Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
SCLFI
In Ulysses, Stephen Dedalus has a vision of a drowning man:
“Would you or would you not? The man that was drowned nine days ago off Maiden’s rock. They are waiting for him now. The truth, spit it out. I would want to. I would try. I am not a strong swimmer. Water cold soft. […] I want his life still to be his, mine to be mine. A drowning man. His human eyes scream to me out of horror of his death. I… With him together down… I could not save her. Waters: bitter death: lost.”
Stephen fears that attempting to save the drowning man will lead to his own subsumption against the current. In Onii-sama E, Nanako, much like Stephen, finds herself placed in an enclosing struggle against a wider societal structure that exists to prevent her from taking flight. Nanako’s enclosed position is revealed…
Read at the sourceDigiCat
For the most part a brilliant anime
While there where the tell tale signs of some lose ends forming, the bulk of the story's delicate themes were handled masterfully, with a very detailed psychological analysis of the characters which gave the show both a lot of intrigue and depth
However it completely lost me in the last few episodes
What was meant to be a very emotional twist completely derailed the developement that was built thus far, creating more lose ends than ever all whilst certain characters personalities take a complete 180 and bad behaviour gets way too romanticized for my taste
Read at the sourceVinddrom
It had been a long time since I watched an anime that left such a strong mark on my heart as Oniisama e. I connected with each character’s story to the point of growing deeply attached to the protagonists—especially Rei Asaka, who became my favorite character in anime overall, and whom I absolutely adore. It had everything to be a perfect anime; however, unfortunately, it starts to fall apart toward the end, leaving me with a sense of emptiness, dissatisfaction, and deception. That’s the reason why I can’t give it a 10. Still, I can say that for the most part Oniisama e is an excellent anime, packed with an immense mountain of emotions and situations that are definitely worth experiencing. At least for me, I enjoyed (and also suffered) a lot while watching it. it’s like watching a telenove…
Read at the sourceitikitty
Have ever imagined wanting to write a review for an anime that aired before I was born? in 2024 where all anime looks very beautiful?! here want to dedicate all passion to onii-sama e.. just for my precious Kaoru-no-Kimi
succeeded because of one story, not the main character but a supporting named Kaoru who brought me to the finish line. So can I write a review just for her?
synopsis: Kaoru no Kimi, a beautiful girl, good at sports, the idol of the whole school, her world is very perfect.. how the angel will fall when her wings are cut and can't fly because of a sudden illness, she lies, smiles, and crying alone. keep trying to be a leader.. giving hope in the darkness.
Here we see how amazing Kaoru's psychological powers are can still fight ,seek justice from school elite group that s…
Read at the sourceLuxuriousHeart
How does one fumble a 10/10 Masterpiece, into an 8/10 (being generous)? Well... Do like this manga.
This manga is almost like Rose of Versailles, but in a high school setting. Some of the characters even look like the people from Rose of Versailles. It even touches upon classism and has a revolution. It brilliantly does so in a high school sorority setting to touch on more issues. The issues of bullying, the issues of wanting to fit in, the issues of classism, etc. It goes even deeper into the feelings of abandonment and jealousy. It does these issues so well, and maintains an air of mystery. Though if I had to say what this anime was like, I'd say it was like that one Wendy Williams meme. You know the one where it's all smokey and a silhouette, and then next to it is a picture of Wendy W…
Read at the sourceProudElitist
If you happen to have watched a lot of 80's action movies I'm pretty sure you'll remember the intro to one of the most reviled (not by me) flicks of the lot, Last Action Hero, where Arnold Schwarznegger made a spoof of Hamlet with the guy going guns blazing on the enemies of Denmark. This series, albeit having nothing of testosterone-action in it, feels a lot like that intro. Why, you ask? because this feels like a completely out-of-place lyrical opera adapted from the manga of a wanna-be (at the time) opera singer that was so in love with opera that she literally used it as the main base for all her shoujo works, being those the historically-based ones or the more earthbound ones like in this case. The problem is, lyric opera and its overdramatic tones can function well in the first case…
Read at the sourceFirechick12012
Tell me you've heard this premise before: Normal girl gets accepted into a prestigious school, gets into a clique, but is bullied by both other members of the clique and people outside of it, including a stereotypical alpha bitch who rules the school, and experiences both romance and hardship. A fairly common story that's the focal point of a lot of movies, shows, and books about teenagers aimed at teenagers, and depending on the execution of said story, it can turn out well, or it can turn out really bad and cliche. Thankfully, Dear Brother, or Oniisama e, is the former. Basically, take the premise of Mean Girls, change the setting to an all-girls school in 1970s Japan, amp up the melodrama by making half the characters either kinda psycho, suicidal, or giving them mountains of sad backst…
Read at the sourceazizsahar
I'm interested in the spacious area between the audience and the art itself, I do believe both contribute to one another more than we'd assume. Few intelligent artists do that consciously. This series is special to me for several reasons, along the high quality that stands by itself. I watched this anime at a period when I was starting to be aware of life's darker hues for the first time, as an adolescent facing and reasoning the hardships and questions of life, just like the main characters here. That's why it resonated with me and was tinted by my own perception to an extent.
There are a lot of things that makes it worth watching, but the first that come to my mind is how natural elements were involved in the shaping and driving of the plot! Notice what's happening when the sun is comin…
Read at the sourcesanetoshii
As much as I loved Oniisama e..., and loved how it was such a groundbreaking story for it's time, I felt there were many unanswered questions left, and the ending was just not satisfying for me.
Characters (10/10):
I'm going to start my review off with discussing characters first, because that is the part of this anime that I think the most highly of. Most of the characters in this series are just phenomenal, and unlike any characters I've seen in other anime (and I've watched over 200). First we have Rei Asaka or "Saint Juste-sama," and her character is amazingly well written and interesting. She's strange, but not a stereotypical like strange that would come to mind when thinking of what constitutes as so. She is very oddly obsessive, and shows her love and affection bizarre ways. Thi…
Read at the sourceWild_Rose
This can be considered one of the most complicated anime that are there. Being a complicated and long story, this asks for a long review... Sorry.
The story of the anime and the manga are virtually the same, though the anime gives, what I think, a better ending for some characters. But watch the anime and some months later read a few chapters of the manga gave me a mood whiplash. While I like the things that Dezaki used to do, it's abysmal how the anime takes itself too seriously and the manga takes itself too lightly. The anime could also have been shorter and have less melodrama, and the manga could be longer and could have taken itself a little more seriously.
Regardless of these things, I think that that was the perfect timing to adapt this kind of story. It's impossible to imagine a…
Read at the sourceMR_RHYMES
Finally finished this series as i am a fan of older anime(ie anything from early 2000s and older) and i have to say this was very very enjoyable. The show pretty much revolves around these characters(in which i thought they all had very interesting character developments and other traits):
Nanako Misonoo: The main character of the story who in all honesty was probably my least favorite(though its not really a bad thing when the cast is overall amazing). She has the typical timid/naivete mindset. Pretty much purely innocent.
Rei Asaka- One of the "Magnificent three" and also known as Saint Just. Without spoiling she was probably my favorite character hands down. Probably one of the few complex characters ive seen in an anime. Her story is actually HAM
Kaoru Orihara- Aka Prince Kaoru is A…
Read at the sourceephemerry
Oniisama e… is an anime that I really wanted to like. Aesthetically, it’s right up my alley.
○ Beautiful flowers!
○ Musically talented and proper young women!
○ Lady Prince archetypes!
○ Creepy dolls?
○ Riyoko Ikeda's fabulous OG shoujo style!
○ Sexually ambiguous and lesbian overtones!
○ While my reasons for wanting to indulge seem terribly vapid, these are things that I have really enjoyed in the past. An example in anime is Maria-sama ga Miteru: a very simplistic, platonic, and elegant TV series about ordinary girls coming to terms with their blossoming sexual preferences and just generally being an adolescent. ○ Before I digress too much into insipid hatefulness, let me clarify the main hinderance to my enjoyment of Dear Brother was that I didn't really understand where the story wan…
Read at the sourceAkira_Veidt
Before I get into my review let me just say that I intend to make a review which tells my thoughts and feelings about this anime and my experience overall. What I felt and why I felt it. Stuff like that. I think that might be more helpful than just telling you what you can know from the description.
First of all, I'd like to say that the show has plenty of artistic merits in the audio/visual presentation department. The writing is well done for the most part. The characters are interesting. The pacing is good. It is just an overall well crafted piece of work. And even though it is a show that made me sad in a lot of ways, it did make me think about a lot of things and write this review. That's something. That's what I love about 'Oniisama e'. I definitely recommend this to anyone who's i…
Read at the sourceggultra2764
Based on a 1970s shoujo manga series, Dear Brother focuses on our female lead Nanako getting caught up in the complicated and tragic lives faced by several members of the student body at the prestigious Seiran all-girl's private high school, starting from when she becomes a part of the school's elite and sophisticated club known as the Sorority. She narrates on the struggles and ordeals she faces at Seiran when composing letters for a tutor pen-pal she met while at a cram school and said ordeals involve a number of touchy issues that made the series a bit controversial during the time it was made such as suicide, bullying, divorce, drug addiction and lesbianism.
Dear Brother's storytelling was a bit mixed in its quality for me, the negative aspects I'll cover a little later in my review.…
Read at the sourcedoc_awesome
"Oniisama E" is classic shoujo and often described as a yuri, although there is not really that much lesbian content and mostly it is a story of friendship and conflict between teenaged girls. It is the story of Nanako, a classic shoujo heroine who has the best of intentions but keeps getting in situations where people are plotting her social downfall or even just slapping her dramatically. She enrolls in a prestigious all-girls school where she is curiously chosen to join an elite sorority and is drawn into a complicated and mysterious relationship between the sorority's beautiful president and other girls in the school's social hierarchy. The framing device is that Nanako is writing letters to her "dear brother", a cram school teacher she is fond of, describing her new and exciting schoo…
Read at the sourceHatul
Onii-sama e.. is probably the most serious slice of life anime I've seen to date. It is also another major work from the same creator as the well known classic, Rose of Versailles. So people who liked that show should definitely give this one a shot.
This is a spoiler free review.
*Story and Characters*
The story is very simple, it's about a girl going to an all girls' school who ends up joining a sorority, a group for only the elite girls in the school (some girly crap, I don't know)... And that's pretty much all there is to it. How interesting could that be?
Despite the simple slice of life set up, there's a lot of conflict in this series and it deals with a lot of heavy subjects, everything from drug abuse to suicide, to misandry. The story is told through the narration of the main…
Read at the sourceAvalonKnight
Some people see narration as an outdated storytelling tool which shows that the creators were either too lazy or too inexperienced to provide the audience with different clues to the characters' thoughts and feelings. This show, however, is a great example of narration used creatively and to great success. It is prominently provided by Nanako, the main character, in the form of letters written to her titular elder brother, which gives it a unique structure and allows for a set of disjointed questions and thoughts about nearly all significant events. It all feels natural in a young girl's letter.
As you might expect with such a storytelling tool, this particular anime is mostly centered on Nanako and her emotions. Thankfully, she is a very appealing character from the start and does evolve…
Read at the sourceLady_Oum
// Personal review //
This anime changed the meaning of the word Drama for me. Honestly, I don't think I ever seen a serie which have so much drama..
So many social/psychological topics were presented: suicide, bullying, betrayal, death, drugs, violence.... And I must admit, putting all these elements in one story is not an easy thing.
The story is quit unique.. and weird at the same time. Almost every character is kind of disturbed and has deep psychological issues. Sometimes you will miss normal people.
It was a very sad, dark, emotionally exhausting story, but have many life lessons to it.. that you will learn with Nanako (the main character).
The art was very beautiful and classic, and the backgrounds and surroundings were very symbolic and you could feel the harmony with the story.…
Read at the sourceMidori-tan
Oniisama e (Brother, Dear Brother) is about a girl named Nanako who enters high school and be selected as a member of the schools best community The Sorority, which makes other students hate, and try to get her out of there any way they can. Nanako writes letters to her older brother telling him about what is happening with her life. Not only that, but the story revolves around how Nanako gets to know and meet a lot of other people and learns about them and their lives.
This anime is an old anime; there is no CG what so ever, and nothing to be impressed by. However; the animation is detailed and colored beautifully. It had a realistic feeling to it, and the backgrounds were done beautifully that you won’t even notice how old it is.
The OP and the ED are beautiful, simple yet heartwarming…
Read at the sourceMeiling
This early 90's anime addresses several controversial issues (especially considering the original manga was published in the 1970's) including drug abuse, homosexuality, bullying, incest and suicide. The story is set in a prestigious girls' highschool where the student body is obsessed with the school's Sorority and its leading members, dubbed "The Magnificent Three". The main character, Nanako, is a new student who became caught up in the affairs of the three most popular girls on campus and, with the help of her best friends, unlocks the secrets of their past as well as that of her own family. The title refers to the letters that she writes to her "brother" throughout the series, sharing with him the trials and tribulations of her highschool life.
While this series can be dark and depre…
Read at the source