Review of Days with My Stepsister

It's mundane, repetitious but it's life and sometimes you can't help but appreciate the beauty of it. Such is the case of Gimai Seikatsu or 'Days with my stepsister', my pick for the best coming-of-age anime of 2024. The story begins when Yuuta Asamura suddenly got a new step-sister after his dad remarries. Ayase Saki. With such a big change to both their lives, the story follows how they adapts into their new situations and all the emotions arising from deep within their hearts. Studio Deen is never known for great animation qualities and Gimai Seikatsu is not an exception. I dislikes how they never draws characters'faces when they're in the background even though most scenes are just with the 2 main characters, it's incredibly distracting and uneasy to look at. The animation is also just average and nothing really stands out. To be honest, I'm really sad that this studio somehow always get such good stories and butchers them with their bad work in animation. The soundtracks is pretty good though, really fitting with the scenes and evoke a lot of emotions, I like the ED song too.

Now on to the strengths, Days with my stepsister has a grounded cast. Asamura and Ayase have some of the most mellow characteristics I've seen in anime and I often enjoy characters like that. But even with their calm and collected manners, we still got to see their deepest worries, uncertainty and the pains they suffers while growing up. I especially love the insightful and heartfelt monologues they do sometimes, really relatable stuffs. The side characters are also funny, while seemingly flat but that doesn't really matter because 90% of the story revolves around the 2 main characters, this is their own world.

Overall, the story and characters are definitely its strongest points. Days with my stepsister is a great story about growing up and love. I think it's really underrated and deserve more love than most the generic anime coming out nowadays.