'Recently, My Sister Is Unusual' light novel introduces Mitsuki's emotional trauma resulting from her parents' divorce. This premise explores Mitsuki's struggles with feelings of abandonment and her attempts to cope with her new family dynamics. However, while the novel briefly touches on these complexities, it falls short of consistently exploring this potentially profound theme throughout the narrative, which is expected from your average horny harem school romcom.
The novel faces challenges in maintaining its course and direction. Chapter 4 introduces a forced romantic tension between Mitsuki and Yuuya, central characters meant to drive the plot. Unfortunately, the lack of genuine emotional development between them renders their relationship feeling contrived and inauthentic. For instance, the 'love quest' in chapter 5, where Mitsuki and Yuuya are tasked to act like a couple, fails to evoke genuine romantic chemistry, leading to awkward and cringe-worthy situations that do little to advance the narrative or deepen character connections.
Additionally, Hiyori, an important character, suffers from underdevelopment. Despite her initial role as a mischievous ghost, she quickly becomes one-dimensional, primarily serving as a source of comedic situations. In chapter 6's beach resort antics, Hiyori's constant mischief disrupts the narrative's potential for exploring her motivations or feelings more meaningfully.
Furthermore, the love triangle involving Mitsuki, Yuuya, and Hiyori lacks depth and complexity. The novel often resorts to predictable scenarios, such as Hiyori's frequent attempts to make Mitsuki and Yuuya horny for each other, without delving into the characters' conflicting emotions and desires. This lack of substantial exploration weakens the overall impact of the love triangle, diminishing its potential for genuine tension and intrigue.
One of the novel's gimmicks is the TST ability, which allows Hiyori to take over Mitsuki's body temporarily. While this concept presents an opportunity for a deeper exploration of identity, self-discovery, and consent, it is predominantly used for comedic effect. Chapter 7's folk dance scene is one such example, where Hiyori's attempts at intimacy are played for laughs, trivialising the potential seriousness of the situation and the implications of the TST ability.
It fails to capitalise on its plot elements and gimmicks. The lack of coherence and consistent character development detracts from the narrative's potential impact, leaving much to be desired, except for providing lousy, tasteless, horny soft-porn artworks.
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