Kiss x Sis

For fifteen years Kiss x Sis pushed the boundaries of a variety of sexual taboos while being entirely self aware of how ridiculous its premise was, never caring to take itself seriously enough for you to question your moral compass. There are valid complaints that KxS leaned too far into the direction of comedy, rather than fully committing to the forms of degeneracy that it teases, but you’d be hard pressed to find many contemporary series that strike a better balance of ecchi entertainment than what is found here. As can be observed from the title, the central taboo is the incestual angle of Keita andhis two loving sibling-in-laws Ako and Riko. The series begins with Keita weakly protesting the sexual advances of his step-sisters, only to routinely cave at each and every opportunity. This progresses onto several other girls throughout the plot as he establishes a harem that increasingly craves the body of Keita, and he responds appropriately by becoming more and more assertive in responding to the advances of his admirers. Typically, the sex appeal and likability of the admirers for the lucky protagonist are what make or break the appeal of a harem manga. But I posit that it is Keita who made this manga such a successful lewd romp. In Keita do you have a perpetually horny main character who instead of shying away from his admirers, embraced his libido and acted upon his urges at almost every opportunity. The man has no restraint whatsoever and can only be stopped by the divine intervention of Ditama Bow's penchant for ill timed interruptions. He almost completely embodies the will of the reader as he entertains every single member of his harem at various points of the story. While Riko and Ako early on do get the lion share of the attention, there is actually a point where their appearances become fairly sparse and other girls take the spotlight, which truly helps to keep the fanservice of this story fresh and creative. This ironically leads to the biggest criticism of KxS however - for a series that succeeds so well at entertaining a wide net of perverted antics, Kiss x Sis never pushed its degeneracy far enough to fully climax reader satisfaction. Case and point - not once was there full nudity of the characters involved. While Keita, the main character, can completely see the exposed breasts and genitals of his harem the reader is always left using their imagination to fill in the blanks as their bodies are obscured. This creates a disconnect between the reader and their intended self insert hero as he's always the more privileged observer, which at the very least the ecchi reader asks for is to share their vision when to engage is never a reality. Another, but far less important, criticism is the lack of a romantic commitment in this story. Kiss x Sis is better described as an ecchi comedy, with a hint of romance, than an ecchi romantic comedy. So if you are someone that gets personally attached to your waifus, ride or die for your waifus, are willing to catch a life sentence for your waifus, then you may want to brace yourself for the disappointment of your waifu not being placed on a pedestal above others and being “chosen”, as this manga is far more concerned about entertaining all parties than prioritizing any one. A lot of veteran Kiss x Sis readers were disappointed by this turn out, so try not to be one of us. Needless to say, this isn’t in any way some thematically rich or high brow story. Much of the content is episodic and the tone vacillates between extremes of silliness and passionate degeneracy, with little to no in between. If that sounds like something you’d be into however, then this is a must read as there have been very few ecchi that blend lewdness and comedy together quite like Kiss x Sis. I will miss this manga and the niche that it filled for such a long period of time.

For reference, I watched the anime many years ago and I gave it a 5/10. Why is the manga so much worse, to me? Morality and other issues aside, considering the themes of this story, my biggest criticism has to do with the mangaka's decisions regarding how the story develops over time. Ditama Bow struggles constantly with many things: 1) the dad changes personality constantly across multiple chapters 2) some characters' actions go absolutely unpunished compared to others, leaving the reader confused on why that happens 3) it's very notorious that the author struggled a lot with bringing the story to an end. At some point,you'll feel that the characters are going and developing themselves and that everything's coming together to a pleasant conclusion BUT eventually everything will change back to square one for no reason at all and rinse and repeat the same old stuff chapter after chapter until the end. But what about the good things? Well, some scenarios I thought were either creative or hilarious and I have to praise that. However, it's just not enough to save this boring manga from a 3/10.

The premise of this manga is that the protagonist, Keita, has two older step-sisters, twins Aiko and Riko, who are both trying to woo him romantically despite him trying to maintain their relationship as siblings. And this goes on, three other girls also end up interested in Keita romantically. This sounds like a pretty typical harem type manga, but in practice it is very different. It’s much more degenerate. While most harem manga are full of things like lucky pervert situations, those are actually pretty rare in this manga. Such situations are unnecessary because the main characters are all full of lust and end up gettingin much more erotic situations without needing convenient accidents to make them happen. The situations are still largely meant to be humorous, and in general are pretty good comedy, but this stems from what characters intentionally do, rather than what circumstances make unintentionally happen, and is thus a very different brand of comedy. This manga has very little in terms of wholesome romantic fluff, but instead focuses on Keita doing wild things with one or more of the heroines. This gets really really weird at times. The obvious fetish is clearly incest but that’s not even the weirdest. There’s also a lot of watersports and exhibitionism, including a very specific strain of it involving doing things while being watched by parents. What makes all this stranger, is that despite all this, the focus here isn’t actually the ecchi art. The art in general isn’t that good. While there definitely are parts that look great there are a lot more parts that are just straight up sketches. But more importantly, the art never actually shows anything explicitly. So ultimately the art is just a vehicle for conveying the story and it is the situations themselves which are supposed to engross the reader and not the visuals. This results in things being paced faster. It is also probably why the mangaka put so much effort into coming up with a variety of interesting situations, as he couldn’t just rely on the art to serve as a crutch as it often the case for ecchi manga. That this manga lasted for sixteen years and went on for twenty-five volumes despite the weak art shows he succeeded. Despite the heavy focus on degeneracy, the manga surprisingly does have a proper plot that takes itself seriously. The crazy hijinks lead to a very strange set of relationships between Keita and the heroines. And it’s not just that a status quo is established and stuck to for the rest of the manga. Rather, there’s progress in all sorts of ways that goes back and forth and through all sorts of twists and turns. Character’s seriously reflect on how they behave and their relationships with others. Most of the heroines have pretty good character arcs and are all pretty likable. Keita doesn’t really have much in terms of character development. He essentially starts and then quits a character arc multiple times, but that too is pretty interesting and to be honest feels very fitting for an indecisive harem protagonist. The ending too is indecisive, but that also fits really well with the overall flow of the story and makes it feel like the status quo is perfectly fine to maintain indefinitely, and thus I was pretty satisfied with it. As a final note, the fan translation is also pretty solid throughout. tl;dr: A strange manga that focuses on a genuine ecchi story and manages to come together surprisingly well.

There's really only one reason to read this manga, the fan service. Sure, many ecchi manga have characters you can grow invested in the outcomes of their stories. This manga has that, but there are no satisfying outcomes at the end. Read it for the fan service but don't expect it to go anywhere and you won't be disappointed. I feel robbed of the narrative ending I was hoping would be at the end of the story. There are heaps of better manga that have good fan service, more interesting characters and an actual plot and story arc. I don't hate the main characters, but I didwant them to grow and it feels like we get 100 chapters in and the mangaka just gives up entirely on anything new, and undoes anything that adds depth.