Nothing complicates things like the arrival of a younger sister on the scene.
What They Say:
If Mashiro and Nanami wasn’t enough, Sorata has to deal with someone who has known him all his life. The jealous between these three rivals will bring Sorata to his knees.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the series having sort of settled things out a bit with Nanami in the in the picture more firmly now by being in Sakura House and Sorata having come to an understanding of sorts with Shiina, it’s time to throw him another curveball. And what better – or worse depending on your perspective – way to do that than to introduce the younger sister. Sorata’s younger sister Yuko has come to visit him in the big city of Tokyo since he’s not come home to visit for summer break and her seeing Shiina there definitely reaffirms her view that someone has basically devoured her saintly brother. Seeing how Yuko acts with her at the start is silly, but you can’t help but to laugh with Shiina being oblivious to it as she talks like an alien into a high speed fan in the room.
When she does get around to asking who Yuko is, the whole thing turns worse since Shiina introduces herself as Sorata’s pet in essence and Nanami walks in to view a potential sister-complex in action, which panics her to a big degree. Yuko, for her part, definitely is a by the numbers younger sister with an adoring and controlling view of her brother that can’t believe he’s all caught up in such indecent things. As Yuko settles into things for a bit, we learn that she’s actually a third year middle school student that seems to act more like a third year elementary school student. Everyone treats her kindly as one would expect, but you can see how Mashiro is trying to learn from her in comical ways that invariably go wrong overall. But that’s just what makes Shiina who she is.
The show doesn’t do anything revolutionary or interesting here for the most part, but it puts Sorata through the wringer in a fun way as he has to deal not only with his sister being as hard to manage as she is, but also the way she impacts others. Shiina’s trying to learn from her while Nanami does her best to help out Sorata, though at times she ends up trying to be similar to Shiina and find ways to make herself more endearing to Sorata. Shiina also starts to get more possessive of Sorata which is amusing since it makes Yuko more jealous and even starts to put Nanami on the outs in an absolutely adorable way. Thankfully, they do manage to make Yuko a bit more sympathetic as it goes on, but for the most part she really is just a stereotype of this kind of character and there really aren’t any surprises to be had here with this mild diversion.
In Summary:
While Yuko doesn’t exactly win me over because she has such a basic and obvious personality with nothing that really makes her anything but interchangeable with any number of other sister characters, she fits fairly well into the show here. But mostly because it’s a lot more interesting to see how others react to her and deal with her kind of quirky behavior. Nanami is the most fun to watch here since she sees potential for getting closer to Sorata but also sees ways to increase that by being more like Shiina. Shiina for her part is pretty much the same as always, but I liked the jealous streak that hits her and her particular personality since she’s generally oblivious. This paints her in a slightly different light and that helps to expand her just enough to give her a bit more personality.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.