Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai - Episode 4

With all of the drama served up by last week's episode of Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai, it's perhaps something of a relief to see everything returned to normal in the Kousaka household as this instlmanet begins - as least, as normal as it can get when you have an otaku sister and her disinterested older brother around, with the former lambasting the latter over his continued lack of skill when it comes to playing eroge.

Still, such things have to be put on the back burner for Kirino, as some of her "normal" friends pay a visit the next day, leaving Kyousuke under strict instructions to make himself scarce in their presence.  This is all good and well until a delivery man turns up at the door with a package (what? Parcel deliveries on a Sunday? Is this true, Japan?!) addressed to Kyou, but in a box purporting to come from some expensive cosmetics manufacturer.  Of course, Kirino sees this, assumes it's for her and grabs it to show her friends, unaware of the truth - It's actually a box filled with doujinshi from Saori, leaving Kyou to stop Kirino opening the box and leading to the most blatant and frankly shameful bit of fan service from this series so far.  Still, despite that huge embarrassment, Kyousuke still ends up getting the number of Ayase Aragaki, one of the friends in question.

To make up for shaming her in front of her friends, Kyousuke is tasked with taking Kirino out somewhere during the summer as compensation, which brings us to the inevitable Comiket episode of the series - to be honest this doesn't seem to quite capture the intensity and crowds of such an event as well as Lucky Star, Genshiken et al, but then again it seems more content with building upon the various dynamics between the attending Kirino, Kuroneko, Saori and Kyousuke.  Come the end of the day it seems as though everyone has had their fair share of fun.... but there's still one twist left to this particular tale as we reach the end of the episode.

Unnecessary fan service moment aside, this was another fun episode that kept things ticking over pretty nicely in terms of the characters on show (with the possible exception of new arrival Ayase, it just felt odd her giving Kirino's brother her number just like that - and no, I'm not jealous) - the relationship between Kirino and Kyou is still sat perfectly on that love-hate brink of most sibling relationships (did I mention that I'm ignoring that fan service moment yet?), while the odd friendship between Kuroneko and Kirino also feels strangely solid.  There's really not much more to say except I'm still genuinely enjoying this series right now.  Apart from that horrible fan service moment, which I'm not sure I covered here.