Review of Days with My Stepsister

I rarely ever give out 10s but Days with my Stepsister--which was no doubt overlooked by many for the summer 2024 catalog--surely deserves it. Simply put, it's one of the best serious and experimental psychological SoL anime in a good long while. Everything about it is actually thought-provoking and there are moments of tension that are palpable which I haven't felt since probably Oreimo or that infamous Haruhi recording scene with Mikuru. It presents realistic problems and hangups, and provides instructive moral lessons and uplifting life advice. Even the ending episode is astonishingly realistic and the detailed animation matches the seriousness of the moment. Thisis a rarity you won't find in any other medium nowadays and is a shining example of why anime remains relevant as a cultural force and is now pretty much superior to any other medium today. It also shows that studio Deen still has the magic even after all these decades later, and that they cared enough to put this much work into a relatively mundane (at least at first glance) anime is just so highly commendable. This is a return to form of the 90s and 2000s way of doing things. More like this please. Much, much more. Moe is fine but God do I want a more serious drama now and then. And this also made me realize that mid-summer seems to be the best time to ponder over deep thoughts, doesn't it?