1991 - Onii-sama he… Onii-sama he… is my favorite work by lauded director Osamu Dezaki and the one his signature over-dramatic stylistic flairs meld in with the best given its roots as a shoujo manga. But for as melodramatic as Onii-sama he… can be (and it really CAN be), it feels genuine especially when you consider the whole them of the series is about death. Yup, flowery language, impossibly influential sororities and pseudo-lesbians aside, Onii-sama he… is a story about death at its core, and not just the physical kind but the spiritual, the emotional. It's also about the struggle of life to overcome death and in this sense I believe it 100% surpassed its source material. I hope this doesn't sound like sacrilege but Dezaki's changes to the story trump Ikeda Riyoko's original IMO and make it look very adolescent in comparison. It was has one of my favorite (semi) villains, Miya-sama as played by my girl Koyama Mami in what might be her finest performance. Shimamoto Sumi is always amazing (and almost unrecognizable) as the androgynous Saint Juste.
