The Summer 2026 Anime Preview Guide

Please Excuse My Younger Brothers

During the spring break at the end of her first year of high school, Ito Narita had to move because her mother remarried. However, she is shocked to learn that she has four younger step-brothers. Although she tries her best to get along with her new family, the eldest brother, Gen Narita, seems a bit withdrawn... But behind his cool demeanor, a glimmer of kindness starts to show...

Please Excuse My Younger Brothers is based on the Uchi no Otōto-domo ga Sumimasen manga series by Akira Ozaki. The anime series is streaming on Crunchyroll on Fridays.

I was looking, not precisely forward to this, but at least hopefully – maybe, I thought, it'll be a bit like my beloved The Yuzuki Family’s Four Sons. And sure, in some ways, I suppose it is: a group of siblings are basically raising themselves, or so the dad's stinger transfer to Hokkaido leads me to believe. Even after I realized that perhaps this wouldn't be quite as heartwarming, I spent a while thinking (hoping) that it wouldn't have a romance angle.

Dear Readers, I was wrong.

And honestly, I should've known better from the start. The story follows sixteen-year-old Ito who has the misfortune of being one of those anime characters whose parents leave out pertinent information when they remarry. At least in this case Ito is aware of the remarriage, but her mom thought it would be a “fun surprise” to not tell her that her new husband has four sons from his first marriage. Nominally, all of these brothers are younger than Ito, but two of them are grownass-looking men, one of them's a shut-in whom the family apparently hasn't seen for a year, and the last is just a little too shrill to be the cute one. If I were Ito, I think I'd be moving in with my friends.

Still, it's not all bad. I absolutely have to give the writing credit for the way Ito perfectly embodies the oldest daughter. When it was just her and her mom, Ito took on a lot of the housework because her mother simply didn't have time. Now, in her new home, she's immediately told that she's the older sister, which carries a lot of social implications. Oldest daughters often get told that they have to take charge, to take care of others, and to do it without complaint. That's precisely what Ito sets about doing, much to her new brothers' confusion and horror. Gen, the brother exactly one day younger than her, is trying to take care of her, but she's got no idea how to let someone do that…and neither does he. And when he tells her that she doesn't need to do everything, poor Ito just sort of…freezes. If she's not helping someone, what good is she?

Obviously, Gen and Ito are going to be romantic interests. Gen himself admits as much when second oldest brother Raku asks him, and little Rui would like to get in on that as well. I don't love stepsibling romance because it often feels like an easy way to be edgy without crossing any real lines, and so far, this episode isn't doing anything to ease my concerns on that front. While this episode isn't obviously terrible, it's also not doing much to recommend itself, either, and the overreliance on silly reaction shots of Ito's face isn't helping. I suppose it could still turn out to be cute, but I'm no longer holding out much hope.

I know it is a self-consciously silly cliche that is being repeated ad nauseum as a kind of industry-wide shit-post, but I really do have to ask this of all the (fictional) single parents in Japan who are currently scoping out a new honey: Are y'all okay? Is there something that they put into the vending machine drinks and ramen broth down there that is specifically designed to boil your brains in particular? Do you have another, more believable excuse for why so many of you are getting hitched without telling your kids the sorts of details about their new mommy or daddy that really ought to be coming up after the very first date? Like the fact that they already have children from a previous marriage, for instance.

Whatever the cause of this nationwide brain-damage might be, poor protagonists like our Ito here in Please Excuse My Younger Brothers have to pay for it. I have never been a hot-blooded teenage girl in the throes of puberty who suddenly has to figure out how to cohabitate with a quartet who may as well all be frontline an internationally famous pop act or something, and I have no idea what I would do in Ito's place. There but for the grace of God go I, and all that. Gen, especially, may as well as be following The Stupid, Sexy Step-Brother Playbook line by societally taboo line. He has the gall to be shirtless and positively ripped when Ito just wants to use the bathroom. He's snarky and standoffish about this crazy new arrangement, but he's never so nasty that he ruins the fantasy of whittling away at that crunchy exterior to reveal the sweet, nougaty cream that's waiting to be devoured just beneath the surface.

Sure, he gets all bent out of shape about this new girl in his life suddenly washing his underwear and stuff, but he never once sits Ito down and thoroughly explains, “These emotional outbursts are a result of the stress of a new living situation and my own personal issues colliding in a toxic manner, and in no way represent any conflict I may be experiencing with the latent but undeniable sexual attraction I feel towards you, an attractive and slightly-older girl who is about to become closer to me than any other girl has in my life.” At this point, he may as well hang a giant neon sign above his head that reads “IF WE'RE NOT RELATED BY BLOOD, THAN WHO IS TO SAY WHAT IS RIGHT AND WHAT IS WRONG…?”

I'm being a little facetious, here, but Please Excuse My Younger Brothers also opts to take the piss every now and again, so I figure it's fair game. This show could have easily gone for a much more earnestly smutty route, like a tragically heterosexual version of Citrus, and I could even see that version of Please Excuse My Younger Brothers working out. This version of the story, though, knows that it is an absurd fantasy that is only one or two degrees removed from genuine smut, so it takes a lighter tone that makes everything very watchable. Ito is sweet, if a bit bland, and all of her new brothers are interesting enough characters to make the family dynamic interesting. Gen is the tsundere, of course, while the other boys provide a more legitimately familial atmosphere that prevents the episode from getting too bogged down in melodrama, since they presumably do not also plan to ruin Ito's life with a deluge of socially abominable sexual tension.

If I'm being honest, I personally would have preferred the trashier, more shameless version of this show that just went all out and had the whole stable of brothers getting into spicy situations with Ito from the beginning. If you're going to go for it, then go for it, you know? Still, this could have been a lot worse, and I imagine fans of cozier takes on these kinds of anime will be perfectly satisfied with what Please Excuse My Younger Brothers has to offer.

I always have a mixed feeling about these types of shows because the premise that they are built off of just feels inherently flawed to me. There are a lot of reverse harem shows that focus on a young woman suddenly being introduced to a new family where she has a bunch of stepbrothers that she will most likely end up in romantic hijinks with. Even though there's no blood relation, a lot of these shows will use a familial bond as a springboard in order to generate romantic intimacy. That has never really worked for me as a story concept or as a character arc since familial love and romantic love are inherently not the same thing. Plus, it's especially frustrating when I watch a show like this where the familial bond between all the characters is actually really strong to the point where I actually would love it if the show did not lean into any romantic hints whatsoever.

Ignoring the fact that Ito's mom is absolutely horrible for not warning her daughter that she is now suddenly going to live with four hormone riddled boys, I love how this premiere established the rocky transitional phase of this new family being born. Granted, two of the brothers warmed up to Ito really quickly, so maybe I should more specifically say the relationship between her and Gen. The two were overthinking and being overly self-aware of each other to the point where they came off in ways that made the other person annoyed. But by actually spending time together and talking things out, they were able to establish a stronger bond by the end of that first episode.

I like the little moments where they tease each other like with the uniform bit—and that moment of them eating food together felt genuinely heartwarming. I'm glad that moments like that we're stronger than any moments of them sharing a romantic connection. But I've seen this song and dance before—I'm sure that ratio is going to get more skewed as the show goes on. The fact that this episode ends basically implying that the parents are going to be out of the picture for the foreseeable future does not help. I really hope I'm wrong because I love the chemistry here and I hope that the sibling bonding ends up taking center stage.

Please Excuse My Younger Brothers was one of the shows that I didn't expect much from for the upcoming season. Perhaps it was something of a defense mechanism, since before the shows even started, my to-watch list was over a dozen series long. Alas, after watching this episode of gentle family comedy, I must add it to the pile.

I must, of course, recognize the outlandishness of the initial premise. There is simply no excuse for what Ito's mother pulled here, sending her daughter into a radically different family situation than she was prepared for. And then, taking off on a honeymoon without helping her get settled and integrated! Even if Gen made the reservations for them at an inn, lots of people wait to take their honeymoons. But even as I acknowledge it, I accept it—because sometimes you need some absurd setup to get a sitcom situation like this rolling.

Parental negligence aside, the first episode Please Excuse My Younger Brothers is a sweet story about two parentified teenagers figuring out how to work around each other, then together. While I rarely have patience for the shojo trope of the boy who speaks brusquely and treats the protagonist like trash, Gen's context makes it make sense. It's halfway being the man of the house, and halfway a simple failure of communication between him and Ito. And some of the blame for this still lies at Ito's mom's feet: being thrown into this situation has made Ito desperate to get her new brothers to like her, which has led to her forcing herself to try to earn their approval instead of just getting to know them. It's something of a feat that Gen being blunt and a bit rude to Ito but being a good guy at heart really works—thanks in no small part to some clever writing that manages to seed it in their early interactions, and strong performances from both Ito and Gen's voice actors. We can see him try to reach out, only for her to unintentionally brush him off. It's no wonder he gets frustrated.

Of course, this isn't solely a gentle stepsibling sitcom; people who consider stepsibling romance to be tantamount to incest will want to check out here. Or check in... you do you. Ito is a young woman in the throes of adolescence, after all; while I may have been inured to my teenage younger brother wandering around shirtless 90% of the time he was home, Ito is not inoculated against the sight of naked man flesh in the same way. The expressive animation makes it abundantly clear: she and Gen are attracted to each other—in a not-sibling way. This is mainly becuase they're not siblings, but peers thrown into a new living situation. It's one of the easier ways to be slightly edgy, but not fully transgressive. I do kind of hope this is a more straightforward romance mixed with family comedy, rather than turning into a harem situation, at the very least.

It's going to be a busy, busy, busy season, but I hope you'll make time to at least give Please Excuse My Younger Brothers a shot.