"Imouto sae Ireba Ii" is an anime about a little sister Alice who wakes her big brother by deep kissing, lets him wash his face with her leftover bathwater, lets him wipe his face with her worn bra, makes omurice with "her" eggs and gives him "her" milk.
No, that's not what actually happens. I was just kidding around.
If you have seen this girl from somewhere then she is from this anime.
Coming back to review. "Imouto sae Ireba Ii" is an anime about a light novelist, Itsuka Hashima, who longs for a little sister, as can be seen from title. Though his works are not the bestselling but quite decent so he has some fans.
His friend circle includes mostly authors who write light novels and since they are novelist, they are also somewhat otakuish and shut-in type. This just makes the whole anime more hilarious and engaging.
First on friends list is Haruto Fuwa who writes best selling novels and one of them also got anime adaptation. Hyuu! Haruto. But he claims to not have personality and hence is unpopular as author. In anime, he goes on to provide nice support to our main character Itsuki.
Next we have the cute lady you might know from before, Nayuta Kani, a light novelist whose novels from debut till now have been fire. She is in hopelessly in love with him. Also her warm and extroverted nature isn't just for show. She is truly fire character. In my language it would be 'aag laga deti hai' roughly translating into English as 'sets stage on fire'
Like a manzai, here is also a straight character Shirakawa Miyako. She went to same college as Itsuki and has been visiting him since he dropped from college. Reason? It's explained but was not very notable.
The overall story was somewhat different as expected from title which came as a pleasant surprise. As a main character Itsuki had something to long for, something more important than fame as author, a little sister. This is very different and something very specific that it kept engaging. His love for little sister and obsession for them has very thin line and crosses a lot in anime.
The character setting was what would be called decent. The characters don't stand out very much including main characters except Itsuki and Nayuta. This setting is one of the drawbacks which steers it away from perfect score. Other being the openness and development of character which was handled awkwardly and hardly a lot of effort being put in. The reason might be the adaptation since orignally it was a light novel. Though setting was decent, the character Haruto, Nayuta amd Itsuki had become someone who I got attached to at an emotional level.
One of the greater things about this anime which tries to pull to towards greatness is it's transition from comedy to seriousness by the end of episode. This execution of plot was somewhere about decent and brought life to anime. The past struggles of characters was strong enough to feel empathy for them and keep us glued to story.
Its opening was fabulous and very appealing to ears.
All in all this review was to make you watch this anime which even after it's shortcoming still has a charm of it's own. Yes, I would still recommend you to watch this. If you live in Asia, watch it on Muse Asia.