The Magnificent Girls of Dear Brother
Most of the story of Dear Brother revolves around the stories of three girls Rei, Kaoru, and Miya-sama. All these girls are the idols and have over the top problems. It makes sense because this show would be nothing without all the drama these three created. It would have been another school show about a girls show.
Rei was a druggie who dressed like a man and was obsessed with Miya-sama. Her biggest part in the storyline was when she died. It was a real turning point in the show exposing the problems with Kaoru and getting Miya to act more like a normal girl. It also brought about a lot of other things that were important in the end of the show. Rei’s death was also a shocking thing in a teen depicting teenagers especially when it was not due to suicide which considering Rei would not have been too shocking.
Kaoru was a support for the girls for most of the show, except for when her mysterious illness would come into play. Turns out her illness was breast cancer and she had a mastectomy. This lead her to reject the man she was in love with because she was not a whole woman.
Miya-sama was probably the most messed up character in all of Dear Brother and she was the one in charge of everything. Miya-sama has to be considered as the best and most important in everything or she will be upset. She cries over being put at the lower end of a table for goodness sake. She also will not let anyone destroy something she treasures from a relationship to her possessions. She goes berserk over a relationship she imagined with her brother’s friend and over a single broken ornament. Miya-sama’s obsession with nobody ruining anything leads to most of the bad things that happen in the series. Without Miya there would be no series. Nanako may be the lead, but the series at points feels like a study in how a person can make herself unhappy with her obsession. She only had one happy week in her life because that was the only time she let herself be happy.
The Sorority
The Sorority from Dear Brother is totally exclusive and also gives the girls involved connections. Good thing because the group itself does not treat the girls well or have anything fun about it. All the girls are under the thumb of whoever the chairwoman of the Sorority happens to be at the time. The girls have their grades, health and many of the other aspects of their lives scrutinized to make sure they live up to the level the Sorority expects. It is hard to believe they even make sure the girls are healthy enough. The girls can not control their health. This would mean that a girl could get a major illness and be ditched by the group along with any friends she had in it when she needed them the most.
The part of the Sorority that made the most sense is when Junko was kicked out. Junko realized that the Sorority was not really doing anything for her. She was not having any fun and would be better off without it. The rest of the girls in the school had it wrong holding up a society that torn their school apart while offering little to the members. The whole thing seemed to exist to give a power trip to the chairwoman and to a lesser extent the members. The connections might have been useful except most of the girls accepted were rich and would not need any connections. So it is not surprising that this flawed society would collapse as soon as people were against it. The members had no real reason to stay with it. Especially when it no longer had the prestige that was the only reason to join to begin with.
Men
Men in Dear Brother are not portrayed in a very good light. At best they are just the lackeys that women use to get around, but most of the men are cheating and leaving their children behind. There is no totally normal guy that is between doormat and womanizer. Takehiko looked pretty normal then his relationship with Kaoru came up. Why was a college student dating a middle school student? A bit disturbing and he should have also told her that he did not care about her illness since he obviously did not. There was no reason they needed to both be hurting.
A lot of the way men are portrayed has to do with the way the girls act about men. When Nanako’s letters are found the girls all act like talking with a man was the worst thing she could do. There is Mariko’s hatred of men that leads to her going with the girls to the university fair just to make sure nothing happens to them.
