I cannot put a finger at it exactly, but something about WAH's little essay on Mitsudomoe feels a bit... unfinished. I do think he is right not to include or address any of the stock criticisms. Most of them were rather shallow anyway -- excuses by the shamefully offended. But it's as if he was in a great hurry, and so instead of reformulating the sentence with "anime composer" he simply slapped braces on the problem and declared it done.

On the substance side, this was symptomatic:

Mitsuba’s sadistic tendencies always come complete with a perfectly rendered sneering expression, sometimes highlighted with a touch of drool, and a seductive and bratty show put on by seiyuu Takagi Ayahi. Futaba’s unreal strength is portrayed as unrelentingly destructive. Rather than being cartoonish, her destruction of desks, walls, and public property is always portrayed as realistic and brutal, underscored by painful sound effects. Furthermore, her enthusiasm for breasts is driven home wonderfully by an energetic performance by Akesama Satomi that pulls no punches. Hitoha’s evil eyes are rendered with the utmost amount of detail every time, complete with dark shadows and at times a gloomy aura that radiates off her every pore. And like the rest of her sisters, Tomatsu Haruka’s performance is sharp, cold, and deadpan, but considerate when need be. I don’t doubt that some of these elements are present in the original, but the anime’s attention to detail when portraying these kind of character quirks (not just amongst the main girls, but everyone) along with the voice acting (which is of course not present in the original) is what gives Mitsudomoe its charm.

He is damn right here, but... is anything missing? Anyone? Well, my answer is: Mitsudomoe actually goes beyond WAH's praise and lets the characters to display more than the basic outline above. In case of Hitoha, her care for Nipples the hamster was the obvious outlet, but now we get the Gachi Rangers and perhaps more if screen time allows. Mitsuba was not only accidentally caring for Futaba, but also keeping the old cloth pencil case (I am discounting the refusal to kill the cicada as a special case, TBD). Futabla only has the father relationship, but it works too. All three are shown having something more than fits the intro card.

I think WAH knew it, and perhaps did not even forget while belting out the quoted tirade. But it already was overlong, and the character development I am talking about probably originates in the manga, while his thesis was the anime-specific development. So he omitted it. But I think it must be said, to be linked when some lazy Charles Solomon of animeblogging brings up poor characterization.

One scene in particular I’m thinking of is when the sisters’ father cleans up for parent’s day, and ends up looking like a yakuza thug.

So this is why all the MILFs were giving him that space.