Lately I have been watching some older shows and one that I had heard was good was Dear Brother. One thing that stuck with me throughout the show is that the world of Dear Brother is full of insanity. How could most of these characters be sane and act the way they do? It feels like Nanako and Tomoko are two normal girls dropped into a school full of crazy people.
Shinobu Mariko’s Obsessions
In the beginning of Dear Brother, Mariko just seems eager to have a friend. Later on she shows her true colors. Mariko’s first obsession is with Nanako. She tries to isolate her from her other friend Tomoko from the beginning to have Nanako all to herself. Then after Nanako tries to fix that she is invited to Mariko’s birthday. This leads to going to Mariko’s house where Nanako is not allowed to leave. When she tries to there is a big creepy scene. This is on top of Mariko being way too interested in anything to do with Nanako. While Mariko never appears to have had a friend before because of her father’s job this still should not be the way she acts when she gets one. Even if she just watched movies Mariko should know that you have to let people leave your house. It was like what happens before someone gets killed in a horror movie.
The premise that Mariko could not get friends because of her father’s job does not make a ton of sense overall. She should have at least had friends when she was little. Children would not know what her father did for a living.
Then there is the day Mariko stabs a girl because she is talking about Mariko’s dad leaving their family. The stabbing by itself does not make a lot of sense, but then it gets even weirder after the stabbing. Suddenly Mariko feels really bad for the girl and acts like they had a good relationship. She had been having problems with Aya since the beginning of the series. Also Aya seemed to suddenly like Mariko and value her opinion as well. Mariko even helped Aya not drown herself. That scene makes no sense from how the two treated each other the rest of the show. Even the explanation behind it makes no sense.
Sisterly Love in Dear Brother
Fukiko and Rei have a pretty disturbing sisterly bond in Dear Brother. From the beginning Fukiko was controlling most everything that Rei could do. She would use her power over Rei to abuse her in multiple ways. If Fukiko loved Rei as much as she claimed then why would she want to do all these hurtful things to her? Physically and emotionally she hurt Rei over and over. Neither of them acted like there was anything weird about this throughout the show.
That is not dysfunctional enough for Dear Brother. So the two sisters have a suicide pact together. Fukiko explained that she wanted to kill Rei before something would take her away. She was explained by comparing Rei to her glass ornament collection. Fukiko needed to control everything even her own sister’s death. How could Rei go along with this and longingly wait for this? Rei was a small child when this was first brought up she should have been scared and not just gone along with it. The sisterly bond between these two is just creepy. It seems more like a bizarre sexual fetish being acted upon than a relationship between sisters. While I’m the last to kink shame, and think everyone should be able to enjoy their kinks, whether they’re are into domination, or like when someone pretends to be more than a pet, I did find this part of the anime really weird. I think this bond should have been shown a little differently so I could have focused on their story, not the strange fetish. It reminds me of something I saw on TubeV teens.
The Breaking Up of the Sorority
When the Sorority starts to break up the girls are obviously torn up. They have been privileged and stood to lose a love of perks. Most of them took it pretty well and just wanted to be able to get along with the common students. Except for one group of senior Sorority members, who just could not live as normal girls. Two of them went to the extreme of almost killing a girl to find out something. Killing a girl so they could have tea parties! In what world is being part of a society that is falling apart and obviously makes you hated worth killing a person? They stood to lose a lot more than perks if Nanako had actually died.
Those are only some of the more prominent examples of how crazy this school is too. The way that people react to almost anything in this show is far from normal. That is probably what makes Dear Brother so interesting.
