The fourth novel of Oreimo is the best so far, no doubt about it.

In the first part, Ayase, Kirino’s yandere friend reappears. She wants to give Kirino a present for her birthday, something she will love, so it must have to do with otaku stuff -in Volume 2 she discovered Kirino’s secret-, and asks Kyousuke for help  – since she believes Kyousuke to be a loli- and siscon otaku who got his sister into eroge.

After asking Kirino’s oktaku friends for advice, Kyousuke suggests that Kirino may already own most anime goods she might want, therefore the best course of action is to get a limited edition figure of Meruru – however, to get the figure she has to win a cosplay contest. Ayase is disgusted, but since she will do anything for Kirino decides to… deceive her friend Kanako, another girl from Kirino’s class, telling her that the cosplay contest will be part of a selection process to become a model like Ayase and Kirino. Kanako turns out to be quite a bitch, but on the stage she changes her personality and ends up winning against an American loli.

I have to wonder why Ayase is so overprotective and aggressive when it comes to Kirino. She is a yandere, of course, but could it also be she is in love with Kirino? I wouldn’t discard it at all.

In Part 2, Kyousuke’s osananajimi Manami, who is clearly in love with him, insists on visiting his house. Kirino, for some reason, reacts negatively and won’t stop abusing Manami, who however wants to get friendly with her. Kirino goes as far as scattering all of Kyousuke’s hidden porn in his room and showing, on the computer, some siscon eroge, so when Manami insists on seeing Kyousuke’s room, she sees everything. Her hilarious reaction is to ask Kyousuke “Should I call you oniichan?” At least she looks happy since Kyousuke seems to have a fetish for meganekko and she wears glasses.

I love Manami. Well, I love meganekko as well, but above all she is a plain, normal girl. Kyousuke, don’t let her go. That’s the kind of life I’d love as well. A life without problems or adventures, based on routine, with a loving, faithful, cute wife.

In Part 3, Kyousuke is depressed because Manami saw all his porn, and Kirino and her otaku friends decide to throw up a party to cheer him up. Some of the events are playing eroge, Saori thinking that Kyousuke likes being stepped on by girls dressed as maids, and Kuroneko’s doujinshi comic about a sister who looks just like Kirino who is in love with her oniichan who looks just like Kyousuke, and she sneaks into his room to smell his pants. Finally, Kirino gives Kyousuke a present and says “I’m sorry” for the first time in his life, which makes him even cry. The present turns out to be an eroge, by the way.

This is the turning point. For the first time, the “deredere” seal has been broken, appearently for no reason. So far she had always been tsuntsun towards her brother – aggresive and unfriendly. For the first time in the series, she has been nice to him.

Finally, in Part 4 Kyousuke is asked to buy two new eroge at a shop in Akihabara – the only problem is that it’s a night sale, but Kirino wants to play the eroge as soon as possible. After several events at Akihabara, Kyousuke returns home and is persuaded to play the eroge with his sister, which leads to a hilarious situation where he is basically watching incest porn scenes with Kirino, and he wonders what to do if he got an erection!

After that, Kirino, who, as I mentioned, has become nice towards him, says that as part of her last “life counseling” which she announced in volume 3, she will show him some of her “secret” collection, which was mentioned in volume 1, as a token for all the help he’s given her. Amongst some surprising things, she suddenly focuses on her primary school report cards. It shows that the now ace of the track and field club was really bad at sports during primary school. The now top student, was average. It shows she has worked hard to be what she is now. In theory this was the last life counseling, although Kyousuke doesn’t take it seriously. After all, they live together, and Kirino seems to have relied on him on this stuff even after she made otaku friends.

To his utter surprise, she then said “Ja ne, aniki” (aniki being a respectful term for brother she has never used towards him, usually referring to him as “anta” -you-)

As we head towards the end of the novel, Kyousuke notices one day that Kirino isn’t at home.  At dinner she hasn’t appeared yet and after asking, his father answers that she is no longer in Japan – she has been scouted by some American sports team. She is no longer there. It was really the last counseling session.

As the new school year begins and Kyousuke goes with his future wife Manami to school, he meets a girl who looks familiar – Kuroneko, who is now at his school, calls him senpai.

Impressions

Ok, this was just great. This novel keeps improving a lot. The plot is moving - drastically. With Kirino now gone, Kuroneko is likely to take the spotlight (I still have to read volume 5). It already looked like she might like Kyousuke, and it might prove to be the case. With the plot having done a U-turn, anything can happen. The author (Fushimi Tsukasa) has really done a great job. When I was wondering why Kirino was so nice, suddenly in the last 10 pages of the novel such drastic turn of events. It couldn’t get more interesting. Although the novel was so far in no danger of stagnating, now I have no idea what awaits in volume 5. The possibilities are immense.

Kirino’s disappearance was really well conveyed – I really felt sad, as if someone dear to me had left. Such a drastic turn of events is announced in the last few pages, so we can in fact share Kyousuke’s feelings when he suddenly and unexpectedly learns that his sister is gone. It’s difficult to expect that such a thing may happen in the last 10 pages, you might be thinking that nothing interesting was going to happen, just as Kyousuke might think it was just a normal day. And then, suddenly, this. Since you know the novel is not going to explain anything until the next volume, you are left with a sense of desolation which must have been similar to Kyousuke’s.

The end of the novel, with Kyousuke introducing himself as he did at the beginning of volume 1, really had a nostalgic feeling – now he has added eroge to his hobbies! It was a great way of ending this volume – life goes on, in fact, as the last page of volume 4 has Kuroneko’s picture.

I’m really looking forward to reading volume 5, and I’ll be buying volume 6 as soon as it comes out this summer. I really hope this gets an anime soon, because it’s great.

Next read: Baka to test 3