When you read the title "Days with My Step Sister", nobody can blame you for thinking this show is just going to be generic inseki slop pulling out all the standard cliches. But I promise that it is not like that all. This show is pure romance. No comedy, no slice of life, no fanservice, no cliche walking in on each other while changing or "whoops I actually fell and groped your pussy and tits" sort of shenanigans. Just a pure and raw psychological slow burn romance.

If I had to describe the show in one word it would be "natural". The personality of the two main characters, their circumstances, how they act and treat each other in those circumstances, how their relationship develops, how they perceive each other due to their own unfortunate lived experiences regarding romance and relationships with the opposite sex, all of it just feels so real. Almost like the characters are not just characters on a screen but real people going through real experiences.

The pacing of the anime is quite slow and usually I don't like slowly paced shows and speed them up to around 1.25x, but in this anime it didn't really bother me and I watched it at normal speed. Maybe it is the difference between a show with bad pacing and a show with intentionally slow pacing, designed from the start for that kind of vibe. I liked some of the weirder cinematographic choices made during those monologue scenes where a character talks about their feelings as well, even though it might be boring for some. I think a good benchmark for whether or not you will like this kind of slower pace focused on dialogue and interpersonal relationships rather than animation is whether or not you liked the scenes of Monogatari where the characters talk for the entire episode.

I liked the sound design of the show, it adds to the overall vibe very well. As for the animation, it's okay. Like I said they do have some unique tricks they use for certain scenes but it's clear it wasn't a very high budget anime and all of the animation is average at best. That being said, an anime like this doesn't need amazing animation to tell a compelling story, but it obviously wouldn't have hurt either. We see especially in a lot of modern anime that slower paced and more chill stuff can still benefit greatly from good animation. But it's not a deal breaker or anything for this anime.

My biggest gripe was probably

Spoiler, click to view

the talk between the female MC and the teacher in the university about how the female MC might be confusing her feelings as love when they might just be general feelings for the opposite sex, because she never really had the opportunity to be so close to the opposite sex. Which then puts a brake on her and the male MC getting together and they decide to take a slower approach.

I agree with the sentiment and it is profound advice. I really liked where the season ended, it was a very mature way to handle their situation on the part of the main characters. But... it did leave a bad taste in my mouth because it felt like some random character came and changed the course of their relationship. If such a talk had happened with the mother I think it would be more satisfying as the teacher is literally a completely new and random person. It would have been some nice character development for the mother as well. I understand how sometimes an outsiders perspective is the most valuable, but I just found it to be unsatisfying. I felt led on and blue balled. Although considering "my biggest gripe" is filled with so much praise, you can tell this is a really great show.

Overall this show is amazing and I'm sad to see something so high quality was kind of overlooked, and I'm guessing it was mostly because of the title. Don't judge a book by it's cover! Or I guess in this case, an anime by it's title.