Oreimo Review
Oreimo is the most interesting anime series I have watched. From the beginning to the end, it had me thinking “What the fuck?” It would be hard to explain or justify why I have watched the whole series three times. All I can say is that there’s something about it that draws me in. It’s like watching a train wreck happen. You know what is going to happen, but 30 episodes later you see siblings kissing each other romantically and feel gutted. It also helps that it has great side characters too.
Watching it over the third time, I noticed two main points in the story that paved the way to the ending we got. Let’s pretend for this article that the author doesn’t love writing incest stories.
Oriemo Ending: The Two Major Mistakes
Manami Telling Kirino That It’s Unusual for A Sister to Love her Brother
To be honest, I’m glad Kyousuke never had a thing for Manami. I don’t like her at all, but that’s not the point here though. The point is by telling an 11-year-old girl that her brother was never amazing and that it’s unnatural for her to love her brother, it created a complex where instead of her love for her brother waned into a sort ‘family love’, it made her strive to want to see her “amazing Onii-chan” again. To Manami’s dismay, it created a sort of a Streisand effect.
I know Manami was 14 at the time and wasn’t really thinking though, but she really fucked this one up. She was hoping to coddle Kyousuke into being a boring and overly-average guy, and almost got what she wanted, but messed up by messing with Kirino. Manami is right that it’s unnatural to love your brother in a romantic way, but still, there’s no reason to tell that to a kid that doesn’t understand why that’s wrong yet. You’re just setting yourself up for failure if you want to coddle her brother into being an underachieving dope you’ll marry in 10 years.
Kuroneko Breaking up with Kyousuke
I hated seeing this happen to Kuroneko since I really liked her. It was painful to see her overthink herself out of a relationship. If she would have just kept going out with Kyousuke, he would have more than likely stopped having romantic feelings for Kirino, and Kirino would eventually move on. Instead, though, she broke up with him and didn’t contact him for a while, which made him rely on his sister to find her.
Instead of realizing that being into his sister was silly and immoral, it accelerated his affection for her, the opposite of what Kuroneko needed. I can kind of see her reasoning behind what she did since she wanted them to be friends together, but she did it in the worst way possible. She created a scenario where Kyousuke either had to pick her or Kirino, and I can’t see Kyousuke picking anyone other than Kirino if he had to choose. That’s probably more indicative of his feelings towards his sister, but Kuroneko could have avoided that if she had stuck with dating him. I hated seeing her being rejected by Kyousuke, but honestly, it’s kinda her fault that this happened anyway. It’s a real shame.
Right now you’re probably thinking “Even if these things didn’t happen, they would have still become lovers in the end because the author is a freak with a sister complex.” and honestly, you’re completely correct. Nothing I can write, type, or say can change the fact that Kyousuke and Kirino are lovers, and always will be. Typing this is a complete waste of time since the anime and light novel series ended 4 years ago. But I can’t stop thinking about how fucked this series is. It’s a modern day tragedy story to me. I hate how the author does the side characters, which are more deserving of being treated well than Kirino but get treated like garbage. Anyway, I’m glad I got this out of my system.
