Osamake Gave Me Brain Damage

“With this, Sueharu will have no choice but to look at me as a serious contender for his heart. I will finally be free of the little sister motion, oh Sueharuonii-chan!”

Bitch, just a thought I had, but, ya know, if you don’t want to be seen as the little sister, you ever considered stop calling him big brother?

Have you ever watched or read something so stupid, so sporadic, that no matter how much brainpower you mustered, you just couldn’t understand? It is a lot like trying to break down the meaning of a fever dream, a mostly impossible task since the very nature of such visions is outlandish works made up by an overheating brain.

One of my most anticipated series coming out of the Spring lineup was this little bit called Osamake: Romcom Where The Childhood Friend Won’t Lose. Now most people who would read that title would go, yeah okay, it is a romcom where the childhood friend won’t lose, here is the kicker, it fucking ain’t.

Osamake starts on a weird footing, one where confessions happen right away, but somehow manages to do nothing with it. If you were to ask me what genre tag I would consider this show overall, romcom/ romance wouldn’t be it, but it isn’t really a classic school coming of age show either, to be honest, I don’t know what I would call this outside of the word, a mess.

The show follows Sueharu Maru, a seemingly normal high school boy you find out who happens to be a talented child actor. Due to a tragic event onset, Maru steps away from the spotlight after his mom dies pulling a stunt, a scene they definitely kept in the show because she sold it so well. Traumatized Maru settles for the normal quite high school life, hanging out with his best bud Tetsuhio Kai, his childhood friend/ love interest, Kuroha Shida, and crushing on his other childhood friend, Shirokusa Kachi, the show sets up the title well as the three main girls are all in some degree childhood friends of Maru.

Shida is the classic neighbor that has always been at his side, Kachi was some girl Maru thought was a guy and they hung out like twice, or something. Then we have Maria Momosaka, another child star that looked up to Maru as a mentor, she is also the one that is seen as the little sister, hates it, but still calls him onii-chan anyways.

Okay, so how am I going to put this.

The stupidity of this show sets in right away, in episode one we see Shida confess to Maru, but he has feelings for Kachi who may or may not be dating upper-class man, Mitsuru Abe. Oh and Kachi is like a very respected author, a fact the show tells you as if it is something to keep in mind, then literally never talks about it ever again.

Jealous that he may have lost his first love Maru teams up with Shida as they plot to get revenge on Kachi, though, this was clearly just Shida working over her best friend to make it so she can have him herself and to butt Kachi out. This is even more exacerbated by Abe telling Maru that he is only dating Kachi to piss him off, this show is nothing but a pity party.

Embolden by Shida and wanting to get back at Kachi the plan is drafted, Maru will go back to the stage and act to such a high degree Kachi will fall in love with him, and at that moment, in front of everyone, he will turn her down.

Goes well all the way until the end when Maru decides he actually is in love with Shida, confessing to her, though being pissed it took him this long to admit he likes her more than Kachi, Shida decides to reject him in front of everyone starting a chain of events that make little to no sense.

So, to put it simply Shida, Momo, and Kachi are all in love with Maru, all of them are his childhood friends, so the shows whole bit is Shida rejects Maru, regrets it tries to figure out how to regain his trust but just keeps lying to him over 12 episodes. Kachi would be in the most ideal spot but somehow manages to fucking do nothing and Momo can’t quite figure out how to stop being a little sister, which is bad for her since Maru doesn’t seem to be the incestual type.

To put it bluntly, this show is stupid, and I don’t use that word loosely. I have no idea what Osamake was trying to do, 96% of the time. What starts out like a romcom quickly becomes these weird let’s get Maru back to the stage bit for about 2 episodes, then they make a club that films commercials even though none of them actually wanted to do it? TV execs get involved then randomly they go to Kachi’s summer home for a study session that no one studies at ending in Maru breaking his fucking arm because why not?

The plot is a mess the narrative is whimsical the characters are annoying and pointless and the end goal, the thing we just assume is romance, quickly gets chucked out the window as a different type of chaos takes hold. It is rare for me just to generally dislike a series, it has to do something either very dumb, be very boring, or both. While I won’t say Osamake was boring, it was definitely idiotic, and it has made me wonder if the source light novel is just as much a mess as the show.

Adaptations are weird, though most of them stay somewhat true to the source works it is at times like these I am curious to see how much of it actually is. But that is a topic for another day, my advice, stay away from this show, it will end with you just being confused, maybe even a little bit angry, and it purposely ends on the note that all the girls being on equal footing, so what happens, in the end, doesn’t even matter.

As always, thanks for the read!