Eromanga-sensei – 12 (Fin)

Sagiri allowed Masamune to attend the data collection trip because Elf and Muramasa (without her knowledge, through Elf) agreed to “do whatever Eromanga-sensei wants them to do” afterwards. In the final episode of Eromanga-sensei, the bill comes due.

Sagiri’s “festival” ensues, where she boots Masamune, puts the two girls in swimsuits, and makes them play Twister so they’ll strike lewd poses she can draw. It’s basically heaven for Sagiri and hell for Muramasa and Elf…but a promise is a promise. Needless to say, the session is also an excuse for healthy amounts of fanservice.

When Tomoe shows up at Masamune’s door to congratulate him on the success of his new imouto LN, I feared the worst: that Sagiri, suspicious of this new girl and jealous of her interactions with her dear brother, would somehow get Tomoe into a swimsuit as well, or worse.

Thankfully, that doesn’t happen, and the girl who, in hindsight, seems like the best fit for Masamune leaves with her clothes intact, having delivered a doujinshi of the little sister novel that is actual, no-nonsense porn…then says if Masamune gets an anime and becomes famous, she’d be happy to be his wife.

Sagiri inevitably gets hold of the material not suitable for her, and immediately sets to work drawing her own erotic drawings based on the little bit she saw. When Masamune can’t quite put into words why her drawings aren’t quite anatomically accurate, she and Elf decide the best way to settle things is by stripping Masamune naked…

If they had succeeded, would have been only fair considering how many girls have had to strip for Eromanga. But before they do, Masamune gets on the horn with Megumi, who for all her talk is just as clueless as Elf and Sagiri. It takes Muramasa sketching Michelangelo’s David to show them once and for all how to draw…that.

With the sun low and Eromanga all lewd drawing-ed out, she and Masamune bid farewell to her models for the day, adding they’re welcome to come back anytime. And this time Sagiri opens the window and gives them a proper wave goodbye, showing further progress in her attempt to overcome her shut-in-ism.

As frikkin’ wrong as it may be, it’s thanks to lewd art—the lewder the better—that Sagiri can forget about the crippling fear of being outside or interacting with other people. Her digital life is a means of creative expression and a (surprisingly) safe space in which to have rudimentary human contact.

And thanks to her brother’s uncanny ability to draw girls into his orbit, she now has a slew of flesh-and-blood friends to laugh and have fun with…as well as draw in risqué positions.

Eromanga-sensei – 11

No Emily and no Muramasa this week: it’s just Masamune and Sagiri, with the latter trying so hard to welcome the former home in the foyer (and in a swimsuit), only to retreat to her room at the last minute. When the launch date of the novel they collaborated on arrives, Masamune takes a trip to the bookstore in Akiba with Sagiri in tow—in the form of a streaming tablet; a “sibling date” as Masamune puts it.

That journey becomes the vehicle for some pretty hefty reminiscing for both Masamune and Sagiri. After his mom died, Masamune decided writing stories online was the thing that made him happy, which made his family happy.

The reason writing made him happy? There was someone who found his stories interesting and would chat and text with him about it all the time. That person was Sagiri, but he didn’t—and still doesn’t—know that. Meanwhile, Sagiri, who had no dad, found drawing fun because someone liked her illustrations—Masamune, natch.

He even helped motivate her to go back to school and ask her mom to teach her more about illustrating, as both basically agreed to cut off their ephemeral relationship to realize their mutual dreams to become professionals in their respective arts. And they did!

That’s all well and good, and it is nice to see Masamune and Sagiri getting on so well while not technically related by marriage, though that’s what happens later on. These are two people who have always, at the end of the day, relied on one another to fill the hole of praise and support left by the absent parent in their lives, as well as serve as catalysts for their growth as writer and artist.

What I’m a little dubious about is that Masamune started writing these stories when he was only eleven damn years old, and Sagiri started reading them and drawing when she was only seven. That’s…really frikkin’ young to be having such a nuanced online relationship of mutual creative support with someone.

Then again, these two aren’t your normal youths. Also, a big chunk of the cast of Oreimo pops up at the end, with Kirino and Ruri debating the potential of Masamune’s new novel. Even Kyousuke and Masamune’s eyes meet. But just hearing such enthusiastic discussion about his work makes Masamune happy, which was the whole point of this all along. And when he comes home from Akiba, Sagiri does manage to greet him in the foyer.

Eromanga-sensei – 10

The gang is still at the island “data gathering” retreat…but I’m not exactly sure why. Everything that needed to happen in such a setting between Masamune and Elf happened. Now the show switches gears to focus on Muramasa, without changing that setting, lending the episode a static, dilatory feel.

Masamune pulls an all-nighter on work specifically for Muramasa and not the little sister novel. Muramasa quickly scarfs down every page with giddy enthusiasm, but after Masamune catches up on some sleep, Yamada tries to get up close and personal with him.

Muramasa exacts punishment, while Chris takes Yamada away to work. But if he wants her to work, why not send her home to a more work-appropriate environment free of distractions?

Those distractions only compound with Masamune, Yamada and Muramasa in the same room, with Muramasa admitting her submission was a love letter to Masamune, she’s in love with Masamune, and isn’t wearing underwear because she’s in a kimono.

That last bit comes up when Masamune calls up Sagiri on Skype to play “The King’s Game”, and Sagiri is characteristically lewd in the orders to her “subjects.” Pretty inconsequential messing around…until Muramasa declares she won’t write novels anymore because her dream of having interesting work supplied to her by her kohai has been fulfilled.

Of course, precisely zero people buy Muramasa’s threat to quit writing, and indeed all it takes is a five-minute talk with Masamune—who relays to her his discover his spirit-lifting fan-letters were written by her—to convince her to keep writing after all, since it’s okay to have more than one dream to fulfill, and to keep working for them all.

One of those new dreams involves Masamune falling in love with her, which means for all of Yamada’s maneuvering, Muramasa remains a player in the game that is Masamune. But as usual, it’s getting increasingly harder to buy these girls’ intense love for a generic MC like Masamune.

Oh yeah: Fifth wheel guy is old enough to drink, so he gets cartoonishly drunk and slurs his words for, like, no reason whatsoever. Shrug…

Eromanga-sensei – 09

I don’t know if I’m in the minority among Eromanga-sensei viewers, but I’m not the biggest fan of the Masamune-Sagiri relationship, which is rife with inevitably icky undertones, whether or not their love is purely familial or not. So when the show gets away from that relationship and focuses on the more standard unrelated boy-girl variety, I’m all eyes and ears.

We certainly get an eye-full in this week’sbeach episode, but it’s not just empty skin calories. I couldn’t be happier with the fact that we’re out of Masamune’s stuffy house and focused on Elf, whose plans are right there in the subtitle in the cold open.

Shidou and Muramasa also attend the “data collection trip” approved by Sagiri in various off-camera negotiations, but aside from Muramasa appearing in a far smaller swimsuit than she planned, Masamune and Elf have the beach to themselves.

Elf tries to take advantage, passing off legitimate activities lovers undertake on the beach—applying the lotion, playfully splashing, walking arm-in-arm—for role-playing and research. But whatever the context, the fact remains they’e doing these things alone, together, and enjoying it.

At least, Masamune tries to enjoy it, but finds it a bit awkward whenever Elf’s big bro and editor Chris appears. That awkwardness follows Masamune to the men’s bath where Chris joins him and asks him about Elf, including whether he’d marry her.

Masamune insists they’re not actually dating, despite Elf telling Chris so; but Chris manages to get Masamune to say an awful lot of complimentary things about Elf—which Elf herself can hear from the women’s bath.

Really, it doesn’t take much coaxing; Masamune exhibits some much-needed awareness of what he has in Elf, even taking exception to Chris saying his sister’s flaws can overshadow her charms; for Masamune, it’s the opposite, and believes Elf would make a good wife. His wife? Well…

Because Elf overheard everything, she visits Masamune’s room that night and takes him to the same firefly-bejeweled “elven forest” that inspired her novels, as well as the place where her dad proposed to her mom. We know immediately where this is headed: she tells Masamune that she considers him a candidate for marriage, which is a roundabout way of saying she likes him. She even tells him her true name: Emily.

This is Yamada Elf at her most vulnerable, earnest, and endearing. She’s come such a long way since her first appearance, where she was introduced as a generic arrogant loli pest. The little tidbits about her family and upbringing that come to light only serve to deepen my emotional investment in Emily and her happiness.

A-1 Pictures’s pretty character design, sutble animation, and seiyu Takahashi Minami are all working in concert to brine Emily to vivid life. And to his credit, Masamune doesn’t come right out and reject her the way he did Muramasa two eps back. He’d have been a fool if he had.

Emily realizes he might not be in love with her enough to propose marriage, but she’s going to work to make sure that he is one day. Considering all she’s managed to accomplish so far in life, I’m not betting against her, even if the show ends up going in a different direction at her expense.

Eromanga-sensei – 08

Whether she likes it or not, Sagiri can’t have Masamune all to herself, not matter how adorably she dresses. And though he technically rejected her, the fact Masamune compares Sagiri’s yukata to Muramasa means she’s still in his thoughts, because she was the first person to say what she said about his novels.

Elf also tries to nab her share of Masamune’s attention by dressing like Muramasa; in her case, a school uniform. But despite the fact she and Muramasa are rivals in love and novels, Elf offers the advice she’d offer Masamune even if she didn’t like him: stop worrying about what may or may not be, and have one little chat that settles it all. Of course, she’s clearly not happy at all when he says he wishes she was his big sister.

She is, right, however, that being direct with Muramasa is the best strategy, as her feelings for him haven’t changed since he turned her down, nor is she too uncomfortable to attend the short story competition wrap party he’ll be hosting. They also both acknowledge that they’ve only met each other three times—not enough to get to know each other—and so would both welcome a fourth, fifth, and more.

The fifth wheel, Shidou, arrives first, and has no idea what he’s walking into until Elf and Muramasa arrive at the same time and start immediately fighting over Masamune until Sagiri starts pounding on the floor above them. Elf is also sporting her most ridiculous outfit yet – a frilly lolita-style yukata and flamboyant hairstyle.

The initial awkwardness of the party eventually smooths out, especially when Masamune breaks out all the festival themed food, hoping to create a festival-like atmosphere for Sagiri, who can’t go outside. Everyone shares their ultimate dreams, including “Eromanga-sensei”, who says she wants to be the bride of the one she loves. Oh, girl…

After everyone else files out to go see the fireworks, Masamune stays with Sagiri, and confesses that he’s always been afraid of being alone ever since his birth mother died in an accident. He’s also truly thankful for Sagiri, his new family, for putting up with such a pathetic brother, but she feels no less pathetic for losing the will to leave the house.

As they watch the fireworks from the window of her room, Sagiri reiterates that she never considered Masamune family or her brother; her love has always leaned more towards romance, insomuch as she knows what that is.

Still, if Masamune wants or needs her to just be his little sister, she thinks she can “pretend…for a bit”, only to later remark somewhat ruefully to herself while lying in bed how she’s “gotten much further away”, presumably from her dream of being the bride of the one she loves.

I dunno if that’s a bad thing, Sags! Get over him, get out of that bed, that room, that house; go to school, meet someone whose father didn’t marry your mother. Is that so much to ask?

P.S. Kuroneko Sighting. Repeat: Kuroneko Sighting!!! With her adorable sisters too. That confirms Masamune, Sagiri, & Co. live in the same world as Oreimo, whose MC also had to grow a spine and pick someone, anyone, as long as it wasn’t his damn sister. Obviously, Kuroneko was his best choice.

Eromanga-sensei – 07

Senju Muramasa doesn’t back down on her intention to crush Masamune, and easily dispatches Elf by having the editor inform her just how many more sales she has (14+ mil vs. 2 mil), forcing a quick Elf retreat. Masamune responds with a challenge to his “senpai”: whoever loses the contest will have to do whatever the victor says.

We knew this was the challenge that was coming, it’s just a matter of what Masamune will write, and whether it will be good enough to beat a platinum powerhouse. He decides he’ll convert his little sister novel to a short story, but short stories aren’t his forte.

Enter Elf, who uses her expertise gained by her own strong sales and puts Masamune through a gauntlet of drafts, until he’s got a “passable”, if not yet good enough, manuscript.

Then the enemy pays him a visit, intentionally wearing a school uniform in order to “make a better impression.” You see, she wants Masamune to surrender, and instead agree to “be hers”, i.e. write novels just for her.

Elf and an on-screen Sagiri are suspicious of her appearance in the midst of the contest, but it would seem Muramasa isn’t trying to sabotage her kohai, just make him pivot to something she sees would benefit both sides. She also doesn’t flinch at Elf’s claim she and Masamune are living together.

She comes in, and after briefly getting distracted by a sudden jolt of inspiration forcing her to stop her conversation in the middle and start writing (and she’s left-handed!), tells Masamune what her dream is: to be able to go beyond writing stories she’s rate 100-out-of-100, and create something even she, not just a fan, could rate 1 million out of 100.

She only writes at all because of Masamune, whose battle novels were the only things that moved her to the bottom of her heart. When he shifted to rom-com with the little-sister proposal, and stopped writing her favorite novel, she became a wreck, and only by writing her own stuff could she keep going.

So Muramasa, certain her dream is more important than Masamune’s, once again pleads with him to become “hers” and write only for her, promising she’ll support him and his sister the rest of their lives if that’s what it takes. But Masamune’s dream isn’t just his own, and Sagiri leaves her room to tell Muramasa as much.

Also, Sagiri won’t accept any scenario in which she gives up Masamune for anyone else. She earlier says he’s not allowed to date other girls ever after seeing Elf’s tweet. This is highly unreasonable behavior, but younger sibling jealousy is nothing new or abnormal. Masamune shows a united front with his sister and declines Muramasa’s author, saying he’ll instead get her hooked on his rom-com.

I mean, that’s great and all, but surely Masamune realizes he can’t keep indulging Sagiri’s possessiveness, right? And that any future romantic partner has to be chosen from among girls he’s not related to by marriage? Just asking for a friend…

Masamune ends up winning the contest, because even though Muramasa got 15 more votes, her short story ran double the allowed length, and she was disqualified. Whether this was intentional on her part, or if she simply wrote the number of pages she had to write and didn’t care what happened afterwards, the story was all about her and Masamune.

Like Masamune’s story about his sister, Muramasa’s is a love letter…to him. So now Muramasa is not just in love with his novels, but with him in general. Masamune doesn’t have a satisfying answer: “there’s [already] someone I love.”

It leads me to wonder if Muramasa’s only purpose on the show was to be defeated twice in short order and retreat as Elf did upon hearing about her sales…or if the battle has just begun. Either way, he harem has become really crowded.

Eromanga-sensei – 06

When Megumi repeatedly calls LNs “creepy”, Ishikawa Yui breaks out a more Mikasa-esque voice for Tomoe, going at Megumi as if she were trying to hurt her beloved Eren. Masamune avoids blows, but Tomoe enacts her revenge by getting Megumi totally hooked on the books she once so cavalierly looked down upon.

Megumi’s original purpose for checking out some novels was to get closer to Sagiri, and she gets closer than she bargained for, not only being allowed an audience with Muramase’s sister, but serving as a lewd model, bound and blindfolded.

Sagiri is so excited and inspired by her new model, she can’t help but impulsively relieve Megumi if her shimapan, an effective if dated way to blow up her “lewd girl” persona. That being said, Megumi gets what she wants: actual contact with Sagiri, and a promise of continued novel exchange—the foundation of a friendship.

When Masamune’s publisher tells him they won’t be publishing his little sister LN for a year (because the younger, more popular Senju Muramasa snatched his earlier publishing spot), Yamada offers to help him get published. But they’re both early for the meeting, so they have a little date that both know is a date but pretend it isn’t.

Yamada, who is surprisingly not the most irritating girl in the show, and has grown quite a bit as a character in her last few episodes, explains how book sales are like the ultimate game, so it makes sense to always keep score. Despite losing to Senju like Masamune in that department, she dismisses Senju as someone playing a “one-player game” with different rules.

She doesn’t believe Senju would be disappointed in the slightest if Yamada crushed her. Yamada accidentally tells Masamune she loves him, because she knows he would be disappointed, and thus a more worthwhile opponent. She quickly walks back the “I love you”, but the vulnerability and honesty of that moment, along with an earlier scene where she stops when she realizes she’s acting tsundere were nice touches.

The date over, the two mosey to the publisher, and encounter a girl who like Yamada is not dressed in normal modern attire, but traditional Japanese garb. Yamada assumes she’s a rookie when she spots her manuscript and is back to the haughty self she was when she first met Masamune. I guess this is just how she initially interacts with peers in her field? The girl doesn’t give her much in return, but accompanies them to the offices.

There, Masamune’s publisher denies his request to go with another house for his novel, but does suggest an alternative: he’ll enter a short-story competition with four other young authors, and the winner will get published not next year, but in September. Masamune emphatically expresses his intense enthusiasm and signs right up, claiming it’s the first brick of the road to realizing his dreams.

Perhaps a bit too emphatically, as the yukata girl finally speaks up, and not in a docile tone, announcing she’ll be the one to crush his sentimental, shonen-esque little dreams in favor of her own dream. She’s no rookie, after all…she’s Senju Muramasa, and she won’t have Masamune speak her name without the -senpai honorific.

So…Senju is a cutthroat, competitive maniac, eh? Well…I guess that’s probably better than what I expected (someone who is pre-in-love with Masamune / his work despite being more successful than him). In any case, the whole group of girls has now been introduced; we’ll soon see if and how Masamune interacts with the newest and most hostile.

Eromanga-sensei – 05

I wasn’t really serious when I stated last week that Sagiri saying “she’s in love with someone” meant a rejection of Masamune. This week Sagiri barely hides her brocon, and if anything is brassed off that her brother won’t return those feelings, because he doesn’t want to admit he’s a siscon. What both can agree on is that if Masamune is going to write a novel about a little sister, she’s going to illustrate it.

Masamune ends up ignoring Elf’s initial pleas to be rescued by her fastidious editors, so caught up in planning the look of the heroine with Sagiri (the more it looks like her, the better), but Elf manages to finally get his attention with a barrage of arrow fire, and he catches her in a manner she later romanticizes when she finally gets to meet Sagiri, and has fun both playing video games and posing in lewd positions until Masamune gives her up to the editors.

While working on his project proposal, which if approved will get the fast track to publication, Sagiri is eager to show him her completed work using Elf as a model. The illustration inspires Masamune to put an Elf-looking character in the novel, which I thought would really irk Sagiri (since another girl is intruding on her life with her brother and now their art) but she takes it well, and wants to continue inspiring him by drawing different kinds of girls she can only draw if she sees in the flesh.

That would create a problem for Masamune…if he wasn’t surrounded by girls. While I still loathe Megumi, at least her role as the only “otaku outsider” becomes clearer, as she so blithely looks down on the kind of books Masamune and the others create and adore.

The final member of the harem also comes a little more into focus, though she’s only mentioned by name: Senju Muramasa, sharing her name with the legendary student of the legendary swordsmith Masamune; fitting since it’s implied she’s younger. With Elf now a neighbor, friend, and collaborator, Masamune needs another distant rival…at least until that distance suddenly closes, which on this show is pretty likely.

Eromanga-sensei – 04

Whither Yamada Elf goest, so to does Eromanga-sensei (the show, not the artist). Starting out as a caricature of a super-arrogant, condescending brat with delusions of grandeur, Elf’s become a lot more balanced in the last two episodes.

She also reveals that delusions aside she’s a highly capable, multi-talented person, as evidenced by the lovely, tasty-looking meal she lovingly prepares for Masamune. The reason she’s happy to cook is that she gains perspective on how characters in her stories feel when they’re cooking for those they have their eye on.

Sagiri has also picked up on the quickly evolving relationship between Yamada and Masamune (even if he doesn’t see Yamada as a serious love interest), and calls Masamune a liar for saying they don’t get along, when he’s clearly there all the time.

Combined with the result of bringing up the drawing of large-boobed women (Sagiri can’t do it because she doesn’t have them herself), Masamune ends up shut out of her bedroom once more, though the core of her disappointment is his refusal to come clean about the neighbor.

The day the two authors are to reveal their stories to one another, Masamune arrives at Elf’s house to…no welcome whatsoever. I fully expected him to barge in on her working (or doing something else) in the nude, but I was pleasantly surprised when he found her all covered up.

Specifically, she’s in a very practical sweatsuit, with bags under her eyes instead of ringlets beside them, and a very serious look on her face. This is all Masamune needs to realize all her talk about writing light novels being a mere “hobby” is a bunch of codswallop.

More evidence is presented when the two read one another’s manuscripts before turning them over to Eromanga-sensei. He’s reliably blown away by her story, a page-turner seemingly perfectly tuned for Eromanga’s stylus, right down to the small-boobed characters in cool outfits. But Elf is also blown away by Masamune’s…just not in the same way he is by hers.

It’s not that her story is in any way worse—on the contrary, it would likely sell many orders of magnitude more copies than his—it’s that this isn’t a competition for the most bankable LN. It’s a competition for Eromanga’s services and after reading Masamune’s manuscript, Elf is so sure she can’t compete, she tosses her manuscript straight into the shredder (much to Masa’s dismay).

Reading it also confirms to her that Eromanga-sensei is his little sister next door, and that’s why she can’t compete: it’s a 300-page love letter, for chrissake. It’s not even meant for any other reader but her, which is why Elf is both outclassed and beet-faced she read it at all.

When Masamune finally gains access to Sagiri’s room—via the window in a frankly needlessly reckless stunt that could have gotten him killed and resulted in ending up in a very lewd position with Sagiri beneath him. There, he learns why she hasn’t opened the door for him in two weeks: she doesn’t hate him, she’s been improving her drawing, both battle scenes and bigger boobs.

Her take on his dalliances next door was that the neighbor was a rival artist trying to take “Izumi-sensei” away from her, while he kept the wager secret because he was worried she’d be seduced by the more famous and successful Elf. With the misunderstanding cleared up and his victory sealed (she’d never leave him for another author), she reads the manuscript.

Like Elf, it’s embarrassing for her to read; doubly so since it’s about her. And while she considers it an interesting story, he’d never be able to release it as a book, because it’s just too personal. She also, not in so many words, rejects the implied confession the manuscript represents (at least, Masamune seems to take it as a rejection).

Masamune is fine with that rejection, but he’s committed to re-working the story into something he can show to his editor, something that will sell and garner a huge audience, and eventually, get awarded his first anime adaptation, putting him on the same level as Elf. Most importantly, his goal is to get Sagiri out of her room so they can watch the first episode of their anime together in the living room.

While I thought this was Masamune going too far and was sure it would put Sagiri off, I am surprised yet again when Sagiri take a couple steps outside her room; the first steps in many to come on their quest to create an anime-worthy book. Let the goal-striving begin.

Eromanga-sensei – 03

When Masamune investigates the abandoned, possibly haunted house next door, he’s surprised to find Yamada Elf has just moved in: and likes to play the piano naked after a shower to get inspired to write.

After the standard accusations of peeping tommery, she invites him in, and most of the episode is given over to making Elf a little more dimensional, if still grating in her intense, obnoxious arrogance.

As Sagiri’s bedroom window faces Elf’s office, you’d think it wouldn’t be long before she found out who Eromanga-sensei is, but Elf sees Masamune’s sister and thinks she’s just that: a little sister who has fun drawing, not the person whose services they’re fighting over.

It’s also a bit shitty of Masamune not to even mention to Sagiri his little wager with Elf, considering Sagiri is the ‘prize’. Then again, it’s a good thing that Masamune isn’t the perfect MC while everyone around him is flawed in some way.

Indeed, Masamune’s flaw seems to be that in spite of Elf’s toxic personality, incessant pretentiousness, and pronunciation of ahhh-neee-may, he can’t help spending time with his new neighbor, nor indeed being a fan himself, even if meeting Yamada-sensei wasn’t what he expected.

For a time, it doesn’t seem like Elf invited Masamune in just to rub his nose in her superior success, but to spend time with a fellow author. She earnestly asks why he’s a fan, and he earnestly answers: after a death in the family, her books cheered him up. They taught him that novels can “save lives” of some readers, and for that she has his heartfelt thanks, competition or no.

Elf’s reaction betrays a softer, more genuine side to her, even if it’s short-lived and she’s back to being awful the next day. But it’s also clear that she’d rather have Masamune around than not, and also strongly disagrees with his workaholic approach to authoring, as she considers her job a “hobby” and only writes if her motivation is maxed out.

Despite knowing nothing of their competition involving her, Sagiri is uneasy anyway because her big brother, who has been All Hers up to this point, is suddenly ‘in the web’ of a cute, rich next-door neighbor.

While her music and online fans keep Eromanga merry, I feel one of the factors that drives her motivation to draw is knowing Masamune will always be there in the house, serving her meals and protecting her.

Yamada throws a thorn in that arrangement, and it will be interesting to see whether that motivates Sagiri to explore beyond her room. But yeah…Masamune really should tell her about his wager with Elf.

Eromanga-sensei – 02

The beautiful girl at the door turns out to be Sagiri’s classmate and class rep at school, Jinno Megumi. After a joke about how much she loves dicks, the very flirtatious “Megumin” states her purpose for being there: she wants Sagiri to come to school so she can be friends with her, like she’s friends with everyone.

Well! That’s a strong personality to contend with, but she doesn’t get her way, at least today. Sagiri never meets her in person, but only overhears her conversation with Masamune through his phone—and later, without his knowledge, through Megumi’s, leading him to say some very nice things about his “pride and joy”, Sagiri.

After that new girl encounter, Masamune jumps into an old one, Takasago Tomoe, who seems to be a classmate and/or childhood friend whose family runs the bookstore where his manga are sold.

Well, they’re offered for sale, but to Masamune’s horror, it doesn’t look like any have actually been sold. He wants Tomoe to help him out by putting them in a more prominent spot, but she doesn’t bend: if he wants better placement and sales, he has to write better stories that touch people’s hearts.

The third girl Masamune encounters is perhaps the worst, Yamada Elf, a thoroughly unpleasant, petulant, arrogant young author who couldn’t be more different from Masamune (or Sagiri for that matter). She lets her “#1 on Oricon” standing go straight to her head, believing she isn’t just the Savior of LNs, she IS light novel. Yikes!

Masamune encounters Elf trying to poach Eromanga-sensei away, something even Masamune feels would benefit his little sister, so when he goes home he’s extremely contrite and gives an offering of not-so-tasty (according to Sagiri) snacks. I don’t see Sagiri abandoning her brother anytime soon…at least until the fourth girl arrives, whom I am predicting is another artist who tries to poach Masamune, the way Elf wants to poach Sagiri.

Until then, a tiny bit of progress seems to have been made in Sagiri; she asks if her brother’s heard back from Megumi, and also tells him she’ll wash her own underwear from now on, which means she’ll have to leave her room, however briefly.

Eromanga-sensei – 01 (First Impressions)

Izumi Masamune is a popular light novel writer despite still being in high school. He lives with his stepsister Sagiri, whose face he hasn’t seen in over a year. One day while he’s watching a livestream of Eromanga-sensei, the mysterious illustrator of his works whom he’s never met, he notices the note he left with Sagiri’s meal, proving that she is Eromanga-sensei.

She finally lets him see her face, and even invites him in her room to talk, but despite having collaborated with each other on light novels for three years, the road to re-connection won’t be a smooth one.

Eromanga-sensei’s value isn’t in the twist that the siblings are artistic collaborators. I figured that out the moment Masamune said he’d never met his illustrator. Rather, it lies in excitement bred from the sudden disruption of a long-standing status quo; a stalemate between Masamune and Sagiri that had no end in sight.

Now that they ‘know who each other are’, so to speak, they have an opening that I imagine they’ll be ever-so-slowly exploring throughout the show. A show with a crisp, clean, airy look and theme of emotionally distant siblings that viewers of he Oreimo series will find familiar, due to the two shows sharing the same character designer, Kanzaki Hiro, and writer, Fushimi Tsukasa (the two collaborated on the source novels of both shows).

The moment Sagiri finally opens her door is a momentous moment, but the Schrodinger’s Cat-style tension it releases is replaced by the long, difficult, and outright awkward road ahead.

As Sagiri says, this is all very sudden, and it’s hard for adults to wrap their heads around and process such sudden changes in life, let alone a kid who hasn’t left her room in three years.

It’s far easier for, say, Masamune to wrap his mind around this, because the mystery of who Eromanga-sensei was always irked him, and he never suspected for a minute it was his sister (Sagiri, on the other hand, seemed to harbor some vague suspicions, as his pen name is the same as his regular one, albeit in katakana).

Masamune also has the benefit of being able to leave the house at will and interact with other people face-to-face rather than exclusively through technology. Sagiri’s voice-amplifying headset is a nice touch for illustrating how ill-prepared for social interaction she really is. Even having Masamune in there is so strange, on more than one occasion she cuts off their encounters so she can return to the normalcy of solitude.

This is all to say that I really admired the way Sagiri’s condition is portrayed. She’s not slob; her room is neat and tidy, and there’s no denying she’s an immensely gifted artist, especially considering her age. She just…can’t leave her room, nor has she been able to since her mother (who encouraged her to draw) passed away. We all process grief in different ways, she did so by shutting herself off from the world that took her mom away.

Learning her brother is Izumi Masamune doesn’t change any of that. She still feels trapped in that room because of her mother’s death. And unlike Masamune, she doesn’t think they’re family just because they live in the same house and he serves her meals. It’s a combination of frustration over her self-confinement and shame that she’s been such a ‘troublesome sister’. Masamune’s unconditional love is confusing and frightening, and Masamune does come on a bit too strong with his enthusiasm over learning the truth at times.

But one thing’s for sure: Sagiri loves drawing for the enjoyment of fans and readers, just as Masamune loves writing for the same reasons. She likes the interaction her livestreams and blogging allow. She is every inch a child of the 21st Century, in which even self-imposed prisons still contain windows to the world. It will be interesting to see if, when, and how Sagiri is able to emerge from her room, and from the house to see the world again with her own senses.

…It will also be interesting to see if Masamune ever asks Sagiri where she’s been stashing the cash she’s made illustrating, and why she hasn’t contributed to living expenses!