The Fake Incest Harem for Cowards

[00:04] again for the folks in back because I don't just like it, I love it. I am a firm believer that anime's capacity to explore the weird, horny, shameless side of the human condition is one of its best and most important features. When

[00:18] artists are free to indulge in taboo fantasies and let their ids run wild, it throws wide the windows to their souls and produces some of the most compellingly human personal stories our species has ever told. So when I tell

[00:33] you I hate the Shiunji family children, that's not coming from some prude tutten about how it goes too far. Raji Miaima's smash hit all sister horum thing doesn't

[00:45] smash hit all sister horum thing doesn't go nearly too far enough. It is the work of a coward of a man who understands that other men will pay good money for a love heina type thing where most of the girls call protagon

[00:59] but has zero interest in actually exploring that idea or doing anything with it that might upset anyone. Hence why the inciting incident for the plot is their billionaire dad telling them they're all adopted and then immediately

[01:12] leaving on a never-ending series of business trips to let them sort that out for themselves, which is still obviously like really wrong and stuff, but not in a way anyone would go to jail over. In other words, it's exactly what you'd

[01:25] expect from the man who gave us the sexless sex worker horum and incest sexless sex worker horum and incest horm. the Haram side is no better. It is some of the laziest, most paint by numbers

[01:41] of the laziest, most paint by numbers crap I've ever seen. And I have seen a crap I've ever seen. And I have seen a lot of horror anime. Most of them not better than Rent a Girlfriend basically by default, at least in terms of, you

[01:54] know, storytelling fundamentals. Characters that don't actively make you want to punch your television screen. But there is a growing part of me that But there is a growing part of me that might actually hate Shiuni family more.

[02:06] I know, I know that is a molten take and I will get to defending it in just one sec. But first, a word from our sponsor, AFK Arena. Dude, Eay Hyodo is clearly

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[04:17] get nearly enough respect. They're frequently written off as nothing but an endless ocean of goons slop, but they're one of the foundational genres of anime with just as much potential to produce peak as Mecca, magical girls, or isekai.

[04:34] There are many different paths to that peak, but all of them in some way leverage the genre's power as a vehicle for characters and relationships. Not many genres let a cast this large get to know each other this intimately. And

[04:48] when you add to that the dynamic of a family at risk of being torn apart by temptation and taboo, you've got plenty of fuel for any halfway decent writer with even the slightest interest in other human beings to pen at least a few

[05:03] other human beings to pen at least a few fire bars. Unfortunately, this is ragy fire bars. Unfortunately, this is ragy we're talking about.

[05:15] protagonist merely overreacts to underscore the absurdity of the sexual tension between the two. >> The problem broadly with the Shieni family children is that they are not in any meaningful way written as a family.

[05:30] There is little feeling that their personalities influenced each other growing up, that any of their relationships go any deeper than your run-of-the-mill childhood friend, or that any of their relationships really

[05:42] matter to them besides the one that the show's about. They are a pile of default factory setting harum tropes that happen to grow up in the same house together and have a habit of walking to school together in a big group that all of

[05:56] their classmates can point at and go, "Hey, look, it's the Shiunji family. They are so rich and famous and also popular." And I wish that I was one of those two brothers. Not for any of those reasons, but because the sisters are so

[06:10] hot and I wish that I was in the house with them all the time. Don't you, friend? Yes, I do, friend B. And this is a very normal conversation to be having of the people that we're talking about. Where was I again? Right. The tropes. Uh

[06:25] twintail sundere, cheerful type sporty girl, stoic type nerdy girl, shy type girl, stoic type nerdy girl, shy type emoto, gentle type Aan, and protagon's advice, but it's mostly useless and he barely gets any screen time. Of course,

[06:38] in theory, with a good enough protagon, you could still pull all those very generic characters together into something entertaining. But I just told you this is Rage we're talking about. Pay attention. Come on. That's my

[06:51] sister. He has been for the last 16 years. Even so, I'm a teenage boy. How years. Even so, I'm a teenage boy. How could I not react?

[07:04] infinitely preferable to Kazuya, but then so is a colonoscopy. He enjoys working out and spending time with his sisters. Dislikes include people who are mean to his sisters, and things that make his sisters sad. His main goal in

[07:17] life is to be a good older brother. His skills and interests don't really matter school and inherit his billionaire dad's empire so as to support all of his sisters in their dreams. His hobbies include uh working out and does having

[07:33] sisters count as a hobby? He's a cipher, an archetype. Arata is the uh-oh step an archetype. Arata is the uh-oh step bro. Every aspect of his existence has been meticulously engineered to [ __ ] steps. It's what he does. It's what he

[07:48] is. or rather what he will become once he finally quiets the pesky voice in the back of his head saying hey man maybe don't [ __ ] your sister which is when you really boil it down the entire conflict driving this story society quite frowns

[08:05] on siblings fornicating versus but I want to it tries to dress that up as a deeper exploration of the line between familial and romantic love but it's not it's a show about games of twist sister in the family recck room going a little

[08:21] wild. Though nowhere near as wild as say my little sister can't possibly be this cute, which manages to be about that and complicated lines between familial and complicated lines between familial and romantic love and otaku culture all at

[08:35] the same time. What I'm saying is Shiunji family children is nowhere near as deep as my little sister can't possibly be this cute. Just let that sink in. Ah, right. That reminds me, their billionaire dad is Elon Musk. Like

[08:51] chapters after the end of the first season, it's revealed that Kaname Shiunji has purchased Twitter and that he too is the kind of [ __ ] who would throw out one of the most recognized brands on Earth and replace it with a

[09:05] single letter. Although instead of an X in a fun little Easter egg, he named it after the real Elon's favorite drug. Or maybe the K stands for kame. Not that any of this has any direct impact on the plot yet, but I do think it says

[09:21] something about Raji Miaima, a man who has publicly stated on Italian YouTube that he almost never bases characters on real people, that he could look at Elon real people, that he could look at Elon in 2023 specifically and say, "Yes, that

[09:36] right there is the admirable father figure my manga needs." after the Chappelle incident, after he bitched out of fighting Mark Zuckerberg, after he tried to buy sex with that horse, that is using the horse as currency to obtain

[09:51] sex with a steartist. To be clear, he did not try to [ __ ] a horse. The fact that I have to clarify that though, as for the rest of the Shieni family, boy,

[10:03] you sure can tell Ragi didn't base any of them on real human beings. There is absolutely zero specificity to any of their quirks or interests. The nerdy one their quirks or interests. The nerdy one likes books. Not any specific book, just

[10:17] books. The sporty girl is of course into the giriest sport, tennis, which also he picked it because of the uniforms. And speaking of the uniforms, the motherly older sister type wants to be a pediatric nurse. Meanwhile, the younger

[10:31] sister character literally doesn't have anything going on outside of brother [ __ ] and low-key neither does the twin tales sundere. The random gossipy background characters may be all like, "Ah, yeah, she's going to be the student

[10:45] council president one day, but none of her story lines so far are actually about any kind of student council [ __ ] It's just, you know, the sundere runs away cuz she can't face her feelings." Basic [ __ ] Harum episode templates. If

[11:00] you asked chat GPT to write an incest horror anime, Arata would probably be a little less jacked and there's only like a 20% chance the wildcard character would be a stoic nerd. But other than that, this is exactly what it would spit

[11:15] out. And as spontaneous fanervice generating wild cards go, I mean, honestly, I must scientifically confirm that I don't want to [ __ ] my brother isn't the worst gimmick in the world, but it sure does get old fast when it's

[11:30] all she has going on. And that's basically the only real deviation from the standard Harum formula in the whole show. I guess it does also slightly

[11:42] shake things up by having the youngest one catch her feelings for Protag [ __ ] before the story starts instead of like two to three episodes in. And of course, the girls who still need to figure their feelings out end up saying, "Oh, but no,

[11:55] they would with a typical classmate kissing type harum situation. But that doesn't have any tangible impact on the pace at which they realize their feelings and go through the typical tropes like kissing protagon when he's

[12:09] asleep but oh no he wasn't actually or announcing their crushes to each other and saying may the best lady win but oh no he was listening actually. And even though the story has an obvious built-in excuse to indefinitely delay him just

[12:24] [ __ ] going for it once he knows those girls are into him, Rage still feels the need to make him act like a clueless [ __ ] about it. I can't stop thinking about what happened. Seriously, what was all that

[12:38] about? I need to ask Oka what that was about. What if she was serious? Are you stupid? She kissed you on the lips and told you she wants you while she thought

[12:50] you were unconscious as a byproduct of the effort you spent saving her life. Do you think she was lying to herself? Do you think she was practicing for a play?

[13:02] Like, put that thing right in your sister or so help me. So help me. What's wrong with you, bro? Were your parents siblings? What really highlights the blandness of the cast is how hard the show's opening struggles to say anything

[13:17] of substance about any of them while it's introducing them. Like Cotto, the little sister's character introduction shows her trying on lipstick and shows her trying on lipstick and standing at a crossroads. Do you get it?

[13:31] Do you get that she's going through puberty? Then Sea has a lot of books. Not specific books again, just books. Some of them say philosophy on the spine, so you know she's smart. Uh Bonri is fashionable and works really hard to

[13:45] make dolls for sick kids. That's probably the most personality you're going to find in any of these. Minami's entire thing is tennis. So her whole shots just an homage to the classic tennis anime, Aim for the Ace, followed

[13:58] by pretty much the only actual animation of Shiion in this entire thing because of Shiion in this entire thing because he is actually genetically her twin brother. A fact that just by the way has zero impact on the plotter characters.

[14:12] They barely even talk to each other, let alone about that special connection that they have. Cuz Shiion isn't a real character. He is just there to give character. He is just there to give Arata someone to bounce ideas off that's

[14:27] not one of the girls he's trying to bone. They don't even put him in the end card of the OP. And on the final shot of the family standing together, he gets equal billing with the family dog. And he actually gets less screen time than

[14:41] the dog in the little montage at the start of the OP. In striking contrast to him, the OP spends like half its entire frame budget and about three times the shot length of all the other waifuss on

[14:55] Arata's twinttailed twin, Oka doing some triathlon [ __ ] for her character moment. Like it's not obvious enough who the main girl is already. But the really odd main girl is already. But the really odd thing about that shot is that Oka is at

[15:09] best the third most athletic member of the family. It's not really a significant part of her character, but then neither is anything else besides being a sundere and secretly wanting to [ __ ] her brother. So I guess it's as

[15:22] good an image as any to associate with her. It just kind of completely undermines Minami's entire identity in the OP for no real narrative reason. To compliment the characters, the vapidness of the plot is reflected in the OP's

[15:36] other big money shot. A sweeping whirling sequence where the scene constantly blinks between the season's most important moments between each of the sisters and Arata, which looks really damn cool, but also throws into

[15:51] sharp relief just how formulaic and bare bones this story really is. Two of the six scenes involve Arata sticking his neck out for a sister with a busted

[16:03] ankle. Two of them are set at the same amusement park. And Seaha gets so little character development throughout this season that the sexy wreck room twister

[16:15] scene made the cut for this big emotional memories montage. In fact, the story gave Dogga Kobo so little to work with, the OP references that scene

[16:27] twice. Compare that to the Mikadono sisters OP, where every shot tells you something new and interesting about the sisters, their relationship to Protagon and each other, their interests, the different ways they react to an itery in

[16:43] the morning, how they act on dates. It gets you quickly acquainted with many different facets of their personalities and the personalities of various supporting characters who exist around them and have distinct personalities and

[16:57] recurring roles that have nothing to do with who's going to protagon when the dust settles. What a crazy thought. But perhaps most importantly, Micadono Sisters gives all the girls equal screen time and mixes up the order they appear

[17:13] time and mixes up the order they appear in. So it's not stupidly [ __ ] obvious in. So it's not stupidly [ __ ] obvious to anyone with a single solitary brain cell who's going to protagon when the dust settles. Not that Doggo could

[17:27] really do anything about that, no matter how they storyboarded the OP, because as soon as anyone saw like 2 seconds of the actual show, they would immediately know. Mysteries are not Reagi Miaima's

[17:41] forte. Though that does not stop him from stringing his audience along with stupid little mystery boxes. At the end of season 1, for instance, right after Arata overhears his sisters declaring love is war on each other, we cut to an

[17:55] enigmatic shot of one of the siblings, at some point in the future writing in a diary or something about how none of them were ready for a bombshell them were ready for a bombshell revelation.

[18:19] roulette, baby. Now Arata has a 20% chance of [ __ ] his sister and an 80% chance of alsoing his sister, just without producing a genetic abomination. Isn't that thrilling? No. This is blatantly just a plot device designed to

[18:35] when the harum hits its endgame. either Oka as like a cheap lastminute fake out on all the obvious buildup to her as main girl or whichever one of the sisters Ragi doesn't feel like writing an actual reason for Arata to reject.

[18:50] But the bigger problem with this twist is it just doesn't make sense at all. Did their dad know there was another pair of real siblings and just not tell them for some reason? If not, how did he not know? Did the adoption agency not

[19:06] tell him? Did they not know? Did these kids get like split up at birth by some unrelated circumstance and just happen to be adopted by the same billionaire? Every conceivable explanation is stupider than the last. It's honestly

[19:22] kind of impressive how little thought went into this. And let me tell you, it only gets dumber from there. For instance, the most recent arc is about Bonry dealing with this abusive boyfriend who's just such a transparent

[19:36] manosphere piece of [ __ ] It's legitimately baffling why she'd put up with it until you find out he's blackmailing her with a secret that if it got out could destroy their family and ruin their father's company forever.

[19:54] And this secret which is so horrible that she allows this man to lay hands on that she allows this man to lay hands on her and kick children in front of her is her and kick children in front of her is that her family is adopted. Now

[20:08] admittedly that would be pretty embarrassing for Elon specifically as a very publicly birthright obsessed weird natalist freak. Not the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to him this week, but certainly there

[20:21] would be unfertilized egg on his face. That's kind of it, though. People adopt That's kind of it, though. People adopt kids all the time, and not once in the history of humanity has anyone lost their job because it got out their kids

[20:36] were adopted. This is simply not something you can blackmail someone over. And it's really obvious that Ray just repurposed a scrapped plotline or something from his other manga where the characters actually did have a secret

[20:51] that they could be blackmailed over. And that's the crux of why I'm starting to hate this anime even more than that one. It's just so blatantly an afterthought It's just so blatantly an afterthought for Miaima. The loweffort bi-weekly side

[21:05] hustle he squeezes in between chapters of the manga his wife lives in. Sure, it doesn't have quite as many bad ideas as Rent a Girlfriend, but that's only because it hardly has any ideas at all. The original thought process behind the

[21:20] story seems to have begun and ended with, "I bet an incest harum would make a lot of money." And that's not even a particularly original thought. If we allow hentai into the conversation, which we absolutely should because porn

[21:35] is the crucible of human innovation, then all incest harums have been a dime a dozen for decades now. And most of them don't out with this adopted uh-oh them don't out with this adopted uh-oh step bro. Do you have any idea how many

[21:49] visual novels are about banging your entire family and how many of those have been turned into a slideshow by Queen Bee or some [ __ ] The only new ground Shiunji family breaks is taking the incest fest down to a 14A level. And

[22:06] credit where it's due, that is quite the forwardthinking business move with all the new restrictions on online smut sweeping the globe, which may soon usher sweeping the globe, which may soon usher in a bold new era of softcore etchy

[22:19] gooner slop for kids who don't have enough facial hair to confidently walk Also, it's a Trojan horse for an Orwellian digital ID program funded by Peter Teal. The Kids Online Safety Act, I mean, not this anime. This anime's

[22:34] only purpose is to milk as much money as possible out of the waifu merch market while running bi-weekly ads for that merch in a different magazine from Riy's main gooner slop, using a mildly spicy

[22:46] twist on the Haram formula in hopes of disguising the distinct flavor of you're watching [ __ ] love Hina again. That flavor is mighty pungent though, while the spice is as mild as it gets. And I just can't think of a single reason to

[23:01] watch this crap over the dozens of better and more interesting PG horror anime out there. Not to mention all that incest hentai. I can't even think of a reason to watch it over Rent a Girlfriend. Like, at least that show has

[23:16] something in it for guys who like torture. Rent to Guff may be hell, but the Shiunji family children is purgatory. I'm Jeff Thu, professional Harum anime respector, and I'm going to go find a show I can actually do that

[23:31] job with. Oh, hey, Madono Sisters. I already found it. I'm going to go watch Mikadono Sisters. You should go watch Mikadono Sisters. It's really good.