Love is Indivisible by Twins

 Love is Indivisible by Twins (恋は双子で割り切れない) is a 12 episode romance based on the light novel series of the same name by Takamura Shihon.  The anime originally aired during the Summer of 2024.

    Shirosaki Jun has grown up with the twin sisters who live next door.  Their families are close and spend a lot of time together.  After being close for over a decade their relationship with each other begins to fluctuate near the end of middle school.  Fraternal twins, Rumi and Naori are very different in personalities and aptitude.  Rumi is well liked, athletic and more of a tom boy.  Naori is highly intelligent, a fan of geek culture and dismissive of everyone around her.  In their final year of middle school Rumi confesses to Naori that she has feelings for Jun, the boy they have spent most of their lives with, through thick and thin.  Jun is close to being a sibling with how close the families are.  Naori encourages her sister to tell Jun about her feeling for him, but suggests keeping it a secret if he reciprocates her feelings.  Jun and Rumi spend close to the next year as a couple, hiding it from most everyone, building deeper memories together.

    In high school Rumi decides to break off the relationship, but largely unfathomable reasons.  Rumi understands that Naori also has feelings for Jun and feels that she is the better match for the studious and intelligent boy.  The break up makes Naori furious and Rumi regrets it almost as soon as she suggests it.  But she is determined to stick with her conviction, believing that Naori will never be able to find anyone if it isn't Jun, due to her prickly personality and how many interests they have in common.  Rumi decides to get the ball rolling and all but forces Jun to date her sister instead.  Jun and Naori are resistant at first, uncomfortable with the situation and the recent past between he and Rumi.  Both soon admit that they have liked each other for a long time, longer than Rumi had been a part of the romantic equation on either end.  They decide to do what Rumi is trying to force them into but things aren't as smooth as she had hoped.  Naori is upset with the meddling of her sister, whom she see's as below her.  Jun struggles with the time spent with Rumi and the feelings he built over that period, clashing with his feelings for Naori.  Their lives are forever interlinked and Jun has to decide if he will make one happy and the other miserable...or is there a third option where he isn't involved with either of them romantically, looking elsewhere for his life partner?

    If you ever wanted an anime telenovela...this may be one of the best examples!  This story is dripping with drama backstabbing and plotting.  The sisters are playing a complicated game of cat and mouse between themselves over the boy they both love.  They are also trying to resolve interpersonal issues based around their entire childhood as shadows of each other.  Jun does his best to not ruffle any feathers, but agreeing to date Rumi in the first place made that impossible.  Given how close they all are and they mutual feelings they developed, it was never going to end cleanly.  But...it doesn't actually end in the series.  There is a lot of development and progress to the over all story.  All of the characters get a good amount of time to develop and tell their story to the viewer.  The stakes of the resolution are well understood but we leave episode 12 feelings like all of this was a prologue to the real story.

    This series was significantly better than I anticipated.  Yet again we have a show that defies the simplicity of the surface concept.  This could have been a ridiculous and absurd comedy full of perversion and lust.  Instead we get an over the top drama about conflict between two sisters where the ultimate prize is the love of their life.  Poor Jun...he's really in a bad situation but hes part of the problem as well, being unwilling to shift the balance to either of the girls.  There is a lot of realism and pop culture references through out the show that enhance its view-ability.  Naori and Jun are pop culture fanatics, Naori especially rattles off all manner of real world things in her frequent tirade and monologues.  Not only does she battle against Jun over sci-fi, fantasy and literature critiques, she frequently belittles her fathers obsession with fandom that she considers pedestrian...refusing to let him know how deep her nerdom goes.  Hands down, if I was Jun...the choice would be easy...Naroi.  But, distractions, Rumi is fine I guess...shes not really an interesting character, shes more there as the catalyst for a lot of the drama as it would be rather boring if Naori didn't have legitimate competition for Juns affection.  Either way...this was an enjoyable series that I am pretty sad about ending.  Time to dig into the light novels.

    The series was simulcast on Crunchyroll.