The Fall 2024 Anime Preview Guide

Tying the Knot With an Amagami Sister

Uryu Kamihate has had a rough start to life, but plans to forget it all by achieving his dream—matriculating into medical school. But when he arrives at his new foster home, a working shrine, his dream of a quiet place to study goes up in smoke. Not only will he be living with the three beautiful, lively Amagami sisters—but he learns that he must marry one of them and take over the shrine.

Tying the Knot With an Amagami Sister is based on the manga series by Marcey Naito. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Tuesdays.

Oh, I am torn on this one. It certainly doesn't put its best boob forward – the episode opens with our hapless hero Uryu getting blamed for walking in on the eponymous Amagami sisters in their underwear despite doing no such thing; he's just there when eldest sister Yae opens the door. This is followed by a series of 90s-era rom-com standbys of the “lucky perv” variety. You know–one sister falling with her breasts on his head, him falling on the underage sister in a suggestive pose, the third sister (who keeps throwing salt at him) thinking he's pouncing on her in the night when he's not. It's exhausting.

It also may not be faithful to what the story is about. Yes, there's going to be a fanservice element, but the underlying theme appears to be Uryu's refutation of faith in favor of science and the fact that he's just come to live at a temple. The implication is that he gave up on the gods when they failed to answer his prayers as a little boy, resulting in his mother's death and his going to live in a group home. The sisters, on the other hand, resolutely believe in the gods despite their mother's passing when they were around the same age as Uryu when he lost his mom. They religiously wear the red hair cords she left them as a means to link them to her, and by the end of the episode, it looks a lot like someone is listening to them. Right now, I suspect it's a god, but it could be one of the mothers, still watching over her children. There's even a beautiful moment when Uryu sees a combination of shooting stars and falling cherry blossoms and realizes that he may not be as steadfastly anti-fairy tale as he assumes.

Then, we wrap up with the girls' grandfather coming home and announcing that one of his granddaughters will marry Uryu. It's a cold splash of water in the face after a lovely middle of the episode, resulting in this feeling incredibly uneven. It's as if the original manga creator wanted to write the middle story but was compelled by someone to incorporate the beginning and end elements. This isn't to say that the disparate pieces can't sit well together, but there's such a stark divide between them that it feels awkward, almost as much as the weirdly bug-like quality to the sisters' eyes. (I think that's the adaptation's fault; looking at manga art, I don't get the same impression.) This is probably worth another episode to see if it evens out its tone by choosing one side or the other, but I can't say that I'm all that eager to find out. I may pick up the manga, though.