Imouto sae Ireba Ii.
A Sister's All You Need.

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After watching the anime around 6 years ago, I never got the chance to see the potential developments that got me hooked from the very start of this series. And so I began reading the light novel, hoping to see the conclusions for each character with their own stories and relationships.

Instead, what only started an eccentric sis-con novel only developed into a wonderful story that digs deep into your own soul and plants the seed for you to bloom into someone greater.

At the beginning of ImoSae, the young cast of college-aged characters gave this impression of what the novel's title really is, the dumb, nonsensical ... and loud events that occur as they hang out while figuring out their new lives while forcefully shoving the "little-sister" trope down your throat as you'll chuckle and grin at the interactions between the characters and their lives (with a little fanservice). Itsuki, alongside his group, has well-established backstories that leave you pondering more about their developments and interactions, while also satisfying you as you gulp down their Q and As to learn more about them, not just as characters, but as strong-willed individuals that don't give up despite having major setbacks in their life. At first, I thought these guys seemed too unrealistic, too unreasonable and too innocent to go up against the real reality within our society. But Yomi Hirasaka knew immediately that my naiveness was clearly off.

After the first two volumes, we begin to see the introductions of new characters, new changes and new setbacks as our young cast begin to face off the sluggard pains and mistakes within their occupations, yet the comedy and the strong-willed passion for little sisters are still apparent, and it only gets funnier as Itsuki's craze only leads him into more trouble, perhaps for his good. Itsuki's life is filled with being a light novel writer, and his occupation really lets you take a closer glimpse of the writer world (like Bakuman) and it's wonderful yet comedic seeing the interactions Itsuki has between not only his editor but with others that are branched within the light novel occupations. Meeting these new characters felt off initially, and I assumed I would forget them easily since it had been a common trope to leave these side characters out down in the gutter, but Yomi Hirasaka places such delicate care and love towards his characters, and I loved how they have their own unique stories and personalities that slowly transform the original young cast I had been used to, now into a band that filled even greater memories as their relationships grow.

The complexities of these relationships start to begin within the later volumes as the relationships that formed originally are now being tested to their extreme as the young cast begin down their cheesy descent of love, the foundation and core of how these characters will make the next step forward in their lives. The internal battle between restraint and cowardice only lets us see the real nature of these characters that shape their personality even further as they face off between romances and friendships, and seeing the weaknesses and crumbling anxieties that each character holds within their hearts only made feel deeply connected by the multiplicity of the shortcomings and new developments between the young cast. There may be a happy ending, but for the other two, it was no other than being cut to the side, and the light novel perfectly portrayed this barely uncovered side to the individuals that lose, yet providing the moral of how it's ok to face these setbacks as long as you keep moving forward.

As you keep reading on, you only come to see how each character, even those with barely any appearances, have their own issues within their lives, yet something strikes in all these characters that allow them to deal with the neverending stress, hardworking nights and constant anxieties. A motivation driven by their different experiences, relationships and even age creates this sense of unity that I wished I could partake in, and Hirasaka really, and I mean really, loves his work to decorate and add this type of detail that leaves you wondering what had happened if you had strayed with this strong-willed feeling, or perhaps how it’s never too late to start, and never too late to find motivation. The characters that Hirasaka develops all have something essential for you to learn and take from, whether you find it useful or not is up to you, and I think it plays a heavy impact on how we value ourselves as not just an individual, but for who we are.

A final aspect of ImoSae comes in the form of change as the novel has long seen the young cast now develop into experienced adults as they face their final obstacle to their Game of Life, and it had come as surprising for what once a sis-con novel, was now a beautiful depiction and display into yet another complex piece of reality. Itsuki now faces what is possibly the bottom of the rollercoaster ride in his life as he combats against his patience, maturity and acceptance that fiddle around with his relationships. The tension between the characters only begins to further tighten to the point of snapping, and the novel really begins to reveal the climax of the story while still maintaining its upbuilt comedy as we see downfalls, tragedies and the intricacies of slumps derive into reaching for a solution despite mishaps, misfortunes and mistakes within these relationships, revealing Hirasaka's number one message from the very start of this novel; to never give up, to keep moving forward, to become the protagonist, something Itsuki has held on ever since he met new people, faced setbacks, and now against his slump. It wasn't just about Itsuki's final drive that hit me here, but it was the entirety of all the characters that all go against different changes and uncertainties, yet all of them, one by one, conquer these obstacles as they come to face and accept the new realities of their lives. Hirasaka weaves this unison of stories to hit you with an amazing and incredible recollection of what you've just read for the past volumes of ImoSae, and I couldn't find any better way to finalise this conclusion to a beautiful story.

Perhaps I had overanalysed Hirasaka's piece of work, but for me, I view ImoSae as a symphony where all these characters and their interactions compose the music to resonate with anyone that may or may not share these similar experiences with the characters, these characters give you snippets to your experience to your identity, telling you that whatever piece you compose next will only be for you to hear and sing, and it will be wonderful, even if you can't write music. ImoSae was supposed to be a comedy, ecchi and romance novel, and it still upholds that (don't worry), but the fine threads woven from the original cast up to an entourage really craft a piece that could be reread and enjoyed over and over again.

As the saying goes: Don't judge a book by its cover. Or rather in this case: Don't judge a book by its title. This is not another generic siscon novel, it actually isn't really a siscon novel at all.

-STORY-

A Sisters All You Need is a story about a group of eccentric light novel industry friends, their struggles as authors, and their ever-growing web of complex relationships. It perfectly straddles the line between a raunchy laugh out loud comedy, a character drama, a romantic comedy, and a cozy slice of life.

Each volume features many short chapters, usually ranging between 14 and 19 chapters total. The chapters ... tend to be small vignette or episodic style stories ranging from a few paragraphs to 30 pages. A lot of the chapters are about the main group of friends, just having fun playing board games or tabletop games like D&D. The author does an excellent job describing each game they play in detail.

Additionally, because the story is about a group of authors, it also features quite a bit of meta commentary on the actual light novel industry, which is super interesting. The characters discuss trends like over-saturation of samey isekai light novels, and often discuss real authors and popular series.

Volumes 1-4 are what were covered in the anime adaptation. Those first 4 volumes serve as a great introduction to the characters and their relationships, but don't have very much character development. Starting with volume 5 the relationships that were set up in the first 4 volumes really start to develop.

-CHARACTERS-

Early on, the story mainly focuses on comedy, which tends to be driven by the characters, quite a few of which are pretty goofy. Between the foul mouthed Nayuta who somehow finds a way to fit a sex joke into nearly every sentence she says, Ashley, A thirty-something year old loli Tax Accountant who specializes in doing taxes for authors just so she can torment them about purchasing eroge, and Puriketsu, a light novel Illustrator obsessed with drawing the perfect ass. The characters all work off of each other really well, and even with a bunch of the characters being so over the top, the dialog between them always feels natural.

Over time as the characters and their relationships develop, the comedy and gags start to have less of a focus. Quite a few characters who originally seemed to be just one note gag characters become much more complex later on. With the story diving deep into their insecurities, revealing why they have the quirks they do. Some characters do just remain gag characters though.

-ART-

The character design and artwork is just superb! So many small unique details in the characters and they all have fun quirks. The illustrations are very detailed and do an excellent job of depicting each character, no matter how ridiculous the situation. It has very clean digital art.

-OVERALL-

A Sisters All You Need is an incredibly engaging story that mixes crazy humor, heartfelt moments, and compelling drama. It also does an excellent job turning one note archetypal characters into very complex characters with unique relationships.

10/10 Highly recommended for fans of comedy, romance, and slice of life.

Nayuta Best gir!

The novel starts with full blast sexual imouto energy as the main character is woken up and kissed by his naked imouto. Then after he wakes up and washes his face in her bathwater, he grabs her bra and uses it as a towel. The nonchelantness by which this is all described turn it into absurdist comedy. In particular the bra towel is very funny. It keeps getting more absurd and zany to the point where one quickly realizes this is just a story being written by the novelist main character of the story.

And indeed, the next scene shows us Itsuki, the real mc of ... the story, and his editor.
But the presentation of the main story itself feels very uninspired and dull. Unlike the story within the story, which starts out fun and entertaining.

The scene plays sort of plays out like a manzai routine, with the editor is doing tsukkomi (straight man) against the boke (fool) that is Itsuki's script we just read. Itsuki protests against this in a way that serves to keep the conversation going, but doesn't really have him say anything. It feels like we are basically given the template for how such a scene would typically be displayed, without any creative direction given to it. The next scene which introduces a new character is hardly any better.

Chapter 2 then starts with a couple of lines dry infodump on the furtniture in Itsuki's room. There is an accompanying map of the room as one of the insert pictures in the novel. Which suggests that this is not padding, the writer probably put some thought into the atmosphere that the characters live in. And yes, it can be nice to convey this information to the reader since it can add extra flavor to the story. But it should be done in a way that actually builds atmosphere, and not as a dry listing of items in the room.

It was very upsetting to see the funny start turn into such blandness. That is not to say that the whole story should be like the start. The start is way too zany and over the top for that. But the idea of having fun with the presentation is something that is heavily present at the start but completely missing in the scenes following it.