Director: Hiroyuki Furukawa
Screenplay: Yūichirō Momose
Based on the light novel by Seiji
Ebisu
Voice Cast: Reina Kondo as Suzuka
Nagami; Tasuku Hatanaka as Yū Nagami; Ayumi Mano as Esaka-san; Chinatsu Akasaki
as Ahegao W Peace Sensei; Eri Kitamura as Reika Shinozaki; Kazusa Aranami as
Sakura Minazuki; Yua Nagae as Haruna Kanzaka; Yui Nakajima as Akino Kanzaka;
Yui Ogura as Mai Himuro
Viewed in Japanese with English Subtitles
In 2018, one show in the winter
schedule quickly became infamous. The premise, comic and light, was a light
novel adaptation about a young teen light novelist who scores success but,
likely to get into trouble as her school bars students from having income on
the side, asks her older brother and aspiring light novelist to pose as her in
public, necessary as her first volume is a success in a competition and
officially published. Before we even arrive to the notoriety, of how the
production quickly capsized immediately, let us get past the immediate concern that
she also has a crush on her biological brother that is kept a secret. This is
the first time incest is brought up in an anime I have covered as a main plot.
If this amateur work of mine is meant to reflect watching all types of anime,
this will not be the last time either.
Most anime which covers this isn't,
say, Koi Kaze (2004), a drama which
is meant to tackle the subject with incredible weighted nuisance, but uses incest
as a kink popular in anime and light novels as step siblings and step parents
are in 2010s porn onwards.The entire concept is merely a drop of water in the
ocean, that curious place where this is not reflective of the entirety of a medium
but also happens to be popular enough in a minority its covered a lot in titles
like Kissxsis (2010). Why incest is this common in this subsection is probably
more complex than a merely misinformed presumption on Japanese culture, but
against God knows the joke I have made about step family porn being popular in
the West on porn sites isn't a mere jest either, so this taboo has become a
growing ellicit one. A work like My Sister,
The Writer doesn't hedge its bet on these two being step siblings either.
The irony is that in spite of
this premise, as the sister wrote a novel about a brother loving his little
sister reflecting her crush for him, it feels insidiously tame and not the
thing we jaded anime fans batted an eyelid at. Even in knowledge of how arguably
filthy the show is in spite of its wholesome tone, with many fetishes
approached as the siblings negotiate around their new career path, it's not the
moral quandaries which have been the talk of the net about this series. No, the
real notoriety was also because the show right into episode two dropped so much
in animation quality it became a meme.
Animation faults happen in
television, as schedules are tight and usually cleaned up for Blu Ray, only an occasional
mishap being really notorious, from cabbages looking like green balls or
characters suddenly having distorted or comically flat features in one shot. A
show Samurai Flamenco (2013-14),
which I loved, could gain poor luck for its television run as, whilst I and
others could see the cleaned up physical releases, the viewers for the
broadcast saw animation failures which coloured the experience. When it gets so
bad, you get a Gun-dou Musashi (2006),
a notorious Monkey Punch adaptation
and one of the first examples of irony from Japanese otaku, who demanded the
DVD release to have the bad television broadcast quality animation rather than
something attempting to salvage the production. My Sister, The Writer by the second episode had howlers in terms of
animation posted online, made worse as this was a simulcast in the West through
Crunchyroll, unlike shows of decades
past like Musashi, which led to more eyes on the product.
I was ready to be controversial
by saying it wasn't so bad in the first episode. I have seen some infamous
examples of badly animated work before. Then by the second episode to the
middle of these ten episodes, until I accepted this issue, I would make hissing
noises in embarrassment even by myself watching the show. The animation
problems, not comical examples like the sister Suzuka Nagami (in a pink pair of
fetishishtic bunny pyjamas) melting on her bed, are really painful when it
comes to facial expressions in particular. This is a common problem in
television animation, with eyes too far from the nose or like they have had
faces drawn as if on a paper plate, but here some of them alongside other
animation are teeth grinding in how bad it gets.
The production history is more
talked about than the show, which is ultra generic. The show does develop as a
generic harem story, in which our bland male protagonist Yu Nagami doesn't try
to negotiate around the situations he is in with all the female attention he
has. He is another bland protagonist who is psychologically meek and complacent
to the point it is a concern, easily replaceable with a potato without any
change among female fetish stereotypes smitten by him. There's the busty publicist
who has a tendency to call him about work whilst bathing. There's another light
novelist writer who wants to know his secrets as a successful writer, a tsundere
whose trademarks is her red hair and that, as a tsundere, she follows the trope
of the hostile and aggressive female character that secretly hides a softer
side to our potato-kun hero. There's also a voice actress who is blonde and
bubbly, whose fandom of the light novel is to the point she wants to be his
little sister to his real sister's annoyance, part of this circle around our
hero with the personality of starch.
And then there's Ahegao W Peace
Sensei, who needs her own paragraph as the only character of note. An erotic
illustrator, the thing to bear in mind is that she stands out more for her
voice actress Chinatsu Akasaki,
playing a busty and energetic blonde, being utterly professional as her
character at one point at a Comiket, a real major Japanese fan convention, says
that she enjoys "degrading rape porn too much". That will put people
off, just referring to real dialogue she has; some might be put off just from
her preferred nickname Ahegao, which is the term in anime and manga porn for a
shot of a (usually female) character having had a violent orgasm to the point
of comically over the top facial expressions and looking like one's mind has
been blown. Ahegao in another story would actually be a fascinating if controversial
female character, a proud and independent creator who just happens to have a
very transgressive catalogue of sexual fetishes she enjoys. We exist still with
a gender bias where we don't presume in mainstream culture women can have
fetishes and sexual interests which can be uncomfortable to many, which would
make Ahegao such a fascinating character if handled in an anime that was
actually good. This is especially as she never comes off as a deviant; she says
openly crude and sexual things when it would be deeply inappropriate in public,
but a subtler take of this carefree, very talented and sweet figure would be a challenge
to tackle with interest. This is My
Sister, The Writer though so don't expect it to take this character and ask
these questions from her, asking the challenging ideas she has the potential to
suggest1.
Come to think about it, as one
man who actually watched the whole series rather than just the first two
episodes, not a lot actually happens at all in all I saw. The show's infamy got
a deeper layer when the production staff started hiding messages in the
production credits, like the name “Shojiki Komata” which is likely shojiki
komatta, meaning “We’re in serious trouble.” It is pointless to argue about
gender politics, whether it's acceptable to fetishize incest, when the back
story of this show was a show capsizing from the beginning and getting bad to
the point the staff themselves were sending messages of help to the viewers.
This was the reason I ever considered watching this series, and in a world
which promotes romance between biological siblings, without anyone onscreen
arguing the ethical problems involved, it's not something to be shocked by in
the blandness of the show. Or the bigger ethical issue, in real life, that
someone confirmed none of the staff on the show were being paid2.
If you ignore this, the issue
falls to the side as the cutesy tone manages to plain out all the fetishes this
about whilst being utterly sleazy inherently. It is explicit to the point the
television broadcast, which I saw on Crunchyroll,
had to censor the nudity with onscreen "stickers", contrasting a
tameness which is surprising as this deals with a lot of fetishes distinct to
this pop culture, a running joke that Suzuka wants a term explained to her only
to blush and be shocked when someone (usually Ahegao) does. The light novel
aspect, super popular novellas with illustrations which have become a big part
of anime in how many are adapted, is barely covered. There's a perversity in a
notoriously bad show talking about a great light novelist, that Suzuka's work is
so good it can generate female fans wanting to be her brother's little sister,
or the many debates about what a good story should be. It doesn't bother even
trying to show the world of light novel production, which would've be
fascinating to see even in an exaggerated form, especially as we do have the
character go to a real life fan convention here. Instead I have to write about
something as absurd about the anime director, when this light novel gets so
popular it is being produced for an adaptation, arguing with Yu that he is not
liking cute little sisters enough to be a good writer. Many sane readers of
this might be grossed by this. I just wondered in hindsight what bizarre world such
an argument would make sense within.
Once I got accustomed to the
animation problems, nothing really stands out. The main female cast are mostly
insignificant, generic/buxom/cute characters baring Ahegao and Suzuka who are
so generic this is a rare case of not even the character designs standing out,
made worse as there's nothing credible or defendable about the main story about
the lead siblings getting closer, as Yu has to play out being romantically
attracted to his real sister to pose as a creator. It might've been a real transgressive
streak if they went with the incestuous romance fully, but this a tedious romantic
tale, some mild internal angst and the additional cast being roadblocks, which
makes the relationship not that compelling either.
It's clearly a fetish delivery
system of a show to be honest, and it goes for low laying fruit to the point My Sister, The Writer is inert. Little
happens. An episode doing research at Suzuka's school summer festival, where
they inexplicably end up as the romantic leads for a theatrical performance,
just happens, and that applies to most of the plot points. There's no real
conflict baring that anime director and two female light novel creating
sisters, the youngest with a hugely broken friendship with Ahegao feeding her
animosity to her. Neither conflict is dabbled in greatly, nor the sisters as
they merely tag along with Yu as potential suitors. Beyond that, I honestly suspect
the show was quietly put to pasture before it intended to, when your animators
are having honest to God pleas for help in the credits.
They did however create a single
two part OVA episode, in spite of this, whose existence was fully uncensored
bared breasts. Both parts are about Ahegao having experimental virtual reality
games, one where the women play a reverse netorare situation,
"netorare" a type of adult manga and anime trope of adulterous
relationships, where everyone is trying to steal the lead potato from the
designated wife with simulated sex. The other inexplicably turns into a sexy
version of Saw (2004), still with
two people chained up in a grungy bathroom with a body, alongside Die Hard (1988) if re-imagined with
nipple triggered bombs. Even with the nude and kink it would be tame, baring
the discomfort of one character being the under aged teen sister of the lead,
making the scene (and let's be blunt about the moment) where she messages her
older brother's back in a bathtub with her chest probably one of the scuzziest
things I've covered, especially when you consider an otaku has probably
masturbated to this scene.
"Trangressive" is a questionable
word to use as I don't consider My
Sister, The Writer doesn't have its plot idea of incest to deliberately
subvert or offend normalcy, but just as a token. Its neither to be forgotten
that a lot of these incest kink shows are usually about cute little sisters, a
sense of "moe" and such concepts' sinister underbellies being popular
as unlike an actual girlfriend, a cute younger girl fantasy is more appealing
as they can be told to be quiet so the male can play his videogames. Aesthetically,
by the conclusion probably the worst thing alongside the morality is that this
was already as bland as you could get, that is colourful and bright with its
pop credit songs but looking like everything else initially anyway, with
additional atrocious animation and questionable story pacing that makes the
experience worse. This isn't School Days
(2007), bright and bland but with an intentional dark heart, instead My Sister, The Writer the kind of show
we would thankfully have forgotten and buried weren't it not for how much of a
conceptual disaster it turned into.
=====
1) Ahegao is also meant to be
British, which really is a surprise as a British viewer to learn. I mean we're secretly
kinky over here, but should I proudly embrace this character or not? There's
not even any sense of Britishness in the character seen in the series, even tea
drinking, so it's a character trait that's a non entity.
2) HERE
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