Eromanga Sensei

Title: Eromanga Sensei
Studio: A-1 Pictures
Release Date: April 9, 2017
Episodes: 12
Genres: Harem, Rom Com
Rating:

The story centers around high school student Masamune Izumi who loves writing light novels. Having no artistic skill himself, Masamune always gets his novels illustrated by an anonymous partner using the pen name "Eromanga Sensei", who is known for drawing questionably perverted images despite being extremely reliable. In addition to balancing his passion and school, Masamune is also stuck with taking care of his only family member—his younger step-sister Sagiri Izumi. A hikikomori by nature, Sagiri shut herself in her room for over a year and constantly bosses Masamune around despite his attempts to get her to leave her room. However, when Masamune inadvertently discovers that his anonymous partner has been Sagiri all along, their sibling relationship quickly leaps to new levels of excitement, especially when a beautiful, female, best-selling shōjo manga author enters the fray.

Review

I had been curious about this anime purely because Sagiri is the subject of a lot of gifs, and I went into this series knowing nothing about it other than that it was trending for a while. I watched this series to completion with my husband and honestly, I’m glad that it was a short one season, I couldn’t stand it by the end. It’s tragic really, because it actually started off alright, if questionable.

The story follows a pair of step-siblings, Masamune and Sagiri. Masamune is a high school student and burgeoning new light novel writer who dreams of someday getting an anime adaptation; Sagiri is a middle school student and popular online lewd artist named Eromanga sensei who also happens to be the illustrator for Masamune’s novels. The story parodies the light novel industry and it helped me to learn a little about it while also providing a few laughs. I also initially liked Sagiri, shy and quiet in person, but perverted and outrageous online despite not having any experience with sex; her online persona reminded me (embarrassingly) of myself when I was in middle and high school.

Unfortunately, this was about all that this series had going for it, everything else was a mess of ridiculous tropes and trivial nonsense. There is an incestuous romantic relationship between Masamune and Sagiri, which was troublesome because Sagiri is twelve years old. While the age gap between the two isn’t huge, there is a big difference in maturity between a twelve-year-old and a sixteen-year-old. Sagiri is highly sexualized, and the fact that there are people online who staunchly believe that age doesn’t matter is troubling.

There are also two other characters that are professional rivals, but it quickly devolves into an overplayed harem scenario. There was so much pandering and fan service in this series that there were entire episodes where the titular Eromanga sensei wasn’t involved at all. The series ceased to be cute and charming, it was just drivel. It is honestly a shame, as the parody on the light novel industry was a neat idea. Combined with an appealing art style and great animation, this series had potential that was squashed by a lack of creativity.