AKA: My Big Sister Arrived! (Literal Translation), お姉ちゃんが来た

Genre: Comedy

Length: Television series, 12 episodes, 3 minutes each

Distributor: Currently available streaming on crunchyroll

Content Rating: 13+ (Suggestive Situations, Crude Humor)

Related Series: N/A

Also Recommended: Encouragement of Climb, Tonari no Seki Kun (Better Short Series)

Notes: Based on the 4-panel gag manga by Rikou Anzai.

Rating:

Onee-chan ga Kita

Synopsis

This gag series revolves around Tomoya Mizuhara, a 13-year-old boy who suddenly gains an older stepsister sister when his father remarries. 17-year-old Ichika is a wee bit strange, and her affection for Tomoya is a bit overwhelming, even downright obsessive and scary at times.

Review

I feared the worst with this series, given that its premise seems like the logical spinoff of the reprehensible canon of anime centering on older brother-younger sister incest. To my relief, this aspect of the "story" fades somewhat following the first episode and the show merely ends up being bad rather than execrable. Regardless of its premise, spotty comic timing saps whatever potential this series had to be funny, its short episode length being the primary reason it at all remains watchable.

Onee-chan ga Kita doesn't really have much in the way of characters, since Ichika and Tomoya are too entrenched in their respective roles within their "comic" pairing that they remain profoundly one-dimensional; Pepe Le Pew, of whose antics Ichika reminded me of, got more character development in most of his shorts than these guys ever do. The side characters invariably also have siblings, against whose relationship the main pair's is contrasted, and while this leads to some knowing glances that account for some of the series' few genuinely funny moments, their roles amount to shallow, uninteresting antics, and there is little to remember about them. The humor is not sharp enough to overcome this failing, for it ranges from tired cliches, such as Tomoya's crush being far more devious than her "sweet and simple" exterior lets on, to awkward slapstick, such as Ichika throwing herself at her brother and repeatedly invading his privacy, to Ichika's downright creepy fantasy of covering her brother in chocolate and licking him (a suggestion that would likely earn a male character a quick kick in the family jewels). Indeed, while less of the show is devoted to lusting after Tomoya than I had feared, what scenes do occur are disturbing on account of the unpleasant trope of having a female character harass or stalk another character in order to get away with showing it (consider the many scenes in shounen series where girls fondle other girls' breasts non-consensually as another example).

Half of me thinks that this series was written as a lame attempt to apply the aforementioned trope to the younger sister "genre" and seem less creepy, whereas the other half is inclined to dismiss this show as being merely stupid and unfunny. The two sides can agree that this show is bad, however; the characters have too little charm and the gags have too little originality. While not exactly unwatchable, there's hardly an ounce of value here, the art being of shoddy quality and the precious few funny moments being hardly enough to justify watching the rest. If these episodes had lasted any longer than 3 minutes I would likely never have finished this series, and that should be enough indication as to whether I think this is worth bothering with.

Not execrable or boring enough to flunk completely; it's mostly just lame. — Nicoletta Christina Browne

Recommended Audience: Teenagers and up. There are a few jokes that border on making light of pedophilia and incest, and that is enough to make this inappropriate for children, but it is fairly tame otherwise.