The Winter 2014 Anime Preview Guide

Onee-chan ga Kita

Carl Kimlinger

Rating: 2.5

Review: It doesn't feel good to beat up on this fluffy and essentially harmless rom-com, but it's so slight and forgettable that beat on it I must. Tomoya and Ichika's relationship is essentially your basic step-sibling romance—their parents marry and Ichika immediately puts the moves on Tomoya, glomming all over him and trying relentlessly to move into his room—except that Ichika is the older and more aggressive partner while Tomoya is the younger and cuter one. The show is adorable, and pretty wholesome as far as such things go, but nothing goes on this episode that is actually worth seeing.

Onee-chan ga Kita is available streaming at Crunchyroll.

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:  .5 (out of 5)

Review:

If you don't find obsessive stalkers funny, even if you like the incest plot, this is probably not the show for you. For this is the tale of poor, unsuspecting Tomoya whose father remarries and brings a stalker into his home. His new wife has a daughter, Ichika, who is older than Tomo, and Ichika really likes her new little brother. Like, really likes him. She wants to move into his room. She's interested in the fact that he wears boxers not briefs. She has a room filled with dolls and pictures of him. She seriously creeps me out.

If this is your preferred style of humor, there are some amusing bits to it. The way Ichika is drawn with a perpetual triangle mouth as if she is always gaping in astonishment is kind of fun, and the pastels that make up the color scheme are gentle and make a good contrast to her stalker tendencies. I also enjoyed the way the backgrounds look like toothed paper, as if the show was meant to emulate watercolors. Tomoya also sounds believably harried and creeped out, which seems to me to be an important aspect of the program, because when you come down to it, this is three minutes of watching a kid be very uncomfortable.

Onee-chan ga Kita is available streaming on Crunchyroll.