Brothers Conflict

As per usual with my incredibly long list of anime to finish, I only now got through the last episode of Brothers Conflict, a simultaneously cute and creepy romcom.

The story follows Ema, referred to more often as "Chii" by her talking pet squirrel, Juli, as she moves into a mansion of a house with her thirteen step-brothers. (Er, I think at least one actually lives alone so twelve...?) Juli is completely paranoid about the 'advances' that she might have to deal with living with men ranging from 13 to 30. Which is funny, until you realize that's exactly what's going on.

Basically, of these 13 brothers, about 9 fall madly in love with Ema and ask her out/kiss her/confess to her.

No, seriously. Even the youngest (13 year old) does it, though it's sort of implied that he's not at the point where he's 100% aware of the implications of things like smooches and the like.

The two eldest are more brotherly, but there are some awkward moments at one point (a scene with the second-eldest showing her how to cut a particular food properly and the closeness gets misinterpreted and awkwardness ensues). The third? eldest is a Buddhist monk and seems to be at least partially messing around with her.

But pretty much everyone in the family from high school to young adult age end up falling for and confessing to her (with the notable exception of the brother that happens to be in her class, who has had a crush on her forever -- I don't think he ever outright confesses that he likes her).

The anime was fun, and I'm glad it ended how it did, on a non-near-incestuous note, but there was a creepiness nagging me the whole ride. I'm actually surprised I was compelled to watch it to the end; despite being skeeved out by the daring advances and how Ema clearly only saw them as brothers there was something I really liked. Maybe it was the idea of suddenly having brothers. I don't know.

Twinings Green Tea with Apple and Pear

I knew Twinings had a lot of flavors of tea, but what I didn't realize was that they had a lot of flavored teas. As someone who is slowly becoming tea-dependent, this was a serendipitous realization. I love trying teas and drinking teas and just...tea! As a kid I never thought I'd say that without a gob of honey in my mouth but as I've gotten older I've grown into tea.

Still, I have a liking for sweet things. As a kid I'd found the intense fruity tartness that you get in addition to the sweetness of fruit teas unbearably strong, but seeing a green tea with apple, one of my favorite fruits, looked too good to try.

I was pleasantly surprised. I was afraid that the fruit would be too intense, but it ended up being like drinking green tea, with the fruit flavors being quite subtle. They were mostly a gentle aftertaste -- nowhere near as strong as I'd expected.

Unfortunately it appears this tea is only available in England.