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ANIME ComedyOreimo 2
NOVEL ComedyOre no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai
SPECIAL ComedyOreimo 2: My Little Sister Can't Be This Eroge

REVIEWS

• 

  TGK94

  30/100
  Often regarded as one of the most baffling endings in anime, and for good reason.

  (Spoilers for all of Oreimo below...)

  The Ending

  Things fall apart.

  Let's not beat around the bush here: few endings have attracted more ire from fans than this one, and for good reason. Not only is the choice for Kirino and Kyousuke to form a couple utterly bewildering, but every other character in the series gets the short end of the stick to make it happen. Truthfully, the more I think about this ending the more things I find about it to hate. I hate the way Kanako’s feelings for Kyousuke were shoehorned in out of nowhere. I hate the way Manami is treated as the villain despite doing nothing wrong. I hate the apathetic manner that Kyousuke approaches the whole affair. And above all, I hate hate hate the way this ending will forever taint my positive memories of the rest of the series. How could anyone be okay with this? Imagine if, during the K-On! movie, the girls’ plane to London crashed and all of them died. That sounds horrible, doesn’t it? Well, that’s about how I feel about this ending. It’s completely out of place tonally, it’s poorly executed, and it forever haunts the series with this depressing specter.

  Now, for fairness sake, before I get too carried away with the complaining, I feel obligated to mention the relatively few things this ONA actually does well. Episode fourteen’s confession scene was actually rather solid on an aesthetic level. If it didn’t come with all the baggage of incest and didn’t involve ruining no less than three girls’ hopes and dreams to make it happen, it might have even been a good scene. The way that Kyousuke tries to catch Kirino by running but ultimately fails to reach her is a nice way of hearkening back to an earlier scene showing that Kirino was inspired to take up running because she couldn’t catch up with Kyousuke many years prior. Likewise, the way Kyousuke ends up being assisted by Saori and Kuroneko really helps bring the narrative together in a neat way by involving all the relevant characters. I also particularly enjoyed Kyousuke’s line during his confession, “all love is gross, whether in eroge or in real life,” as it served as a surprisingly poignant way of rebutting Kirino’s constant proclamations of “gross!” over the course of the series. To sum up, the ending is bad not because of the way it is presented, but in spite of it. Most of the dialogue is good, everything is quite cinematic (in particular, the scene where Kyousuke forever rejects Kuroneko under the streetlamp has always stuck out to me), and production values maintain their quality from the rest of the show. The only problem is, well, the actual events that transpire.

  Glad we got that cleared up. Now let’s talk about the bad.

  The notion of incest was first noticeably implied around episode two or three of season two, and it only becomes more obvious from there. From this, it seems likely to me that this ending was not a sudden devilish idea upon the part of our good friend Tsukasa Fushimi (the mind behind Oreimo and Eromanga-sensei) but rather a notion that he had been entertaining from early on. With this being as it may, it is astonishing to me that this ending is as messy as it is. Why does everyone confess to Kyousuke during the last five episodes if this was planned from the beginning? Why are so many characters hurt in the end? I simply don’t understand how he could let this happen. The rest of the series shows me that Fushimi is clearly a fairly competent writer, so why? Did he do this as some kind of elaborate commentary on how normalizing incest eroge can lead to an anomie where people no longer see incest as a taboo? Almost certainly not. Will Kirino and Kyousuke’s love even last or is it merely some teenage fling that just happened to ruin the hopes and dreams of everyone around them? We can’t be sure. Ultimately, I don’t think we can ever know exactly what inspired the extraordinary lapse of reason that led to this ending. All we can do is wonder what happened?

  I touched on this a bit before, but the worst thing about this ending (and this is a lofty distinction considering the boundless number of things that I hate about the way this show ends) is definitely how damned sad it is. No one ends up happy—not even Kyousuke and Kirino. After their cinematic kiss at the end of the final episode, we are led to believe that they don’t even stay with one another. Society will forever condemn their relationship, they ruined their friendships with several people to make it happen, and in the end they don’t even stay together! If that’s not the dreariest ending imaginable, I’m not sure what is… and they got the good end of the deal. As I have mentioned, Ayase, Kanako, and Kuroneko all have their hopes of love mercilessly shattered, but the truest loser here, I think, is Manami.

  Good lord, I’m so sorry Manami. You didn’t deserve this. You didn’t deserve any of this. Not only is the scene that features her in the final episode the most painful in the entire series, it may very well be among the most painful scenes I have ever encountered in an anime. After confronting Kyousuke and Kirino about their relationship, she voices her disgust for what they are doing (a reasonable reaction to have, by all accounts) and then gets into a fistfight with Kirino. I’m not going to lie, I do like Kirino, but there was a real feeling of catharsis in seeing her punched mercilessly in the gut by Manami. Unfortunately, outside of the punch, nothing in this scene goes well for Manami in the slightest. She sustains substantial damage from Kirino herself, ultimately having her glasses broken. This leads to perhaps the eeriest part of the entire series for me. It is difficult for me to describe, but there is something deeply chilling about the way Manami looks without her glasses. The cute softness of her face is all but gone, and we are left with something harsh—almost scary. This is made all the more disturbing by what Manami says in this state: that Kyousuke and Kirino’s relationship can never survive, and more importantly that she has always loved Kyousuke. Kyousuke, of course, rejects her in an irritatingly bombastic fashion. Then, in return she says “that was the worst reply ever”— a line that would almost be funny if it weren’t so sad. In the end, while with Ayase, Kanako, and Kuroneko there was a definite sadness to their rejection, with Manami it’s outright depressing. I can’t help but think of how, after this scene ends, she will go home to realize that she has lost her best friend and love of ten years. And she lost him to his own sister—someone who he can never even stay with. All of this from a show that was once an upbeat comedy series.

  I have rarely felt worse after watching an anime than after watching this scene. I felt empty and frantic and even a little bit nauseous. I wanted to bang my head against the wall until it gave way. I wanted to yell “FUCK YOU OREIMO!” at the top of my lungs. I wanted to run as fast as I could to nowhere in particular. Most of all, I wanted to purge this show from my mind, and perhaps from existence entirely. I am not an emotional man, but dear God, this scene—this ending broke me. I’ve heard that when it was first published, this ending caused such an outrage that many previous fans burned the entire series or sold it for almost nothing just to get it out of their possession, and I can see why. This may not be the worst ending ever, but it is certainly the most painful that I have seen. Between the way the harem elements were lazily shoehorned in, the way Kyousuke callously turns down the girls, and above all, the mean-spirited way that Manami is treated in her final scene—all in all, this is an ending that I will probably never forget. But for all the wrong reasons.

  Let’s Talk About Incest!

  One issue I have been skirting around in the discussion of this show’s ending is, of course, the incest. Now, I am not, on principle, against the use of consensual incest in fiction, but it has a very specific time and place where it is acceptable. Importantly, if a work is going to employ incest as a plot point (and if it wants to be taken seriously), it needs to a) treat the incest as an important plot element and b) treat the incest as a taboo. Neither of these things are really true of Oreimo. In fact, Oreimo’s ending treats incest in a shockingly irreverent fashion. This is particularly odd to me because the first season seemed quite self-aware and contained many jokes poking fun at the way incest is fetishized in modern otaku culture. One of its great strengths was the way it contrasted Kyousuke and Kirino’s growing platonic relationship with the sexual relationships in Kirino’s eroge. Yet, somehow the series ends with a complete reversal: an unequivocal embrace of incest. In a sense, this serves to cheapen the platonic relationship of the first season by suggesting that there was always a sexual element to Kyousuke and Kirino’s relationship. I can only ask: what happened? What was there to be gained by adding the incest element to this show? And if there was anything to be gained, why on earth was it executed so poorly?

  To be fair to this show, not every element of the incest was poorly handled. The majority of the second season is dedicated to building up Kirino and Kyousuke’s romantic relationship, so there can be no complaints that it came out of nowhere. Moreover, a good amount of emphasis is placed on showing why the Kousakas developed their feelings for one another. The real star here is season two episode thirteen, which is probably the only genuinely good episode in the latter half of season two. This episode takes the form of an extended flashback narrated by Kirino. According to her, she looked up to her brother as a child but became disillusioned with him as he tended increasingly towards laziness and mediocrity during his adolescence. By the time the chronological start of the series came about, she had come to view the real Kyousuke as an entirely separate person from the brother she once admired as a child. This, I gather, is why she has few inhibitions about thinking about him romantically. Now, obviously this flashback sequence does not provide a complete picture of why this incestuous relationship came about; for instance, it does not explain at all why Kyousuke has no problems thinking about his sister romantically. Even so, it does a genuinely good job of putting Kirino and Kyousuke’s romantic relationship in a more believable context, so the flashback is certainly beneficial to the show’s overall narrative.

  Sadly, my praise ends there. While the motivations are fairly well done, the social aspect of the incest is seriously blundered. To see just how poorly this is handled, one need look no further than the aforementioned scene with Manami during the last episode. Since she is really the only character to express discontent with the idea of Kirino and Kyousuke’s incestuous relationship, Manami can be viewed as a sort of voice for society. She says more or less what you would expect any normal person to say in this situation: “I think it’s disgusting for siblings to be in a relationship.” If Manami’s statements led to some kind of real discussion about the implications of incest then perhaps I would be okay with this scene, but that is not what happens. Instead, Kyousuke bellows some impassioned nonsense about how he wants to “bring on that real sister end!” without ever meaningfully engaging with Manami’s ideas. Likewise, when Manami brings up the central question of what the Kousakas’ parents will think, Kyousuke responds with a shallow “Please don’t tell my dad! He’ll kill me!”

  This is the crux of the issue. Fushimi appears to believe that merely mentioning that there are moral and social issues at play with incest is sufficient to make it acceptable. Kyousuke, Kirino, and, indeed, the show itself, seem to brush off these issues as though they are totally irrelevant. But, of course, they are not irrelevant. Imagine, if you will, if Vladimir Nabokov's seminal novel Lolita ended with the adult Humbert Humbert marrying 12-year-old Dolores Haze and the only reaction to this was one character who says “Ew, don’t do that.” Obviously, this example is completely absurd, but it is worryingly similar to what happens in Oreimo. Despite incest being a serious taboo (not as serious as pedophilia, but still heavily frowned upon), the only negative reaction it receives is from Manami, and she’s framed as the villain. Saori takes the middle ground, saying that she doesn’t really condone it but that she’s not going to try and stop it either, and everyone else says nothing negative at all. The only explanation I can see for why incest is treated this way in Oreimo is that the writer was only really interested in employing it at a purely shallow, fetishistic level. At the same time, though, he didn’t want to look bad so he pretended to treat it seriously by casually mentioning moral issues. Pure and simple, it’s bad, lazy writing.

  In the end, Oreimo’s objectionable treatment of incest is, at best, tasteless, and at worst an active detriment to the entire brother-sister dynamic established by the first season. It’s not bad enough to ruin the show by itself—not for me at least—but combined with the deluge of other shortcomings present in this show’s ending, it seriously taints my viewpoint of the whole series. This is especially unfortunate because I liked the first season before I saw how things concluded—I really earnestly liked it. But I’ll be damned if I ever want to watch, or even think about this show again after witnessing this atrocity of an ending.

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• 

  groggy1

  30/100
  Might be the biggest troll of the 21st century

  Are you tired of reading wall after wall of pretentious text?
  Do you just want to know if you should watch the darn show?
  Me too.

  SPOILS PLOT POINTS FROM PREVIOUS SEASONS

  TLDR

  As long as you do not watch the last 4:50 of the final episode (or stop watching at around 21:05), Oreimo is a show that is better than it has any right being. After that point, it is immortalized forever in the anime hall of fame as possibly the biggest troll in the “romancing your little sister” genre.

  ART AND ANIMATION - Average

  If you’re looking at this review I assume you’ve seen at least one episode of Oreimo before. Imagine that, but change absolutely nothing. It looks exactly the same.

  MUSIC AND SOUND - Average

  Again, it sounds exactly the same as the previous seasons. I was never blown away by the Oreimo EDs unless they starred my literal goddess Kuroneko, and fortunately the first ED is sung by her. The other two are not, and I didn’t find them especially good.

  PLOT - Train Wreck

  A big chunk of the plot consists of almost every girl Kyousuke has ever laid eyes on confessing their love for him. Each girl has their last moment in the sun before leaving so that Kyousuke and Kirino can be together. I hope it’s not a spoiler to say that in a show that translates to My Little Sister Can't Be This Cute, the little sister wins. There's lots of other scenes that can't be talked about without actually spoiling, but just know that there is a mix of super spicy drama, super emotional romance, and super sad scenes. Season 1 was basically a glorified documentary about otaku, season 2 shifted focus to a more romance/drama oriented series, and these final 3 episodes definitely follow season 2's course.

  As mentioned previously, something happens at about the 21 minute mark of the last episode that changes the show completely. It’ll either make you laugh your head off or throw whatever you’re holding at the screen.

  CHARACTERS - Pretty Good

  Before this, I wasn’t really impressed with Kyousuke as a character. But here he shows what he’s made of. He shows that spine that most harem protagonists lack.
  Kirino was 100% tsun and 0% dere at the start of the show, but over time the walls she put up were whittled down to the point where her brattiness became tolerable. I never really liked Kirino much, but she is probably at her best here.
  Kuroneko had some great scenes that broke my heart and will remain best girl until the day I die.
  I was confused for a long time about why Manami was even included in this show but I finally got my answer here. She plays one of the most important roles in the show, and her climactic scene will either make you love her or hate her.

  THEMES AND MESSAGE - Absolutely none

  I don’t think you watch Oreimo for the deep messages and thought provoking themes. The show spits in your face at the very end anyway, so every theme it presented thus far is also spit on. Truly a modern masterpiece.

  RECOMMENDATIONS

  If you liked the ending of Oreimo, check out Darling In The Franxx.
  Otherwise, check out other incest related shows such as Eromanga Sensei or Domestic Girlfriend or KissxSis or A Sister’s All You Need or Yosuga No Sora or Koi Kaze or the Alfheim arc of SAO or I’m In Love With My Sister or OniAi or

  CONCLUSION

  I loved this show and then all of a sudden I REALLY didn’t. The ending is one of the most infamous bamboozles of all time and leaves a sour taste in my mouth but every time I think back on it I can’t help but laugh at how huge the author’s balls must have been and how naive I was to expect anything better.

  ---

  Visit my profile @groggy1 to give feedback or to see my other work

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• 

  DomG26

  12/100
  This is the worst anime ending I've ever seen.

  __SPOILERS BEWARE!__

  ---

  Its been nearly three months since I watched S2 of Oreimo as I had been putting these final episodes off for good reason, partially because I knew of certain events which would happen as well as the series practically foreshadowing from the very start that the incest would finally sail. Knowing these things, I didn't really want to come back to Oreimo any time soon but as a completionist at heart I knew it was gonna happen one day and that time finally came. I got the same buddies of mine to come together for the finale of Oreimo and boy what a spectacle the ending was... Before I get to the climax, let me talk about the previous episodes. In the first episode Kyou provides Ruri an answer and closure to what will now become a one sided love by revealing that he loves his little sister **romantically** and not in the family love kind of way which is why he cannot reciprocate her feelings. I do have to give credit where its due since this exchange is wonderfully executed. When Ruri starts tearing up her diary of all the memories they made together, that's when you realize its over, its the last straw and there is no way back but my personal fav moment of this dialogue is without a doubt her scream of agony which is sublime. Ruri's scream is incredible to say the least and I have to praise** [Kana](https://anilist.co/staff/95185/Kana-Hanazawa) **who did a splendid job in this scene in portraying the pain of rejection. Naturally it fuking sucks when my fav girl gets rejected but at this point its for the better that she did because what is revealed in the finale is absolutely ridiculous which I will return later. The other key moment to take away from the first episode would be the other confession. Kyou lets Kirino know his true feelings and doesn't beat around the bush in the slightest as he goes straight for the bullseye by proposing of all things.. Although his feelings may be immoral and incorrect I believe its the right approach to let them out rather than keep them bottled up but that's where it should have ended **EXCEPT** our MC here went all in as he not only confessed his love to his little sister but went the full distance and proposed **WHICH SHE ACCEPTS!!!?** Even though half a minute earlier she said she hated him about 20 times but that's her tsundere side in full glow as the pledge to marry made her so happy and overwhelmed that she simply obliged in the heat of the moment **or so I thought** but that was silly thinking as deep down I knew this was heading down the incest route. Throughout the final two episodes I genuinely didn't know what to make of anything that happened on screen as seeing the siblings performing wholesome couple activities would be fine for a romance series **HOWEVER** they're blood related siblings which is a big problem as this overshadows anything wholesome they may do as their relationship is immoral, gross and even disgusting to many so any act that they engage in had a large dark cloud looming over it. Even the final scenes showing Kirino's album would normally be wholesome and sweet **BUT** again we return to the fact their relationship is immoral which I simply cannot overlook even in a work of fiction which completely drains any enjoyment this may have tried to offer. Any scenes which were meant to be heartwarming and lovey dovey are just a huge no no as I always return to the same train of thought **"incest"**. My thinking at this point was how would they go about getting their parents blessing **(the ending answered this worry of mine in splendid fashion but again I shall return to it later)**? They managed to tell Saori and Ruri about their illicit relationship which they were somehow quite understanding although Ruri suspected that they had a bit of a dodgy relationship from the very beginning. Best girl knew all along... Kanako actually confesses her love to Kyou during her performance in this same episode but it gets brushed aside swiftly as our MC is already an engaged man... What he did here by turning Kanako down was actually the correct decision since otherwise he would be cheating on Kirino as bizarre as that sounds. One correct decision cannot save this MC as he'd already dug his grave by proposing which has completely ruined his reputation as incest is the kind of event that should never come to fruition. Another rejection for another fav girl of mine sucks as she was one of the rare shining rays of light amidst this abomination, little did I know how fuking awful this rejection was since I had no idea what lied in wait in the finale which again I will return to... Manami and Kirino's fist fight was awesome and much needed as both let out their pent up anger and feelings they've had for each other over many years. Since they would soon be departing their own ways, it was important and essential that they put these lingering feelings of theirs to bed and provided closure to one another. If there was one character that would have reacted very poorly to this sibling revelation then it would have been Manami. She started spitting fact after fact regarding their illicit relationship and I could only nod and clap as what she said was exactly how society would perceive this relationship. Unfortunately for her, even after confessing her unconditional love which she's had for Kyou for many years he still didn't change his mind and stuck by Kirino's side which will have devastating consequences that I will return to very shortly **I PROMISE!** Well, I've built up to it over the course of this review as we finally make it to the wedding scene where unsurprisingly no one attended **AND THEN THE WORST POSSIBLE ENDING I COULD HAVE GOTTEN CAME TO BE AS IT WAS ALL AN ACT AS THE SIBLINGS MADE A PROMISE TO ENJOY AND "PRETEND" TO BE A COUPLE TILL THEY GRADUATED???!!! NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH IM NOT ACCEPTING THIS BULLSHIT! SORRY WDYM ITS PRETEND?!** The reason this ending is fuking awful is because Kyou rejected Kanako and Manami's **GENUINE** confessions which really pisses me off just to make some **"plastic"** memories with his sister.. And he couldn't accept their genuine and real feelings while still making precious and more importantly “**real**” memories with his sister alongside that? Why the fuk not?! He also rejected Ruri who was heartbroken which really pains me and if you make best girl cry then you deserve no mercy from me. The scream she let out was incredible and a super rare positive I take away from this trainwreck. He also rejected Ayase because he already had feelings for Kirino at the time, the latter two girls came before the promise but he still had genuine feelings for his sister which means he crushed four girl's genuine and heartfelt feelings. Kyou is quite literally a dogshit MC who only got worse as the series went on reaching an all time low as he obliterated the remainder of whatever was left of his dying reputation when the ending was revealed. I just can't anymore with this ending which I honestly with all my heart want to claim is the worst ending I've seen in 6 years of anime, actually scrap that, **THIS IS THE** the worst ending I've ever seen in an anime since it means the entire series was a complete waste of my time. Actually nevermind that, we've gone backwards because not only is Kyou alone again but he's lost Manami in the process and I can't specifically say that Kirino lost any of her friends but Ayase does not appear in the ONA once (aside from the flashback but that doesn't count). And if Kanako was ever informed of the real reason she was rejected then I'm not sure I would want to stay acquainted with someone like Kirino who stooped low enough to fake an incest relationship just to make some "**precious**" memories. I hate it so much, Oreimo has been a trainwreck practically from the beginning but these last 5 mins… **DEAR GOD, WTF WERE THEY ON** when it was decided that this is a fitting end. How the fuk does a series go backwards from where it began after 30 episodes... I genuinely cannot comprehend that this is how Oreimo really just ended. What's next for our cast? Not like I care but genuine question, like seriously where does Kyou go from here after rejecting four genuine confessions and chances at a fulfilling relationship. I think that's enough ranting since I don't know what else to say but my god the final five mins of Oreimo are fuking disgraceful. It's the ultimate plot twist and I hate it so much. Well done Oreimo, you've managed to hit an all time low and become my most hated anime with this disastrous conclusion. I can gladly say this is the worst ending I've ever personally seen in an anime. **IF IT REMAINED AS AN INCEST ENDING THEN IT WOULD HAVE ACTUALLY BEEN MORE SATISFYING AS CURSED AS IT SOUNDS AHHHHHHHHHH!** I'm glad I had my good buddies @Ofzen and @Daglom alongside for this journey since I'm not sure I would have managed alone plus it made this atrocity all the more bearable and even **"fun"** at times. **[S1 Review](https://anilist.co/review/21237) [ONA Review](https://anilist.co/review/21278) [S2 Review](https://anilist.co/review/21587)** ***
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