DESCRIPTION

CAST

CHAPTERS

ANIME ComedyImouto sae Ireba Ii.
MANGA ComedyImouto sae Ireba Ii. @comic
MANGA ComedyImouto sae Ireba Ii. Gaiden: Imouto ni sae Nareba Ii!
NOVEL ComedyShimekiri Mae ni wa Yuri ga Hakadoru

REVIEWS

• 

  slabdrill

  94/100
  An accurate(??) depiction of a light novel writer's life.

  (This review was written after volume 9.)

  This story isn't one I really have a good way to describe. It seems to intentionally avoid using templates, and it's great having a romcom that isn't in school.
  The story is, basically, just a bunch of the stuff that the author likes; while I really don't care about the descriptions of how various Belgian beer brands taste, much of the story is just... slice of life with an interesting enough cast, which is my favorite. (Oh, and naked girls, of course.)

  What makes this novel stand out to me is the depiction of the actual working parts. Like with any story it has both the happy parts and the deadline-crunching parts, and I feel like I learned a bit about the industry from this book. (After all, they literally included one of the things that happened to this story's anime to the MC's anime.)

  One thing that this story does is make a lot of references to other media. There's discussion about specific characters, some mentions to stuff you're definitely expected to know even if you don't actually (I know nothing about SAO other than the premise, so when they mention the fact that the imouto in SAO isn't the main heroine in a way that implied you're already supposed to know that, it was a bit surprising), and a bit of other minor background (Oregairu is used as a common example of "popular work" that's easy to pick up on after the first few times, but could be missed earlier) that's needed to pick up on some of the details that I think are expected to be expressed.

  As with any good story about creators, this story allows seeing much of the character's work. There are many stories that the novelists write, and you're often given at least a bit of it (though often just the proposal sent to the editors; only the protaganist gets pages of hilarious story drafts too).

  ---

  Despite everything, this is still a harem romcom, and a harem romcom can't be good without a good cast. (This includes characters that appear pretty late in, and talk about some of their initial development... so expect major vol1 spoilers and minor later ones.)
  Itsuki Hashima is the protaganist. He loves imoutos, and all of his novels are about imoutos. He is fueled by his lack of a imouto, allowing him to try to create the ultimate imouto.
  Nayuta Kani is a writer who started writing due to liking Itsuki's books, and is absurdly good at it despite not really thinking about what she writes (and as such, she misses most deadlines but is allowed to due to being too popular.) Likes: Being naked, Itsuki, sex. (She's funny, and normally these traits are such that I'd expect her to be my favorite character... but I just don't see it, for some reason. Maybe it's her score of 0 life skills.)
  Chihiro Hashima is Itsuki's little (step)sister who pretends to be his brother. Good at cooking and cleaning, but is overall boyish in the places she's acting like a girl (such as school). Apparently hasn't received much sex education.
  Miyako Shirakawa is a friend Itsuki made before he dropped out of college. A fairly normal college girl, but has taken up an interest in editorial. (She's my favorite. I want to believe she usually scores #2 on the character polls, too.)
  Hayato Fuwa is a male novelist friend who debuted at the same time as Itsuki. Tries to write something sort of like modern trends, but overall dislikes how their work doesn't pull a dedictated fanbase like Itsuki's. (But his work is still good enough to get an anime. Guess writing about failing writers is more boring since they don't have the income to keep fooling around all the time...) Has a maid fetish, and buys a lot of random games and imported beer. Unlike the other writers, he actually had an okay college life. He also has a tsundere imouto (to Itsuki's jealousy) though he hasn't realized her affection.

  Kenjirou Toki is Itsuki's editor. Likes sex clubs. He's mainly there at the start to have some sort of editor presence (as in someone dying from stress), but since more editors get introduced he's really just sorta... there.
  Ashley Ono is a tax accountant who's familiar with working with authors. Despite being a sadist it doesn't actually show up that much (presumably due to not needing to reinforce a personality trait once established). Is a legal loli.
  Setsuna Ena is a novel illustrator that basically just does whatever they want. Likes ass (and specializes in drawing it), but especially Chihiro's. (Has a big dick, not that that's ever relevent.)
  Kaiko Mikunayama is a manga artist who loves lingerie (...and imoutos) too much. Through being a model, Miyako was able to still get them to draw nude scenes, though. (That sounds a little inaccurate, but I'm not fixing it)
  Kasuka Sekigahara is a very popular writer until they died (presumably) out of stress due to getting way too severe criticism for the choices they made in their novel. Inspired Itsuki to start writing.
  There's a bunch of other characters, like newly debuted writers, but most of them haven't really done much yet. My favorites of those would be the old guy who wrote a normal novel, but is now a light novel author since his novel (was good, and) got an editing pass, and the girl who looked down on everyone else for no reason until they managed to get her down her high horse (I liked her because they mentioned that everyone else was like that once, too).

  ---

  There's a lot of very fun things that happen. Most are enjoyable, some feel questionable, but it's still entertaining. (The following paragraphs are mostly a ramble about various plot elements.)

  The characters play a lot of simple games, such as one where people take turns creating a story to try to steer it toward a certain ending, or one where everyone makes up fake definitions for an obscure dictionary word and then try to guess the real one. I think these games are the biggest highlight of the story to me; I feel like, apart from the actually somewhat serious parts of the story (there's not very many), the game chapters are where the characters use their unique personalities the best.
  They also have a tabletop RPG campaign running (it ends in volume 9, but), where I was surprised by the high attention to detail put into it. They built a complete world for it, and kept readers up to date on each player's character sheets; I could imagine playing a campaign and having it actually go like it does here (except that I don't think my DM usually allows doing some of the stuff that's this stupid), and I believe that that's perfect if someone's actually played a TTRPG before.

  I like the work-related events of the story, too; I think now I'll use them as a baseline for what I imagine people in the industry to be like. Obviously this isn't exactly perfect since every experience varies by person, but there's just something in this that makes it feel like how it actually is. Receiving valentines chocolate for your characters, knowing exactly how late you can be until not doing so would cause delays, getting tossed in a jail cell until you finished your manuscript, editors waiting until 3AM on the Real Deadline to receive their manuscript, editors receiving all of the criticism rather than the authors for minor mistakes, publishers holding contests where people have to rapidly read through way too many submissions, anime staff being too overworked so they end up ghosting for a bit, having weirdly annoying censorship standards for TV adaptations, etc. are all things that I never really would've expected, but now that I've heard of it I wouldn't find it fascinating to hear about again.
  (There's a

  There are some meta jokes, such as one point where they use a footnote (which explains footnotes) because the text was about footnotes and it was a good spot to slot one. There's places where they have an editors note left in the text, and some other places where they reference something in a text being written in-story when it is very explicitly done in this story too. They aren't really anything special, but I find they make me laugh pretty easily.

  There's this instance where Setsuna goes off on a cubism kick and temporarily stops drawing ass. I understand the purpose, but I don't like Setsuna (or ass) that much so it just feels like it came completely out of nowhere (completely intentionally by the author, of course) and I just found it offputting rather than cool. Naturally, I also find the tastes of characters that don't match mine slightly weird, but that's to be expected.
  As mentioned above, I find Nayuta not very enjoyable despite how I normally love characters that are small and catlike. I can't tell if it's because of how aggressively she pushes, but she even gets proper development and everything. And I still can't think of anything in particular that would make me not like her a lot.

  Also, there are some descriptions of different wine and beer (usually from Belgium). The author states that the ones that they liked make it into the novel; I don't care at all about it and believe too much space is spent on it, but it's something the author loves and I figure someone who doesn't like tabletop games as much but does like drinking would be able to enjoy the story as much as I do.

  ---

  Overall, this story is the author putting their own likes and life into a book. Since the life of someone in an occupation in a foreign country is something I was never curious about in the past, there was tons of cool things that occurred.

  Continue on AniList
• 

  TheSpamCan

  98/100
  An amazingly paced slice of life story filled with some of the greatest characters and drama I've ever seen.

  As a forewarning to this review, it will be a lot of me gushing over the story and characters rather than pointing out flaws with the story or where I think it could improve (mainly because I don’t think there’s many ways it could improve, although I will point those ways out). Also, SPOILERS for the reveal at the end of volume 1, although I don’t think it really hurts the enjoyment of the volume at all. The first part of the review will only be up to volume 1, but later it will go much deeper into spoilers; keep an eye out for a warning! (Also, this review is almost 5,000 words. And most of it is actually relevant, I'm sorry for the length but I had to talk about this series. Most of it's in the spoiler section at least!)

  ---

  The basic setting of this story revolves around Itsuki, a fairly skilled light novel author who’s really obsessed with creating the perfect little sister, and various people he knows both within and without the industry such as his editor, various author friends , old “friends” from school, and plenty of other side characters who keep reappearing or appear later in the story. He spends a LOT of time slacking off at home while playing board games with his friends, drinking various beers (the author seems to particularly love Belgian beers, good taste although Bavarian beers are better), avoiding his editor, and generally doing whatever light novel writers do on their off-time if the story is to be believed (which if it is to be believed, is a lot of slacking off).

  The main important characters are the following: Nayuta Kani is a fellow light novel writer who, after reading Itsuki’s works, fell deeply in love with him and became a light novel writer purely to get closer to Itsuki and eventually marry him (despite being the most skilled writer in the series). Meanwhile, Haruto Fuwa is another light novel author who is less driven by passion in the same way Itsuki is (who only writes little sister stories) but more someone who’s mechanically skilled at writing and follows the latest trends to make his new masterpiece. These two characters are fairly interesting because all 3 of the main writers of the story have their weird quirks, ways they engage with their job, and interests. Nayuta is a girl very much in love who doesn’t really care about her job despite being extremely talented, Haruto doesn’t have any particular desire to write a story about his specific passion but is still skilled and tries to stand on the same playing field as Nayuta and Itsuki, and Itsuki’s whole goal of writing seems to be to create the perfect little sister. It’s a pretty cool and deliberate showcase of how different creative types can be, and there are lots of other examples of this happening within the many side characters, and the author specifically goes out of his way to clarify that no one is objectively correct in their view on the job of light novel writing and lets you come to your own conclusion on which method you think is best.

  The other main characters not mentioned above (mainly because I wanted to link the three light novel writers together and point out their differences because it drives their characterization greatly) are Miyako Shirakawa and Chihiro Hashima, my two favorite characters in the story. Starting with Miyako, she’s a girl who met Itsuki during his brief stunt at university and despite her first impressions of him being fairly rough, through various circumstances she becomes a friend of his and joins the main friend group. She has a crush on Itsuki but is scared to act on it because Nayuta is obviously also pining for him (as she vocally makes known), and generally in life doesn’t really know what she wants to pursue and is mainly going through the motions of university, hoping to land a good job and generally be successful but with little plan or passion for anything at the start of the series. Chihiro Hashima meanwhile is Itsuki’s sibling who is hiding a secret from everyone else in the friend group (which you either learn at the end of volume 1 or way earlier if you’re paying attention at all to the story), which is that she’s a girl and not a guy. She’s hiding this because Itsuki is a “little sister obsessed freak” and she’s generally content with the status quo at the start of the story, enjoying hanging out with Itsuki’s friends and generally taking care of him because Itsuki doesn’t cook for himself or clean up, but is deeply paranoid about her secret being discovered (yes, this is an incredibly trans-coded part of the story even if not intentionally, she’s literally me). These two characters generally have the most growth in the series in my opinion (followed by Itsuki), but that's pretty major spoiler territory to talk about at this point. These two characters alone make the story worth reading in my honest opinion, though.

  A large majority of this story is the characters hanging out at various familiar locales, mainly within Itsuki’s apartment or other nearby places such as work. These moments are great for comedy alongside character progression, which the author takes full advantage of and creates consistently both enjoyable and funny moments. The comedic setups are usually fairly well done and exist throughout the entire story, except for the last few volumes which are much more serious and focused on the story. The story can and actively does go into pretty ecchi territory with some of the comedic setups (usually at the expense of Miyako and to the joy of Nayuta), yet despite me not liking ecchi comedies most of the time this was one of the cases where I actually did have a good laugh, which takes a lot to make a story make me not cringe at some of the raunchier comedic setups. These comedy moments are less prevalent near the end of the series as it focuses primarily on the characters and completing their arcs, but the transition is fairly smooth and it’s not like the characters become worse because the comedy stops, and slowing the comedy down does let the story focus more on itself. Whether playing board games, slamming down beers, or rambling about shitty editors or schedules, the comedy consistently lands and makes the series a lot better because the author knows how to make the characters act in funny and completely believable ways for the character.

  There are tons of character moments which are amazing, but to talk about most of them would be spoilers, so as a warning from this point onwards I will be talking about spoilers that go all the way to the end of the series. If you’re reading this review because you wanna try the series, please try it! It is such an amazing read and one of my favorite stories of all time, with amazingly done characters and a story that is almost entirely character driven rather than the plot forcing the characters to grow. I cannot recommend it enough frankly, even if the start is slow it’s completely worth it. My score is 98/100 (mainly due to nitpicks on a certain character which won't hurt the story for anyone), give the first volume a try right now! It's a slower burn but it's funny from the start and the characters are all interesting from the start.

  ---

  Time to talk about the good parts of the story! That being the characters, of course, as they ARE the story, and deserves the several pages of analysis they got.

  Characters

  These are easily some of the greatest characters in fiction I’ve ever run into. Maybe it’s because I can pretty deeply connect to both Chihiro and Miyako (presenting as a different gender and also being a lost uni student), but the conclusions of their arcs were masterfully done. Let’s talk about Miyako first, because Chihiro’s story is intertwined with basically everyone else and is the catalyst for the story changing so much.

  ---

  Miyako has so many amazing moments but I think one of the reasons I love her so much is exactly the reason Itsuki cites for her being so damn good at her job: she’s kinda dumb and doesn’t really understand the weird customs of a field of work she’s never been in before and isn’t even going to school for, but she still barrels ahead and manages to impress even industry professionals at Gagaga in a very charming way, and the way this buildup is done makes me wonder just how planned the whole story of Imosae was since its start because of just how perfect the conclusion to Miyako’s arc is with Itsuki’s first story he wrote for Nayuta, “I want to be the protagonist”. Miyako really does manage to evolve from a side character with some connection to the main cast but not really that important, to being what feels like a protagonist alongside Itsuki (and I guess Nayuta because the author considers her a protagonist using the same in-universe story as an analogy, but that could be argued to be from Itsuki’s perspective) who really does stand on her own and realize just how much she’s grown as a character, even if she doesn’t realize it.

  In general, volume 13 was an amazing volume for Miyako because while beforehand we did get a lot of Miyako characterization, volume 13 was almost ENTIRELY a Miyako-focused volume which I don’t believe any character has other than Itsuki, and this worked with her great characterization beforehand allowing the author to truly explore how Miyako would do in the editorializing world (and I think the author would come to the same conclusion as me and Itsuki). And then the way the entire volume builds up Miyako having insecurities and exploring how she can improve as an editor, just for Itsuki to show her that she is a protagonist in his eyes and how far she has grown, alongside her finally telling Haruto she does want to get together with him? It is the best conclusion to any character growth in this series and is part of the reason this is one of my favorite series, and this is without discussing any of the more minor “Miyako being an awesome character” moments such as:

  • Convincing the anime team to let Itsuki have involvement in the creation of his series
  • Crying over Haruto’s anime being so completely ass
  • Accidentally leaking to Kaiko’s parents about her working as a mangaka and then successfully resolving the argument
  • Basically every scene with just Nayuta and her, easily some of Nayuta’s best scenes

  And honestly, she’s such an honest, hardworking, and sweet girl who many can relate to with plenty of struggles, both within and without, such as her worries about getting a career, finding something in life that she can find passion in (a notable theme in the series!), and resolving the messy love situation she’s in (which she had a great conclusion with, her and Nayuta are so sweet and really do care for each other nearly as much as Nayuta cares for Itsuki). How can you not like her?

  ---

  Speaking of not liking characters, I didn’t really care for Nayuta as a character. I think basically every other character in the main gang can stand on their own two feet, but Nayuta feels like she’s there basically just for Itsuki and doesn’t care about the rest of the group, at least at the start. This does change when her friendship (and some other kind of ship) with Miyako deepens and this does help her as a character a lot, because once you attach a character I don’t like to a character I like, as long as it doesn’t drag down the original character (Miyako) I really don’t care and it’ll make me enjoy the character more. That being said, Nayuta as a character isn’t explicitly bad, and she does lead to a lot of humorous moments. But in terms of providing an interesting arc, she basically only grows whenever Itsuki has a chance to grow (such as with their temporary breakup) which really stunts her and makes her feel too attached to Itsuki to grow as a character. Everyone else, even Haruto who is also fairly weak in growing as a character as the series goes on (at least compared to Itsuki, Chihiro and Miyako), has some arc going on on their own where other characters can help, but the character needs to grow on their own or find help through other characters, who can maybe guide them to a better answer. Nayuta never really has this moment even in her one chance to have it during the breakup, because the end of that whole arc is a “they get back together happily ever after” moment, Itsuki as a character did get explored further even after he just finished his big arc (the one where he had horrible writer’s block after learning Chihiro's secret and reuniting with his family). Nayuta’s only real exploration is how her life falls apart without her love for Itsuki, and while this is cool and leads to some good moments of realization and lets Miyako and Kaiko shine more, it really doesn’t feel like it changes much about the character because it feels like the whole purpose of her existing is to be madly in love with Itsuki, which just isn’t an interesting idea to me. So she’s ultimately a fine character but doesn’t do much for me, and I really can’t think of any way to improve her character. I don’t think removing her character would help the series though and would only hurt it, which I guess says more about her importance to the story than me complaining that she doesn’t feel important. I’d be genuinely interested in hearing the reason the author included her in the story the way she is. She doesn’t actively hurt the story or make it notably worse, but she's definitely the main reason the story isn't a 100/100.

  ---

  Haruto’s section will be shorter. He also doesn’t have any real character growth, but I think that’s because he knows where he wants to be in the world and is currently there, without any real big issues that need to be solved other than his love for Miyako (which is about as close as we get to character growth). It works fine though because unlike Nayuta who feels not fleshed out, Haruto’s plenty fleshed out and he works well with basically every other character. Basically every interaction Haruto has with others is enjoyable to watch, and he’s generally a pretty low-key character so there’s not much to explore other than his love of Miyako and how he constantly was behind Itsuki and Nayuta in his mind in terms of writing skills. Very funny though, keeping with the rest of the series. I just don't have much to say, he's a solid core member of the cast.

  ---

  Chihiro is the ticking time bomb of the series and is handled in such an amazing way. Throughout the series she more and more hates having to hide the truth about her gender from others but is more and more paranoid about it, slowly eating away at her until it starts hurting her grades at which point she realizes what a huge issue it is. This is amazingly done over several volumes and let me say for the 2nd time that wow, as a trans person even if not intentional Chihiro as a character really does feel like a great representation even if the scenario causing her to hide her gender is not exactly common. I really felt for her every moment she agonized over being called he, every moment she was hiding how she wanted to dress and be called, and I think even if you can’t personally relate to it you can understand why she feels that way. This, of course, is all leading to her finally revealing to the rest of the group about her gender (literally referred to as a “blitzkrieg approach to coming out”), which has lasting repercussions for Itsuki but that’ll be discussed in his section. It’s really nice seeing Chihiro finally get to be who she wants to be and for her to finally have a happy and united family again, it’s very heartwarming and feels deserved. Chihiro keeps her proactivity streak up when she realizes she loves Haruto, and even though she knows that her chances with Haruto are slim to none she still goes for it and even though I wanted Miyako to win and suspected she always would, I still cheered for Chihiro a bit. This moment of finally revealing to the cast who she is allows her to break out of her own bubble and start really growing as a character, finding her own passion and deciding what to do about college shortly after.

  ---

  Itsuki is the primary protagonist in the series, and while I like Chihiro and Miyako more, he's my 3rd favorite character. He’s a guy with limitless passion, is extremely weird about little sisters, acts like an asshole but really isn’t if you get to know him. His primary character growth is in volumes 10-12, where he gets writer’s block, learns how to write again using a new method, breaks up with Nayuta, and gets back with her again. I think this section is especially well done because it directly links to his passion, his reason for writing, becoming something that genuinely sickens him so much he can’t write about it anymore after he learns that he actually has a little sister. This also ties into around when his family gets introduced to the story, and them making up after he learns the truth about Chihiro felt really natural and it felt nice for Itsuki to be on good terms with his family, because I don’t think anyone in the family really deserved the messiness of the whole situation and it clearly affected Chihiro the most, the same person most proactive about trying to fix the issue. It’s very strange watching a character with such passion like Itsuki immediately lose that passion, but it’s a testament to the strength of the character that he still feels like a strong personality. I don’t think he ever truly regains that passion either until he starts writing for the love of his life, Nayuta, which was actually a really sweet moment between the two of them and lead to a permanent change in their dynamics: their love is reinforced and while Nayuta can’t accept how Itsuki writes nowadays with his passion, he can still touch her heart and Nayuta realizes that she loves Itsuki even if he changes his writing style, which is some of the best Nayuta growth we got alongside great Itsuki growth. He’s also very funny and kind of a big loser which makes him a good punching bag. The connection of Chihiro to Itsuki in terms of being his actual little sister really is the catalyst that causes all the change throughout the end of the story.

  ---

  Themes

  The most obvious theme this series has, that the author basically shouts at you and makes known as the theme in both the text and the afterword, is “everyone is the main character of their own story”. It is an incredibly cheesy theme, but it’s pretty low-key about it and only really presents itself obviously within Itsuki and Miyako, where Itsuki always acts like the main character (because he is) and Miyako slowly gains main character energy as she gets into editing and the story progresses (as the author states, Miyako is the heroine who will save the day many times). If you didn’t read the afterwords and somehow missed the last volume, which effectively shoves this theme in your face during Itsuki’s big speech, I wouldn’t blame someone for thinking this wasn’t really intended by the author. However, even though the theme is basically shouted at you at the end, I don’t think it’s really proselytizing a theme that isn’t there and the author just wanted to make you feel good; this is effectively Itsuki’s worldview from the start of the story. We even see his ego get checked and him stop thinking he’s the protagonist for a minute, but he eventually recovers and even when he’s a much more stable and less weird person (AKA after the timeskip and he marries Nayuta) he still carries this mindset, as he pretty much says in the speech. He even calls out everyone important in their life and says they’re all the protagonists of their own story. There’s not really anything to gather from this idea that recontextualizes the series in a crazy way, but it’s important to point out the most blatant theme.

  In terms of general themes across the series, I think Chihiro is pretty easily the strongest example of the running idea in this series of “once you break out of whatever situation that’s holding you back, you can really grow as a person”. Miyako is also a great example of this, although she is less of an obvious “x thing is causing her to stop developing” and more her mindset and generally being lost in what she wants to do in life. Once she finds editing because of her author friends and realizes she enjoys it, she starts really growing as a character and putting herself out there more. Various minor characters such as Setsuna have this happen as well, where he goes on a whole Cubism mini-arc. While it’s very silly and strange, I think it does feed into that running theme because Setsuna does improve as an artist after all of that. I do hesitate to call it a major theme, because I think there’s a much more major theme in “everyone’s a protagonist of your own story, so go out and make that story” that the author intended, but it’s interesting to look at the fact that many characters do have a series-long roadblock that they overcome and can finally mature and grow as people. Itsuki is also kind of an example of this, but not quite in the same way as the other two main characters who share this common theme because as the author has said directly in multiple afterwords, the author doesn’t consider any of Itsuki’s writing methods (the craziness out of love of little sisters and the more mechanical, precise but better written style after he learns about Chihiro actually being his sister) superior to the other writing methods talked about in the series. However, arguably he still does apply to this theme because after the roadblock of not knowing how to write in the worst case of writer’s block he’s ever had, he wrote “I want to be the protagonist” which was agreed to be his best book ever written (until the one about the war orphan I’m too lazy to look up right now, but the one talked about in volume 14 that disgusted people but they still loved). Still, that’s a bit of a stretch, and probably not what the author intended.

  Ignoring themes for a second, I think to put into words the reason this series stuck so hard with me and maybe others is because there is no story outside of the characters. The entire thing is not only character driven which means any story changes means it’s more likely than not a character change that caused it, but the characters are all more or less amazingly written. I’ve not really mentioned the side characters yet, so let’s give a small section to them:

  • Ashley Oono and Makina Kaizu are both good characters and I’m really happy for their endings. Very cute and it feels like the perfect conclusion for their arcs, Ashley in general is just a very entertaining character as well as being the first to learn Chihiro’s secret and a fairly sadistic person.
  • Kaiko is strange, she’s a very funny character but is actually fairly important, especially when it comes to helping Nayuta out of her hole and being a good comedy element to bounce off of Nayuta. Her, Nayuta, and Miyako all have pretty funny scenes when rooming together, and her presence definitely made the story feel better, she’s another “weird” creative type.
  • Kenjirou Toki (editor) serves a fairly important role of constantly keeping Itsuki on track work wise and represents one possible editor relationship with their author (which from my understanding isn’t the most uncommon). He’s fairly entertaining and it’s nice when he’s involved in things because he’s a fairly serious character rather than a silly character (although he does have his silly moments), and by the end he even acknowledges he’s not a strong enough editor to take Itsuki to new heights (cough cough, this was Miyako if you missed that).
  • Itsuki’s mother and father are both fairly boring characters, but this is purposeful because they’re just…normal people in a story full of so many crazy creative types. I think the whole family subarc is pretty well done, I was really happy whenever they all got together again after Itsuki and his father made up because it felt like everyone in the family deserved it (but especially Chihiro, who made the sacrifice of pretending to be a boy to let her mother marry Itsuki’s father)

  Before ending this off, I’d like to talk about how the series shows the production side of things, especially on the light novel side more than the anime side. As hinted to, I really like how this series shows how different creative types are. You have the crazy and super filled with fiery passion people like Itsuki, alongside someone like Haruto who’s just technically skilled with writing and follows the latest trends to write his series on. You’ve got some like Makina, who are content with just pushing out mediocre light novels and paying the bills (who eventually breaks out into writing just novels and is amazingly successful, guess someone was in the wrong career path!) alongside people like Nayuta who completely shatter the sphere with their amazing stories and beautiful prose, but when you ask them what the story meant they can’t really provide an answer because they don’t get why their writing is so popular and beloved. There’s plenty of side characters with weird quirks such as Ui and Aoba and the other writers who won the various contests throughout the series, who all have various reasons for being there and lifestyles. It all makes the series very entertaining, having so many weird people mashed together who work and play together often, but also arguably connects to the idea that there really is no “good” creative type in terms of what drives them. Makina’s style of just pumping out mediocre books and living life fairly lowkey is not inherently better or worse than Itsuki’s passion-filled writing about little sisters, and while one style certainly makes more of an impact between the two the author explicitly states they believe neither is better than the other. Of course, the reader can come to their own conclusion on what creative types should be like, and obviously I missed so many little details on the characters (Toki literally shaved his head to become a better editor, even though he wouldn’t consider himself a creative type I’d say he still works in the industry so I’d rope him in) because discussing Haruto’s fetishes or how Ashley works with a lot of people in the industry and is plenty wacky would take many more pages (I’m on 9 right now). But hopefully, having read through the series, you can make a few connections I didn’t mention here or even made one that I missed. I think the thematic side of this story is the less significant part than just looking at the characters, but it’s cool looking at what was truly planned by the author, which I think is quite a lot based on how meticulously this series felt constructed.

  Sadly, I will force myself to stop talking about this series here. I have more I’d want to say (A lot about Miyako and Chihiro, some about the other characters) but it would be regurgitating a lot of things that people who’ve read the story already know (such as Chihiro’s complete transformation despite still effectively being the same character, she just seems so much happier as a girl wow what a crazy thing huh) and I believe I’ve made all major connections to themes. Frankly, this story stole my heart fairly early on and I had no idea how amazingly it was going to develop the characters. Miyako wasn’t even my favorite character at the start and neither was Chihiro, neither were really on my radar as super significant, but then both started becoming protagonists in their own right and I got so completely sucked into their characters I really cannot glaze them enough, they make the series as good as it is (with the help of the other characters).

  The author said in the afterword for volume 14:
  “Bring it on. These final words were something I decided on from the moment I started writing Sister, not long after I gave my all on the final volume of my previous series. With them, A Sister’s All You Need., an encapsulation of my emotions in several hundreds of thousands of words, comes to an end. If something in it touched your heart, I couldn’t be happier as a writer. “
  I think many things within this story touched my heart, and many other reader’s hearts. Hell, I was reading through Chitose Is In The Ramune Bottle, and the afterword for volume 3 congratulates Yomi Hirasaka for the amazing end to his wonderful series (and also says to twist Iwaasa’s dick off, made even funnier by the fact Iwaasa is also editing Chiramune). While incredibly cheesy, these characters have motivated me to get off my ass a little in life and improve. Miyako is such an inspiring and amazingly shining character after all, who wouldn’t want to live life like her, stumbling through but succeeding nonetheless off of genuineness and trying your hardest? And even more so than that, it's such a personal work to the author, and it really feels like that way, a story they've wanted to tell about maybe their experience in the field, other's experiences, and a mix of fictional experiences (that could be true for some in the field, however). Yomi Hirasaka really did create an amazing series here, and should be praised for that fact, even if I'll never get to tell him that myself.

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