Boku wa Imouto ni Koi Wo Suru Volume 8 (Manga) Review

Plot: Are Yori and Iku really related? Can they mash their groins together without people going ‘ew’?

Also, terrible things, but that’s to be expected.

Breakdown: When we last left Iku, she was about to be gang raped under orders of Tomoka.

The manga is just full of fun times.

Yori is distracted by Ogura, but the jig is up when he mentions Tomoka’s name. Yori manages to make it to his dorm room before anything can actually happen, and he beats up the three freshmen who were trying to rape Iku.

While the boys are getting their own vague punishments, Yori’s punishment for having a girl in his room again and assaulting the boys is expulsion – an outcome no one saw coming, and to which everyone has their own reactions.

Tomoka is in shock because she always intended on using the threat of expulsion as a trump card in keeping Yori to herself.

Yori is devastated because he knows he can’t return to their old house without ousting his and Iku’s relationship.

Iku is….

Ecstatic.

Now, I was going to give her a pass on feeling this way because she herself admits that it’s selfish and insensitive to cheer that he got expelled……But…..

*SIGH*

….Then….she THANKS…..Tomoka……..for doing that to her since it resulted in Yori being expelled……

Fuck….this…..stupid…..dependent…….putrid sack of garbage.

They frame it like Iku thought this was Tomoka’s grand master plan all along (And she just didn’t think to tell Iku about it so she wouldn’t be forever traumatized by the near gang rape?) and that’s actually what she’s thanking Tomoka for, but fuck that, no.

No.

That is too stupid for words. Especially since Tomoka explicitly told her to not yell for Yori when it was happening, and such a plan, in a just world, would have resulted in all of them getting expelled – hell, some of the boys might have seen legal action. Iku may be so dumb I’ve believed several times that her brain was replaced with a toaster at some point in her life, but I refuse to believe she’s that dumb canonically. If she is, she wins the award for dumbest manga character of all time. She is frustrating on a whole new level, it’s amazing.

You know what happened after that?

Tomoka slapped her and said Iku’s so stupid that it’s annoying.

….And I cheered.

Legit, audible, cheers.

Do it again! Do it again!

I should not be cheering on an evil soulless bitch of a girl after she just orchestrated a gang rape on someone because she slapped the intended victim and called her stupid and annoying. I am simply in awe at the things this ridiculous story continues to make me do. I am floored.

Moving on….*more sighs* Iku is coddled by both Yano and Yori after the fact, and Tomoka decides to give one last jab to them by teasing that she intends on telling their mother that they’re in an incestuous relationship. Yori calls her on her bluff, but DUN DUN DUN, their mother is in the doorway and, of course, she heard what Tomoka said about the incest and asks about it.

In the next chapter, Yano makes a valiant effort to cover up what was said by confirming that he and Iku are dating. Iku shakily says she loves Yano in order to maintain the charade, but Yori is all too aware that his mother is now nearly entirely convinced that they’re in love with each other – she’s just holding onto the slight bit of denial that such a thing could be happening.

His mom is unable to reverse the decision to expel him, so Yori heads back home. That night, Iku says she wants to kiss Yori, but Yori, realizing their mother could be listening, yells at her to stop being so noisy and let him go to sleep. Good call, because their mother was indeed starting to listen at the door.

In a text message, he apologizes to her for snapping, explains why he did it and gets a kiss from her anyway.

The next chapter is kinda boring, but also stupid because this manga is talented like that.

Yori and Iku get their new summer uniforms so they’re getting all hot and bothered in their room because apparently their super suspicious mother finds it to be perfectly fine to both let them still inhabit and dress in the same bedroom.

The two of them are trying to keep their relationship a secret from their mother and everyone else….and they suck at it.

First, they start to nearly make out in their unlocked bedroom and, of course, their mother bursts in and nearly catches them. Yano shows up to offer some ‘I’m Iku’s boyfriend’ cover up, but Iku is actually nervous to get on his damn bike in front of Yori just because Yano’s telling her to ride on the ‘girlfriend seat.’ Being fair, I think in motorcycle terms, that’s called the bitch seat. And I believe in this manga terms, that’s called the Tomoka seat.

Yori decides to ride with Yano and leave Iku behind. Way to act more suspicious, Yori.

At school, he staves off thirsty girls by saying he has a girlfriend. Then Iku can’t help herself but dive into Yori’s arms when she arrives at school. Of course, people instantly assume that she’s the aforementioned girlfriend (Mori, the daughter of Yori’s real dad – Oh oops, spoilers whatever – also brought up that Yano has mentioned Iku having a boyfriend) Yori denies this by saying they’re twin siblings, which surprises everyone.

This is merely the second time in eight volumes that people have mentioned Yori and Iku don’t look like twins. This is also the first time people seem to be surprised that they’re fraternal twins – not identical, which is silly because everyone knows it’s impossible to have opposite gender identical twins. Merely the fact that they’re opposite gender already makes them not identical.

They go even further by saying Iku and Yori look nothing alike, which also makes no sense. Fraternal twins look just as similar as any other sibling, and Iku and Yori look about as similar as any other pair of siblings. The manga has deeper physical differences (Eye color/hair color/eye shape) but in the anime they look extremely similar.

This being said, Mori points out that she looks more like Yori’s sibling than Iku does.

This does make sense because they share the same father and their character designs look more similar, but is that implying that the father’s genes are the ones that matters most in terms of physical appearance? Iku and Yori are half-siblings made twins through heteropaternal superfecundation. They share the same mother and shared the same womb, but don’t have the same father.

Yori and Mori have the same father, but not the same mother. I’m definitely not a geneticist, and physical appearance can vary widely, but it’s like the manga is saying that, because Yori and Mori have the same father they, by default, look more related than Iku and Yori when, logically, they share just as many genes. They’re both half-siblings to Yori yet the manga is acting like Mori is the ‘proper’ twin sister.

Gene distribution between siblings does rely heavily on dominant and recessive genes, so perhaps Yori and Mori’s father has more dominant genes than Yori and Iku’s mother does, or the ones the father has create more obvious differences than their mother’s.

Again, I’m no expert on the topic, far from it – in fact I’m researching as I go – but it does seem weird that they’re making off like Iku and Yori aren’t related at all while Mori is hinted at being the ‘truer’ sibling when they, technically, have the same genetic relationship to him.

Moving on, Mori goes to her father, Yuugo, and talks about Yori being at their school. He decides to give a surprise phone call to Yori and Iku’s mother and talk…about Yori. Dun dun dunnnnn.

Next chapter, after some pointless PE stuff and Mori calling Iku ‘chubby’ and telling her to go on a diet, because no one can ever be likable in this manga ever, Yori and Iku’s family have dinner with Mori’s family. Yori and Iku’s mother, who shall henceforth be referred to as Saki, is obviously extremely uncomfortable, especially when they start talking about people they romantically liked back in college. Saki spills her drink, burning her hand and excuses herself to the bathroom where Yuugo promptly and creepily follows.

He makes uncomfortable advances and asks why she’s not wearing her wedding ring. Saki responds in a clearly very upset fashion that he knows it’s because she feels very guilty about their situation…..Wait, what?

She feels guilty about lying to her husband about Yori’s true parentage….so she doesn’t wear a wedding ring? I don’t get it. Is it that seeing the ring every day would remind her of her lies? I’d think looking at her son every day would remind her of her lies – especially since Yori looks so similar to younger Yuugo. Maybe it reminds her of the promise and bonds of marriage being tainted by her deception and disloyalty? Hm.

Yuugo gets even more forceful and tries to kiss Saki as she cries. Saki pushes him away and yells at him, but he gently wipes a tear from her eye and she runs into his arms.

….So…Yori gets his creepy rapey-ness from his dad and Iku gets her annoying crybaby ‘I’m attracted to abusive dickwads’-ness from her mom. I don’t know to respond to this.

Yori kinda sees them in their romantic moment, but they all return to the table like nothing happened.

The next chapter has Iku being unable to resist making out with Yori in a public library with tons of people around. You guys suck way too much at this. Do you want to get caught? At least now it seems more like Iku is legitimately in love with and physically attracted to Yori instead of just giving into his advances.

Yori has major suspicions about his mother and Yuugo’s relationship and is constantly haunted by Yano’s words from the previous volume stating that he and Iku might not actually be full siblings. Too excited at the possibility of having a full relationship with Iku, he runs to his parents’ bedroom during dinner to dig up some pictures to see if he can get some more evidence.

He finds his and Iku’s birth cards and discovers that Iku’s card is almost entirely blank while his is filled out properly. Yori starts suspecting that Iku might be adopted.

Continuing on from that scene, the last chapter starts with Yori finding college photos of his parents and Yuugo. As expected, teenage Yuugo looks almost identical to Yori. Despite not knowing what to make of Iku’s situation, he starts believing that Yuugo is his father, making Mori his sister.

The next day, Yori starts paying particular attention to Mori and even starts sitting next to her in class, making Iku jealous.

Ya know, if you take these scenes in another fashion, it’s almost like Yori is starting to become less attracted to Iku because he suspects they’re not siblings and is now attracted to Mori because he believes she’s his sister.

Would it really be a stretch? Think about it. The title is ‘I’m in Love with my Sister’ It doesn’t specify which sister. That would be a plot twist for the ages. ‘Yori’s not really a hopeless romantic – he just has a hard-on for incest.’

And remember what I said in my review of the OVA. A half-sister who didn’t grow up alongside him would be more believable and realistic in an incestuous relationship.

Yano confronts him about his behavior, knowing it’s upsetting Iku, and Yori basically tells him to fuck off because he doesn’t know what to make of any of this.

The volume ends with Yano whisking Iku away in a car and him about to do or say something to her.

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The first part of this volume is hot garbage. I’m still stewing over Iku’s behavior after the near gang rape. I have never felt more enraged at Iku. And it’s so dumb because I should be directing all of my anger towards Tomoka, but I can’t because somehow Iku’s obliviousness and sheer stupidity eclipses those feelings at the moment, and that’s one impressive feat.

I have to wonder, as terrible as this thought is, would Iku have reacted in the same manner had Yori been too late? Yori still beat up the rapists and got expelled, everything else exactly the same, but Iku actually did get gang raped? Would she still friggin’ thank Tomoka for doing that just to get Yori home, no matter if she believed it was a master plan of hers or not? These shouldn’t be actual thoughts I’m having. These shouldn’t be legitimate considerations for a character’s actions.

Also, how horrible is it that Tomoka gets off scot-free?

It was at least nice that they remembered Takuma existed before Yori left the school…..I kinda hope they return to him in the last two volumes because 1) I’m way more invested in him and Mayu than anything going on in the main story and 2) They kinda just amputated his whole storyline with her if they end it here.

As for everything else, I fail to care, but at least the story’s getting kinda interesting. At least it would be if not for the fact that I cheated and already know their true situation. I am at least interested in what went down between Saki and Yuugo, because I didn’t cheat that far at least. It’s almost like they had a similar (though non-incestuous) relationship that Yori and Iku have. Yori/Yuugo comes on way too strong, seems creepy and rapey and Iku/Saki is such a useless crybaby twat that she can’t help but fall into his arms.

It’s hard to care about this ‘plot twist’ for a lot of reasons, but first and foremost is that I don’t care at all about whether this relationship survives, which is the only reason why the ‘Oooh are we really related?’ thing is even important. Yori doesn’t care about his parentage as a point of an identity crisis or wondering about his true place in his family, he’s not even all that interested in Saki’s current relationship with Yuugo – it’s all about whether or not he has a societal green light to pork Iku.

I don’t even know what to make of the ending cliffhanger. I don’t know what Yano intends to do or say to Iku in the car. It could be something sweet and profound….It could be another attempted rape or some equally creepy behavior. I think there’s a quota they have to meet. It’s a sad day when the latter of those options is the most likely.

Next time….eh, things.

….Previous Volume

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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 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 Episodes 5 and 6 (Akira’s Arc)

Plot: Haru and Akira develop a relationship while Haru tries to help Akira determine her true parentage and unlock the secrets of her past.

Breakdown: Akira is my favorite character on this series and seemingly has the most interesting story, so it’s no real surprise that I liked this arc.

The relationship between Haru and Akira isn’t even really put front and center, either. In fact, if I had one real issue with this arc it’s that this romance seems even more rushed and sloppy than Kazuha’s. We do find out that Haru and Akira knew each other very briefly as children, which leads to Haru going to ridiculous lengths to fix something from that time.

Akira had lost her mother’s pendant while they were playing. They searched and searched, but couldn’t find it. Haru, realizing the importance of that pendant now, goes to great lengths to find it, even though the terrain has changed since they last time he visited. His efforts are indeed sweet, but after they search in vain for the pendant, they’re already having sex.

They don’t show the sex scene on screen, and it’s possible they didn’t even have sex, but let me break it down.

They both get completely filthy looking for the pendant. Instead of going home and taking a bath in his own house like a normal person, he is invited to bathe at Akira’s home while she washes their clothes. Akira barges in and eventually makes her way into the bathtub with him, sitting on his lap, where she not-so-subtly nudges him into sex.

The scene cuts away after they start kissing, and Haru later explains that they passed out in the bath, but Akira seems to pray for forgiveness for her impure actions and they’re both blushing, which could be due to the bath, so it’s really unclear. Still doesn’t change the fact that they were in a bath together, her sitting on him, him groping her boobs and eventually making out. Mere hours after Akira even realized she liked him romantically….

Doesn’t really help that this entire scene is made a little creepy because Akira is talking about how nice it is to hear other people in the bathroom again because she used to take baths with the old man who ran the shrine/adopted her. And she’d sit on his lap in the tub….She mentions this a minute or two before she jumps on Haru’s lap and feels his hard-on pressing into her back….

Akira takes the reigns in this relationship, which is fine and fairly fitting because she’s so affectionate and physical in her emotional expressions, commonly hugging people and putting her arms around them.

Haru is somehow more pushy than he was with Kazuha, though. In her arc, he supported her and gave her space when she needed it but also helped her out whenever he could without overstepping his bounds. Here, when he learns a secret about Akira’s parentage, he decides to go out and get a DNA test to figure it out, even though it seems like Akira doesn’t really want this, and what they learn from the test could drastically affect the lives of both Akira and Kazuha.

He bounces back and forth between being pushy about it because he feels it’s his responsibility to clear this up to try and make her happy, even though this could easily create many more problems than good outcomes, and backing off. I do appreciate that, at a certain point, he admits he went too far and seems to fully relent, letting Akira make the decision for herself.

The storyline involving her family is pretty interesting. At the end of the day, I still have a bad taste in my mouth towards Mrs. Migiwa. I’m not saying she should have taken Akira in or anything, though that would’ve been nice, but she didn’t need to act like such a cold-hearted bitch towards her. Acknowledging that you realize Akira has doesn’t have the ability to choose who her parents are doesn’t excuse treating her badly.

The finale sex scene is very….random. Haru and Akira are sitting on the porch after she resolves the stuff with her family and she proposes sex….and they do. The end. It’s not really random in the grand scheme of things, but it’s just like ‘Oh yeah we end all of these arcs with sex scenes, right. Get naked, Akira.’

Sora’s role in this arc is very minimal. She spends much of episode five brushing her teeth for some reason and really just….existing. She does explain more about the cross necklace, though – that it was a present Haru gave to her when they were kids.

In episode six, they make it a point to show Sora existing sadly at home while Akira talked about how she doesn’t want to end up alone, which was very….disturbing. Were they trying to make us feel bad about Sora in that scene? Like if Haru kept dating Akira, Sora would be lonely and betraying her or something? Why do so many people in this show think that dating someone instantly means neglecting everyone important to you?

The Motoka omakes are getting more graphic. Each one for this arc had a sex scene in some capacity – both of which with Haru and Motoka, of course. I feel like they’re treating this like an extra arc, though it’s all non-canon.

All in all, this is another arc that I could easily see being pretty good as the main arc for the series.

But it’s not, so—

At this point, I was going to make another joke about dumping a previous non-canon arc and moving onto the next one, like I did in Kazuha’s arc….but I can’t.

I thought I’d still get to enjoy a reprieve for the next few episodes considering we still have three episodes (Foundation episode and Nao’s arc) before we get into Sora’s inevitably painful arc, even though the two arcs are somewhat intertwined. I didn’t know anything about Nao’s arc since it was in an entirely different branch from Kazuha and Akira’s section, so I did a little snooping on Wiki, flipped through episode seven real quick and uhm, let’s just say my days of relaxing during this series are over.

I won’t spoil anything, but let’s just say the next arc involves rape…..rape of a minor……perpetrated by a minor….*sigh*

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Yosuga no Sora Arc Breakdown – Episodes 3 and 4 (Kazuha’s Arc)

Plot: Haruka develops a relationship with Kazuha while trying to help her with her relationship to Akira and her problems with her father.

Breakdown: I’m not going to lie, this arc really isn’t bad. It’s not great, but it’s okay.

Obviously, one of the worst offenses this series is making is trying to cram four visual novel routes in 13 episodes, minus three technically because those are meant to provide foundations for the actual routes, so ten episodes. Each route has two episodes to play with (except Sora, who gets three….) so, of course, that means every relationship develops at a breakneck speed.

That being said, the relationship between Haru and Kazuha is pretty good. He’s very supportive of her without being pushy. He helps her get through some major hurdles in her life and backs off when she clearly needs space. Likewise, while Kazuha does does try to keep Haru at arm’s length, she obviously can’t do it for very long and eventually gives in to her feelings.

She’s not overly preoccupied with Haru in this arc, either, as she spends a lot of time doting over Akira to the point where she even proclaims that all she wants to do is dedicate her life to Akira, making Akira question if she loves her romantically, so obligatory (incest again…) yuri kiss~~ She rejects Akira, though, even though it wasn’t really Akira hitting on her so much as pushing her to admit she loves Haru, which she wouldn’t do because she felt that would be betraying Akira….It makes more sense in context.

I do have to say, for being the prim and proper ‘princess’ of the harem, she dives a bit too hard into the heavy physical stuff too quickly. Her first kiss with Haru is a full makeout session, and the next time they show physical affection outside of hand holding, they’re having sex on her bed immediately after a festival. They get into the ‘I love yous’ really quickly too because it feels like Haru’s known Kazuha all of maybe a month.

Also, I think he’s too forward when he puts his hand on Kazuha’s (clothed) breast when they take pictures at the fair. I’m quite certain that’s literally their first date. It was also pretty random. Like, hey, funny pictures, whee, Immagropeyanow, say cheese!

Edit: It was brought to my attention that Kazuha was probably touching her own chest here (feeling her heartbeat) and I agree. The art of the hand and the way they’re positioned gave off the suggestion that he was doing it. Sorry for the confusion.

At this point, at least by normal anime standards, they might be dating and holding hands regularly, possibly kissing on the regular, but not saying “I love you” and having sex.

As for the story itself, it’s also pretty good. I think Kazuha has way too much of a personal guilt complex, and it’s a bit unbelievable that Akira never told Kazuha that she was happy the way she was and that she actually had a much better relationship with her father than Kazuha knew about, but it’s not that bad.

In addition, they leave plenty of Akira’s story open, despite the two being so closely intertwined, so Akira’s arc will have plenty to go over.

Oh and in case you’re wondering about Sora’s role here, she mostly does what she’s been doing this whole time, which is standing around doing nothing and really only being a reaction shot. She has one kinda nice conversation with Akira about how Haru and Kazuha are similar in their desire to help other people before thinking of themselves. Thank god she’s actually conversing with other characters, and she….kinda….ish gives advice….ish…stuff to Haru about Kazuha? But not really. She mostly just points out that his gift of a birthday cake on Kazuha’s birthday is too predictable.

Also, we’re shown a shot where she’s fiddling with a cross necklace. I really hope they don’t slap us in the face with religion when we get to the incest. I got enough of that with Boku wa Imouto ni Koi wo Suru.

If this arc had more elbow room and incorporated Akira’s story into it without also including her romance arc and included more of their father, this arc would be perfectly fine as the main plot of the show.

…..But it’s not, so onto Akira’s arc!

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Yosuga no Sora Arc Breakdown – Episode 2 (Base of Kazuha and Akira’s Arcs)

Plot: Starting off the branching storylines of Kazuha and Akira, Haru gets to know the girls better and becomes very curious as to what they really are to each other.

Breakdown: I mentioned in my Episode One-Derland entry for this series that I was going to continue looking into this show on my own while also denying giving it the green light to continue because I, personally, wanted to see how screwed up this series got. I finished episode five when I realized something very odd about this anime.

You remember in my review of Amnesia where I said the format was perfect at least in regards to letting the MC date all of the possible suitors (or explore all of the visual novel dating routes) without cheating or seeming like a tramp because she could cross dimensions and take over the life of the heroine from that world where she was currently dating one of the guys? Yosuga no Sora does something similar, but it doesn’t even bother trying to actually frame the different routes with some other plot.

Instead it just opens a new story where Haru is entering into a relationship with one of the girls. When the story is over, or when the two of them crotch wrestle, they end the story, even putting ‘The end’ on the screen and the next episode starts a new route.

There are three episodes detached from this structure, according to the incredibly helpful flow chart on the Wiki (Thanks for that, whoever made it!) The only way these arcs are framed is through episodes one, two and seven. One introduces the full story and branches off into either two or seven. Two, our episode today, is our gateway into the Kazuha and Akira arcs. Seven is the gateway to the Nao and, yes, Sora arcs.

Since the structure is as such, I thought it might be better to review the series in segments based on arc instead of eventually reviewing the entire thing as a whole. However, episode two is one of the base episodes, so we don’t really have an arc to review here.

So what does episode two entail, you might ask? Not a lot.

Sora proves what a clingy, creepy and useless human being she is yet again. Haru leaves for school, and he’s not more than three steps out the door before she’s screaming bloody murder…over a mosquito. If you know me, you know I absolutely deplore mosquitoes, and even I would never freak out a fraction as badly as she is in this scene over one. And yes, it’s just one.

But that’s not all – she’s absolutely filling her bedroom with spray trying to kill it……Hair spray.

And when Haru tries to go off to kill it, she vehemently refuses to not cling to him, in her flimsy might-as-well-be-lingerie nightgown. Oh and later she gets all pissy when Haru texts her and says he’ll be a bit late because he’s stopping off at Akira’s place to get mosquito netting for her.

Then, when Kazuha comes over to sew the buttons on Sora’s school uniform, because Sora can’t do that either, of course, Sora just pouts in other rooms….and eats a popsicle in a suggestive manner…..Then later has a pouty tantrum when he gives her the uniform.

As Haru’s off in school having all the girls, though in this case Kazuha and Akira, try to hide that they’re all swampy for him, Sora stays at home being bored, lazing about and eating chips. If only there was a place people her age could go to spend time during the day. Doing productive things like learning and socializing. Oh my bad, she couldn’t go to one of those places even if they did exist because she is so clearly too weak and sickly. Look at her, running around like crazy over a mosquito and not even coughing in a room filled with hair spray. Why isn’t she hospitalized? 😐

(Being fair, by the end of the episode, she is in school, but it still miffs me that she was ever kept out of school for that excuse in the first place.)

Other than Sora, we have the plot with Kazuha and Akira, showing off their dynamic as friends. Akira is very much a people pleaser, typically tending to the needs of others before thinking of herself, and everyone asks her for help with various things so she tends to leave herself to the wayside quite often, even refusing to go to excuse herself to the bathroom when someone needs help. In addition, she’s an ‘orphan’ who lives alone in a massive shrine, meaning she’s forced to take care of herself, though she does have Akira and the local candy shop owner, Hiro, looking after her.

Meanwhile, Kazuha is very proper and responsible, basically to the point of nagging and scolding Akira all the time, but she actually cares very deeply for Akira and wants her to be happy and healthy.

It’s a bit weird in regards to setting up the two arcs, because it puts quite a bit more focus on Akira than it does Kazuha but Kazuha is the arc that occurs first. Akira is my favorite character, so I guess setting up her story better is a good thing, but it’s still weird.

Also, they’re cleaning the pool this episode so wet fanservice abounds. Also also, they purposely make it sound like Akira and Kazuha are having sex in the changing room because audio fanservice.

And then the bomb is dropped that Kazuha and Akira might actually be sisters.

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Admittedly, this episode was a lot better than the first one. It’s still covered in every breathing human with a vagina lusting after Haru (Except, refreshingly, Hiro, but she’s just rude so it even out on annoyingness.) but the plot with Kazuha and Akira is actually quite interesting and leaves me intrigued to learn more.

Sora is once again the weakest link here because she’s obnoxious in her nothingness. She’s so useless and overly clingy I’m surprised she’s able to breathe without Haru inflating and deflating her lungs for her. She is probably the closest I’ll ever get to finding a character as useless and flat as Herione from Amnesia with the only difference being that Sora is far too much of a brat, meaning she does at least have a notable personality trait unlike Herione.

The other incredibly annoying character was Ryouhei who’s only purpose in this show so far is to be as big of a pervert as humanly possible. That’s it. Every line out of his mouth is somehow perving on one of the girls. What is it with harems and having the main guy have an obnoxious pervert friend? Usually it’s to make the horrible scumbag main character look better by comparison, but there’s nothing really wrong with Haru so I don’t understand his purpose.

Also, the little short omake animation with Motoka the maid has her showing off her panties to Haru and grabbing Haru’s ding-dong totally ‘on accident.’ Lovely. She’s an adult, by the way. They never confirm her age, but she’s old enough to drink and he’s 16.

(Final note: I’m aware Haru’s name is actually Haruka, but he keeps getting called Haru so I’ve taken to calling him that.)

Coming up next, a full review of the Kazuha arc, episodes 3 and 4.

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Episode One-Derland: My Love Story!!

Plot: A classic love story – a handsome, charming young man saves a beautiful young woman and they fall hopelessly in love. That is the plot….of a different anime.

The plot of this one involves Takeo, a large, traditionally unattractive and somewhat imposing young man with a heart bigger than he is, falling for a beautiful timid girl named Rinko. However, every girl he falls for ends up falling for his extremely attractive and cool best friend, Suna, who coldly shoots down every girl who confesses to him. Believing her to also be in love with Suna instead of him, Takeo decides to take it upon himself to help Rinko win over Suna, even at the cost of his own feelings.

Afterall, a girl so cute and kind could never fall for someone who looks like him……Right?

Breakdown: Romance isn’t my favorite genre, but this series always looked pretty unique to me, and I had heard great things about it.

I’m happy to say that, so far, it’s lived up to expectations, but still has some problems.

Let’s start with the positives. Takeo is a precious cupcake, protect him. He can be a little gross, admittedly, but he’s got a heart of gold and I wish nothing but good things for him.

His relationship with Suna is also really unique and interesting. It must be heartbreaking to be best friends with a guy who, for lack of a better term, ‘steals’ all of the girls you fall for and then brushes them off when they confess to him.

Suna’s not really a jerk, he’s just not interested. He also doesn’t try to take these girls from Takeo, they just don’t think of Takeo as a romantic prospect due to his size and features and instantly fall for Suna because he’s cool and handsome.

I looked forward to their interactions most of all, because, despite the fact that they seemingly have little in common, Suna is at his most relaxed and happy when Takeo is around, and Takeo is more confident, usually, with him around.

The story is a little on the weak side because the trope of two people falling for each other after the guy saves the girl from someone is so overdone that it probably predates written word. However, it was done in a way that was pretty cute, even if the groper was a complete idiot.

Who, when being accused of groping a girl, in the middle of a police station, in front of a cop, responds to the girl directly accusing him of groping her with ‘You were asking for it, with a skirt so short!’? I know full well that guys do throw around the ‘You were asking for it because of what you were wearing’ garbage ‘excuse’ but realize where you are, dude.

My only other problem is Rinko. She’s a little overly moe. She’s super shy, constantly blushing and has one of those ultra-kawaii high pitched voices that was honestly started to grate on me after a while. I don’t know if this was intentional, but I thought Takeo was more adorable than Rinko was. I’m just kinda sick of her stock character structure. All we need is for her to be clumsy and she’ll win moe bingo.

That being said, I do root for them to be with each other because she is really nice and doesn’t seem at all put off or intimidated by Takeo’s appearance. I also thought it was really sweet, and kinda sad, that Takeo was fine rooting for her to be with Suna and dedicating himself to helping her be with him because all he really wants if for her to be happy, even if it hurts him.

The art and animation is really nice, which is to be expected of a shoujo title. Nothing terribly impressive, but still nice to look at.

The music was alright, but really forgettable. I wrote this only a few hours after watching the first episode, and I can’t really remember anything about the tracks besides that they were fairly typical fare for this type of show. Upbeat and sugary.

Verdict:

Even though it had some aspects that were kinda cliché and Rinko really needs to do some work to truly grow on me, I really enjoyed this first episode and look forward to watching the rest of the series.

Recommended Audience: Rinko gets groped, but it’s probably the most non-graphic grope I’ve ever seen in an anime. Other than that, nothing. 5+

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Boku wa Imouto ni Koi wo Suru Volume 7 (Manga) Review

Plot: Filler, talking dogs, a dog propositioning Yori, more filler.

Oh and possible gang rape. I should mention that.

Breakdown: The first chapter has little happening in it. Like I mentioned at the tail end of volume six, Yano kisses Iku while she’s sleeping, because we haven’t had enough sexual assault in this series. She was dreaming of Yori kissing her, but she doesn’t find out that Yano was kissing her in real life.

We also get some odd scenes with their dogs. Inu-Yori growls at Yano for kissing Iku and then bites him, then Inu-Iku smacks Inu-Yori to avenge Yano, then Inu-Yori is kissing Inu-Iku….it’s really strange.

Yano meets up with Yori later that night at his gas station job and admits straight out to Yori that he kissed Iku while she was sleeping. Yori rightfully attempts to kick his ass, but stops himself because he knows he’s more in the wrong given what he’s done…..Oh….Oh! He’s growing as a person! Quick! Someone document this! We may never get another chance!

He then also says he’s in the wrong for loving Iku at all because he knows he can’t give her the type of future she deserves. You’ve already kinda been over this revelation in the past, but yes, keep going with this.

The next chapter starts with………Inu-Iku…..sexually propositioning Human!Yori?…The first frame is Inu-Iku laying flat with her butt towards Yori, then she lifts her butt up towards him and shakes her ass, then she turns around and her eyes are all sparkly…then Yori kisses Inu-Iku while calling her Iku…..

…I don’t know what to do with this…..

I’m sparing you from the actual image, though. You’re welcome.

Yano tries to convince Yori to come back home since, without him around, he feels free to keep pawing at Iku. He also wants to ‘steal Iku from (him) fair and square.’ We get fanservice yaoi prodding by having a near-kiss with Yano and Yori since Yano tries to give back the kiss he gave to Iku to Yori. *shrug* I’d ship it. Better the two of them be together so they can sexually assault each other than letting them loose onto innocent people.

Yano reveals that he brought Iku with him to receive Yori’s kiss properly. They’re about to reunite when Yano stops them and tells them to solidify an alibi before doing anything. Iku agrees and calls home only to have Yori, for some dumbass reason, start distracting her by kissing and licking her fingers. I thought you were trying desperately to keep your relationship a secret, especially from your parents, yet you’re almost purposely sabotaging her alibi while on the phone with your father. What is wrong with you?

Yano, seeing that Iku is breaking, grabs the phone from her and talks to her father. He explains that he’s with her, apologizes for keeping her out late and begs that he let him stay with Iku for the night.

Her father, quite shockingly, agrees, as long as he promises not to do anything indecent or irresponsible. Because teenage boys are so trustworthy to keep promises about not doing questionable things with teenage girls, especially ones as naïve as Iku. Father of the goddamn year.

Not that he knows this, but she’s spending the night with two guys who have sexually assaulted her in some way. Fun.

Yano gets off the phone and pauses when he sees Yori’s somber face. He admits that he’s always wanted to say those same things to their father. He says he wants to be Yano, able to admit these things aloud without judgment or prejudice. Yano claims he wants to be Yori, since he’s the one Iku really wants.

Yano leaves, and Yori and Iku kiss, reminding each other that the last time they talked they said the next time they’d meet they’d make love.

Chapter 38 is actually not bad given the interlude. Yori and Iku try to have sex, but Yori is increasingly nervous. He even asks if they can turn the lights off, though Iku refuses because she wants to see Yori’s ‘cute face.’ Yano has the hotel room next door so he can hear them, and he is even able to see them a little through the open window.

It’s actually a little sad. The poor guy has to listen to and see the girl he seemingly loves having sex with her brother, and even Inu-Yori and Inu-Iku are getting lovey-duvey right in front of him.

If he wasn’t so creepy, I might actually feel emotion right now.

The dean reports to Yori’s parents about the fact that he’s out past curfew now and previously had an incident where he brought a girl from another school into his dorm room. Their mother is quite worried, even though their father tells her that Iku’s with Yano…which, shouldn’t sate her worries either way, but still. She’s obviously concerned her children are squeaking bed springs together.

The next morning, Yano gets them up and finds that they actually didn’t have sex. Yori was so nervous, he only got some of their clothes off and then chickened out at the last second. This is kinda weird. I can’t imagine Yori being nervous just because they haven’t seen each other in so long. Is he reluctant to keep banging the bongos with her when he knows they can never be together? Is this….more character growth? What is happening!?

They bid farewell at the train station, but this time Iku begs Yori to come with them. Yori pushes her on the train and tells her he can never go back because she’s his sister. Yori tearfully watches the train depart.

The next chapter is uneventful and kinda boring. Yori is getting heat from the school for his behavior, and right before he’s about to be punished, Iku and Yano show back up at his dorm. They got off at the first stop on the train and doubled back because Iku wanted to be with Yori.

Yori gets his punishment – one day’s worth of being grounded to his dorm…..You all are so strict….Have mercy on the poor guy….

Tomoka has a spy now who ratted out Yori. His name’s Ogura and they treat him like I should know him, but I don’t. Is he Yori’s roommate? I forget.

Iku and Yano disguise themselves as students and wander the grounds because they’re stupid. They instantly bump into both Tomoka and Yori. Tomoka catches up with Yano, admitting she knows of their incestuous relationship and has been trying to sabotage it. Yano slaps her for calling Iku stupid, even though he agrees with her. *shrug*

Yori takes this opportunity of Iku being in their school uniform to announce her as his girlfriend, which could go wrong in so many ways I’d go braindead from facepalming.

The next chapter…acts as if the previous chapter end didn’t happen because now we’re back home with Iku. I guess this is….a special chapter or something. I didn’t catch it at first, but…okay. Shouldn’t you put special chapters at the end of a volume?

She’s being chewed out by her mother for outrageous phone bills since she won’t stop calling Yori. Iku can’t say that Yori’s the one she’s calling (even though that number should appear on the bill) but her mother tells her to cut her bill in half or they’ll cancel her contract.

I have a better idea. Make her pay for the phone bill. She had a job…once….If you want to make her self-sufficient, make her pay for her own phone bill.

So….there was a…very odd…addition to this chapter…

The dogs can talk.

Yeah….that’s a thing that’s happening. Okay, let me clarify – the dogs don’t “talk,” but they do have inner monologue that we can read and it’s played off just like normal dialogue. They ‘speak’ in thickly lined text boxes that are footnoted by a pawprint. They make observations about the situation going on around them while also talking to each other.

I have absolutely no idea why this is a thing. Why is this even slightly necessary besides maybe to spoon-feed the audience implied emotions? Inu-Yori sees Iku crying over Yori not being able to talk to her as much. He claims people die of loneliness, and he’s worried Iku will die. He restates this later on too.

Can they seriously not just get the emotional impact out enough through the art and dialogue? Do they really need a cute little dog claiming his master will die of loneliness for us to understand that she’s really really sad?

Yori calls her, and Iku explains what their mother said. She also reveals that she got zero points on her latest exam, because of course she did. Even stereotypical ‘stupid’ thug characters usually at least get a handful of points on tests. Hell, you could probably get a few by just blindly guessing, but Iku’s a unique butterfly of a person in that she just doesn’t try and has the IQ of used underwear.

I know I keep bringing this up, but I really can’t understand the appeal of this girl. She’s stupid (several characters even flatout say so, including Yano and Yori) she’s lazy, she cries at the drop of a hat, she’s irresponsible, she’s codependent to the point of a crippling handicap, she’s naïve as hell, she has absolutely no skills, and she has no desires in life outside of seeing Yori. The only positive things you can say about her are that she’s nice and pretty, and if that’s not lazy character writing in a nutshell, I don’t know what is.

I love how he gives her an out and tries to say she probably fell asleep after writing her name, but she has to go the extra mile and confirm what an idiot she is by saying she did a lot of thinking but couldn’t do any of it.

Yori calls and tells her later that he’ll be able to visit for a day during the summer holiday. They’re going to a summer festival, and Yano is tagging along, but when they get there, Yori calls and says rain has made travel on the bullet train impossible so he can’t visit.

Yano and Iku have a pretty good time at the festival, but Yano pulls her aside and tells her that she’s obviously holding back her tears for his sake and feels insulted that she can’t show that side of her around him. She says she’s not doing it for his sake, but she knows if she starts crying she won’t be able to stop.

Suddenly, Yori appears. He caught a different train, putting him off schedule for over 12 hours, but managed to catch her at the festival. They start kissing in the tree line, and Yano grumbles as he walks off by himself.

The last chapter of the volume starts off with a completely unnecessary recap of everything that’s happened in the manga up until this point. When we reach present time, we learn that the slap wasn’t the end of the confrontation with Tomoka.

After she was slapped, she called Yano an idiot and instantly cried out. She claimed that Yano was a stalker from her previous school and now he’s dressed up in their uniform and followed her to her current school to harass her even more. Fellow students drag him away, even threatening to have him arrested. All Yano can do is laugh and commend her for setting a trap he so easily fell into as Tomoka looks on with a smile.

Ogura shows back up to talk to Tomoka about it, and she uses her feminine wiles to coerce him into finding Yori and telling him to meet with her. She claims Yano and Yori are friends, and wants to ask him a question about the situation.

As he leaves to do just that, Tomoka looks back with a smirk, verbally expressing how much enjoyment she gets out of manipulating men. She is working the villain angle so hard I’m waiting for thunderclaps whenever she appears. Wasn’t there a point where she was a nice character or am I imagining things?

Meanwhile, Yori and Iku take advantage of the ruckus caused by Yano and Tomoka to have some time alone. Yori tries to kiss Iku since she looks cute in her disguise glasses. Even though he asks permission, he doesn’t wait to get it. Even Iku, surprisingly, points out that she never said ‘okay.’

He brings Iku to his dorm room and he’s about to…Hmm what’s a super clever innuendo for this?….Uhm….do an oral report on Iku’s southern hemisphere.

Ogura interrupts them and calls Yori out of the room. He tells Iku, who’s concealed by the curtain on his bed, to hide herself until he gets back. She’s a loyal puppy about it (Not my words. They put the puppy ears and tail on her and everything) until Tomoka enters the room. She knows Iku’s in there….and….

Okay, so if there was any doubt Tomoka’s a full-on villain now, let me dash it – she recruits a bunch of guys from school….and brings them into the room. The cliffhanger of the volume implies that Iku’s about to be raped by these guys and she can’t make a peep about it because she’ll be betraying Yori’s command to stay quiet and, additionally, Tomoka will tell her parents about their relationship.

…..Yup.

That volume went from zero to holy shit real quick. Seriously, I was just about to write off this whole volume as being basically filler. What really happens in 99% of it? More Yori and Iku fluff and making out, Yano feeling like crap because he can’t stop babysitting a girl who’s boning her brother, their mother yells at Iku for a high phone bill, the dogs talk for whatever reason, but not really, then BOOM the start of a gang rape.

Tomoka is just pathological at this point. Blackmailing Yori was high-level bitch stuff, but smiling as she’s about to blackmail Iku into getting gang raped? What the unholy fuck?

What does Tomoka even hope to gain at this point? Is she really so messed up in the head that she believes she still has a shot with Yori? Because, oh yeah, getting his sister/lover gang raped (She never said Iku couldn’t tell Yori about it) will no doubt put her in his good graces.

Or is she resigned and fueled by a sick desire for vengeance on the person she believe stole Yori from her? Because from the very beginning their relationship was built on a lie. She knew she was just being used as a sex doll in place of the person Yori really liked, and she seemingly had no issue with this. Was the fact that this person was his sister the thing that made her fly off the rails?

Even if she was angry at that, this is going too far for her character. Then again, you could argue that, since she was blackmailing Yori before and had every intention on coercing him into sex through that blackmail, that she was fine with rape even that early on.

I don’t know what they could possibly do to her character in future volumes to make her pay for these horrible acts. How would they even get her to stop? She seems like she’s getting some sort of sick pleasure out of it now. Don’t say this series doesn’t have character development because Tomoka has somehow edged out both Hair-Sniff McRape and Molester Sexualassaultberg.

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Outside of that final moment, this whole volume is nothing but filler. Nothing was gained, nothing was lost, even the consequences for Yori’s actions with Iku are laughably minor. He’s grounded to his dorm room for one day. Just one. His parents are notified, but who cares? He doesn’t live with them anymore.

It doesn’t even negatively affect his social status. Wanna know why? Because Yori was right. The student body is mostly just impressed that Yori’s getting some tail. Ogura is annoyed by him, but who cares about Ogura? If he is Yori’s roommate, he’s been an annoying little shit since day one. Yori was curt to him upon greeting, and I guess that was enough to continuously rat him out. Snitches get stitches, and then they get bitches. Have fun with Tomoka, Ogura.

Iku seems like she gets into more trouble for sneaking around, and even that’s unrealistically lenient. ‘Oh sure, Yano, you can have a sleepover with my teenage daughter. I totally trust that there won’t be any genital interaction on this innocent get-together.’

Next time….we find out what happens next….Sorry, I feel super awkward saying something like ‘Next time, is Iku really about to get gang raped? What will this mean for her incestuous relationship with her brother?’

….Previous Volume

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30-Sai No Hoken Taiiku Review

Plot: Based on a novel called “Health and Physical Education for 30 year olds” (Please don’t stop reading) this anime is about a man named Imagawa who has recently turned 30. The god of sex appears in his home, determined to help him lose his virginity. In fact, he can’t and won’t leave until the man has done it with someone. The anime follows Imagawa through his love life as he finds the one to which he will lose his virginity.

Along the way, Imagawa meets a girl named Andou, who is also a 30 year old virgin who also has a god of sex helping her lose her virginity.

Breakdown: Before I continue, I want to assure everyone that I, no lie, give this anime a high mark. Why? Because it was very funny, the characters were very likable (Barring Andou, kinda) and the story was actually believable (barring the….well, you’ll see in a minute) Sure, this anime got somewhat pervy sometimes, but everything was censored. And I mean everything.

When I first read the premise, I was certain this was going to be insanely perverted, sexist, offensive to virgins and just overall trash. But, to my surprise it’s only slightly perverted and slightly sexist (It’s on both sides of the genders though) and really quite good. I still don’t agree with the initial mentality of “if you’re of a certain age and you haven’t screwed someone yet, you’re a loser” but that mindset seems to wane over time, so it’s not a big issue.

What’s even more is, I liked the characters a lot, and when the sex gods left for heaven, they did it in a fairly sad manner. I didn’t cry, but I did feel emotional.

Daigorou is the first sex god to appear and he’s assigned to Imagawa. He seems to think of nothing but his job and doing his job well. However, later we see a little more to Daigorou as he seems to care more about Imagawa’s happiness than ditching his v-card. He’s also the funniest in the bunch, in my opinion.

Macaron’s very cute and not that irritating like other little kids in anime. He’s the little brother to Daigorou and the second god to appear. Imagawa had a point, though, if not a somewhat creepy note. How does Macaron call himself a sex god when he’s too young to have had sex? He seems to know as much about sex as his brother, but….I don’t even wanna think about it. He’s still a cute, adorable little kid, though.

There’s not much to say about Imagawa. He’s a horny, relatively average 30 year old who has no idea what he’s doing in the realm of sex and dating. There’s not much to like or dislike about him.

Kuu and Pii are the female love goddesses who mentor Andou. Though they’re twins, you can easily tell them apart. Kuu’s the one with the sailor moon-esque hair and she’s more vocal than her sister. In fact, Pii acts more like Macaron. Kuu’s no where near as stoic as Daigorou, though. I can’t say they particularly annoy me. I like the boys better, though.

I don’t particularly like Andou. I thought I was timid. Damn. Andou’s really timid and kind of a pushover. She’s not the worst female lead…They could’ve done FAR worse, but, still. The male half of the cast definitely holds stronger than the female side, which is disappointing.

I can’t really put into words how….weird this anime gets sometimes. Not only do we have gods of sex helping 30 year olds put out, but we also have a god of virgins, who just happens to be Imagawa’s landlord, and Macaron looks to be like eight, but when he first appears he’s in the form of a young girl that looks like she’s about to have sex with Imagawa. Don’t worry, he never touches him.

The gods get sick and the cure is cooking stew or something on their heads. We also have Andou’s weird-ass AKfield which is a force field she emits when she wants someone to get away from her. In the final episode in which it appears, she even goes so far as to turn into an android and beat up Imagawa with her robot boobs…

And then no one ever mentions it again.

We even have a weird Dragon Ball Z reference when Imagawa leaves Andou after a fight. He finds the virgin god in the desert and he trains him to use the Virgin Ball (Which acts exactly like the Spirit Bomb, except taking the energy from virgins…and it’s shaped…like a….sperm….)

It’s all done in a funny manner, but I will say there’s stuff I didn’t enjoy about it.

I didn’t like how Andou was so upset over Imagawa leaving that she became a shut-in and got fat. Or how Imagawa was so upset over Andou forcing him to trash his blow-up sex doll that they had a big fight and he left on a journey. Dude, you have a real girlfriend now – give up the sex doll. Or when Andou got jealous of the sex doll and imagined competitions with her. This would’ve been funnier if the competitions weren’t sexist (Cleaning contest, cooking contest…)

Still, I enjoyed it, and there was something clever at the end of each episode. At the end credits you’d see Andou and Imagawa as babies, then the next episode as toddlers, next episode as small children and so on and so forth. I believe this was signifying their maturity through time with the gods, which I find pretty cool.

Art and Animation: Very nice, even though a lot of it looked like it was done in Flash. Not that that’s, by default, a bad thing, though. Kinda makes some scenes funnier.

Music: Ehhh, average. The ED’s the most standout song.

Bottomline: It’s an enjoyable, funny, short anime with likable characters and a relatable storyline, even for people who aren’t 30 year old virgins. It may teach you something amidst the weirdness.

Additional Information and Notes: 30-Sai No Hoken Taiiku was based on a novel series by the same name written by Mitsuba. It had a manga adaptation also of the same name written by Mikako Inomoto and published by Ichijinsha.

The anime was directed by Mankyu, written by Ryo Akiyama and produced by Gathering. It does not currently have a US license.

Episodes: 12

Year: 2011

Recommended Audience: I don’t even know how to gauge this. There’s no swearing, but lots of sex talk and sexual visuals. However anything sexual in nature is censored. They won’t even show french kissing, with fake mouths no less. Even the most clueless can get what’s in the picture (if it’s just blurred and not covered in the total censor) and there’s still tons of fanservice…Kinda implications of physical romance with a kid (even if nothing happens)

15+

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SSBS – Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch Episode 2: Feelings I Can’t Say

Plot: Lucia is asked out on a date to the spring festival by Kaito, but Hanon protests, claiming Lucia can’t be trusted to keep her mermaid nature a secret should she confess her feelings to Kaito. If she reveals her secret to a human, she’ll turn into bubbles. She goes on the date anyway, but when he starts talking about the mermaid who saved his life, she panics and runs away from him.

Meanwhile, Hanon is captured by a new enemy named Eriru, who is working for a mysterious shadowy man named Gaito, who also employs Izul. Eriru seems to have a plan to combat Pink Pearl Voice’s song, but Hanon thwarts her, and transforms into Aqua Pearl Voice. Performing a duet together, she and Pink Pearl Voice take down Eriru.

Later that night, Lucia, in mermaid form, sings for Kaito on a rock near the shore. Meeting in the water, Lucia decides to admit to her feelings while in mermaid form, her secret life as the human Lucia safe. She kisses him on the cheek and leaves.

Breakdown: This one puts a bit more substance to the story, but only a bit more and only slightly with the relationship with Kaito and Lucia.

We get slightly more development on the enemy side, learning of a mastermind named Gaito and introducing what seemed like a more interesting enemy in Eriru, but not really. At least she’s more interesting than Queen Beryl Lite/Izul, but she’s just a bumbling as she is.

Eriru seems like she’s making a plan where the mermaids will be lured to a spot in the festival where she’s selling fish that dance to music, since mermaids love music, but neither of them are ever lured there. The only reason the fish become any part of the plot is because Hanon’s new love interest gives her one since he was handed one he didn’t want. Hanon releases it into the ocean and goes for a swim, and that somehow leads Eriru to her location, even though that’s not what she said they do.

Eriru also exposes an incredibly stupid weakness of the mermaids. Eriru has a….I want you imagine the most sarcastic overly exaggerated air quotes when I say this – “battle form.” which is really just her turning around and back again really fast, her eyes glowing red, and her teeth getting sharpened.

When Pink Pearl Voice sings, Eriru is unaffected. Not because her “battle form” has this immunity, but because, when she turns around and back again, she also pulls down the bandanna she wears on her head over her ears, making it so she can’t hear the song.

When I first watched this, I had to restrain myself from yelling out in laughter ‘You have GOT to be friggin’ kidding me!’

Our hero.

Can be thwarted.

By a BANDANNA.

It’s not even like she’s using ear plugs or anything. She’s using a flimsy piece of fabric just pulled over her ears. Has anyone who wears like hats or hoodies ever had their hearing be noticeably affected? Even if, it’s just barely affected. It certainly doesn’t deafen you.

And she’s defeated just as pathetically easily because Hanon instantly realizes what she’s doing and, gasp of all gasps, she pulls the damn thing off with no issue. Hanon was even restrained by magic seaweed stuff courtesy of Eriru and it wasn’t restrictive enough to stop her from doing that. She only grabbed onto her tail with it.

This enemy is the biggest joke I’ve ever seen.

Oh well, at least we got to see Aqua Pearl Voice….whose outfit is damn near identical to Pink’s just….ya know….blue.

Her little microphone is also basically identical to Pink’s.

The plot with Kaito is a little better, and I thought the scene at the end was really sweet, but I really don’t get the conflict here. She can’t date him because she might confess her feelings for him, which will somehow inevitably lead to her admitting she’s a mermaid to him? Those are two completely unrelated things.

It would be different if the plot was that Kaito has suspicions that she was the mermaid who saved him, which made her panic. Then she’d maybe want to avoid being with him out of fear of her secret being unveiled. Or maybe she thought him knowing the truth would somehow hurt him or something. This just makes no sense.

I also thought her getting upset at Kaito being with those two bitchy girls was unreasonable. Kaito very obviously physically and vocally expressed that he both didn’t like these girls and that he desperately wanted to get away from them to be with Lucia, but she just instantly believed he was a jerk who’d break her heart.

We also learn just a tiny bit more of the mermaids. The sea world has been wrought with calamities lately, and it’s suspected that these issues are also causing problems on the shore. Lucia, Hanon and any other Mermaid Princess they find will be tasked with finding the Sea Goddess, Aqua Regina, to help save the world from more destruction.

Overall, this was an okay episode, but the enemy conflict today is so dumb I think I might have to check into a hospital to see if I still have brain activity, and the plot with Kaito was nice, but sloppy. The song the mermaids sing is starting to grow on me, but that might be the power of repetition because I heard it at least four times in this episode.

Next episode….

….Previous Episode

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