This year I'm going to do something a little different for this month. After all, this month is the beginning of the holiday season, which means a lot of people will be visiting their families (be they biological, adoptive, or found). Family is the theme of this month, albeit with a twist: every title reviewed this month features a family role in the title, regardless of the actual subject matter. That's certainly evident with our first title, which somehow is and isn't all that familial.
THE ELDER SISTER-LIKE ONE (Ane Naru Mono), by Iida Pochi. First published in 2016 and first published in North America in 2018.
PLOT:
Yuu has spent the last decade or so getting shuffled from one relative to another. His parents' untimely death has left him distant and depressed, and most of his guardians don't want to deal with it. His loneliness only gets worse when his latest guardian goes to the hospital. That's when he discovers that said guardian has been summoning demons in his spare time, and Yuu unwittingly summons Chiyo. She offers him anything he wants, and he asks for her to live with him everyday like a big sister.
Now the two spend their days in (mostly) quiet comfort, as Chiyo learns about the human world and Yuu tries to deal with his 'sister's' demonic charms.
STORY:
"What if Oh My Goddess, but Belldandy was horny and oblivious to the human world?" That's probably the quickest way to sum up The Elder Sister-Like One. It's trying to be horny and heart-warming at the same time, and while I'm not entirely convinced it works I have to give at least some credit for being sincere about it.
Pochi tries to mine some depth out of Yuu with a lot of inner monologue, but it's not quite enough to overcome the fact that he's kind of a nondescript sadsack. He's not unpleasant or annoying, but there's not much too him beyond his sadness. I also strongly suspect that Pochi borrowed his backstory and ability to see yokai from Chise in The Ancient Magus's Bride. Chiyo does make a charming counterpart to the gloomy Yuu. Her genuine enthusiasm about the human world is endearing, and this lack of knowledge helps to even out the power dynamic between her and Yuu. At the very least, it helps her avoid the magical mommy-girlfriend pitfall that Belldandy and all her imitators tended to fall into.
That being said, she's not above the requisite fanservice moments (at least once per chapter) and somehow the emotional sincerity of their relationship makes these moments more awkward than usual. Pochi makes so much of a big deal about the non-horny emotional fulfillment that Yuu and Chiyo get out of their arrangement that it makes Chiyo's horny moments feel kind of fake, like she's purposefully putting on a show for the reader. Meanwhile, it only makes Yuu's stereotypically nervous, stuttering discomfort all the more uncomfortable. These moments feel like they're getting in the way of what would otherwise be a gentle (if unconventional) tale of two lonely souls connecting with one another.
ART:
Iida Pochi made her name in ero-manga; apparently this particular series was born from one of her originial doujin. That's certainly evident in the way she draws Chiyo's demonic form, although there is a sense of restraint here. Chiyo's certainly drawn for sex appeal in both forms, but her proportions are fairly realistic and she doesn't go overboard with the squishiness or floppiness of her boobs. The same goes for the aforementioned fanservice moments, although there's a bathing-themed one that pushes the edge pretty damn hard.
Beyond that, though, she really nails that sort of sleepy, cozy, Japanese countryside aesthetic that iyashikei stories like this love to trade on. You've got a lot of the usual trappings: a quiet, traditional-styled home, dirt roads, farm fields, with nary a soul to be seen outside of Yuu's initial trip to the hospital. She puts some care into the backgrounds, and because of that you can really feel the sort of hazy, late-summer vibes this series exudes.
RATING:
I don't know if the concept of a horny iyashikei is something that entirely works for me, but
The Elder Sister-Like One certainly tries its best to make it happen. At the very least, it's a more worthy outlet for Iida Pochi's skill as an artist than the likes of
Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks?This series is published by Yen Press. This series is ongoing in Japan with six volumes available. All six have been released and are currently in print.
