For anime fans who loved Tsukasa Fushimi’s “Oreimo” series, will no doubt want to give “Eromanga Sensei” a try. It’s a fun, slightly perverted anime series worth checking out!
Image courtesy of © 2016 Tsukasa Fushimi/KADOKAWA CORPORATION AMW/EMP. All Rights Reserved.
TITLE: Eromanga Sensei vol. 1
DURATION: Episodes 1-6 (140 Minutes)
BLU-RAY INFORMATION: 1080p High Definition, Japanese 2.0 Linear PCM, Subtitles: English
COMPANY: Aniplex of America Inc.
RATED: 16 and Up
Release Date: June 12, 2018
Originally Created by Tsukasa Fushimi
Directed by Ryohei Takeshita
Script by Go Zapa, Tatsuya Takahashi, Tsukasa Fushimi
Music by Tomoki Kikuya
Character Design: Hiroyuki Oda
Art Director: Yukako Ogawa
Anime Production: A-1 Pictures
Featuring the following voice talent:
Akane Fujita as Sagiri Izumi
Yoshitsugu Matsuoka as Masamune Izumi
Ibuki Kido as Megumi Jinno
Mikako Komatsu as Ayame Kagurazaka
Minami Takahashi as Elf Yamada
Nobunaga Shimazaki as Kunimitsu ShidÅ
Saori Ōnishi as Muramasa Senjū
Yui Ishikawa as Tomoe Takasago
From the author of Oreimo comes a slapstick comedy about a novelist big brother and his illustrator younger sister along with a cast of charming characters!
Masamune Izumi is a high school student who professionally writes light novels. Sagiri Izumi is a shut-in who never leaves her room. One year ago, they became siblings when their parents married one another.
However, one day, Masamune discovers a shocking twist—the artist “Eromanga Sensei,” who has been drawing illustrations for his novels, is none other than Sagiri. His cute little shut-in of a sister, who has been living under his roof, is using an obscene pen name and drawing lewd illustrations. But there’s no way his little sister could be this dirty?!
Light novel author Tsukasa Fushimi is known for his well-known novel series “Oreimo” about a normal teenage guy who has not gotten along with his younger sister. And while his sister is popular, she is actually a hardcore otaku into moe anime and eroge.
Tsukasa repeated the same magic with his 2013 light novel series “Eromanga Sensei” published by ASCII Media Works under the Dengeki Bunko imprint. A manga adaptation would follow in 2014 and a 12-episode anime adaptation produced by A-1 Pictures.
And now the anime series will be released on Blu-ray in North America courtesy of Aniplex of America Inc.
Volume 1 features the first six episodes and revolves around a high school student named Masamune Izumi who writes light novels. Several years ago, his father would marry another woman, who had a daughter named Sagiri.
But because of something that happened, Sagiri stopped talking to anyone and locked herself in her bedroom for a year and became a hikikomori. Masamune hopes that one day she will talk to him and get out of her shell, but for now, he prepares meals for her and hopes that he can someday talk to his step-sister.
Masamune would become an award-winning light novel author of a series titled “Silverwolf of Reincarnation” and because he has no art skill, he depends on an unknown individual online to create his artwork and the person is known for creating perverted images and goes by the name of “Eromanga Sensei”.
Eromanga Sensei is often critical towards Masamune and Masamune often wonders about this person.
One day, after preparing a meal for Sagiri, he goes to have his online meeting with Eromanga Sensei on a video streaming site.
While having this online meeting with his artist, while Eromanga Sensei is wearing a mask, he spots a meal he made for his sister with the same message that he wrote her.
It is then that Masamune realizes that his step-sister Sagiri is actually Eromanga Sensei.
As Masamune is not upset that his sister is Eromanga Sensei, he is hoping that their mutual interests may grow their brother-sister bond.
Meanwhile, Sagiri’s classmate Megumi Jinno suddenly shows up to the home and is insisting that she bring Sagiri to school. And a popular teenage light-novel author named Elf Yamada moves next door to Masamune and starts to fall for him.
VIDEO:
“Eromanga Sensei” is presented in 1080p High Definition and for the most part, A-1 Pictures did a good job in creating this series. There is a slight hint of softness but the anime series is colorful, characters are well-shaded and the animation and background are very good.
AUDIO & SUBTITLES:
“Eromanga Sensei” is presented in Japanese Linear PCM stereo. Dialogue and music are crystal clear through the front channels. It’s important to note that there are no English dub included with this Blu-ray release.
Subtitles are in English.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
“Eromanga Sensei” comes with the textless opening and ending, trailers and commercials plus the web previews for episodes 2-6.
EXTRAS:
“Eromanga Sensei” comes with both a Blu-ray and DVD version of the film, a slipcase illustrated by character designer Hiroyuki Oda and a 16-page booklet.
Having watched “Oreimo”, I was quite interested in seeing what kind of story. Tsukasa Fushimi’s “Eromanga Sensei” would be.
While the consistency of perversion is still there, this time we have a light novel writer who is a high school teenager named Masamune Izumi who had a breakout hit and his younger step-sister, Sagiri Izumi, a hardcore hikikomori, who has locked herself in her bedroom for the past year.
Masamune doesn’t have a close knit relationship with his sister and the fact that she has locked herself in her room and doesn’t want to see anyone, has made him find ways to work hard to bring her out of her shell and hopefully they can be brother and sister.
But when Masamune, who finds out his mystery illustrator (known for creating perverted images) is his little sister, he sees it as an opportunity to get closer to his sister and have a brother/sister relationship, while she sees his enthusiasm as a perverted brother.
The first half of the series are primarily introductions to the characters such as the perverted Megumi Jinno, a persistent classmate who wants to be friends with Sagiri and get her back to school. A young light novel author named Elf Yamada, who dresses as a lolita and moves in next door to Masamune. And then you have Masamune’s friend, Tomoe Takasago and his editor Ayame Kagurazaka.
But the first half does alluded to something happening in the Izumi household that led to Sagiri becoming hikikomori but also makes you wonder if Sagiri will ever break out her shell, leave her room, have friends but most importantly, accept Masamune as her brother and have family bond with him.
It’s no doubt a different type of storyline when compared to “Oreimo” but nonetheless, entertaining.
The anime series is produced by A-1 Pictures and looks very good on Blu-ray and it’s a lossless stereo soundtrack with the typical short special features and an extra booklet included. No soundtrack or postcards, that we are used to seeing from Aniplex.
For anime fans who loved Tsukasa Fushimi’s “Oreimo” series, will no doubt want to give “Eromanga Sensei” a try. It’s a fun, slightly perverted anime series worth checking out!
