Anime Hajime Review: Oni-chan dakedo Ai sae Areba Kankei Nai you ne

***Warning, the following may contain spoilers for Oni-chan dakedo Ai sae Areba Kankei Nai you ne. Reader discretion is advised.***

Series Synopsis

The day Akiko Himenokoji (voiced by Ibuki Kido) has been waiting for has arrived. After six years, she will reunite with her beloved brother, Akito (voiced by Ryota Osaka).

During their time apart, Akiko came to a conclusion. For her, Akito is the only man she could ever love.

Together again, Akiko is ready to devote herself to her brother. Her affection runs so deep, the fact they are siblings plays no relevance. However, to her dismay, Akito only sees Akiko as his most precious little sister.

Despite the setback, Akiko believes, in time, she will win her brother’s heart. After all, it will only be the two of them. Or at least, that was what she thought.

To Akiko’s chagrin, there are several other girls vying for Akito’s attention. The manipulative Anastasia Nasuhara (voiced by Minori Chihara). Akito’s friend, Ginbei Sawatari (voiced by Asami Shimoda). The sexual deviant, Arashi Nikaido (voiced by Eri Kitamura). And the lovable Arisa Takanomiya (voiced by Sumire Morohoshi).

The battle for Akito has begun. And these combatants know how to play dirty.

Series Positives

Oni-chan dakedo Ai sae Areba Kankei Nai you ne. Alright, so I won’t be saying that again. Instead, we’ll use the more common and much easier to pronounce abbreviation, OniAi.

Akito

Going into this series, I thought I was going to hate it. Everything about this show screamed sub-par. An erotic harem comedy whose main female character has a huge brother complex. What about that should be considered good?

Nevertheless, an opened mind is a must. For you never know. Maybe you’ll get a surprise.

Akiko

And would you believe it, I got a surprise. OniAi was quite entertaining.

Going back to my Rail Wars review, I claimed that series was the best harem anime I had seen in a long while. Yet it was the best harem anime due to its competition. Which wasn't much. OniAi, on the other hand, is legitimate. This was a solid harem anime.

Anastasia

This show did many things right. To get it out of the way, OniAi's handling of the whole brother-con aspect didn’t make everything weird. 

The series was upfront about it. Akiko’s feelings were never a secret. She never tried to hide them. Everyone knew she had a romantic interest towards her brother. And everyone knew this from the start of episode one.

Ginbei

Akiko went for it. The implications of her desires had no bearing on her conscious. She loved her brother and that was the end of it. What others thought was irrelevant to her. She was aggressive in trying to get what she wanted. There was only one thing stopping her. Akito himself.

Arashi

He never caved in. He never let his sister get her way. Akito was quick and blunt in his rejections. Any suggestive situation that did happen was Akiko's doing.

No accidental falls. No walking into changing rooms. No unintentional peeks up someone’s skirt. While each of those things and more did happen in OniAi, it was never between the siblings. The most Akiko could get out of her brother was a loving a pat on the head.

Arisa

Though reveling in sexualization, interactions between brother and sister were platonic. For example, the girls forced Akito to judge their swimsuit contest. It got out of hand fast. But there was one contestant who just wore a cute bikini. That was Akiko.

For the things this series did well, the handling of Akiko’s brother complex was the most impressive. That said, it wasn’t the thing I liked most about this show.

A Decent Harem

I’ll mention it now. OniAi could’ve been much better. It set itself to become one of the strongest harem anime I’ve seen. Too bad it never capitalized on this opportunity. A real shame since this series had a great start.

We met the majority of the harem in the first episode. This show didn’t bother to give us a reason why the members were interested in the center. They simply were. Reasons came later, but from the outset, everyone’s intentions were a matter of fact. Where most harem anime end was where OniAi began.

In addition, the group was small. It got bigger, sure. Except it never became unmanageable. With this number of characters, there was plenty of time to get to know each of them. Plus, this series could explore a unique question. Why did a member join? Rather than the usual, who’s going to be next? And the show delivered. Or at least it did for some of its characters.

Akito was a nice center. Not to mention a fantastic straight man. Most of the time he could keep his cool. He was hard to fluster. The girls could do that, but it wasn’t easy. He knew who to converse with his housemates. How he acted towards one was different when talking with another. He did so because, brace yourself for this, the girls had personalities.

While everyone was direct in their approaches, there was enough uniqueness between them. This gave Akito a lot of flexibility. Regardless of that, he was always genuine. You could see why he would have a few admirers. He was kind, caring, and thoughtful. And his most important trait was his ability to fire back.

Akito had to deal with lots of nonsense. More often than not, he was on the defensive. Yet on occasion, he could turn the tables. I can’t stress enough how much this humanized the rest of the characters when he did this.

Of the actual harem members, there are two I want to bring attention to. The first is Akiko.

The many ways her attempts to woo her brother failed were entertaining. This left her exposed. It wasn’t hard to tease her.

Since Akiko was quick to jealousy when her brother was with someone else, she tended to overact. To make this even better, it was hilarious how everyone straight up ignored her when she did this.

The other character I want to talk about is Anastasia. She alone makes this show worth recommending.

Her level of not caring was a thing of beauty. She spoke in monotones and said whatever was on her mind. She didn’t pull any punches and never missed a chance to twist someone’s words.

People had to be careful around Anastasia because she was in charge of the conversation. She was a master dodger. It was difficult for anyone to catch her in a mistake. Even though she was always making mistakes. She never gave a person the opening to call her out. Yet her shield wasn’t perfect.

Akito could get passed Anastasia’s defenses. Things didn’t always go the way she planned. On multiple occasions, she lost control of the situation. The state of embarrassment she would find herself in made her adorable.

While that was cute to see, this made Anastasia so much more human. This show’s ability to do that made it a standout harem anime. It also made the ecchi moments that much more alluring.

With Anastasia, she had a personality. This series had no qualms about putting her in compromising positions. She was one of the more heavy-handed members of the harem. She was in many of the situations and camera shots that I’ve labeled as distracting. Except here it was attractive.

OniAi succeeded where so many other anime, not just harem, have failed. Shoving as much boob onto the screen as you can doesn’t work if that’s all there is.

Don’t believe me. OniAi actually had the exact opposite too. Someone who didn’t have the qualities of Anastasia. Arashi’s main trait was her breast size. She tried to use her chest cannons to their fullest advantage. And guess what, she was boring.

Arashi was the least interesting character of the bunch. There was only one moment when she had my attention. Wouldn’t you know it, this was also the same moment when OniAi decided to humanize her a bit.

With the other members of the harem, they were somewhere between Anastasia and Arashi. Luckily the rest leaned more towards Anastasia. This is why OniAi was a decent harem. But like I said earlier, this series could’ve been more.

Series Negatives

This series had me the entire way. Most of that had to do with the outstanding start this show had. Yet it did begin to lose me when Arisa joined the cast.

She was a sweetheart. Arisa wasn’t the problem. But she did appear midway through OniAi. With her came the unfortunate realization. This series would fall short of something wonderful.

By the time Arisa was part of the group, we should’ve known so much about everyone else. This series could’ve dedicated full episodes to each character. We got that with Anastasia. Akito and Akiko were always around. But what about Arashi? What about Ginbei? They were background filler.

I can’t help feel these two had fascinating stories. Hell, throw Arisa in there too. Granted, Arisa did have a decent introduction. Except Akiko played a huge role in it. There was never a moment when Akito and Arisa were alone? And I’ve got other questions.

Why was Arashi so skilled with a sword? Why did feel the need to always wear an eye patch? Ginbei and Akito were friends, so why did they never hang out? Akito lived with Arisa’s family for six years, what were they like together?

To be fair, Ginbei did have a segment dedicating to her meeting Akito. Except it came near the end of the series and then nothing happened afterward. This was the character who was the most insecure about her chances. Why leave that alone?

Anastasia also got an origin story. After Ginbei. That wasn’t necessary. The show had done enough to prove why Anastasia liked Akito. Though you could say this episode was also about Anastasia and Akiko’s relationship. Too bad it contradicted everything we knew about these characters up to that point.

OniAi tried to have the harem together as much as possible. Commendable, I’ll give it that. Except that’s only half the battle. We do need to know who is who. We need to know why we should care. And there’s no reason why this show didn’t do this. You could not ask for a better opportunity then this series had at its disposal.

Final Thoughts

One last thing and I don’t know if it’s a negative or a positive. It has to do with something I knew this show was going to do. I won’t go into anything, but there was no way this series would pull that trigger.

Though it may not have been as good as it could’ve been, OniAi was still good. It’s a solid example that proves that harem anime don’t have to be crap. When focusing on the right things, you can have all the fluff you want.

I also don’t think I went into enough detail on how funny this series was. Not all the jokes landed mind you. When on a role, though, this show got rather hysterical.

Just make that another reason why OniAi is worth watching.

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