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Let's not beat around the bush: I don't Like You At All, Big Brother! is a harem manga. It just is. But while I would't go so far as to say this manga is a parody of the harem comedy, it's certainly self-aware and both mocks and indulges in the genre's tropes. It's also about incest, since at some point Japan decided that two siblings, blood-related or otherwise, getting it on was the hottest thing in the world, but it doesn't take that very seriously either.

Written and illustrated by Kouichi Kusano and published in English by Seven Seas in 2-volume omnibus editions, I Don't Like ... You At All, Big Brother! tells the story of Nao, a 16 year-old high schooler in love with her older brother Shuusuke. Or rather, in love with the IDEA of being in love with her older brother, and also the idea that he has naughty thoughts about her. So obsessed is Nao that, two chapters in, she reacts to the news that she was adopted as a child not with shock and incredulity as might be expected, but instead with disappointment at no longer being able to enjoy an illicit affair with a real blood-relating sibling (before realising that, actually, it's not so bad because now society has no reason to oppose their love!). Before the reader even gets the chance to wonder whether this manga has a serious bone in its body, Kusano took a potential minefield of melodrama--and in any other harem story it would've been--and diffused it with perfect comic timing.

The early chapters are all about Nao. She has the funniest, most verbose lines ("I also noticed the dramatic attrition rate of tissues in Onii-chan's room ONLY") and it's hard not to be amused at the thought and planning she puts into her seduction schemes, nor at the lengths she eventually goes to in putting them into practise. She even conducts regular inspections of Shuusuke's room to ensure that he's only reading little sister porn; everything else has gotta go. When Nao becomes concerned that Shuusuke has apparently renounced porn altogether, and more importantly seems determined to resist her charms (e.g. deliberate panty flashes), she drags him to the adult section of a bookstore where she loudly declares that she's buying him ¥30k worth of porn in order to rejuvenate his inner pervert, and proceeds to pick out the most hardcore material she can lay her hands on. Shuusuke, for his part, is not a terribly interesting character, a mainly blank slate characterised only by his passion for pornography - but that alone gives him an edge over the average harem lead.

Kusano wheels out another hoary old harem trope with the long-forgotten childhood friend character who first appears half way through the first volume, but again he has some fun with it. Y'see, Iroha isn't quite the pure-pure virginal maiden one has come to expect from the childhood friend archetype; no, she's every bit as perverted as Shuuskuke and Nao, a voyeur who observes Shuusuke's masturbation habits (amongst other things) via the use of a telescope from her apartment and who quite openly offers her mind and body to him. Naturally she clashes with Nao, and the two quickly establish an amusing rivalry based on who can seduce Shuusuke first.

This rivalry rages on until Mayuka, the boys love-obsessed class rep, is introduced in volume 3. Owing to a mix-up, Shuusuke ends up destroying one Mayuka's BL books. When Mayuka finds out she isn't best pleased, and decides to make Shuusuke her "pet". To her this means having someone to buy BL for her, and someone to talk about it with. Shuusuke erroneously believes it means... something else. And so do Nao and Iroha, who team up to defeat their new foe. Hilarity ensues.

What I've described so far is what sets this harem manga apart from other harem manga I've read: the characters are varying degrees of insane, from the slightly kooky to the completely off their rocker. Even Nao's two school friends, the closest this manga has to straight (wo)men, find amusement in covertly stalking the bizarre circus that is the Shuusuke/Nao/Iroha "love" triangle. For the most part the series' humour is a mixture of bawdy slapstick, surprisingly snappy dialogue, and "I can't believe they went there" moments. It takes standard, cliché genre set-ups (such as the beach and pool chapters) and cranks the crazy dial all the way up. Is it big and clever? No. Is it riotously funny and entertaining? Well, I suppose it depends upon your tolerance for silly sex comedy, but I certainly think so.

Which brings me to the art. It isn't great. Characters are stick-thin and gangly, with long pencil necks, large jug ears, and massive man hands. The girls also have a severe case of sameface, their only distinguishing feature being their hair (and even then it can be tricky telling Iroha from one of Nao's friends). Having said that, it's not without a certain simplistic comic charm that kind of works, and the girls are cute. And while the series is as racy and risqué as they come, benefiting from its serialisation in an online seinen publication, it's not reflected in the art itself which is relatively tame in terms of fanservice. The cheesecake shots that are there are somewhat neutered by the odd character designs; they're just not that sexy.

I Don't Like You At All, Big Brother is a harem manga. There's just no getting around it. But I hope I've done enough to convince at least one of the three people who will read this all the way through that it has a bit more going for it than your average garden variety harem. Just a bit.

[SPOILER WARNING]

Step Up Love Story (Futari Ecchi) is a four-episode OVA that tells the deeply uninteresting story of two deeply uninteresting 25-year-od newlyweds, Makoto and Yura, who just happen to be virgins. LIKE I CARE. So they get married and start shagging. The end.

Well, okay, a few other things happen. Yura's slutty sister shows up and causes trouble. Makoto's sexually frustrated cousin shows up and causes trouble. The student Makoto used to tutor shows up and tries to seduce him (trouble). Yura gets a job as a waitress in a maid café. They go to a hot springs resort. Yes, this show has been ... beaten half to death with the cliché stick and proceeds to stagger around bruised and bleeding for 100 torturous minutes.

And while Step Up Love Story is billed as a comedy, I found myself neither laughing nor even smiling as much as I had anticipated. Like, not at all. It feels like a kids show with its simplistic characterization and banal dialogue, and only the frequent soft porn scenes (so poorly animated that the participants look like malfunctioning robots) remind the viewer that it's actually supposed to be for adults. What attracted me to the series in the first place was that the protagonists were both in their mid-20s, but the series left me wondering why they weren’t written as kids straight out of high school, because that’s the level of maturity on display from them. They’re basically 25 year-old children.

There was, however, some entertainment to be had. Imagine my surprise when the credits rolled and revealed that none other than Chiaki friggin’ Konaka did the screenplay. Yes, that Chiaki Konaka, the guy who worked on Lain, Texhnolyze, Rahxephon, BGC 2040, Armitage III, and… you get the idea. I almost did one of those comical anime faints. Almost as surprising is that the Japanese voice actors didn’t use pseudonyms, so the viewer is under no illusions that they really are listening to bad grunting and moaning from Yuji “Keitaro” Ueda and Tomoko “Rosette” Kawakami.

I’m going to be generous and award Step Up Love Story three points because it has boobs, lots of boobs, even though they’re not particularly well drawn boobs. And also because it's so bad that I've resorted to writing this, which has proved a gazillion times more enjoyable.

This two-part OVA series from 1989 is adapted from the manga by Buichi Terasawa, whose work, I must confess, I'm not terribly familiar with. But I have seen the Space Adventure Cobra movie, and between that and what I've heard, I gather his stories typically feature two elements: manly men and shapely women. The first episode of Goku: Midnight Eye, you'll be pleased to hear (or not), has both.

Let's get this out of the way: Goku is a standard action movie, albeit one that has all the style and flair you'd expect from director Yoshiaki Kawajiri. If you go into it expecting ... any more, you'll be disappointed. There are no thought provoking themes or deep characterization here. But despite that, Goku manages to tell an entertaining story. Which I will now spoil, for this is the only way to convey its greatness.

An investigation is being conducted into the activities of a businessman the police suspect of being an arms dealer. But one by one the officers involved in the surveillance operation are taking their own lives. Enter Goku Furinji, a wisecracking private detective with terrible dress sense. A tie draped over his bare chest, he positively exudes manliness. As an ex-cop who was friends with the dead men, Goku takes a personal interest in the case, despite warnings from his old boss to keep out of it.

Goku is, of course, far too manly too manly to be deterred, and decides to take matters into his own hands. After a brief encounter with a naked female android who shoots a laser from her mouth and has motorcycle handlebars mounted on her back, he faces a naked woman with a plume of hypnotic feathers and ends up with no choice but to stab his own left eye in order to save his life. Then he drives into a river. What a man.

If you're not yet having trouble suspending your disbelief, keep reading.

Duing a dream sequence, a booming voice informs a Goku that he has been given a cybernetic eye to replace the one he lost. He wakes up, inexplicably, on a park bench and soon realizes that it wasn't a dream. The eye is, quite frankly, shit-hot. Not only can it access any computer in the world, it can CONTROL them. Suddenly, Goku is practically invincible.

Why was he given this eye? Who gave it to him? Where did the technology come from? Pfft. If you're the kind of viewer who gives a crap about these kind of details, you probably wouldn't be watching this show in the first place. Suffice it to say, he wants revenge, and goes about it in the most manly way possible: by jumping from a helicopter and using his infinitely extendable staff to pole-vault through a window several thousand (possibly) floors high.

I'm a huge fan of Kawajiri and his unique style is evident throughout Goku: Midnight Eye. Like his earlier Wicked City, the show takes full advantage of his ability to create a dark, oppressive, gothic urban environment, and it's populated with a cast of elegantly designed characters. The animation is similarly impressive, with fluid action scenes and minimal reliance on shortcuts. The cheesy 80s synth music, however, does little but ratchet up the camp factor, which may or may not be a good thing. I can't quite decide.

So what do we have? A stoic, indestructible hero. Unspeakably evil bad guys. Plenty of random nudity. Gorgeous design. Yep, it's an 80s OVA, it's great fun, and it's the kind of show that doesn't get made any more. And I think that's a real shame.

A timid young girl named Himeko has a fateful meeting with Chikane, the elegant daughter of an obscenely wealthy family. There's an immediate emotional connection between them, but Chikane, bound by protocol and social convention, finds herself unable to act on her feelings while Himeko is kind of dating her bland childhood friend Souma. By the time the first credit sequence plays out it's revealed that they're the latest reincarnations of shrine maidens who must defend the world from a mythical beast who wants to destroy it for some reason. Ooookay.

The more I watched this show the more convinced I became that it's all an ... elaborate pisstake. Let's take the bad guys, who include a busty vixen, a loli catgirl, a failed pop star, and a bored manga artist. They attack the maidens and Souma randomly, usually one at a time and with no apparent strategy, in giant robots that literally appear out of nowhere. After the battles the girls return to their normal (relatively speaking) lives as if nothing had happened. It's full of clichés and self-consciously dramatic moments like heart wrenching speeches and sudden gusts of wind that signify events of great meaning. It laughs in the face of concepts such as subtlety.

But, really, that's all window dressing. Kannazuki no Miko is really about the developing relationship between Chiakne and Himeko. The problem is that Chikane is the only interesting character in the entire show. Himeko is continually bawling and wallowing in doubt and self pity. Souma is the stereotypical hot blooded love interest who'd do anything to protect his object of affection and he shouts a lot. Ugh, who cares? The bad guys spend most of the show standing around in their own little dimension doing nothing, and receive token development by way of a brief image montage.

Yet there was something that kept me coming back for more. It was certainly not the clunky animation, bland designs, or pedestrian direction. It might have been the promise of hot girl-on-girl action or simply the trainwreck-like quality of the storytelling. Kannazuki no Miko is pure soap opera melodrama and I was unable to tear my eyes away from the carnage unfolding on my screen. It's utterly awful but in a strangely compelling way.

Originally serialized in the US in Viz's sadly defunct Pulp magazine, Assate Dance (from this point onward referred to by its English title Dance Till Tomorrow) tells the story of college student Suekichi who, much to his surprise, inherits 450 million yen from his recently deceased great grandfather. But the old guy couldn’t resist attaching a few conditions: in order to claim the fortune, Suekichi will have to graduate from college, marry, and establish a career. Having planned to drop out of school so that he could devote all his time to the theatre troupe of which he is a producer (more out ... of admiration for its leader, the lovely Ms Shimomura, than any particular ambition), he suddenly finds himself having to reassess his priorities. What’s more, a mysterious young seductress named Aya suddenly appears and attaches herself to him - and she knows of the inheritance.

And so begins Naoki Yamamoto’s hilarious adult romantic comedy. Dance Till Tomorrow boasts sharp, snappy dialogue and subtle characterisation, all punctuated with a hefty dose of humour and raw sexual energy. Protagonist Suekichi has to contend with a procession of oddballs, including an over-zealous actor, a frighteningly well-endowed (and questionably stereotyped) south Asian immigrant, a persistent ex-husband, and theatre loving Yakuza. Stressed, paranoid, and generally exasperated with the parade of weirdoes imposing themselves on his life, he skulks around with a perpetual, and comical, suspicious narrow-eyed glare.

While much of Dance Till Tomorrow’s humour is dry and deadpan, there are plenty of absurd moments: the ghost of Suekichi’s great grandfather occasionally appears before him to offer sagely (or not) advice, the reader kept guessing as to whether ghosts really exist in this world of Yamamoto’s creation or if these encounters are simply a symptom of Suekichi’s ever-worsening mental state. And in one of the funniest moments of the story, Suekichi - finally overcome with the stress of university, holding down a part-time job, his role as drama troupe producer and accountant, dealing with all the crazies, and Aya's advances - starts to exhibit physical symptoms of his anxiety. And though it seems cruel, you can’t help but be amused by his suffering.

But without doubt the manga’s best creation is Aya - the devious and manipulative sexpot who seems to take great pleasure in messing with Suekichi‘s increasingly fragile mind. She becomes a permanent fixture in his life, cropping up everywhere, seducing him, and generally driving him crazy. And the reader, much like Suekichi, is never quite sure of her true motives. Is she, as Suekichi believes, interested in nothing but his fortune? Or does she genuinely have feelings for him? While she seems offended by his accusations, she refuses to explicitly deny that they’re true. Instead, she exposes his hypocrisy; she may or may not be a gold-digger, but there’s no question that he’s only too happy to use her for sex. She’s a wonderful character, powerful and intelligent, and she knows exactly how to get what she wants. But as the story progresses we see different sides of her, and begin to question whether maybe she’s more than just a calculating nymphomaniac. Later, Suekichi becomes interested in another woman, who happens to be the polar opposite of of Aya, and this brings a new dimension to his character, too.

Dance Till Tomorrow is one of the more explicit non-pornographic manga I’ve read. Each volumes features at least two or three highly erotic sex scenes, mostly between Suekichi and Aya, and often blurring is required to obscure genitalia. But despite this, the sex never feels gratuitous or unnecessary; it's simply a part of life and it's depicted as such.

If there’s one sticking point, it’s Yamamoto's art. While the designs are attractive, particularly the women, from certain angles characters appear off model and, frankly, almost deformed. It is, however, something that the reader becomes accustomed to. Some characters are simply designed to be ugly, and there’s plenty of exaggerated facial expressions, mostly courtesy of the hapless Suekichi. Finally, the background art is adequate, doing what it needs to and little else.

In the back of the early books there is a brief interview with Naoki Yamamoto. In it he states that he writes “Ordinary stories about ordinary people - but they have to be erotic”. That sums up Dance Till Tomorrow perfectly. It’s a realistic and mature portrayal of adult relationships, and it’s funny too.