Chocotto Sister

Information of Anime

Haruma Kawagoe always wanted a little sister when he was young.  Long ago during Christmas, his mother miscarried a baby that was said to be his little sister.  Haruma prayed to make his mother well & give him a baby sister.  Years later, Santa delivers a little sister for him during Christmas.

Storyline (CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Below is a summary of the storyline I've seen so far.  This section does contain some spoilers.  If you haven't seen the series yet & don't want to be spoiled, skip this section.  If you want to know the story & want to see how I viewed it, read on.

Basically, it's about Haruma's new life with a little sister.  He names her Choco since she reads a notebook that she carries with her as a reference to things that she doesn't know about.  Since Choco is a "made" human being, she doesn't have an understanding of the world or the cultures involved.  When in doubt, she reads her notebook or asks her brother.  Many cases, the answers she finds tend to be perverted such as brothers liking to see their little sisters in a naked apron.  Aside from the two, they live in an apartment that's currently managed by a new manager named Chitose Serikawa who has a crush on Haruma.  Also, Makoto Ashirai, a loud mouth neighbour tends to barge into Haruma's place to crash the joint.

Things start to pick up a bit when Haruma starts paying attention more to Ayano Sonozaki, a girl that owns a flower shop in the neighbourhood.  As he pays more attention to her, he starts to pay less attention to Choco & it creates some jealous & fear of losing her brother.  However, Choco just wants her brother to be happy as she sees him sad after coming back from their hot springs trip.  The reason why Haruma is sad is because he learns that Ayano was initially engaged & was struggling to let go when her fianc�Ecalled off the wedding in the past for her to pursue her dreams in opening a flower shop.  After Haruma gives her some encouragement to get married, Ayano manages to restore the engagement thanks to him.  Although he helps her, he feels like a fool for doing that since he lost his love for her.  However, Choco's concern returns him to normal.

The show goes back to the situation of the Choco & Haruma sibling relationship.  The show continues its stable relationship until Haruma's cousin comes to his school's festival.  Because Choco was present & isn't known in his family, he tries to keep his cousin away.  But Choco appears & Haruma makes a lie to his cousin that Choco isn't his sister.  Choco feels down about it & starts to think that she doesn't exist.  She suddenly disappears with Choco's friend Yurika Hanayamada watching it happen from a distance.

Choco's disappearance would not only have her physically be gone, but from people's memories as well.  They would do things normally when she was only, but only come to realization about why they were doing it.  Evidence of her existence created by her is also removed.  Thanks to a note written in Choco's diary by Haruma, he remembers Choco & tries to search for her.  Only then he makes another wish to God again about bringing her back.  Doing so caused people's memories of her to come back.

My Personal Review

Chocotto Sister is something that I didn't except.  It's a show that has a brother & sister complex in it.  I originally thought it was some kid show due to it's drawings, but the amount of ecchi content is a bit surprising.  But there isn't any strong nudity here.  Maybe it's normal in Japan, I'm not too sure.  If you like cute little sisters with some strange brother & sister ecchi complex, give this one a whirl.

Animation

I'm not too fond of the character designs on the females.  The faces are quite quite & the eyes are large.  Plus, the eyebrows are large on some female characters.  This is 1 of the reasons why I thought it was a kids show.  The clothing designs are pretty plain & don't add much fashion to it.

The colours are very bright here.  Another reason why I thought it was a kids show again.  There isn't a lot of toning involved & the shading is pretty basic.  Also, the backgrounds tend to look pretty fake as well.

In terms of the animation movement, the flow was quite nice & natural.  Nothing too weird at this point.  Occasionally, you get situations where Chitose doing a lot of clumsy things & the movements aren't bizzare.

Sound       

The sound effects aren't too bad.  They are pretty silly, but not in a childish way.  They are pretty clear & on cue.

The seiyuus here aren't bad.  They fit their characters well & give them life.  However, I felt they were missing something for some reason & I can't point out what it is.

The music is on the cute side & pretty childish.  It's pretty catchy with it's pop & dance themes, but it's not memorable.

Story

It's looks like a harem type of anime with a little sister confusing her love for her brother.  There are lot of occasions where Choco learns about the basic things of the culture around her.  At times, I felt Haruma was more like a parent to Choco when he taught her things; especially the dirty situations.  The story sways a bit when Haruma gets into a love situation.  After that, the show goes back into the sibling story.  It's not really exciting as it's mainly the daily life activities of Choco most of the time.

The show uses a lot of ecchi humour when it goes deeper.  When some nudity appears, it gets blocked with some yellow "Keep Out" tape signs.  It even covers nipples too.  This gets removed from the DVD versions though.  However, it uses the Christmas theme very heavily since Choco is a Chirstams present for Haruma.  Strangely though, the show aired during the summer & not Christmas.  It will probably end around our physical Christmas with some strange plot where Choco will be taken away from Santa due to bad brotherly love or something.  That's what I'm predicting from this show right now & Choco's current development.  Overall, I still think I'm watching a kids show despite the ecchi content it has at times.

The ending, which is actually episode 23, isn't much of an ending really.  The reason is because of the lack of a proper storyline.  The problem comes at the end of the episode 22 & gets solved near the end of episode 23.  The anime series can definitely continue on, but I don't see much on how it would.  The show pretty much has nothing in it overall.

Overall Conclusion

Chocotto Sister is a funny & somewhat pleasant anime show.  It may give you the impression of watching a kid's show due to the drawings, but the theme seems to be a bit mature than it looks.  If you like anime shows curious little sisters in it, watch it.  Personally though, it may not be for everyone even though it's got some ecchi content in it.

Chocotto Sister grades a six out of ten in my books.  There's nothing happening between Haruma & Choco even though we see Choco developing in terms of understanding the world around her & becoming a good little sister to Haruma.  There are love signs in the show, but it isn't in the main plot.  In fact, there isn't a main plot at all as the show seems to be a bunch of short stories put together.

Last updated on April 23, 2008