You ever get that feeling while watching or reading something, where you just sort of stop it and say, “Yeah, fuck this.”
Well, that’s what I get from Tsukasa Fushimi’s work, Eromanga-sensei.
So to give some background, he’s the author of Oreimo, a.k.a Ore no Imōto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai, a.k.a My Little Sister Can’t be This Cute. Honestly, the title pretty much tells you what to expect going into the series, but hey, I’d heard it was funny and I can give things a shot.
Well, it genuinely was funny. I enjoyed it quite a bit. But see, here’s the thing. There is an undercurrent of attraction between the brother and sister. Incest is a theme that quite turns me off, but hey, the story was enjoyable enough to cover for it, and it was fairly subdued.
Hell, the guy even starts to date one of his sister’s friends, an actual relationship in an anime (more on relationships in anime later). There’s character, shared moments and so on.
Then in the last season, it all goes to shit, and the last two episodes the guy goes and marries his sister. Yeah.
Now, in Eromanga-sensei (the title roughly means Erotic Manga Writer(?) I’m not that familiar with Japanese) we once again have a brother, a younger sister, and conveniently absent parents. This time the brother and sister are step-siblings, to make it more… okay, I guess? Well, writer’s choice.
So, sister’s a shut in, and eventually the brother manages to talk to her in person after about a year. Story progresses, and we once again see the current of incest begin to flow. I mean sure, the brother denies that he could ever have feelings for her, but hey, we all know how it’s going to go.
What really makes this creepy is that the little sisters are always little girls. That’s what gets me. The incest only amplifies this. On its own, the incest might turn me off, sure, but it wouldn’t be worth writing about.
It’s the combination of the two that really gets to me, along with the usual sprinkling of anime tropes that so many successful anime have.
Ugh.
But hey, that’s just what I feel.