Oreimo (Ore no Imōto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai)

[takenoko]

So this is something that I just happened to read in the form of scanlations. I'm not sure why, because the pacing was kind of slow, and the jokes and story seemed kind of plain. But Kirino's problems were kind of interesting and I liked the otaku references

So I happened to be looking it up and apparently there's streams for the anime:
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/video/9457/#play-1

The anime seems much better. It fixes some of the problems with the pacing, it just seems much more interesting in this form. Plus the dad's voiced by W's Memories/Captain Zaraki. The only thing that seems weird is that Kirino's hair is so light that it looks almost blonde. I do like that you see less of her one fang SD forms that appears a lot in the manga. For some reason I don't like that. Edit: Also, Tamura Yukari plays one of Kirino's friends. Awesome!

The one thing that confused me when watching this is that they mention something called Garagee which I think is short for Galapagos Games or cellphone games since Galapagos is a brand of cellphone in Japan. I think? There's a lot of terms that aren't explained, but that's what makes it kind of a quaint study in Japanese culture
Turns out I misheard it. They were saying GaruGee, for Gal Games or games for girls. Thanks to SpinelSun for correcting me on that

Episode 3

Spoiler

The fight between the dad and the children in the anime seems a lot more subdued. In the manga, it was super intense. I can understand why that wouldn't transfer as well in an animated form with actual voices. But yeah, this is around where in the manga that the story got interesting to me. Maybe it was because seeing the brother take the stand for the sister was impressive

The music is pretty catchy too

I don't really have time to follow many anime series nowadays, but this was kind of amusing

Edit:

Episode 5
This was a pretty good episode. Kind of reminds me of Densha Otoko since the sister is forced to deal with her hobby versus how society views it. Basically her best friend discovers her hobby and they have a falling out over it. The episode deals with this conflict. I thought it was more interesting than the father scene because it was a much more complicated situation. I kind of feel like people might enjoy this episode even if they haven't seen the first four episodes
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/video/9851/#play-1

Edit Edit:
So I finished the series, and it was pretty enjoyable. I really liked the brother being the straightman to all the crazy girls around him. Kuroneko was really cute, she had a soft voice, but usually had stinging commentary that made her really funny. Plus she was a good foil for Kirino. I'm kind of sad that we didn't get to see more of Saori's background. It seems like they gave us a glimpse without letting us know anything else

Towards the end you can really tell that the anime was becoming kind of aware of itself, which it utilized very well. Like with the anime creation episode, you can't help but wonder how much of this was inspired by the actual anime creation. And then there's the aspect of the story starting to really reflect eroge. I commented near the end "The brother could have any of the girls in this series" and sure enough in the second to last episode, nearly all the girls end up calling him some version of "oniichan" at some point. It's like "Oh yeah, the writers know what this story is about"

It's kind of weird, it doesn't seem like there was any major conflict or anything, it pretty much ends

Spoiler

the same way it starts

. Hopefully there'll be a second season

As for the quality of the subs? I definitely have some nitpicks. Like there are honorifics used, but towards the end the -san and -sama aren't used. And Saori's -shi isn't used, even though there's a funny sarcastic line where the brother refers to her as Saori-shi in a mocking way. They use eroge, but there's one instance near the end where they use erogame, I dunno, maybe people were complaining it wasn't obvious what those were? And there was weird formatting issues, like some lines would clash and be bumped up unnaturally. Or the karaoke would break up words in weird places, it almost seemed arbitrary. And in the last episode, all the two line subs had an extra line between them. As sloppy as that was, it was free and it's not like it was unwatchable for it. If they released a DVD with subs like this, I probably wouldn't buy it though

But yeah, it's a cute and funny series. You can watch it for free, so why not, right?

[SpinelSun]

The one thing that confused me when watching this is that they mention something called Garagee which I think is short for Galapagos Games or cellphone games since Galapagos is a brand of cellphone in Japan. I think? There's a lot of terms that aren't explained, but that's what makes it kind of a quaint study in Japanese culture

what ep?

[takenoko]

I honestly don't remember. They mention garagee a few times throughout the series in contrast to erogee. Maybe Ayase mentions it in episode 5. I'm not sure

[SpinelSun]

I honestly don't remember. They mention garagee a few times throughout the series in contrast to erogee. Maybe Ayase mentions it in episode 5. I'm not sure

Maybe you misheard? Unless it was in the subs (I didn't watch any of them), and the raws I only watched up to 9 or so, the only thing I remember hearing other than Erogee was Garugee (Gal Game). A Gal Game is similar to an Ero Game just without the Eros And from what I can remember... the term Gal Game is synonymous with Bishoujo Game, dating sims mostly.

[Favine]

I read the Manga which is pretty good. I'll have to listen to that radio show.

[Tatsulot]

Takenoko, I always avoid animenewsnetwork because a lot of their animes have missing episodes. Snip They have pretty decent subs in terms of accuracy with the translations. Either way this anime was hilarious. Especially in that last episode where Kyousuke was forced to go to Akiba to buy an eroge for Kirino.

[takenoko]

I already saw all the episodes on ANN, there's no reason for me to get a fansub version

the only thing I remember hearing other than Erogee was Garugee (Gal Game).

Ah, that must be it! Thanks

[Zenacra]

awesome! i've heard of this anime, and the main girl seems incredible cute. i'll get right on watching it... right after i find somewhere other than AnimeNewsNetwork.

[takenoko]

So I finally got around to watching my blu-rays for Oreimo. I've got to say that I always feel good watching this show. I just got a new TV, so it was nice to see it on a big monitor.

I watched it from that streaming site twice and I never noticed before that Kirino had the fang in her mouth the way she does in the manga. It was too small.

Before I talk about the new episodes, I thought I'd talk about the bonus footage. Each Blu-ray comes with two episodes, a non-credit version of the openings, the Web Preview for the next episode, sometimes the original ending that was broadcast, and finally a commentary segment. I had never seen the previews before, they all take place from Saori's point of view in the form of IMing with their respective avatars while her refined background music plays. There's no vocalization, so it's kind of weird. The commentary is extremely well done. Sometimes they'll animate SD version of the characters to react to what's going on in the video. I'm looking forward to watching the commentary version.

So I kind of watched the first half of 12.5 with my eyes closed. I swear it's exactly the same as the original 12. Oh yeah, the Blu-ray version of 12 is weird since it includes an opening that I'm sure was edited for 12.5, but anyway... It's kind of interesting to see how it branches off in the second half of the episode. It's very true to the Oreimo game that I played earlier this year.

Episodes 13-14

Spoiler

They were okay, but it was weird that Kirino wasn't there. It's like there was a shadow over the usually fun show, and I didn't really enjoy these episodes for that reason. I think Akagi Senna was funnier when she was just a faceless command, sending her brother out to buy homo games after midnight. Considering Akagi the brother is funny because he's an unabashed siscon, they're relationship seemed weirdly nonexistent in those episodes. There just wasn't enough there to make her an interesting character for Kousaka and Kuroneko to react to in my opinion.

Episode 15

Spoiler

It was alright I guess. It's interesting that they still leave the Kuroneko x Kousaka thing in the air even though it hints very strongly toward there being something there. But I understand that the big thing in the episode was the reunion with Kirino and setting things back to normal.

Rewatching the show, it's weird to notice the flow of time. The show begins what, July 2011? They go to this year's Comike then jumps to Halloween, then Christmas. And by episode 12 it's April of 2012. Then in 13 it's April of 2013! Holy crap, this show spans almost two years' period in time. So I guess the PSP game takes place during the summer of 2013?