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AKA: 僕の妹は「大阪おかん」 (Boku no Imouto wa 'Osaka Okan')
Genre: Comedy
Length: Television series, 12 episodes, 4 minutes each
Distributor: Currently available streaming on crunchyroll
Content Rating: 13+ (light suggestive material)
Related Series: N/A
Also Recommended: Um... Christ, I dunno. That 'My Little Sister can't be this cute' show, maybe? (Oreimo)
Notes: Original Flash animation by Sota Sugahara and Kotaro Ishidate, the creators behind gdgd Fairies series.
Rating:

My Little Sister is an Osakan Momma

Synopsis

After ten years living separately, Kyosuke once again has his little sister, Namika, living together with him, only to find out that she has turned into a cavalcade of Osakan stereotypes.


Review

Whenever new season roundups arrive, I usually manage to come up with a few expectations to each show I see. Of course, said expectations aren't always right -- that's not the point. The point is; regardless of how weird a concept ends up sounding on paper, I can always come up with a few predictions that'll eventually spice up any first viewings when I get the chance to see whether I was right or not.

This show managed to stump the expectation glands of my brain, though. You can chalk that up to me not really being all that familiar with Japanese culture in general, much less the more regional areas. But more than that, you should probably not depend on My Little Sister's an Osakan Momma for the how-tos and how-ares of Osakan cultures and lifestyles in general, much less how they compare to city life in, say, Tokyo.

Most of the runtime of the TV series itself is centered around ex-Osakan mainstay Namika and her many conversations with her brother Kyosuke. You could probably be excused for thinking she would be a typical moefang tsundere. Her design is suspiciously fetish-y that way, with her light blue twintail hairstyle, cat fangs and ... huge hair clip? Of course, the show's joke is that she's anything but: direct to the point of crudeness, completely shameless despite showing a veneer of embarrassment and, well, just generally being weird. The joke's on Osaka, I guess.

The setup is like some bizarre trivia game crossed with duo comedy acts. It's not that I'm unfamiliar with stereotypes in general, but most of the jokes in this show are just lost on me. The randomness of the scenes can occasionally save it from becoming too annoying, but really, the main points seem to be that Namika is weird. End of story.

To make matters worse, the animation is just terrible. Even if some of you out there might have been attracted to the character art in this show, it animates like some kind of lazy flash cartoon from when the multimedia platform itself was introduced. The animation style makes the characters look like some kind of messed-up conglomeration of string puppets and bobblehead dolls, which can really take you out of the show itself. Which means Namika's dress code isn't necessarily required to take sole blame for when your eyes start bleeding.

A few chuckleworthy moments notwithstanding, I don't really think I can give My Little Sister is an Osakan Momma a recommendation. Terrible animation aside, the show just feels really arbitrary, making the jokes in it sound like they were pulled straight out from someone's ass. True, I might be missing some of the finer points the series may or may not try to satirize, but that's another thing that it probably needs; a measuring pole saying "you have to be at least THIS Japanese to understand these jokes". Probably.

My Little Sister is an Osakan Momma never gets truly mean-spirited, but the vibes I get from watching this isn't entirely unlike the ones I get from the less than positive portrayals of, say, rednecks in movies about America, just as an example. Not necessarily awful, but it probably won't make you want to watch it again.

There really isn't anything to be learned from this show, so your liking of it is going to depend on how much you'll gravitate to its random unloading of jokes. Approach with some caution.Stig Høgset

Recommended Audience: Namika occasionally throws some vaguely sexual suggestions in Kyosuke's direction at the beginning of a few of the episodes, but other than that, it's a pretty safe show.



Version(s) Viewed: Crunchyroll stream, Japanese with English subtitles
Review Status: Full (12/12)
My Little Sister is an Osakan Momma © 2012 Charaction / Boku no Imouto wa 'Osaka Okan' Production Committee.
 
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