Score: A

There are some shows that really ease into their premise and slowly build everything up. And then there’s this show! My Stepmother and Stepsisters Aren’t Wicked just goes all in with its concept at almost a high octane pace! This show doesn’t mess around in terms of just being pure wholesome craziness! It makes me wonder if they can keep up the pace for the rest of the show or not!

Poor girl had quite the life

Obviously this series is a play on Cinderella. Well the localized title plays on that and it’s not completely wrong as a translation. We’re obviously taking a much more Japanese approach to it, but the overall feel is there. Miya is an adorable girl who has lived a pretty rough life to this point. Her poor mom has clearly had health issues for most of her life and that left her needing to be a breadwinner for the family. Including the Grandmother who I’m not sure is evil or not. At the very least I can imagine shew as very “helpful” in getting Miya set up for all the work she spend her early years doing.

The status quo obviously couldn’t be maintained so Miya’s mom eventually dies and off she goes to live with relatives. That turn of the story definitely left me curious in many ways. Not sure if the Grandmother was legitimately too rattled by her daughter’s death to think straight or not. But she did move quickly to try and get Miya back. And the presumption that she had made deals to sell her off as an indentured worker was accurate. Either way…she sure wasn’t getting Miya back after pushing her out the door earlier.

Let the high octane fun begin!

Holy crap! It’s when Miya arrives that everything kicks into overdrive! They know from the title, summary, and trailer that people know the twist of the new family being amazing. So they just go all in! It’s one scene after another of the family trying to aura farm while looking evil…and then being the kindest people in the universe! They; make sure Miya gets a bath that she’s needed, empty out the father’s study (hmmm), they walk her to the bathroom in the night and then sleep together with her while she was rather nervous and uneasy. These people are amazing! Marika and Arisa are incredibly nice and their only bad quality is how wrapped up they can get in terms of bickering.

It honestly was really sweet when they got ready to spend the night with Miya. They did give her a somewhat strict comment about not liking those that can’t be honest about what they want. But they didn’t even dream of leaving Miya alone while she was still grieving over her mother’s passing. You couldn’t ask for a better pair of adoptive siblings.

I’m terrified by her greatness!

Good lord…Teru! That woman should be in a season of Jojo! What’s her stand ability!? She’s got passages built into the house so she can aura farm and appear whenever she wants! But she’s also one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. She didn’t remotely pressure Miya to forget her mother or call her the same thing. There was incredible respect given to Miya’s bonds with her mother. Part of me does wonder if she just wanted another kid around so she could get the full spectrum of ways of being called “mom.” Including Miya, each of her daughters has a different way of addressing her. I just love this person. She’s absurd and amazing.

Everyone is so good!

One question this episode left me with is…why now? Clearly Teru and her daughters are wonderfully good people. In that case why was there no move to intervene before Miya’s mother died? Were they unaware that Teru’s husband had an affair and a secret child? Was the father actually rather evil and there was no way that they could make that kind of move while he was still in the picture? There’s just a lot of questions. I can’t imagine Teru sitting by. But I suppose how she felt overall depends entirely on the relationship she had with her husband. I didn’t get the feeling that she had any resentment for Miya’s mother either.

This should be a really fun show

This was a really strong and solid opening episode. Miya at this point is still struggling to open up about her feel about everything. You have that Grandmother trying to plant seeds of doubt about whether Miya is worthy of this family! I don’t know if the show can really maintain this level of incredible energy or not. But dang, I really look forward to seeing it try to! Everyone is really enjoyable and likeable. I can’t wait to see them get hyped up about teaching Miya more skills, sending her off to school. This show so far has managed to still grab onto moments of pure sweetness and character growth. I wouldn’t say this is a show I was fully sure about going into the season. But wow…they really did a solid job here!