tl;dr: A solid start to a story, though to be clear it’s just a start that doesn’t work as a standalone story at all. I should note that I have seen the Oreimo anime, though I haven’t read the light novels as they aren’t in English. With that in mind, firstly I want to state that this manga in and of itself is simply too short to actually capture the story properly. It essentially only adapts the first two arcs which the anime does in the first five episodes at a decent pace so this manga doesn’t even manage to adapt half a season’s worth ofstory. Furthermore, this portion is only the setup that introduces the various characters and the story only really starts getting interesting afterwards. Thus, I think this manga has worth as something someone already familiar with the story can go to to see the story in a new form, or maybe for someone that wants to read the story in manga form before going to the anime. But planning on reading just this manga I think is simply a bad idea that you really won’t get anything out of.

The core premise of this manga is about the protagonist Kyousuke helping his little sister Kirino and correcting the strained relationship the two have as a result. This help comes in the form of advising and assisting her with her otaku related hobbies, which completely don’t fit the image she projects and thus she keeps a secret from everyone until Kyousuke happens to stumble into finding out. Ultimately, this help comes in the form of helping her make new friends that are otaku, Ruri and Saori, and experience more fun otaku things she’s always wanted to experience while making sure that her current life and image aren’t impacted as if this isn’t handled properly it could result in discipline from their father as well as her losing her old friends including her best friend Ayase. As this is from the perspective of Kyousuke who’s completely new to everything, the story essentially serves as an introduction to otaku culture which is interesting, though for those already very familiar with it this may not be all that interesting as it’s all incredibly basic.

The serious part of each of the two arcs is incredibly similar in that it involves Kirino’s hobbies getting caught in some fashion and Kyousuke having to fix things which gets into themes regarding how otaku and otaku hobbies are looked down upon and how that isn’t really fair, which is a decent enough concept but having it twice back-to-back so quickly felt like a bit much. Still, around that it introduces a cast of interesting and pretty likable characters and begins establishing the bonds between them, though as far as this manga gets things are just getting started and nothing has really made any solid progress yet. Compared to the anime, some character’s some across as better. Kirino is less of a tsun so that’s a plus. Manami is also more likable, in that she seems to have more personality than the anime where she just seemed incredibly plain. Though at the same time there are some choices that I wasn’t really a fan of, such as giving Manami more focus compared to the anime and giving Kuroneko and Saori less. Still, I’d say the narrative seems to be a solid enough version of the material adapted. Though as mentioned, this is only the beginning, and as such the attempt at making the ending of the manga feel like an ending didn’t really land at all.

The art style I thought was a bit strange at first, but it really grew on me. In the end I think it’s pretty great and does a good job of showing off the characters as cute and also makes really good use of chibi designs. The quality too is overall really solid.