Specials Overview

The My Sister, My Writer Specials (Ore ga Suki nano wa Imouto dakedo Imouto ja Nai Specials / 俺が好きなのは妹だけど妹じゃない新規短編アニメーション) are two special episodes bundled with the Blu-ray/DVD release of the My Sister, My Writer anime series. And I’d like to start this review by saying they’re technically better than the series.

While the main series episodes are the standard 23 minutes long, the special episodes are only half that length. And honestly, I think that’s probably for the best. Even watching these shortened episodes was a tall order, but I’m willing to take one for the team.

As some of you may know, I have a complicated relationship with this series. The anime is undoubtedly bad, and I always knew it would be. But at the same time, some of the ways in which it’s bad are just so funny that I can’t help but like the series.

Unfortunately, the specials do away with most of the terrible things that made the series so “good.”

From a technical perspective, these special episodes are higher quality than the main series — which some of you might expect. But I really wasn’t expecting that to be the case from this series. I was expecting the absolutely horrible animation and sideways scenes I’ve grown to know and love.

I don’t believe I mentioned this in my review of the main series, but My Sister, My Writer actually features a fair amount of references to both anime/manga and pop culture in general. And both of these special episodes are based on a reference to one of the most well-known anime (light novel) series, Sword Art Online.

Instead of SAO’s Nerv Gear VR headset, these special episodes feature the Nerd Gear.

The Game of Life (Episode 1)

Staying true to the system it’s based on, the Nerd Gear has some questionable bugs features, including that players can’t exit the game until they win. Luckily, there’s no “if you die in the game, you die in real life” feature.

In the first episode, Ahegao Double-Peace Sensei calls together the main and major supporting characters of the series together. She needs their help testing out her company’s new full-dive VR system. And the game they playtest is a special version of the Game of Life — the board game you’re probably familiar with.

However, this version of Life is classified as a GNTR (gender-swapped Netorare) game. Rather than simply playing through a game with standard life event cards, all of the event cards in this game involve the female players stealing the male player from each other.

These events are also all extremely lewd — making this episode extremely ecchi. Something I’ll discuss more later on is that these special episodes are also uncensored, and this episode, in particular, lends itself extremely well to that. Every scenario in the game is borderline hentai.

Honestly, all of the scenarios we get to see are pretty good. My favorite is definitely the final scenario involving Suzuka for a few reasons. First, Suzuka is just the best girl in the series. Second, the scenario was the most developed. And third, the event card that led to this scenario was called “Taboo Love” and featured a picture of Yuu and Suzuka.

Saw and Die Hard (Episode 2)

The second special episode features the Nerd Gear again, but this time a single-player “action” game is played by Yuu. In this game, Yuu’s goal is to rescue his younger sister, who looks and acts just like Suzuka because the Nerd Gear uses scans of his brain to generate the NPCs.

Rather than referencing a board game, this episode references two movies, with the first being Saw. If you’ve seen the first Saw movie, you’ll probably be familiar with the scene pictured below. But unlike in Saw, the only way for Yuu to escape this game is to completely undress Suzuka and redress her in a Lum Invader cosplay from Urusei Yatsura.

Yuu fails to complete the goal in the allotted time, which sends him to the second level of the game. The fact that you have to lose to progress through this game is a bit strange. You’d think that most people buying this game would want to both accomplish the level goals and progress through the game.

The second level of the game is a Die Hard reference. I thought it was just a generic action movie reference, at least until a particular line was said and the reference became clear.

This time around, Yuu’s goal is to touch Suzuka’s body until the “ecstasy meter” in the explosive collar she’s wearing fills and the collar unlocks. Yuu does end up accomplishing this goal, but it wasn’t really all that interesting to watch.

In fact, neither of the scenarios in this second special episode were that interesting or exciting when compared to the first special episode. There were fewer scenarios, there was no variety in girls (although Suzuka is the best), and the scenarios were much more tame.

Uncensored Version

Yesterday, I reviewed the Why the hell are you here, Teacher!? Special, and mentioned that since I had watched the original series an uncensored version had been released. The same is true for My Sister, My Writer. Not only were these special episodes uncensored, but you can now watch an uncensored version of the main series.

As with Why the hell are you here, Teacher!?, I didn’t go back and rewatch all of My Sister, My Writer now that it’s uncensored. However, I may actually do that at some point in the future, because as I mentioned, I do think it’s a funny anime.

With that said, I did skim through the first two episodes of the uncensored version to check out what it was like. I didn’t remember there being many scenes that an uncensored version would actually matter for — and that seems to be the case.

Within the first two episodes, aside from one uncensored fantasy Yuu has about Suzuka, the rest of the uncensored content is basically background content. Pictures in magazines, banners at the doujinshi convention, and Ahegao Double-Peace Sensei’s work on her tablet are examples of things that are uncensored.

For the most part, the characters in this series wore underwear for a majority of the ecchi scenes. So unless the underwear has been removed from later episodes, there shouldn’t be that many real changes. I don’t remember if Suzuka originally had underwear in the fantasy scene involving her from episode one.

Basically, the first special episode should have a lot more uncensored content than the main series.

Conclusion

The My Sister, My Writer Specials are actually better than the main series, which I wasn’t expecting. I’ll give them a 4/10. They’re still definitely bad, but they’re better than the main series was. And I’m not just saying that because they’re uncensored and the main series was censored when I watched it.

Of course, the main series is probably slightly better now that it’s uncensored, but that was never the real problem with it. The two real problems that cause the main series to be rated lower than the specials are that the animation quality is trash-tier and the comedy comes from how bad it is.

The animation for the specials is passable and there’s actually a fair bit of comedy that landed this time around — mainly in the first episode. Aside from that, though, I wouldn’t say there’s much of a difference between the series and the specials.

Also, the specials don’t have an OP/ED. I was a little disappointed by this, but it’s not the end of the world.

If you enjoyed this review, remember to click the like button ❤ down below. Also, follow me over on Twitter @DoubleSama so you don’t miss out on any future content. And come join our Discord server if you’re interested in discussing anime with other members of the community.

Finally, I’d like to thank HeavyROMAN for supporting DoubleSama.com at the Heika tier this month. To learn more about how you too can become a supporter of this blog, check out Patreon.com/DoubleSama.