Eromanga Sensei

Eromanga Sensei

Eromanga Sensei Cover Art
Eromanga Sensei Cover Art

Overview

Eromanga Sensei is about a sibling duo who write and illustrate light novels. Since the siblings worked anonymously online, originally Masamune did not realize that his sister, Sagiri, was the artist of his novels and Sagiri likewise didn’t realize that Masamune was the author of the novels she was illustrating.

This is another classic example of an anime in which the main characters live in conditions that are not normal based on their ages. Masamune and Sagiri are 15 and 12 respectively, yet they live alone and Elf Yamada, 14, lives alone in the house next door.

Not only do all of these children live alone, but they don’t go to school either and in Sagiri’s case, she’s barely left her room for what may be months or years by the start of the show. And yet, there seems to be no familial or government intervention at all. Instead, the closest we get is Sagiri’s would-be classmate, Megumi, trying to get Sagiri to go to school.

Maybe it’s different in Japan, but in the United States, it’s illegal to drop out of school until the age of 16 which is older than most, if not all, of the characters in the anime. I find it hard to believe that being a dropout is acceptable in Japan. However, according to most anime, school is basically the government and can punish you even for doing things on your own time. For example, stopping for a snack on your way home.

But before I go off on too much of a ranting tangent about how the Japanese school system, at least as portrayed in anime, is essentially a military state which destroys the idea of individual freedoms let’s move on to the characters section.

Characters

Masamune is the protagonist of Eromanga Sensei and the author of adult light novels even though he is a minor himself. He’s in love with his younger adopted sister which is already a recipe for disaster. But, he then learns that she is actually the one he’s been anonymously working with online as the artist for his novels.

Sagiri is the younger sister of Masamune and like him, she did not realize that it was his novels she was creating artwork for. Guess what else, she’s in love with Masamune too so this anime is just about as degenerate as it can possibly get.

Elf Yamada is the pen name of another light novel author and rival of Masamune who moves in next door. She’s typically dressed in classic lolita fashion and appears to look down on everyone that isn’t herself which makes her a fairly entertaining character.

Then there’s Masamune’s other rival, Muramasa. She’s got some interesting stuff going on so I’ll leave it at that to avoid spoiling anything further.

Finally, we have Megumi, potentially the best character in the show. Megumi is Sagiri’s would-be class president if Sagiri actually ever went to school. Megumi’s sole purpose in life is to befriend everyone in her class, which she can’t do if Sagiri isn’t in class to befriend. So her sub-goal is to get Sagiri to start going to school.

Megumi Jinno
Megumi Jinno

Conclusion

Eromanga Sensei was basically the low point for the 2017 anime year. It showed us that a show can be almost as degenerate as possible, and we’ll still watch it because it looks nice and is entertaining.

Honestly, it wouldn’t be so bad if they just removed the whole sibling love thing going on in there, but apparently, that’s important to the author.

Luckily, the later 2017 anime A Sister’s All You Need didn’t end up like Eromanga Sensei even though that’s what everyone initially expected by the name. And while it shouldn’t be so, I actually gave Eromanga the same rating of 7/10. Sure it was worse, but it wasn’t worse enough to be lowered to a 6.

While it has a major plot point that should make you cringe, if you look past that it wasn’t so bad. The art and animation were nice, it was entertaining at times, and it didn’t cross the line (yet).

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