OreImo: how to lose fans and infuriate people

“My Little Sister Can’t Be This Cute”

Well, I somehow managed to finish this series. The last few episodes, from about the 12th one onwards, were pretty darned difficult, but since I did want to write a little about OreImo, I felt that I had to finish it. Call it a manifestation…no, I don’t want to demean my absolute favourite series this year, so I’ll leave it there. Anyways, a few short comments from me then.

Yet another broken ship for me…

Episode 14 sank my ship, and as I once said I would do, I will just leave it and not try to reason it around. Apparently Kyousuke does love Kuroneko – he just loves his sister more. Oh well. I always knew it could end this way – even though I much preferred Kuroneko, reading a couple of the light novels told me what kind of author Fushimi Tsukasa was. Particularly after the harem expanded around about volume 10 (S2 episode 11/12 or thereabouts).

Ouch…

The most painful episode to watch was episode 14. But it wasn’t actually Kuroneko’s tears that got to me; rather, it was the sheer inanity of Kyosuke’s confession. I should have expected it, as he’s always overreacted to the situations he’s found himself in, even if said situations were rather unbelievable themselves. I guess that’s the silver lining for me; Kyousuke really isn’t the kind of person I’d like to date, personally, so well, as long as Kuroneko recovers, I guess I’m not too fussed.

This was really, really heartbreaking…

Show, don’t tell

I think that even the most hardcore fan would probably say that the second season was a mess. Whilst I can kind of buy most of the girls falling for Kyousuke (Kanako excepted), I do not at all understand why Kyousuke himself ended up choosing Kirino; she treated him like crap for years, walked all over him after they started “life counseling,” and simply did not tone it down until he actually confessed to her. So, er…how?

Basically, the anime screwed up. I thought something was odd after episode 12, when Ayase confessed. The impression I got from novel summaries (where Ayase confessed in volume 10 but was only rejected in the final volume) was that Kyosuke was still sorting himself out at that point. Finding out about/remembering what his relationship with Kirino had been like in the past, along with the events that changed it (volume 11), was significant, or so I thought. I must admit, when I read about it, I could only roll my eyes at the out of left field developments in the novel, which had Kyousuke sealing his overachieving persona (because of yet another girl who ended up falling for him). But without it, as in the anime, I’m not sure his character development works.

I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who facepalmed at this!

But the most unforgivable thing was…

…that the ending was a complete cop-out. As undoubtedly thousands of others have already raged, no matter how controversial an ending is, just go through with it. Anyone who’s been in a relationship would know: there is no way you can ‘just go back to what it was before’, so why even try? Even worse, however, was the suggestion that they actually got back together in the end (the word is that Fushimi wanted the final kiss to be on the lips, which would definitely have made it a less rage-worthy ending for most people). My problem with it is that incest is such a huge taboo that not dealing with the fallout more seriously, such as by addressing parental reactions, just reduces the story to self-indulgent fantasy. But perhaps that’s precisely what Fushimi Tsukasa wanted to write, and it is his prerogative to do so. It’s just that, short of killing all members of the harem off, I’m not sure he could have infuriated any more people than he has with this cop-out.

So, well, that’s it from me. I know I wasted far too much time on this series, but I would like to take note of a couple of (almost) saving graces for this season: Kuroneko’s little sisters

Especially Hinata-chan!! also voiced by HanaKana

Disclaimer: credit goes to Jonar C. Nader for the title of this post.