Sleep Is For the Weak

PG-16 for incest and homosexuality, although in a very tame manner; official website (Wikipedia!)

This anime has the most misleading title I’ve ever seen. Needless to say, I didn’t look it up in the hopes of finding teenage girl twincest.

I don’t usually read shoujo ai/yuri, but mostly because the titles I’ve sampled tend to fall into one of three categories:

Pretentious. Lesbian love stories that are oh-so-deep and oh-so-slow and oh-so-THIS-SUCKS-I’M-TURNING-OFF-THE-TV. See: Blue, half of the European film industry.

Sugary. The type of moe-squee material where two fourteen year old girls giggle and hold hands and blush and don’t even acknowledge the fact that now they’re the odd-women-out in a straight world and/or their parents might disown them for this. Yaoi is often guilty of this as well. See: anything that’s both moe and shoujo ai, but some shoujo titles with lesbian themes fall into this, too.

Fanservice. Check it out, boys! Girls half-naked and making out! For you! Hot! See: this ridiculous poster.

However, in the 8 minutes of this ONA (original net animation, I guess?), Candy Boy manages to touch on all three of those categories without being annoying about it. (Because no, those genres aren’t inherently bad.) It also touches upon incest and the inherent problems with that while also having insight and believability and some genuine heart-wringing moments. Really. In 8 minutes. Color me surprised, but this ONA is actually quite good.

Because of the aforementioned 8 minutes of content, I’m not going to bother going into plot or anything. But they’re continuing this little ONA as a series, and I’m looking forward to watching it. Ha! I never thought I’d see the day.

Initial impression: This is good. Can more moe and shoujo ai be like this? Please? (Lianne)

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