Okay… I will admit that I am a degenerate and am a sucker for stepsibling love stories in anime. I’ve seen my fair share so when I saw Gimai Seikatsu (Days with My Stepsister) on the list for this summer, I had several reactions. The first was… “Woot, new stepsibling degeneracy!” The second was… “Oh, I’m slated to review the manga for Yen Press in June. The third was “Wait, the manga got delayed? Well, I guess I’ll add it to the list and watch it anyway.” The fourth was “Nah, I don’t want to spoil it. I’ll just wait for the manga.” The fifth was “Well, the first episode is out so… do I do it? Do I go for it or wait?” And the final was “Screw it! I’ll just do both.”
And here we are.
Let’s go!
First Episode Synopsis
Yuta comes home and is told by his father that he is going to re-marry. Yuta isn’t bothered by this and says whatever makes him happy is fine with him. He’ll just continue to do whatever and that’s that. His father tells him that’s impossible because his soon-to-be stepmother has a daughter so he will be gaining an imouto! Thanks to the word choice, Yuta figures she’s much younger.
Nope.
She’s only younger than him by a month! Now, they have to learn to live under the same roof; however, they both agree to just be casual, yet, not truly force any issue upon one another. They both just want to live average normal lives and that’s what we see here. Yuta goes to work and gets teased by his co-worker while Saki simply exists in the house. He helps her move in and unpack her stuff just to be helpful and is even courteous when it’s time to take a bath by asking her what preference she has in the order in which they use the tub.
And that’s it…
Worth Watching?
YES – Almost every single anime with this premise is a comedy. Not only is it a comedy, but they ship the siblings almost immediately. Then we get the entire premise of trying to keep the secret from their parents and everybody else while they learn to adjust to their new lives of being taboo lovers.
You don’t get any of that here… at least… not yet.
The first episode even goes out of its way to start off with a narrative that pokes fun at the status quo for these types of shows and even promises that reality is different than fiction. Add in the somber music, the atmospheric ambiance, and even the best use of silence I’ve seen in an anime in a good long while, and you have the recipe for something completely different.
Make no mistake… there are some jokes here and there, mainly pertaining to Yuta’s father and a typical embarrassing scene with Yuta when helping Saki unbox her stuff but this is NOT a comedy! This is treated like a slice-of-life drama and that is so refreshing. It’s a show that takes itself seriously and the fact that barely anything happened at all in the first episode and I was hooked and entertained speaks volumes about how well this show was written.
I’d even go out on a limb and say that Days with My Stepsister started off this way to bait and make fun of degenerates like me. Because we are conditioned to see a show like this and automatically think about romance, taboo, secrets, and embarrassing comedy with a light mix of tsundere syndrome, the show expects us to sit on the edge of our seats and wonder when all of that will happen. When it does, it’s like a slap in the face for us to wake up and accept reality… much like the narrative flat-out told us to do in the opening minutes of the show.
There were no surprises, no shocking moments, or expected situations. Everything we were waiting for to happen didn’t… and it never felt so good and refreshing.
Does that mean it won’t happen at all? I don’t know… the manga was delayed to July 30 so it’s not like I know the answer. But I will tell you that the first episode dared to be different and it worked and worked well. Even if it keeps this exact tone and premise throughout its 12-episode run, this will end up being something special.
