Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-san
Short Synopsis: A skeletal bookstore employee fields requests from perplexed parents and foreign fujoshi.
Lenlo’s Review:
This was the most amusing power point presentation I have seen all year. Sure, you could probably dig into the symbolism of a character’s head and how it connects to their personality or world view as the show goes on. You could talk about the stereotypes of the guests and how Japanese society views them. Instead, I am just going to leave you with one simple fact. This single 10 minute short had me chuckling almost the entire time. Honda-San is grounded absurdism and you know what? I love it. The delivery, the pacing, the power-point levels of animation. I have no idea why it resonates with me so, maybe because I worked retail for a year, but I love the story of this poor decayed book-store clerk.
Potential: This is my crack
Wooper’s review:
This is a half-length comedy about a skeleton named Honda who works at a bookstore. His co-workers include (in order of appearance): a guy with a bag over his face, a man with a cartoon rabbit’s head, somebody wearing what I assume is a stylized Daft Punk helmet, a woman wearing a helm from a medieval suit of armor, a character named “Mr. Sales,” and a girl wearing a Noh mask. There are many more to come, if the ED is anything to go by. Honda is the only one whose strangeness extends below the neck, however. Sometimes his jaw falls off when a customer surprises him with a strange request. Though he gets nervous around the store’s gaijin clientele, he still does his best to assist them however he can. Please support him by watching Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-san.
Potential: Worth a chuckle or two
Ore ga Suki nano wa Imouto dakedo Imouto ja Nai
Short Synopsis: A girl wins a light novel contest with an incest story, and decides to use her brother as a public proxy.
Aidan’s review:
To contrast Wooper’s post below I have decided to only remark on the positives of this series in order to give a fair objective view of this anime. Well to begin the animation and character designs are…terrible..but ah the story, right the story is very…well…um….Alright you see this is clearly satire commenting on the nature of this incest fad with light novels. Sort of like a manga I knew called Oniichan Control which was about a brother who loved his sister but it turned out the sister was putting up a little sister front and is actually a psychopathic yandere grooming him to like her. Thus being a subversion on the arcitype and this show decides to shake things up by…playing it straight and sincere..alright so it’s not satire but it’s obviously a parody based on that one joke in the criticism of the main character’s work…even though the rest of the episode actually seems to be parading the LN state of being overrun with incest. (Screws eyes shut) Okay then this is actually postmodern experimental commentary on the nature of anime and incest which focuses on the preparation of archetypes to appeal to a mass demographic which demands the safe and familiar over creativity ingenuity or quality writing. It shows this by making use of exaggerated tropes pushed to the limit of absurdity like big titted women whose breasts are having seizures based on that jiggling, loita managers and obsessed brocon sisters. Thus all this trashy lazy setup is a metaphysical commentary criticising the appeal of familiar norms with conceptual taboo which in turn leads to the degeneration of mass media pandering towards teenage fantasy sexual desires and this is because….well it’s because…that’s all because….
(Sighs and stares blankly)
….this anime is shit.
Potential: Light Novels were a mistake
Wooper’s review:
Ore ga Suki nano wa Imouto dakedo Imouto ja Nai opens with a series of 13 close-ups on little sisters who appear to have been ripped from 2000s visual novels, all of whom address their older brother using different cutesy honorifics. Once they’ve finished, they all cry out in unison, “I love you, big brother!” This turns out to have been the main character’s dream, but even after he wakes up, Ore ga Suki nano wa Imouto dakedo Imouto ja Nai doubles down on the otaku baiting. For your viewing pleasure, the series features:
- a perfect little sister who does all the housework,
- a flat-chested loli co-worker who’s actually of legal age,
- panty shots,
- fantasy scenes where the main character imagines his imouto in provocative poses,
- censored nipples which will be uncovered for the Blu-ray version,
- a curvaceous editor who relentlessly flatters the MC and volunteers her boobs for groping at any time,
- tons of dialogue discussing the wonders of light novels,
- a big-breasted illustrator who nearly orgasms when her appearance is complimented,
and the list goes on. All of this is just gravy, however, compared to the fact that our hero’s little sister is totally in love with him. We witness that love in the form of excerpts from her light novel, entitled “This is the Tale of a Little Sister Who Loves Her Brother Too Much to Cope.” She also rolls around on her bed while scheming up ways to become his girlfriend and shrieking with glee. Ore ga Suki nano wa Imouto dakedo Imouto ja Nai covers all of this with a veneer of plausibility by making its lead character totally relatable. For example: he can’t imagine that his lil’ sis (who has just confessed to writing a story where the female lead loves being petted by her older brother) secretly lusts after him, because that would be totally weird! Am I right, fellow normal guys? Plus, he gets tongue-tied whenever sexy women grab his hands and use them to massage their chests. What a common situation in which to find oneself as a typical high schooler! Ore ga Suki nano wa Imouto dakedo Imouto ja Nai is the perfect gateway to the wonderful world of incest anime, because it keeps it [100 emoji] with the audience. We’re not elitist snobs who need fancy animation or a well-crafted soundtrack in our animes. All we need are older brothers and younger sisters who love each other more than anything in the world. That, and some tig ol’ bitties.
Potential: Ore ga Sick of this Shit dakedo Shit Keeps Getting Made
Conception
Short Synopsis: A highschool boy and a pregnant girl are transported to another world and must screw in order to save it.
Aidan’s review:
Wow. I mean when I heard about the whole aspect of making babies to save the world I was under the impression that the process actually didn’t involve sex. As a matter of fact in the games that appears to be the case as the ritual is not really elaborated on but obviously heavily implied to be sex. In the second game it appears they just place their energy inside some urn or something. Not here. Here they remove all ambiguity and go full on sex. Honestly I find myself both disgusted and somewhat impressed at the complete lack of shame in this. I mean I suppose it’s nice to see a protagonist with a sex drive and them just tossing aside the harem hijinks to just have them boink. But this has to be the trashiest Isekai I have ever seen, the animation is bare bones and the anime itself decides to do worldbuilding by literally linking a website. This is a story that gives no fucks at all besides it’s tituar concept of becoming a hero by banging girls. It knows how dumb this all is and it doesn’t care cause hey, it’s a game where you bang chicks to gain RPG powerups. Dare I say it, I may even play the game on steam due to morbid curiosity. The anime on the other hand…well I think they would have been better off just making hentai instead of this.
Potential: What am I doing with my life?
Lenlo’s Review:
An isekai of a harem game. Guess i’ve seen it all now. I’m done, I’m retiring. This show killed me. I don’t even wanna bother writing up a full paragraph, just read Aidans instead. God damnit.
Potential: Can I be done yet?
Mario’s review:
And I originally thought this season was already bad enough with rapes and loli sexual assault, now here’s the premise that can’t be topped: pregnating a harem team, one of them is your cousin. Yuck. If there is one praise I have for this show, it is that I admire it for its shamelessness. The opening sequence pretty much strips out all the pretense and gives you what this show is about (half of it anyway), a vintages of silhouetted naked girls. The other half is your cliche isekai world that the show doesn’t even bother to build it properly. Everything is fanservice to your teeth. We have girls already lining up to him to have sex (they literally say that), we have creepy mascot who trying to help our boy by molesting a girl for him, we have him tied up in chain with only underwear by a busty doctor. Even with the actual sex scene, there’s an overlong moment where the guy clumsily takes of the girl’s strap. It’s so badly framed that at one point it becomes unintentionally hilarious. Look, by now you know what you’re getting into so if this is your thing then go right ahead.
Potential: Anime again brings me down.
