Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai 2 - Episode 12

Although the entire point of his moving into his own place was to aid his studying for exams, it seems that there's still time in his busy schedule for Kyousuke to enjoy a housewarming party with all of his harem... I mean friends.

Of course, getting all of these girls into the same room is a dangerous proposition, and after an amicable start things soon go south thanks largely to Kanako throwing a fit over Kyousuke eating food prepared by other women.  The next thing we know, everyone is laying claim to our protagonist for one reason or another in the assurance that they can care for him best - it's Kirino of all people who puts a stop to this madness, telling them all to lay off him so he can focus on his exams before choosing to put Ayase in charge of looking after him for the duration.

While Kirino assumes that this is the best option due to Ayase's hatred of her brother, we know rather better about her feelings for him, so it's no surprise when she puts heart and soul into visiting him every day to ensure that he's well-fed and provided with a clean and comfortable living space.  Free from any distractions, Kyousuke enters his exams with confidence and aces them, bringing his time living away from home to an end and as a result bringing a confession of love from Ayase - a confession summarily rejected by Kyousuke as we roll towards the end of the series, give or take its final OVA episodes.

As per my criticism last week, I have to confess that I was rolling my eyes at the first half of this week's Oreimo - it really doesn't work well as a harem series, and the whole welcoming party setup was cringe-inducingly bad in its execution.  This is a series that works better in its one-on-one interactions between Kyousuke and other characters, and things improved once the episode's cast was whittled down to just himself and Ayase - not classic Oreimo by any means, but at least palatable and even mildly amusing once or twice.  Kudos to this episode for also having the balls to remove one member of the "harem" from the equation by its end, something which too many shows chicken out of doing whereas this effort was at least a little sweet.  Well, bittersweet perhaps, when you consider the path we're treading towards in the final episodes of the series...