Masamune Izumi is a boy who enjoys writing light novels. Lacking artistic skill, his novels were illustrated by an anonymous partner who is known only as Eromanga-sensei. Little does he know, however, that Eromanga-sensei is the pen name of his reclusive little sister, Sagiri Izumi...
Eromanga Sensei (エロマンガ先生) is a light novel series written by Tsukasa Fushimi and illustrated by Hiro Kanzaki (both also known for their work on Oreimo), which was published under the Dengeki Bunko imprint from 2013 to 2022 for 13 volumes. It also spawned a manga adaptation illustrated by Rin, which was serialized in Dengeki Daioh from 2014 to 2021 and compiled into 12 volumes.
An anime adaptation by A-1 Pictures aired from April 8, 2017 to June 24, 2017, and ran for 12 episodes. Two OVA episodes were released in 2019.
Eromanga Sensei contains examples of:
- Acquainted in Real Life: The initial premise of the story. Masamune is angry with his novel's illustrator, with whom he communicates anonymously through the publishing house, over some badmouthing and decides to watch one of his videos, and suddenly realizes that his anonymous illustrator is actually his stepsister. Doubled-down when it's discovered that they also had a very close online relationship years ago, one which inspired both to pursue their current path.
- All Women Are Lustful: Masamune and the other men in the series are portrayed as rather chaste and socially adequate, while the girls seem to have too much fixation on the vulgarity and romantic relationship. Up to eleven with Sagiri, who loves to draw erotic pictures with girls.
- Anchored Ship: The state of Masamune and Sagiri's relationship. While they both like each other, Masamune would rather view Sagiri as a sister than a romantic partner due to how his mother, father and even step-mother died prematurely.
- Animated Adaptation: In-universe; some of the in-series light novels have received anime adaptations. Masamune, as part of his If I Were a Rich Man fantasy, hopes for his Sagiri-dedicated light novel to receive an anime.
- Anime Theme Song:
- ClariS performs the OP, "Hitorigoto".
- TrySail performs the ED, "Adrenaline!!!".
- Barely-There Swimwear: During the Beach Episode, Elf wears a tiny bikini on her own accord. She then forces Muramasa to wear one as well, which is really embarrassing for her, as well as Masamune. Elf was actually hoping Muramasa would be too embarrassed to come out, giving Elf more time alone with Masamune.
- Beach Episode: Episodes 9 and 10 take place in the vacation home of Yamada’s family, in the middle of an island. Once Masamune arrives there, Elf quickly starts invoking (or attempts to invoke) as many beach-related tropes as she can.
- Bland-Name Product:
- Averted with the logos of ASCII Media Works and Dengeki Bunko.
- Sagiri uses a WAIO-branded laptop and a Macom-branded tablet.
- Liaison is the series' version of Skype. Subverted oddly, as Masamune explicitly says "Skype" during Episode 5 when he suggests that Tomoe Skypes with Eromanga-sensei and flashes her underwear.
- Also subverted by repeatedly, explicitly referring to Twitter.
- Brother–Sister Incest: The romantic relationship between brother and sister is at the very focus of this work, which is repeatedly stressed, parodied and played out throughout the series. However, they are not bound by blood, so technically this is normal.
- The Cameo:
- Episode 8 has Kuroneko and her little sisters on TV at a festival.
- Continuing the theme with the popular hits from the third episode, Yamada Elf takes turns introducing Tatsuya Shiba, Kirito and Holo, which are voiced VAs from their original adaptations, considering also that Kirito and Masamune have the same Voice Actor.
- Episode 11 has Kyosuke Kosaka, Kirino Kosaka, Kuroneko, and Saori Makishima talking about Masamune's new book as they pass by him near the end of the episode, complete with the same voice actors reprising their roles.
- Casting Gag: This isn't the first time Yoshitsugu Matsuoka voiced a guy who found out an online acquaintance was actually his Not Blood Siblings little sister, with Kirito going through a similar thing. Matsuoka even reprises his role as Kirito in a cameo.
- Central Theme: Light novels. And yes, light novels within a light novel.
- Dancing Theme: Sagiri does this in the ending while waiting for her laundry. As the song picks up its tempo, she starts moving faster to the beats as well.
- Doorstopper: While individual volumes aren’t that big, the total size of the serialized works written by the characters are huge. And in terms of love letters, apparently 300-page ones are in vogue in this universe.
- First Girl Wins: This is pretty obvious, considering that Masamune met Sagiri before other girls, both on a chronological scale, and in the show itself. Further in light novels they are engaged.
- Flirty Stepsiblings: Met one year before the start of the story, with indications of romantic interest from the very moment they met.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Numerous light novels published under the Dengeki Bunko imprint, such as Toradora! and The Devil is a Part-Timer!, and other imprints are displayed in the anime.
- Episode 1: Sagiri presents illustrations of Sword Art Online and High School Fleet when asking her watchers for suggestions on what to draw for her next livestream.
- Episode 2: A copy of Circlet Girl, a light novel published under the Kadokawa Sneaker Bunko imprint, is displayed next to a signed copy of Dark Elf of Explosive Fire in Tomoe's recommendation corner of Takasago Books.
- Episode 3: When Masamune reads Elf's novel during the retrospective scene, Dengeki Bunko's currently most famous hits like The Irregular at Magic High School, Accel World and Sword Art Online can be seen on her shelf.
- Episode 5: A number of obscured light novels, such as Re:Zero and And You Thought There Is Never a Girl Online?, are shown on a bookshelf in Takasago Books.
- Episode 7: Masamune reads Muramasa's short story, "My Not-so-cute Kouhai", in a copy of the Dengeki Bunko Magazine.
- Episode 8: Behind Elf hangs a Spice and Wolf jubilee sequel advertisement, which is dedicated to Holo's daughter.
- Intimate Lotion Application: When Elf takes Masamune to the beach for "date collection", the first of the "staple events" she experiments with is asking him to rub sunscreen on her, and she does so by taking off her bikini top right in front of him. He naturally reacts with great embarrassment and points out that the girl is usually lying down on her stomach so she doesn't expose herself while the lotion is being applied and demands her to do the same. When Masamune finally gets to do it properly, he feels even more awkward when he realizes Elf's older brother Chris was watching him the whole time.
- Generation Xerox: Masamune and Sagiri look like younger versions of their dad and mom, respectively. Sagiri even enjoys drawing, just like her mother.
- Like Father, Like Son: It is implied that Sagiri inherited the love of erotic drawings from her mother, who was also an illustrator of light novels and even laughed while drawing, just like her daughter.
- Mundane Made Awesome: In the anime, from episode 2 onward the closing credits show Sagiri, doing her laundry while dancing. And it's absolutely adorable.
- Public Hater, Private Fan: Masamune Izumi is a light novel writer with problems to get success with his novels, when he knows Elf Yamada, a more successful and famous light novelist who rivals Masamune and even he hates in some moments. After passing some time writing together, Masamune admits he's fan of Elf's novels and even they were an inspiration to be a light novelist like her.
- Reference Overdosed: Not to the same extent as Oreimo, but given that this is a series about light novels, what else do you expect?
- Self-Parody: The whole idea of this work is, in fact, a fantasy that if the author's artist will be his own stepsister.
Word of God also likes to joke about this, "promising" that his next work will be devoted to younger sisters in the Isekai genre. At the same time, a joke about the confrontation between Yamada Elf and Dengeki Bunko in the eighth episode can also be seen as an example of this. - Shout-Out:
- Episode 1 contains numerous references to Stardust Witch Meruru from Oreimo. During the livestream, before Sagiri enters onscreen, commenters were discussing Meruru, and then she is seen wearing a Meruru mask to hide her face. (She's also holding it in the official art for the series!) Later, in Sagiri's bedroom, a Comet-kun plushie is seen sitting on a chair.
- Megumi mentions her love for OnePi in Episode 2.
- Tomoe mentions Shana, Taiga Aisaka, and Maisel Karasugi (of Circlet Girl) when Masamune asks her for suggestions on well-endowed, pretty girls to help inspire Eromanga-sensei.
- In one episode, when Megumin wants to borrow from Sagiri one of her favorite light novels, Masamune suggests that she give one of the volumes to Maria Watches Over Us, implying that this Sickeningly Sweet Yuri long series has a low value for him. Sagiri has a different opinion.
- Show Within a Show: Light novels within a light novel, in this case.
- Silverwolf of Reincarnation is written by Masamune with illustrations by Eromanga-sensei (aka Sagiri) and published under the Dengeki Bunko imprint, which concluded by the start of Eromanga-sensei.
- Dark Elf of Explosive Fire is written by Elf Yamada with illustrations by Arumi and published under the Fulldrive Bunko imprint, with an anime adaptation confirmed and scheduled to begin airing in January 2018 in-universe.
- Legend of the Illusionary Demon Sword is written by Senju Muramasa and published under the Dengeki Bunko imprint, with the Animated Adaptation currently airing in-universe.
- Stealth Parody: This work is literally imbued with love for light novels, but you can also see a lot of satire both on the very process of working on them, and on the various cliches of content. In particular, magnum opus Masamune parodies the author's love for writing romantic comedies about younger sisters.
- Stealth Sequel: It's set in the same universe as Oreimo, with Kyousuke, Kirino, Kuroneko, and Saori making a cameo in episode 11.
- The Stinger:
- Episode 1: Megumi Jinno shows up in front of the Izumis' house, to meet Sagiri.
- Episode 4: Masamune and Elf discuss the former's If I Were a Rich Man fantasy, which involves his latest light novel proposal dedicated to Sagiri.
- Episode 7: Masamune reads a copy of Muramasa's steady school notebook he receives in the mail, touched at how she would rate his Sagiri-dedicated short story a one million out of 100.
- Strong Family Resemblance: Volume 8 revealed what Masamune and Sagiri's mother and father looked like before their deaths: older versions of Sagiri and Masamune respectively.
- Supporting Harem: Elf, Tomoe and Muromasa repeatedly confess in love to Masamune and promise to fight for his mutual feelings, but this is meaningless in advance, since he and Sagiri are already obviously in love with each other before the series begins. The anime just cements it, increasing the representation of their relationship to One True Love.
- Themed Harem: Writers, illustrator and reader, thus each of the heroines has a direct relationship to light novels. And of course, most of Masamune's Love Interests are cute younger sisters of different types.
- Theme Naming: A lot of characters in this series have names/pen names based on the names of various Japanese swordsmiths.
- Title Drop: The fourth episode's title, "Eromanga Sensei".
- Write Who You Know: In universe example. Masamune's new light novel is called "The World's Cutest Little Sister", and the first version is so blatant that Yamada immediately recognized that it was about Sagiri and even Sagiri's occupation as his illustrator. As the story progresses, he adds in other characters based off of Sagiri's drawings of friends. He doesn't even change major points of their relationships or events between them.
