Tsurekano | First Impressions

A certain boy and girl in middle school became lovers, flirted with each other, disagreed on trivial things, became more frequently irritated with each other rather than excited… and ended up breaking up at graduation. And so the two of them, Mizuto Irido and Yume Ayai, wound up meeting each other in the most unexpected fashion.

“Isn’t it obvious that I’m the elder brother?”
“Isn’t it obvious that I’m the elder sister?”

The children of the partner of their parents’ remarriage were ex-lovers?!

The former couple, mindful of their parent’s feelings, decided on a “sibling rule” where the one who becomes conscious of the other as the opposite sex loses, but… When they encounter each other in the bathroom, commute to and from school together… along with the memories of the past and living under the same roof, just how do they disregard each other?!

I’ll be honest, Tsurekano is one of those questionable anime for the season, given it’s context. Ex-lovers who are now step-siblings but for all intensive purposes still have feelings for each other. For many people that’s enough to turn them away and skip watching this anime. But that isn’t me and I decided to give it a go. This is what I thought about Tsurekano.

I am writing this blog after watching four episodes and I’ll say this. If you’re someone who enjoys anime like, Domestic na Kanojo or Citrus (or any other anime similar to those). Then I can see you giving this anime a watch. In truth, there hasn’t been much about the show that has stuck out of me and said “I’m different”. In that respect, you can probably put it in line with Citrus because not much, if anything at all, has really happened so far.

I mean, could we eventually get to the point where the feelings they (Mizuto and Yume) share become too great? Yes, that’ll probably happen and I’m sure it’ll be something we see later on in the anime. However, to be honest. I would prefer it if that didn’t happen and allow me to explain.

Believe it or not their ‘sibling squabbles’ if you can really call them that has been what I’ve enjoyed the most so far. I enjoy them because they feel like arguments that you’d have with one of your siblings over the most trivial of things. Granted for the most part anyway, these arguments are normally spurred on by the two of them Mizuto and Yume doing something ‘non-sibling like’. Like for example, stealing each others undergarments.

Another aspect of the anime that I found myself enjoying was both Mizuto and Yume’s struggle to act like siblings. I will admit the fact that they’re ex-middle school lovers adds an interesting twist because they’re having to suppress the feelings of old, which are still there, and somehow get along as brother and sister. Knowing full well, that they’ve probably already done or said things to each other that normal siblings shouldn’t have said or done. Episode four is a prime example of this.

They go on a date together, where they say things or do things that remind each other of when they were boyfriend of girlfriend. But then acknowledge and accept that they’re now step siblings and they shouldn’t be acting that way and towards the end start treating each other as brother and sister. Episode four was a good episode in that regard because you get the two of them reminiscing on the past on their own. They reminded themselves of what they liked about each other but also what they didn’t.

The episode also gave a little insight on what ultimately drove them away from each other. They grew tired of each other and the things they liked about each other turned into trivial things that they’d bicker about. Naturally, if all you do is argue then it’s probably in everyone’s best interests to break it off.

Maybe I am reading into everything a little bit too much. Which is probably the case. So I’ll go back and repeat what I said earlier in the post, I think we’ll get to the point where Mizuto and Yume’s feelings for one another become too great and will be something they’ll have to tackle head on together.

Overall, I’d say Tsurekano has been a pretty average and an average start to boot.