My Little Sister Can’t Be Getting Her Own Mecha Anime!?

The 8th episode of Ore no Imouto was a somewhat abrupt change from the pace of some of the previous episodes, but as it nonetheless continues more of the antics of some of the season’s favorite characters.

The lovely poster for Kirino’s manga, 姉妹市 / Shimaishi (Sisters’ City) is illustrated by a talented young artist with the quixotic name BUNBUN (personal website here), who is also responsible for episode 01’s ED illustration.

Talent for the 2D arts must run strong in his bloodline incidentally – BUNBUN’s elder sister (by two years) happens to be 堀口悠紀子 / Yukiko Horiguchi, Kyoto Animation’s pre-eminent illustrator and largely in charge of all of KyoAni art production going back as far as Haruhi in 2006.

The top-left of the poster is a fun joke to be explained shortly.

This week’s revolving OP changes gave some good material:

Kirino looks adorable!

Kirino’s business associate has a great anime name – フェイト / Fate.

The “Justion” mecha seen throughout the episode is definitely of the “Super Robot” breed (Tetsujin, Manzinger Z), as opposed to the more typical “Real Robot” (most anything Gundam or Macross).

The Justion anime plays in the background of this meido kissa.

And one of the maids themselves in the back – it must be a mecha-anime themed café.

Since she has a fair amount of screentime this episode, Ruri gets a few especially good close-ups, like the one above.

Note the mecha kits in the glass displays, too.

Kirino’s meeting with the anime producers goes as you’d expect in any fictional narrative:

It might be hoped that the real-life producers of our anime aren’t quite as satanic looking!

Kyosuke’s seiyuu Yuuichi Nakamura is still giving an excellent performance as always, although it might be hard to remember it’s “Kyosuke” speaking, and not Tomoya or Alto.

This lovely shot of Kirino is probably the best overall from the episode.

(The shot above is flipped 180° for a better look)

The shot of Kirino’s Shimaishi is just what the real things typically look like, besides that the wraparound mini dustcover is usually seen on light novels more infrequently than on manga. The publisher’s name is a fun pun however…

Kadokawa’s 電撃文庫 / Dengeki Bunpo, the major label that happens to be the Ore no Imouto novel series’ actual publisher is spelled with the kanji 電撃 / Dengeki (Electric Shock) separated from the kanji for the extremely similar 雷撃 / Raigeki (Lightning Strike) with just a tiny squiggle in the ‘Den” kanji.

Copyrights are not an issue here, so it is likely someone is amusing themselves behind all this.

This adaptation plan for the anime version of Shimaishi outlines some of the changes: changing the lead to a male character, increasing the number of action scenes, and naming the newly masculine lead Satoru…

Perhaps the satanic bunch were terribly confused and were thinking of a different light novel?

Hopefully buxom (according to the manga’s art, at least) Saori might get more screentime in the remaining episodes.

The show’s habit of running credits over the closing moments of several episodes adds a classy touch, but it does also result in many scenes being marred by a text scrawl.

The cruel sofa prevents a panchira for Kirino’s bounce here, sadly.

This week’s ED illustration is indeed a different style than the past artwork used by the show, but still great in its own chibi-ish way:

The art comes from yet another gifted artist with a noble name, CHANxCO (personal website here).