has large windows on either side.

Golly.

I wonder what happens next.

Kozue, who is just as suspicious as ever about Haru and Sora’s relationship, finds Haru’s cell phone in his desk and internally debates going to his house to give it back. Nao arrives and asks her about it. Only then does Kozue decide to go, which is weird because if she thinks Haru and Sora are pogo sticking each other, why would she want to bring Nao, who is supposedly his girlfriend, along?

Have I ever mentioned that Nao is Haru and Sora’s NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOR by the way? Because apparently neither of the twins understand that voices are loud, and maybe in addition to the doorway sex being a bad idea, LOUD doorway sex is even worse.

Nao and Kozue arrive and hear the loud doorway sex. Both are stunned, and Kozue rushes in to get….I really feel weird saying this, but just about the best possible view of this sex to catch them in to ensure they’re both dumbfounded. It’s almost like Haru and Sora were filming a porno and had the camera in front of the door. He is taking her from behind, and they are both straight on facing the door. And, of course, they happen to come in right as Sora is hitting her high note.

Haru and Sora are both stunned, though, really guys, come on. It’s like you wanted to get caught. Sora did point out where they were to Haru before they got down and dirty, but all they ended up saying was that it made it exhilarating. Yeah it’ll be real exhilarating when you get caught and ostracized by the whole town.

Which brings us to…

Episode 12 – Kozue runs out of the house screaming like she just caught a brother and sister having sex—oh wait. And Nao solemnly apologizes, leaves and shuts the door.

Can we all have a moment of silence for Nao here? She not only found out her boyfriend was cheating on her, but he was cheating on her with his sister. His terrible sister.

And just to highlight how terrible she is, after Nao and Kozue leave, Sora seems to give zero fucks about the repercussions this could have on Haru (even if she, personally, doesn’t care what any of them think about her) and immediately tries to goad him back into sex while he continues to sit there in utter shock and dismay.

I guess they did go back to sex, because the next morning Sora is getting breakfast stark naked.

(Can I mention that it’s weird that each sex scene has Haru fully clothed? Every time. He doesn’t even take his pants off. He’s sometimes seen naked after the fact, but during the actual sex, he’s always fully clothed.)

Haru doesn’t want to go to school for obvious reasons, but Sora says it’s no big deal. Surprisingly, word hasn’t spread like wildfire about this. In fact, it appears as though Nao and Kozue kept their mouths shut about it.

When Haru sees Kozue, she looks HORRID. I guess she’s been up all night crying over this, making her eyes damn near glow red….Look, I get that it’s shocking, and Kozue also had feelings for Haru (you’d never really know outside of the attraction every girl gets for Haru. She just suddenly confesses to him while talking about the sex later.) but this is a bit of an overreaction, emotionally, for her. She’s barely a side character. If anything, Nao should be reacting like this, especially considering that, without Haru, she’s said to be very despondent and depressed.

That evening, Kozue tells Haru that she won’t tell anyone about what happened, but she wants him to know that she thinks what they’re doing is very wrong. She used to love him, but now she’ll never speak to him again.

Immediately after that, Nao talks with Haru. She says she had her suspicions about their situation, but didn’t want to think the worst.

Haru apologizes, and then…..he explains why he did it.

Therein lies the problem I have with this whole pairing.

Haru heralds back to when he and Sora were ten (Haru later says he found Nao two summers later, and they were 12 there, so they’re ten now.) She had just come home from the hospital, and he claims that the girl that came back from the hospital was not the same sister he knew. She was a delicate girl that made his heart race, and he couldn’t stop thinking of her like that.

Apparently, even as a littler kid, Sora was still a bitch because we see her snubbing Haru during dinner for no reason. So her shit personality is not because her parents died. That closes the door there.

Haru explains that Sora is not an honest person, so whenever she’d get scared or rely on him and cling to him like a toddler, his heart would go pitter patter.

In summary, he loves her and is attracted to her because she’s a useless pile of human goo. Excuse me, a CUTE useless pile of human goo.

He realized even back then that loving his sister in that way was wrong, so when he made a connection with Nao two years later, he tried to make it into true love, but it obviously didn’t go well. To his credit, Haru does make a sincere apology to Nao for hurting her, even though that doesn’t make up for attempted rape.

When Haru has his head down while apologizing, Nao approaches him. I was about to roll my eyes because I thought she was going to pet his head or hold him and comfort him, but instead she just smiles and gives us the second badass moment of this entire series.

Nao: “It really didn’t go well, yes.” She then turns around him and walks out of the room without another word.

Nao’s really handling this well for someone who not only just found out her boyfriend was cheating on her with his sister, but was also using her to help him avoid incest and nearly raped her to deal with his pent up sexual tension for her.

Haru cries when she leaves the room, but I don’t have any sympathy for the guy.

Like so many of these stupid incest “love” stories, the love isn’t real. Sora is overly dependent on Haru and completely fixated on him both emotionally and sexually. She has never made an effort to care for anything else besides the internet, junk food and Haru, and she constantly treats Haru like crap – like he’s obligated to spend all of his time with her and take her places and cook for her. Only recently has she finally decided to start doing stuff around the house for him, and I really think that’s only because she wants to play housewife.

Haru’s just as bad. His love for Sora is only lust. The end. Like Yori in Boku wa Imouto ni Koi wo Suru, there are no likable aspects of his sister to fall in love with. I will admit Iku is at least a relatively nice person, but otherwise they’re both stupid, naïve, useless human beings who I’m surprised can blink without their brothers pushing and pulling their eyelids. Haru never states that he loves his sister for anything about her as a person – just that she’s cute and frail and he loves when she needs him.

But we’re still not done. Haru is moping in his room. When Sora tries to feed him whatever slop she piled together for dinner, she tries to get him to kiss her. For god’s sake, Sora, read the room. You can’t solve every problem Haru has with sex. Are you really so desensitized as a human being that you can’t understand what has happened? That he actually cared about the people who were hurt by your actions? Is getting your various holes plugged with Haru really all you care about?

He pulls away, but only for a moment before, suddenly, more attempted rape.

He grabs her by the face, shoves her to the floor, rips off the top of her dress and starts lapping at her boobs like a crazed dog.

Sora is initially panicked, but quickly chills out because who cares if it’s attempted rape as long as it’s Haru-kun? She even says this.

Sora: “I don’t mind if you mess me up. If you want to, Haru, you can.” Ugh.

Haru rushes over to the wall crying and says they should stop their relationship because it’s wrong. Sora has another tantrum because of course she does. She doesn’t understand why siblings can’t kiss or have sex. She doesn’t care what other people think of them – she just wants to be with Haru.

Haru suggests that there are other problems associated with incest, namely the issues that would come up with a baby if they were to have one.

Sora addresses that problem by saying she’d just get rid of it.

Fucking peach, she is.

Haru FINALLY slaps this bitch to the floor. I only say that celebratory now because I hate her so much – in regards to a romantic relationship, this is just a window to how unhealthy it would really be in the long run.

Later, at dinner, Sora asks why HARU would say such horrible things. What horrible things?! All he said was he didn’t want to have a relationship due to all of the terrible baggage that comes with it, both social and practical, then he told you not to say such terrible things like, oh I dunno, flippantly saying you’d have an abortion if you ever got pregnant with his kid.

Haru explains that he got a text from their uncle earlier. I guess he and their aunt (unrelated) were overseas. I forget that part of the story. They’re coming back to Japan and are offering residence. Haru and Sora were left with no money after their parents died, which just raises all sorts of questions.

Why would their parents leave them with no money? Did the uncle and aunt give them money? Because how have they been affording food, Internet, cell phones etc. if they were left with no money? The kids in town specifically said only rich kids have cell phones. Or is he saying the money they were left with is running out? Their parents seemed pretty well off, and it’s only been a couple of months, if that. Why do they have no money?

Their aunt and uncle can only take one twin each, however, so they’d be separated. Haru wants to do it so they can find happiness.

Sora has her biggest tantrum yet and trashes the kitchen before stomping off.

Days pass. Haru and Sora decide to stop going to school. Also, even though Haru is clearly against their relationship now, he seems perfectly willing to sleep with a naked Sora in his bed. He’s also having those same wet dreams about her.

They sleep all day, and when Haru awakens, he finds Sora’s room trashed. She even broke the window, ripped the curtains, tore the sleeves off of her uniform, ripped up her dress and her oh so precious stuffed bunny was torn to shreds. What the actual shit is wrong with this girl?

Anyway, Sora is missing. She texts him saying “I’m your little sister, but I want to kiss you…I want to become one with you…but I guess that bothered you after all…I’m sorry…” Isn’t it great that Sora keeps backhandedly blaming Haru for all of this while playing the victim? Especially after she’s the one who first put the moves on him?

Oh wait, no, that’s terrible, and she’s a shitty human being.

Also, isn’t it nice how this still isn’t about how their love is tormenting them so? And that it’s still about kissing and sex?

Oh wait, no. That’s shallow and toxic. Ignore me.

Haru rushes off to find her and bumps into Nao, who actually helps him try to look for her.

They stop to regroup for a bit, and Nao explains something that happened earlier. Before Nao went to confront Haru about his relationship with Sora, she went to the roof to talk to Sora.

Sora only said, “Now we’re even.” She’s speaking in regards to her seeing Nao and Haru have sex when they were 12.

That…is the first thing she says to Haru’s girlfriend….after Nao sees them playing human wheelbarrow. I’m not defending Nao’s rape, even if the show and Haru don’t treat it like a rape, but Sora is a cunt. Plain and simple. She doesn’t take this opportunity to apologize or try to show some sympathy or shame – for someone who used to be her friend, no less – she acts like this whole situation, the one that is currently ruining Haru’s life, is the perfect revenge on Nao for having the nerve to try and get with Haru in the first place.

Someone, please, tell me again why anyone with a living brain cell is meant to like this little she-demon.

Haru remembers Sora hearing how the lake behind the shrine is meant to be a place of rebirth, so he believes she might be there. He races to the shrine, avoiding Akira because he doesn’t know how he’d talk to her about it. He finds Sora at the lake, and I’m really thinking she wanted him to find her because it’s been several hours since she left and she’s barely up to her waist in water. If she was planning to kill herself in the lake, she’s taking her sweet time.

I guess neither of them can swim, because the instant their feet can no longer touch the bottom they’re both drowning. Also, they get teleported to a spot where the water is about 50 feet deeper somehow.

They’re both conscious but neither of them are even making an effort to swim back up. Haru’s even accepting his fate to die there with her so they can finally be together in a world far away. Yes, best big brother ever. Accept your death for the both of you and don’t even actually try to save her.

Miraculously, like really they never explain how, they both end up safe and sound on the steps of the shrine. There’s a trail of water leading to them, so I can only assume someone actually did save them, but I don’t know who. Haru never told Nao where he was going, and she was the only other person helping him look for Sora.

Resigned, Haru decides that he’s going to dedicate his life to making Sora happy no matter what. He no longer cares what anyone thinks, and, even though he doesn’t know how yet, he’ll somehow find them happiness.

This next shot change is confusing. As we go from night to morning, we also go from Sora and Haru kissing with all of their clothes on to the both of them half-clothed and hugging. Did they just have sex on the shrine steps or are they using body heat for warmth on this summer night?

Cut to some time later, Haru and Sora have left together, not even taking their stuff from home. Leaving one lone text on Kazuha’s phone. Haru explains that they’ve taken several planes and buses to get to an undisclosed location overseas to live together in peace to find happiness. What the…how? Did their uncle wire them money? Because they’re supposed to be broke, right?

Kozue wonders if they can really find happiness, and Nao explains that it’s possible because you can’t help who you fall in love with. Way to out their incestuous relationship to the others, Nao. Kozue vehemently disagrees, disbelieving that feelings can really be enough in their situation. Yup. I agree. If their relationship is really just lust and codependency, it will either be a lasting toxic relationship or a relationship with no staying power. I’m forced to think the former.

Brought to tears and broken down yet again, Kozue walks off ahead of the others. Again, why is she so violently affected by this? If you want to go ‘ew icky’ and lament your unrequited off-screen love, go ahead, but stop reacting like you just saw your parents die in front of you.

On a train leading wherever, Sora has a new identical bunny somehow (That has no connection to her mother now, so outside of continuing to make her look like a child, this was pointless to give her.) She tells Haru about some crumbs on his lips and sucks them off with her mouth while sitting on his lap and practically humping him. They’re alone on the train, but jeez, do you guys ever learn?

The end.

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It’s no real secret, but this arc is horrible. I don’t believe their “love” or support their relationship in the least. Even if they weren’t related, Sora is way too unlikable and Haru is way too driven by his dick for me to think this relationship is anything but hollow and unhealthy. Sora never takes Haru’s feelings into consideration, and when she does all she offers him in comfort is sex.

They’ll never find happiness wherever they go because I doubt they can keep the fact that they’re siblings a secret. Oh that’s right. I didn’t mention the fact that the location they’re heading to is somewhere that their parents had connections. That’s sure to end well. Their complete lack of discretion will also mean they’ll certainly be caught easily.

But hey, I guess like most of these poorly written ‘taboo’ relationships, these two dumbasses deserve each other. He wants a useless cute doll to take care of, and she wants Haru and only Haru. Works out in their weird little toxic world.

I saw a surprising number of people in the comments actually writing well-written analyses on their relationship and this series as a whole. Even though I respect their points, I can’t agree with damn near any of them. At the end of the day, Sora is a whiny, manipulative, useless, petty brat who got exactly what she wanted, and Haru is a doormat who can’t control his winky. It’s a sad state of affairs when I am seriously wondering whether or not BwInKwS is the better incest story here. I’d probably still side with YnS just because there’s less rapey-ness, but it’s still a close call.

Oh by the way, there’s a sequel game to the original visual novel called Haruka na Sora in which Sora and Haru, reportedly, get married somehow and, break out the cigars – they’re expecting a baby! Because who wouldn’t want to write in a pregnancy for a girl who flippantly said she’d just have an abortion if she ever got pregnant?

This arc can kiss every part of my ass.

Next time, the full series review.

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Yosuga no Sora Arc Breakdown Episodes 8 and 9 (Nao’s Arc)

Plot: After starting a relationship with Nao, she and Haru have great difficulty dealing with Sora’s reaction to their romance.

Breakdown: Since Nao and Haru already established a relationship in episode seven, this arc is about Sora dealing with their love.

And according to my eyes, ears and whatever remains of my brain cells, she takes it approximately….bad.

Episodes eight and nine are literally just Sora being a completely immature, bratty, possessive little cunt.

I don’t like saying the c-word. So I keep it reserved for special people who deserve it.

Sora is one such person.

If you thought Sora was useless, apathetic, abrasive and annoying before, buckle up, buttercup, it’s about to get so much worse. This arc is a trial of my patience. Every thing that happens, Sora has a fit about. She’s either being passive-aggressively bitchy or she’s being full-on bitchy, all the while maintaining her inability to do a single thing ever. She’s seriously in the running for most infuriating female anime character I’ve ever seen. Yes, Heroine from Amnesia might have some competition. At least Sora gets a name, but Heroine’s not a bitch.

Starts out innocently enough. Sora overhears Haru saying he’s with Nao, so she amps up the cold aloofness towards them, but most particularly towards Nao. She is doing everything in her power to get Sora to accept her, but Sora won’t budge an inch.

Granted, they made quite the INSANELY STUPID error of forking each other in the goddamn living room with the view to the outside wide open and the door to the main house open a crack, allowing Sora to catch them doing the dew….again. Bear in mind, she was also audience to Nao’s rape of Haru back when they were kids.

After this, she literally throws Nao out of the house, not even allowing her to put her shirt back on, and bars her from ever seeing Haru again, claiming this is just like back when she had sex with him back in the day. In her mind, Nao is forcing herself between Sora and Haru. When Nao leaves, Sora rushes into the kitchen, dumps the curry that Haru and Nao made for her into the sink and chucks the pot onto the floor.

Nao decides to break up with Haru for Sora’s sake, but Haru convinces her to get back together, promising that he’ll have a talk with Sora about it. However, Sora’s too much of a stubborn bitch to even let him get a word in. Nao continues to try to get on Sora’s good side, but she won’t have it.

It eventually gets to the point where Sora is faking sick (badly….at least fake a cough or something.) so Haru will stay home with her instead of going to the beach with Nao and the others. It doesn’t work, but he says he’ll come home immediately if she texts him.

Sora heads to the beach since she’s too hot to stay home (and apparently doesn’t possess the ability to make ice in her freezer…..I am not kidding.) When she gets there, she sees Haru has been nearly drowned and is on the beach, unconscious and not breathing. She does nothing. She doesn’t even panic. She’s scared of living a life without him, but he’s basically dead in front of her and she has no reaction.

Nao does CPR on him, saving his life, and while it seems like this might be the moment Sora would start accepting Nao…..Nope.

She heads home.

Meanwhile, Haru, Nao and the others head to the shrine to check out the summer festival setup when Haru gets a text from Sora, alerting him to come home due to her illness. When he arrives, Sora is sprawled out over the floor, seemingly passed out. He panics, and when he tries to get Sora to wake up, he discovers that she’s fine. She hugs him and tells him to never leave her. Panicking your brother for no reason when you have a history of ‘illness.’ Nice.

She continues to play sick for a while, but it’s not working. When he leaves to go to school one day, Sora refuses to go. Haru finally seems like he’s getting fed up with her shit and moves to meet Nao at the end of the path leading to their house. Sora steps between them and forces him to choose either her or Nao. Haru decides to go to school with Nao.

When Haru arrives home, Sora is gone, leaving a message saying she wants them to leave this village. Haru, Nao and their friends search all over the village trying to find her for hours when Nao finally finds her hiding in the bus stop.

Conveniently, a bolt of lightning strikes the bus stop after Nao and Sora exit, catching it on fire. Sora’s stuffed bunny is still in the bus stop, though. It’s the last thing Sora has as a memento of her mother. Nao decides to do the only badass thing done in this series – she goes into the building to get the bunny.

Meanwhile, Sora is just sitting on the ground silently like a useless sack of shit. Even when the sign falls down and blocks the entryway, trapping Nao inside the blazing inferno, what does Sora do? Yell out for Nao? Call for help? Try to douse the fire somehow? Try to move the sign? Why would she do any of those things when she could do literally nothing? Not even care. She just sits on the ground with that stupid look on her face.

Nao kicks the sign down in one swoop from the other side and walks out of the bus stop with the bunny, her skin and clothes steaming with the heat and rain combined. Doesn’t make up for the rape, Nao, but good job.

Sora, being a cunt, doesn’t even thank her for what she did or ask if she’s okay, she just takes the bunny. She admits that she was worried Haru would throw her away if he got with Nao. With her mother and father gone, she’s afraid of Haru leaving her all alone. Still a piss-poor excuse.

I would allow this if Sora was just being grumpy and not welcoming Nao with open arms, but her actions were WAY over the top, overly possessive towards Haru and cruel to Nao.

Not only that, but she has no reason to believe Haru would just throw her away. He does literally everything for her and dotes on her all the time. A good chunk of what Nao and Haru are doing together is either for Sora or something Sora is fully invited to partake in because everyone’s going. If anything, she’d just have one more person to dote on her and baby her like the infantile piece of shit she is. She’d be LESS alone than she is if she accepted Nao.

She’d be less alone if she were less of a cold bitch, too. Every one of the group at school treats Sora like a friend – they’re nice to her, they do things for her, they invite her out to stuff all the time, but she almost never gives a crap about them. She always choose to sit at home lazing about in bed, doing whatever she does on her computer and munch on chips.

In addition, that really shows bad faith in Haru if she believes finding a girlfriend would make him dump her like that.

And what is Haru supposed to do – never have a love life? Never get married and have a family of his own? Dedicate his entire being to catering to a useless vegetative ungrateful little bitch his whole life?

Considering this is supposedly an arc where Sora isn’t in love with Haru, does this mean she never wants to go off and get married to some poor bastard or have kids who will probably die shortly after childbirth because she’d be too lazy to do anything for them? Maybe get a job where she will be promptly fired for getting everyone else to do her work for her and being a bitch to everyone?

Also, remember, Sora is 16 not 6. I feel the need to remind everyone of this because it’s very easy to confuse that fact given her behavior and appearance.

After the bus stop incident, Sora seems to finally accept Nao and oh so graciously allows her and Haru to date.

Nao and Haru bone at the summer festival right out in the open because why learn to have discretion?

The end.

As for the Nao and Haru relationship outside of that, it’s fine in regards to how they mesh with each other, but it’s also unhealthy and one I can’t support.

Not only is there the obvious rape issue, but according to Ryouhei, Nao is extremely depressed and listless when Haru is not around, and it’s been that way since Haru left four years ago. So, basically, her happiness is dependent upon him and he feels obligated to be by her side to make her happy. (Side note, even though I’ve never seen her dad, her home life seems fine now.)

They pretty much went through their own separate story in episode seven, so there’s not much to talk about here in regards to their relationship – the arc is almost entirely focused on Sora.

In essence, I pretty much hated this arc. That one badass moment in the end does not make up for 40+ minutes of Sora being a spoiled little selfish toddler.

As for the Motoka omakes this time around, graphic sex scene in episode eight, implied one in episode nine. It’s actually a bit weird that I’m almost certain Motoka will be the one to get the most action out of all of the girls in canon.

Next and final arc, but also the most painful to deal with, Sora’s arc. Just a heads up, more attempted rape, cheating, and of course uncomfortableness courtesy of incest. Let’s just get this over with.

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Yosuga no Sora Arc Breakdown Episode 7 (Foundation of Nao and Sora’s Arcs)

Plot: Branching back to episode one, this episode creates the building blocks of Nao’s arc and Sora’s arc. Nao and Haru are developing feelings for each other again after being separated for four years, but a sin in Nao’s past from that last summer with Haru is haunting her. In addition, Sora does not support their budding romance at all to say the least.

Breakdown: I want to explore this topic all in one go since it’s so heavy and complicated, so be warned that this part of the review will spoil some parts of Nao’s arc, if you care.

One of the reasons I was very wary of addressing this episode wasn’t simply that rape is a part of it. I’ve talked about that several times already, and even though I still don’t like discussing it, I feel like I can do so without much hesitation. The actual reason was because 1) The rape is a big part of the backstory of the NaoxHaru pairing and 2) the rape in question is of the kind in which I have very little knowledge. It’s such an odd circumstance that I had great difficulty broaching the topic, especially in regards to any future relationship between the two.

I did my best, is all I can say. Which is at least better than what the writers did.

While episode seven does technically set the foundation of Nao and Sora’s arcs, unlike episode two which was pretty evenly set between Kazuha and Akira in regards to romantic development, episode seven is extremely slanted towards Nao to the point where it could technically just be a part of her arc entirely. In fact, Nao and Haru are officially together by the end of the episode, which is another thing that will make Sora’s arc all the more painful.

Haru and Nao knew each other from when he last visited the village as a child. One day, Nao ran away from her house after hearing her parents arguing again. She went to Haru’s house where he was laying in the doorway to the porch. Suddenly, we cut to her on top of him and she just….rapes him.

There is literally no more to that backstory. She was upset, she found Haru and raped him. She appears happy after it happens and only expresses guilt and shame after she sees Haru sprawled out on the floor with his shorts down with an empty look on his face.

Now…first and foremost, obviously rape is wrong. There is no arguing that. There is also no argument that boys can’t be raped for any stupid reason like guys are too strong in comparison to girls to be raped, or guys always want sex anyway so they can’t be raped. Those are incredibly harmful mindsets that only perpetuate the problem and stigma of sexual assault against men and boys.

What Nao did was wrong. She realizes this too late, but she does realize this.

The circumstances, however, and the lack of details make me question how drastically this skews my opinion on….pretty much everything involving Nao’s arc.

They’re twelve here (they’re 16 now and this happened four years ago), and she obviously knows what sex is because she easily does it (she’s on top) and is even guiding him to grope her breasts. However, is she too young to understand that forcing sex on someone is wrong, even when it’s a female on male situation? Is she even making the connection that Haru doesn’t want this due to his seeming lack of resistance? She understands afterward, and he didn’t really change his expression the entire time, so what dots aren’t connecting here?

Note – I’m not saying lack of resistance or negative response is consent, it’s certainly not, but is she at an age where she knows this and can process this?

I feel kinda shitty thinking about this so hard, because I think, if the circumstances were reversed (IE the genders were reversed), my knee-jerk reaction would be one of anger and blame without really taking into consideration the age or maturity level.

My position here is pretty frustrating, though, due to the lack of information. For all I know, she went there intentionally and planned to have sex with him because she saw him as a comfort to the arguing we heard for all of 10 seconds, I guess, instead of just stumbling upon him and making the quick decision to jump him for comfort. All I know for certain is that she had sex with him to make herself feel better about her home life.

Even the Wiki page is very low on details about this or her connection to Haru. “When the Kasugano twins last visited the area, their departure was particularly painful for Nao, who, for some reason, had grown quite close to Haruka, after having raped him on one occasion, about which she expresses guilt.”

I briefly flipped through episodes eight and nine to get a better idea of this situation. I did get a tiny bit more insight into why Nao liked Haru back then, but it’s super short and kinda stupid. He comforted her when she was crying once and, not lying, said she was prettier when she smiled. Plenty basis for a crush. Not so much on the rape.

This problem still extends into present time. Nao feels guilty about what she did, and has since that day, which is why she tries to shoot down any suggestion that Haru has feelings for her or that they should get together. However, she still starts a relationship with Haru. She is plenty old enough to know what rape is now, and she SHOULD be fully aware that she raped him. Starting a relationship with Haru, even if he seems game, should be the last thing she should think about doing. No basis of a healthy relationship involves rape.

In addition, once you reach the ending you get the idea that she moreso thought Haru hated her for what she did or that he simply didn’t like the sex or her, not that she wanted to avoid a relationship with him out of guilt and shame for, ya know, being his rapist.

I didn’t want to paint Nao as a monster if she really didn’t understand what she was doing, but I also DEFINITELY don’t want it to seem like I’m giving her a pass or over-sympathizing with her because she’s a girl – that’s completely unfair.

One of the main factors that helped clear the air for me was, oddly enough, Sora’s view on this.

In episode eight, we’ll learn that Sora was watching the rape as it happened. Two things are brought to light that solidified that I do indeed need to press Nao as badly as I would in any normal situation because of what was said regarding the situation in Sora’s memory of it.

Keep in mind, Sora is the same age as Haru and Nao.

The first was what Sora says about her view on the situation:

Sora: “I didn’t know what you were doing at first (Nao knew what she was doing) but I knew you were doing something bad.” It’s possible that she was just talking about sex being something they shouldn’t be doing, but in the end she knows that this situation is bad, which is something Nao should know. What they are doing is wrong. She’s ignoring Haru’s reactions until the deed is already done and never stops to realize he’s not actively participating or question why – she just keeps going.

The second was something Nao says in this flashback. You distinctly hear Nao say “I’m sorry.” while the rape is happening. She’s off-screen, but there’s no reason for her to say that unless she’s realizing that there’s something wrong about what she’s doing.

So, logically, her sudden mood shift after the act from happiness to remorse is either her delusion fading, something isn’t matching properly in continuity or she was satisfied with herself without realizing what she did to Haru or taking his feelings into consideration, which is very feasible. Remember, she only went into this to get comfort for herself and assumed Haru would be good with it.

Back to….I guess I’ll say ‘motive,’ I’m certainly not going to give her a pass for whatever fleeting emotional stress she was going through because her parents were arguing a lot at the time. Many parents argue a lot, some of which to point of physical violence and constant disdain, and their children don’t suddenly burst into the rape scene. Running away like she did? Gotcha. Understandable. Crying? Definitely. Rape? No. It would be a stretch to say any 12 year old in her shoes would even seek consensual sex (with someone her age) in this situation.

And lastly, when Nao finally apologizes for it (which is in this episode) it’s not treated as a rape. Haru says he didn’t dislike it. He was just nervous because it was his first time and couldn’t say anything or even react much, I guess even several moments after it was over too. And immediately after saying that, he says they can finally move on.

Fuck you, Yosuga no Sora. You just dropped child on child rape onto my head and made me damn near go insane trying to properly approach this topic and write about it with respect, fairness, and understanding while still maintaining the seriousness of the situation and attributing proper blame to it, only for me to find out that you took this same topic, wiped your ass with it and flushed it down the toilet.

Let me admit something here. I know the ED for this show is usually around the 20 minute mark because of the omake and the two separate EDs, and I jumped the gun a little writing this analysis because I had a lot to say and wanted to write it out while I was still in the proper mindset. So I stopped the video at 18 and a half minutes, right after they fall on each other in the locker room. I knew they kissed after this and what happened in the short scene with Sora at the very end, since I had seen it flipping through, so I thought I was safe to start writing. I got a bit out of hand before it was too late, because that’s just what happens with me sometimes.

I only had one and half minutes – count it – ONE AND A HALF MINUTES left on the runtime for this episode when I felt the need to start writing. As I was wrapping up this part, I finish off the episode and suddenly there’s the resolution to the rape plot – written away as if it’s not even a rape plot, so let’s move on. Fuck you.

Rape is such a difficult topic to be included in stories without feeling gratuitous for shock value or for the sake of sex and fanservice, and this one just feels like it was for sex and fanservice, which is especially disturbing because these are kids. Ultimately, the rape was a plot device written to give a reason for Nao’s initial reluctance to get together with Haru and an additional reason for Sora to hate Nao and be afraid of her relationship with Haru – both of which can EASILY be accomplished with even more weight without the rape.

Hahahaha, not addressing serious issues of sexual assault on minors with any sort of gravity is hilarious.

Have Haru and Nao get really close and spend a ton of time together while Haru is visiting because her parents are always fighting and she needs a distraction, cheering up and comfort. Have Haru accidentally neglect Sora during this time because of all the time he’s spending with Nao. Maybe break a promise or something. Then have Nao think Haru hated her because he broke a promise to do something with her too because he went to do something with Sora to make up for neglecting her or something. Haru was unable to figure out anything was wrong or mend bridges with Nao before he left for home that summer. Then Haru and Nao clear up the misunderstanding four years later when they’re lead to the pool by Ryouhei and Akira.

Boom. Done. A rapeless equally effective setup.

I’m done talking about this stupidity. I am legitmately angry. Partially at myself because I wrote this much for a plot that is basically swept under the rug, but I didn’t want to blow by it either. Unlike the writers, I actually give a few shits.

As for how this affects my view on what happens between them in Nao’s arc, well, I don’t support any relationship where it’s a rapist and his/her victim getting it on. Even if this circumstance in particular is iffy, I don’t support it. The resonance this should have with Haru and Nao won’t come to pass. It will not be felt at all beyond this point other than with Sora, and I couldn’t give a frog fart about Sora’s feelings.

Oh yeah, I have to save some anger because we still haven’t talked about Sora’s role here.

Sora’s still a useless inactive waste of molecules. Since this is also the foundation of Sora’s arc, we get more fanservice with the continuation of the uncomfortable undressing scene from episode one that stupidly results in her asking him to get her measurements (neither version explains what the hell she was talking about with the ‘Let me come’ stuff.)

In this version, she actually kills the mosquito she was chasing in episode two by slapping it across Haru’s face, which is at least better than creating a bomb out of her room with endless hair spray. However, we also get more fanservice as she itches a bug bite on her upper thigh.

Since there’s so much focus on Haru’s relationship with Nao here, Sora obviously gets very jealous, childish and pissy. I can’t believe I had to hear Haru tell Nao that Sora is ‘cranky because she just woke up.’ Keep talking about her like the toddler she seemingly believes she is – you’re just going to make me more uncomfortable during her sex scenes in her arc.

She gets mad that Nao sews her uniform buttons on (It’s a school tradition for girls to do it themselves, like I mentioned before, but Sora and Haru both don’t know how, so in this version Nao did it.) This does drive Sora to teach herself how to sew, but it’s never made clear if she actually succeeds or not.

And, uh, that’s it.

Oh no.

Hang on.

Wait.

I did mention that there was a tiny bit with Sora at the very end of the episode. Yes, yes.

After Haru and Nao make up about the rape and make out at the pool, we cut to Sora who is typing at her computer.

Guess what she’s doing.

She’s typing “I hate Nao.” obsessively, over and over, like she’s in The goddamn Shining.

How can anyone with an ounce of sanity or intelligence in their bodies like this insane possessive little leech?

Oh and the cherry on top? The Motoka omake today also basically includes a rape scene on Haru. She rips his clothes off out of nowhere, literally jumps him while stripping, and after that we hear non-sexy screams from Haru coupled with very fast bed squeaking sounds before cutting to them sleeping naked in bed. Then Motoka feels deep shame for taking advantage of Haru while she was in a drunken rage, calling herself a terrible person….

…..THEN HARU BLAMES HIMSELF FOR IT. Because he was busy or neglecting her or whatever (They’re dating at this point).

In any other episode, I probably wouldn’t have gotten too angry at this, but this piled on top of the Nao stuff just cemented the insulting feeling all the more. So, one more time, fuck you, Yosuga no Sora.

Oh and yeah, can’t forget the lovely people in the comments section of the website I watched this on, where any time someone pointed out the rape it was met with either wishing they were Haru or acting like it wasn’t a problem because it was girl on guy, or acting like it wasn’t a rape because his lack of verbal or physical resistance and response basically implied consent to them.

Remember, kids. Never read the comments section if you treasure your brain cells.

Next up is Nao’s arc. I can’t promise I’ll be any less angry. I hope I got most of it out here. If Nao’s arc requires just as much of my anger reserves, I’ll probably die trying to do Sora’s.

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Space-Time Detective Genshi-Kun/Flint the Time Detective Episode 4 Sub/Dub Comparison – Princess Kaguya is Waiting?

Plot: Genshi, Sora and Tokio pursue the shy Space-Time Monster, Talun, who has the ability to enter into any storybook that it wants.

———————

They replace the first shot of the research facility with a different, panned, shot of it….at dusk for some reason.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

They also quickly reverse and speed up the shot of Genshi jumping to make it seem like he’s bouncing.

They replace a shot of Toki G close up with one of him from afar.

Subbed: 

Dubbed:

Title Change: Princess Kaguya is Waiting? is changed to Talen.

Name Change?: Talun is changed to Talen and is also pronounced differently. In the original, it’s pronounced like ‘Tail-uhn’ It’s a poke at the fact that it’s based off of the legend of the nine-tailed fox. Spelled mostly the same, the dub’s name can be pronounced the same, but the dub chooses to pronounce it like ‘Talon’ like a bird’s talon, which doesn’t make a lot of sense considering its design, but whatever.

They add in a closeup shot of Flint talking right after we see him running around in circles so they can pointlessly have him say “Let’s do the pizza dance everyone!”

Sora says that they seem to be enjoying themselves, and Tokio says Genshi is only quiet on two occasions – when it’s bath time and when he’s hungry. In the dub, Sarah says Flint’s always talking about food. Tony replies that Flint’s metabolism must have been affected when he was de-fossilized. I thought it was just because he was a stereotypical caveman character.

Sora teaches Genshi what friendship is. Sarah teaches Flint about modesty. Because that’s a necessary conversation at this moment for some reason even though it’s completely unrelated to everything that’s going on.

Sora explains friendship quite horribly in merely saying that she, Love-Love and the others are all friends with Genshi. Hey guys, let me explain how fire works to you. This is fire.

You understand?

Sarah at least explains somewhat properly what modesty is by telling Flint that he may indeed be the best dancer, but stating outright that he is such, as he just did, is unbecoming.

In the original, Genshi just dances around yelling ‘friends!’ over and over. In the dub, he doesn’t understand what Sarah tried to teach him and yells over and over that he’s the best dancer.

Originally, Tokio asks if Genshi really understands what friends are, and Sora happily exclaims that he does. Of course, Tokio, how could you insinuate that he didn’t understand that college-level lecture Sora gave on the topic? In the dub, Tony says he doesn’t think Flint gets the modesty thing, and Sarah happily explains that ignorance is bliss.

Rei doesn’t hear Professor Yamato’s comment insinuating that she’s beautiful. In the dub, she hears him, says the comment is inappropriate and, in a moment of ego, says her natural beauty is besides the point and to get ready for the mission.

They keep pronouncing Heian as Hai-yan.

They can’t even pronounce Suzaku correctly. They say ‘Suzeiku.’

Tokio’s line about the cow basically being a steak and thus something to eat is basically the same, but they add in that hamburgers also come from cows. I wouldn’t mention this if not for the fact that Sarah’s next line change is incredibly stupid as a response of this. She originally yells that it’s not a justification to bite a cow just because steaks come from cows. In the dub, she yells out, no, hamburgers come on a plate….

1) He said hamburgers come FROM cows, not ON cows.

2) Does she think hamburgers just magically appear on plates?

3) She seems to fully understand and accept that steaks come from cows but not that hamburgers also come from cows?

Talun’s name plate is painted away.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

The kanji on the girl’s book is removed.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

Genshi originally says that TP Lady is under arrest. In the dub, he just tells her to step aside.

In response to Genshi saying he’s too hungry to fight, TP Lady asks “What’s with this kid?” In the dub, she asks “Ah, how about a knuckle sandwich, pumpkin?” I wouldn’t be too bothered by this, but her facial expression in this shot does not, in any way, match what she’s saying in the dub.

Right before Genshi bites TP Lady, they edit in a back and forth shot of Petra’s leg and the hallucination of the radish. Dunno why. Think we can remember information we learned all of five seconds prior.

The original tale that TP Lady and Genshi fall into is the Taketori Tale or the Tale of the Bamboo Cutter or the Tale of Princess Kaguya. In the dub, Princess Kaguya’s name is changed to Princess Bamboo and the tale is just called the Tale of Bamboo.

Despite removing the title tag every other time, they accidentally leave it on in the far shot of the book as the kids and TP Lady’s goons are talking about what happened.

They insert a closeup of the book after Mite points at it.

Tokio, slow on the uptake I guess, points out that he recognizes the goons as TP Lady’s goons. In the dub, he yells that he doesn’t believe them, which is dumb because Putera is also backing up their story, is an ally and has no reason to lie.

Eyecatches:

Talun, disguised as Kaguya, originally says he doesn’t want to live in a world where he doesn’t know anyone – It’s too lonely. In the dub, he says he didn’t want to go into the storybook, but had no choice since TP Lady and her goons were after him. Another time I wouldn’t really mention it if not for the fact that this screws up the scene. It’s supposed to be a surprise that the princess is really Talun when Genshi suddenly sniffs her and points it out. In the dub, since he’s outright saying all that stuff, it’s no surprise when Flint points it out.

They repeat and reverse the shot of Princess!Talun talking to Genshi after he reveals who she is to lengthen the shot I suppose.

Genshi dances and says ‘Friends!’ over and over like he was earlier. In the dub, Flint makes up some song and talks about how he’ll save Talun, he’s the best dancer and to give him food. The original was cuter and had a better impact, in my opinion.

Flint sounds a little creepy when he tells Talun that he’ll take him home with him.

TP Lady points out that there’s a lot of security. In the dub, she says “Maybe I should’ve been a fashion designer.”

Here’s a pretty significant problem with this episode. The Tale of Princess Kaguya is a pretty well known story in Japan. Most viewers, even small children, would be able to understand the little bits and pieces of the story that we’re getting as the episode goes on. However, this Tale of Bamboo that seems to both be made up and using the real Kaguya story is hardly known at all, especially to small children, in the States. I can imagine so many English speaking kids sitting there wondering why these guards would be worried about Princess Bamboo returning to the moon. I’m not saying remove the references, but this is what translator notes are for.

The guy voicing that one guard in blue sounds ridiculous. It’s like he’s purposely trying to sound like those bad voice actors from old samurai movies.

Talun’s gender, in regards to pronouns (he→she) has been changed to female in the dub. I guess because he turned into a princess in the story and maybe because he’s pink?

If I haven’t mentioned it before, the sound effects in this show are weird. It’s like they don’t have the right ones (or any) when they need them a good chunk of the time.

Petra, Dino and Mite call themselves the ‘Time Dogs’? Huh?

Small change, but TP Lady originally says Genshi was just saying nice things to Talun in order to capture him. In the dub, Petra tells Talen that Flint and the others aren’t good friends since they’re not making a decent effort to save her.

Again, they replay and reverse a shot, this time of TP Lady about to stamp Talun, in order to lengthen the dialogue. They also add in another reused shot of Talun with the stamp on his head before Petra explains what the stamp does.

In the original, the stamp is called a TP Stamp. In the dub, it’s a Petra Stamp.

Sarah tries to say “Now what!?” when Flint climbs the tree. The sound mixing makes this bit fade out after ‘Now’ so it becomes confusing when Tony says “No telling with Flint.”

Also, Flint, I know you’re not the brightest bulb in the box, but what you’re creating with the tree is a catapult not a sling shot. And, even if it were, it’s not called a ‘sling’. Without the ‘shot’ slings are just pieces of fabric that hang from something with the mere purpose of holding it up, not propelling it through the air.

Tokio and Sora don’t have any dialogue during the shot where Genshi’s trying to bend the tree. In the dub, they splice in the same previous shot of Sarah and Tony to cheer him on.

They splice in a shot of Flint about the strike with his hammer right after the shot of Petra, Dino and Mite watching him fly through the air.

This show is so weird to compare in that I have to note more scenes being spliced IN than taken OUT.

So they’re keeping the running lesson of the importance of friendship in the dub…..which just makes it all the more confusing as to the dialogue change earlier about being modest instead of learning what friends are.

They, completely pointlessly, splice in a recycled static shot of Rocky right before they use Fighting Spirit. It’s awkward.

Bad Transformations are called Petraformations in the dub. I kinda like the dub’s name better, mostly because it’s actually a tiny bit creative.

Also, I cannot make out what the bad transformation is called in the dub. But according to the Wiki it’s ‘Talen-kon.’ In the original, it’s Warulun.

They paint away the text that says ‘Bad transformation – Warulun’

Subbed:

Dubbed:

In the original, Warulun’s attack with his tails does not have a name. In the dub, it’s Petra Spikes.

Flint: “I’m glad I had to rescue you, because now we’ll be good friends, right?” That line is so weird. Flint is getting so many weird lines today. “I’m glad I had to rescue you”? Who says that? Saying you’re glad you had to rescue someone kinda implies that you’re glad they were in danger to begin with. Also, ‘I HAD to rescue you’ implies you were forced into it. In the original, Genshi just tells Talun that he’s his precious friend.

Rocky: “Great landing, son! Like a rock!” What is with the dialogue today? Originally, Ototan just said ‘Perfect!’ He landed like a rock? He used his hammer to grab onto the top of the tree, spun around on the top a few times then jumped down on his feet. If he landed like a rock, he’d have plummeted down, crashed and maybe broken into bits. If they were making some weird pun here, it didn’t work.

In the transition between the scene with Genshi and the others and the scene with Toki G, they insert the same reversed eyecatch animation shtick they keep doing, this time for Talun, of course. They also add an establishing shot of the Land of Time and a further shot of Toki G after the animation.

They add in the same further shot after the shot where we see Genshi turning Talun back to his egg form then continue on as normal. Looking at these edits side by side really makes the dub look sloppy as hell. What is the point of all these inserts? There has to be enough time to fill the English dub if there are so few cuts.

Genshi ends the episode on, what I suppose is his catchphrase now of “Ishi ishi uhho!” In the dub, Flint asks for cow pizza, and Sarah tells Flint he’s so silly and they sitcom end-of-episode laugh.

——————————-

This episode was…..not good. In addition to all the confusing scene inserts, this episode is mostly boring and entirely wasted potential. They have a Space-Time Monster that can enter storybooks, they only enter one and they do absolutely nothing with it.

They have some of the storybook characters say some dialogue that seems suited to the story, and that’s it. They don’t have to follow along with the plot, they don’t have to take roles, they don’t do anything. They have a wild card of fantasy plots and they fail to even try. Talun turns into Princess Kaguya, Genshi finds him insanely easily and just as easily coerces him to leave with him. The guards make a pathetic attempt at stopping them from leaving and the ‘story’ ends.

Even the lesson of friendship seems crammed into this episode. Genshi should know full well by now what a friend is and what friendship is, but here he is in episode four just now learning it.

Not to mention that this lesson seems poorly set up in the dub with the aforementioned line change about modesty. It seems like they’re setting up a lesson for that and then just say ‘screw it.’

Even Talun’s bad transformation is bleh. It’s an ugly, in a bad way, design, and all he does is swat his tails at Genshi, which he can easily dodge.

It’s a boring, uninspired episode with a Space-Time Monster that, in my opinion, is wasted.

Next time, we meet the time-space monster Mosbee, who can create ice at will, in 19^th century Russia.

…..Previous Episode

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SjSBS – Wedding Peach (Archive)

Episode 1 – Celebration! The Birth of a Love Angel

Episode 2 – Splendid! Bridal dress change

Episode 3 – The Targeted Bride

Episode 4 – Angel Lily is Born

Sailor Moon Episode 10 (7 for the Dub) (Dic) Sub/Dub Comparison: The Cursed Bus – Enter Mars, the Guardian of Fire

Plot: Bus loads of people have been disappearing lately, and a local shrine is under suspicion for the mysterious vanishings. A shrine maiden/priestess named Rei is trying desperately to clear the shrine’s name, but when Jadeite shows up to reveal that he’s behind the whole thing, the Sailor Scouts may need the help of a new soldier to help defeat him. Enter Sailor Mars!

——————————————————–

Title Change: The Cursed Bus: Enter Mars, the Guardian of Fire is changed to An Uncharmed Life.

When Usagi meets up with Ami, she asks what she’s doing there. Ami says she’s waiting for the bus to go to cram school. Usagi asks her why she bothers to go to cram school if she needs to take a bus for it, and Ami says that it wouldn’t matter if she needed to take a plane. She needs to study even harder now since she’s a Sailor Scout so that she can help out. Luna praises Ami for her work ethic, then compares her to Usagi, who has none, and Usagi nervously avoids the subject.

In the dub, Serena asks Amy if she’d like to go to the arcade. Amy says she’d like to, but she can’t since she has too much homework. Then Luna says that Serena has a lot of homework too and Serena nervously avoids the conversation. A good chunk of that scene was removed to shorten it for some reason.

So Usagi hears a story about a bus mysteriously disappearing and she says “That sounds like fun!”……Did I miss something or do you find a vehicle and 25-30 passengers spontaneously going missing, maybe dead, sounds like a romp at the arcade to you?

They edit out where Usagi says “That sounds like fun!”….I guess DiC took that scene the same way I did.

Ami repeats what the girls say by saying “A missing 6 o’clock bus…” like she’s wondering what happened. In the dub, she says the shrine is supposed to be really nice.

Originally, Usagi suggests that they go to the Hikawa shrine to get special amulets that ward off evil. Naru then says that that’s a great idea and that the daughter of the house supposedly has psychic powers and does really great fortune telling. The other girl also agrees that they should go.

In the dub, Serena actually refuses to go to the shrine initially saying she’d rather go to the arcade instead of some creepy temple. Molly then says that the shrine has really nice good luck charms and stuff, and the other girl says that it might even help them get boyfriends. Because screw mysteriously missing buses, we need BOYFRIENDSOMMGGGGGGGG!!

Ami asks Usagi and the others to get an amulet for her. Usagi asks why Ami isn’t going, and she says that she has to go to cram school to study for a mock test that is coming up, which makes Usagi fall over comically. In the dub, Amy asks them to get her a good luck charm. Serena asks if she has a secret crush, and Amy says no – she needs good luck on getting good grades on her extra credit essays which makes Serena fall over comically.

The sign outside of the shrine is edited out.

They edit out the ringing bells and the random girls praying at the shrine for guys that they like to like them back. They show them from the back, but change the dialogue to acting like they just got good luck charms.

Originally, Rei was quietly chanting at the fire. In the dub, she’s just grunting.

Rei’s grandfather originally called the random girls “pretty cute” and asked them if they wanted to be part-time shrine maidens in a cheeky manner. DiC changed this to asking the girls, without complimenting them, that they probably want the guided tour.

Rei’s grandpa originally wanted to send the girls off with some good wishes on finding their loves. He gives a prayer to the god of flames asking to guide the girls to their loves. In the dub, this is changed to grunting…Nothing but grunting.

I’m starting to wonder if this is getting offensive. I mean, they’re not editing out much of the shrine so far but what’s with changing religious chanting and prayers to grunting? Afterward, in the dub, Grandpa explains that that was his, not kidding here, super whammo blessing (yep, we just petered into offensive) for peace, love and good grades. Since the explanation of the prayer was already given in the original, this isn’t present in the same scene afterward.

In the original, Rei’s grandpa tries to sell the girls some fortune slips and paintings that are said to bring about good grades during entrance exams. This is the scene that was replaced with the explanation of the grunt prayer in the dub.

When Rei’s grandpa sees Usagi and the others, he tries hitting on them too with the same shrine maiden shtick. Rei comes over to scold him about it and says there are weird rumors going around about him. In the dub, Raye’s grandpa believes that Serena and the others are the same random girls from before and tells them that they’re going to miss their bus. Then Raye comes over to scold him about not wearing his glasses.

Name Change: Much in the realm of Ami, Rei’s name was also changed, but just the spelling. In the English dub, her name is spelled as Raye. Fully, Raye Hino as her Japanese counterpart’s is Rei Hino. As Usagi and Ami, her name also has meaning. Rei Hino means ‘beauty of fire.’

More grunting. It’s not really replacing much, but there it is while Rei’s ‘exorcising’ Usagi.

The ‘bandages’ were originally towels and water….which they clearly are. Towels and water are evil sorcery from Japan OOOoooOOOOHHHhhhhHHH!!

The original explanation for Jadeite (they don’t know it’s him of course) working at the shrine is that Rei’s grandpa likes to hit on practically everyone he sees regardless of gender. He showed up at the shrine a few days prior and accepted the offer to work in the shrine.

In the dub, Raye says that her grandpa used to run everything around the shrine but recently he’s gotten too old to do so, so he hired some guy named Jed (♫ Let me tell ya a little story ’bout a man named Jed. Poor evil lackey, barely kept his demons fed. ♫) to work there. Raye says she’d like to be out of school so that she could help out around the shrine more.

Luna thinks to herself after Rei says that she has prophecies and visions that she might be the Moon Princess. In the dub, most of her inner monologue is axed for Serena and the girls clamoring over her powers, then Luna says she has an odd feeling about Raye.

The angry mother who bursts into the room and is being accusatory of Rei’s grandpa says that he usually does a ritual at 5:30, which means he’s possibly forcing girls to be late for their bus and instead go on the 6:00 bus – the one that goes missing. In the dub, the mother bursts in just saying her daughter’s late and the bus she was on went missing, so she came to the shrine to bitch.

The dub’s bus stop was originally just a sign saying “Sendaizaka Ue” (I’m assuming the sign’s subtitle is wrong since Senndizaka Ue doesn’t seem to make sense.) Oddly, they left in the Japanese writing on the other side of the pillar.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

Ami asks why all of the girls have love charms since they shouldn’t have time for falling in love when they have to study for entrance exams. Usagi looks disturbed and asks Ami if that means she never falls in love because she does it all the time. Then she daydreams about Tuxedo Mask and Motoki while saxophone music plays.

In the dub, Serena points out that she wants the same charms that they’ve got and Amy asks why since she already seems to be out of it. Serena says that she’s not out of it, she just likes daydreaming and then daydreams about Tuxedo Mask and Andy.

Ami then says that, if she doesn’t know the meaning of true love, then she shouldn’t throw around the word so flippantly. In the dub, Amy says that her daydreaming expression makes her look like some lovesick frog waiting for a big old bug to fly into its mouth…..which makes no sense. Frogs don’t fall in love with bugs, and they actively strike bugs with their tongues to catch them….What was that supposed to mean?

The shots of the bus are mirrored because in Japan they drive on the left side of the road.

Our hero, Usagi clinging to a pole out of fear of getting on a bus when she has super powers and a friend who also has super powers. Girl power!

The two crows that are shown being fed by Rei seem to be like her pets. They’re named Phobos and Deimos. They also have meaning behind their names. Phobos and Deimos are the two moons of Mars. Their names mean fear (Phobos) and terror (Deimos). They were named after the horses that pulled the chariot for the Greek god Ares, the god of war, which also happens to be the role of the Roman god, Mars, for whom the planet was named after. However, they’re not named or ever really given attention in the dub.

I don’t like particularly screeching harpy characters, especially in English dubs, but Raye always sounds too soft and calm when she’s getting mad and defensive in the dub.

The original doesn’t tell us that the amulets were Jadeite’s idea. Rei just asks Usagi to leave. Also, the amulets weren’t Jadeite’s idea, he just put a spell on the ones that they were already selling.

Raye: “What a strange and beautiful stick.” A stick? That’s really the best you could come up with, eh, DiC? If anything, it looks like a fancy pen, especially due to the clip. Originally, Rei just wonders if Usagi dropped it.

Usagi asks Luna why she left that pen with Rei, and she says she just wants to see something. This is left out of the dub for the same conversation that follows.

Usagi is upset because Ami’s late getting on the bus with her. Serena’s upset just because she doesn’t want to go.

Okay can someone please tell me what the hell is the point of this edit? Usagi is too scared to get on the bus, but decides that she can gather the courage if she has a disguise. When she gets this idea, a cartoon star pops near her face. In the dub, this exact idea occurs to her, but the cartoon star is now a bright, glowing and moving CGI star…….that’s…all sorts of pointless. A moment of silence for the amount of starving people that the money spent for that effect could’ve fed.

Subbed:

Dubbed:

In the original, Usagi commands to be turned into a bus attendant. In the dub, she says “a flight attendant or something.” This is made even worse because dub!Luna actually says “that would be better if we were on a plane”….Yeah….it would. I don’t have much experience with buses, but some do have attendants in America, right? Either way, I think they’re just grasping at straws to use Usagi’s disguise power.

Usagi says that it’s her duty as a bus attendant to ensure that the passengers are safe that that she won’t condone hijacking. In the dub, Serena says she’s putting the driver under arrest for making ‘totally bogus runs’ ….also, she tells the driver to pull over and yells STOP….despite the fact that the bus hasn’t started moving yet.

They edit out Rei’s chant and more of her hand signs.

Dub!Luna: “That’s your own special power stick” Okay, stop calling it a stick. That sounds too dumb. Honestly. Wand, pen, anything is better than stick.

The dub adds this spiral fire explosion animation behind Rei when she poses. What, was her transformation not epic enough or did you just want to….BURN more money. Ahahahahahahaahhahahahahahahaha! I’m so funny.

Attack Name Change: Fire Soul is changed to Mars Fire Ignite.

Also, haha, Rei gets a much better attack than either Usagi or Ami.

Okay, time out, this ending is ridiculous. So Ami prays on her wand for her friends’ safety and that somehow makes a beam of blue light guide Usagi and Rei back through the portal? Also, WHAT THE HELL WAS TUXEDO MASK DOING IN THE BUS?! HOW’D HE GET THERE TO BEGIN WITH?! WHY WAS HE JUST CHILLIN’ IN THE BUS WHEN THEY WERE FIGHTING FOR THEIR LIVES?! Just “Hey, I’m driving the bus, making a cameo!”

They edit out a small cartoon of Rei sticking her tongue out at Usagi in the corner as she cries.

Next episode, more disappearances, this time at a theme park!

…..Previous Episode

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