So, let me begin with a disclaimer: this series will immediately turn off most possible fans within the first two minutes of episode 1. The Light Novel series that it’s adapting dedicated an entire chapter to the events shown on screen while the manga adaptation spoiled the point and impact of the scene to make the story more accessible at the cost of multiple jokes built upon that first scene. This is known lovingly as “the normie filter” by the community. You have been warned.

This review will be over the Anime series since it’s a pretty faithful adaptation of the first three volumes of the original written work with pieces taken out of order from Volume 4 and 5 to fill out the runtime and introduce important characters that appear later in the series but play an off screen role in the previous volumes.

What is the scene in question?

How you get introduced to the main character, a 20 year old writer named Itsuki Hashima, is definitely unique. I won’t disclose exactly what happens but know it’s the first of many running gags that build up into a pretty dark punchline that the Anime barely addresses. He’s a writer of fairly trashy but extremely popular little sister novels (you know, like Eromanga Sensei and Oreimo, both of which are directly called out and exist within the world of the story in the first couple of chapters). His image is below. The scene involved a story that was written by him that was immediately rejected by his editor. Context is very much everything in this series.

What is this story about?

The whole premise of the series revolves around Itsuki and his friends (most of which are also writers) and them living their lives, falling in love and getting up to shenanigans. There are real world locations that appear from time to time, lots of alcohol and board games (that you can purchase and play in real life), and comfy vibes once you get past early on gross humor that never completely stops.

A not so relevant to the Anime scene that does play a slightly bigger part in the source material involved one of Itsuki’s closest friends depantsing a girl against her will and essentially assaulting her without ill intent actually involved. It will make certain people uncomfortable. A lot of the humor is along those lines but that’s one of the most offensive gags; it does have a point that I won’t spoil, but I’m disclosing this particular one so you know what kind of content to expect.

All of the characters (including the above perpetrator) were almost immediately endearing to me; most of them are college aged and reminded me of my group in college from years back. We did many of the things they did (not to as much of an extreme shown but still similar enough to make me nostalgic). Part of this did involve romantic subplots and some melodrama.

Nayuta, the girl shown below, is one of my favorite characters in the show but she may turn you away. She looks substantially younger than she is (18 and a bit short but well endowed) and is equal parts multiple different levels of dere for Itsuki (frequently played for laughs) and one of the most emotionally fleshed out (yet sex starved and very openly explicit) characters in the cast. Do not look up up any merchandise in public; you’ll thank me later. If you know anything about Higurashi, she and Rena I bet would get along well and quite possibly have a canonical Yuri romance. She’s not right in the head but is wonderful once she grows on you.

Thoughts on the production side of things

The series is pretty good looking with an overall consistent visual style and quality. Outside of a small handful of characters being altered from their original novel counterparts and the designs being a bit too normal for the content involved, I felt Silver Link adapted the series well. The music and more imaginative parts seem to be where they focused most of their budget, giving a wonderful whimsical feel to the majority of scenes. Both the English dub and original Japanese had great voice work done and the characters came to life.

If there was one issue I had, it was that the original Japanese seemed to have tamed down the jokes and dialogue from the source to make the series more approachable while the English dub felt more in line and went all the way with gross jokes (may have been a translator used problem and not the Japanese language release itself). I watched on Crunchyroll and have noticed this issue crop up in other series on the platform.

Who should watch this series?

If you enjoyed a series like Baka and Test (one of Silver Link’s first solo endeavors) or The Pet Girl of Sakura Hall and love shows about unrestrained creativity with a point to the absurdity, this show would be up your alley. If you don’t like gross humor and want more restrained, more down to earth characters, run away. It’s a very specific audience type of series.

Closing comments

Thanks for reading. If you have seen this show, feel free to comment below. I want to try to keep spoilers to a minimum but if you must, use spoiler tags please.

Important Information

• Japanese Title: Imōto Sae Ireba Ii
• Studio: Silver Link
• Release Season: Fall 2017
• Genre: Parody Series, Slice of Life, Romantic Comedy, Adult Character Drama
• Seasons / Episodes: 1 season 12 episodes