Kono Naka ni Hitori, Imouta ga Iru (Nakaimo) is a harem, ecchi anime mystery about a guy trying to find out which of a group of girls is his younger sister. The possibility that one could be his sister, is getting in the way of a goal, from his mother, that he must get a girlfriend to eventually marry. I prejudged this anime, due to my severe dislike for the genre. And I promised myself that I would give it more than 1 if it at least revealed who the sister was. Nakaimo has too many problems, an initially fragile story and having too many terrible trope features of the genre. I actually got bored and ended up having to drink in order to keep attention. Maybe not worth watching.
Animation
The animation quality is faultless, which is to be expected as normal for a 2012 anime. The style is very unoriginal and there is little use of interesting facial expressions. Though there was one bit where someone is about to throw up and the facial expression is cartoonistic and therefore a tad funny. This is an ecchi and it does go the step further. There are too many innuendos, such as zombies vomiting white slime over a girl in a swimsuit. Yeah... very tasteless. If sex actually happened, then this would have to be labelled as a hentai, however it would at least escape from one of the major pitfalls of the absymal ecchi-harem genre. Fairly disappointing in this aspect.
Sound
The music is probably the best bit of this anime, though not by much. It's not amazing enough to warrant a soundtrack download. There is good use of intrumental background music and the intro/outro tracks aren't too shabby either. However the music alone doesn't do much, despite the good piano/string sections whenever the anime made attempts to be serious. This anime is in Japanese, so subtitles are required.
Characters
The characters are the usual terrible harem-ecchi highschooler tropes. The main character Shougo Mikadono is the son of a rich businessman and heir to the Mikadono group, which he is to inherit once he has fulfilled his task of finding a girl to marry. He has a scar on his head, which points towards the fact that he had an accident when he was younger. This has resulted in him losing his memories and not remembering the fact that he has a sister or any childhood friends. He is unfortunately the typical cowardly indecisive harem protagonist. You'd think he'd let himself go wild if he found out a girl isn't his sister, which it seems to imply early on, but no. He is the typical gutless harem protagonist. At the very least he doesn't seem to be a pervert and he has no stash of porn nor are other guys jealous of the attention he gets from girls. At least this doesn't completely rely on the terrible tropes completely.
Konoe Tsuruma is the big-breasted class representative and the first of the girls that Shougo meets. Shy is the typical shy character, though it seems she has more guts that Shougo himself since she, with some composure, throws herself at him romantically. Not much more to say.
Miyago Kannagi is the typical tsundere character, though a bit sporty. She of course has a crush on Shougo but beats him up over the smallest detail, accusing him of being a pervert and such. Of course she does things like attempt to seduce him and such. Heck, I might as well say it now, pretty much every member of the harem attempts to seduce and bed Shougo.
Rinka Kunitachi is a member of the student council and is the typical rich girl character trope. She is more of an important character than the student council president Mana Tendou who is the excited, yet not very smart girl, but she manages to keep her composure. I should say now, that no girl is that energetic or all over the place.
Mei Sagara is Shougo's senior who owns a cafe themed around younger sisters. Shougo ends up working at the cafe and somehow saving the business.
Probably the most interesting character is Ikusu Mizutani, who is always disguised as a guy and gets away with fooling everyone but Shougo, who walks in on her while she is in the shower. She is frequently naked as every time she visits Shougo she takes a shower and hangs about nude making excuses for doing so. She is an agent from a company who is helping him find out who his real sister is. The one thing that really doens't make sense is how she appears completely flat chested when cross-dressing as a guy. Of course some of the girls get excited when they misinterpret things happening between them as gay love. And the girls are especially all ver Ikusu. It boggles my mind how terrible an anime can be that a person who clearly has the face of a girl manages to successfully herself as a girl.
The other characters aren't important bar one, who, I'll be honest, is adorable. There is some massive bullshit with their homeroom teacher who somehow happens to be a child? Or looks like one at least. Risa Seri is also Shougo's secretary sort of figure, who handles the business aspect of things.
Story
The story... I said I'd give this whole thing a 1 if it didn't reveal the true sister, but I lied. I must keep my review as unopinionated as possible and so far, it might appear that I'm doing a terrible job. It gets better in the second half, much better. At the start Shougo's father passes away. On that day he hears a voice claiming to be his younger sister, born of an illegitimate relationship by his father, who claims to want to marry him. Shougo's mother now sets him a task of finding a girlfriend to eventually marry, so that he can inherit the family company: the Mikadono Group. Of course, it soon arises that his sister is possibly going to his school and could possibly be one of the girls he knows. Key word: possible. The way they set it up is so flimsy, there isn't any evidence that he even has a sister, except for someone unseen telling him during his father's funeral. But despite all the bullshit and close calls they somehow do this plot much better than something like please twins. This actually has a mystery story, with twists and turns and as for the conclusion... you'll have to find out. The last few episodes have a big of a political, coup d'tate subplot, which is fairly intersting. I'm just pleasantly surprised that they do a story. On big factor is the question: why don't they do a DNA test? Thing is (spoilers) they actually consider that fact in this anime, even if the way they deal with it is a tad bullshit. Also, may I mention that this anime is a tad homophobic. When a couple of character develop the misunderstanding that Shougo may be gay, involving Ikusu of course, their reaction is particularly homophobic. What is it with Japan, thinking incest is better than homosexuality? Incest is clearly immoral and wrong, while there is nothing wrong with being gay. It's probably just this anime, since there are tolerated homosexual characters in other anime.
Conclusion
Overall a tad better than the typical harem ecchi, if only for the aspect of solving the mystery and the better-than-nothing story. I still had to drink through the second half since I got dead bored during the first half and really wanted a cider or two. I still think this was a waste of time for someone like me who hates this genre, but for the tasteless fools who do, this is one of the better ones. I won't judge you too much for liking this one. Maybe the alcohol made me write a bad review, but what the heck, it's better than slamming this, powered by my opinionated hatred.
Family-friendliness Rating: 5/5 Nudity. Children are nude in this, with no justification. This might as well be child porn (lower is better)
Overall Rating: 3/10 (higher is better)
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