My Stepmother and Stepsisters Aren’t Wicked — Episode 1

Content warning: Character death (offscreen death of a mother)

What’s it about? Following the death of her beloved mother, Miya Nakamura learns she was an illegitimate child later adopted by her father. But contrary to fairy tales, Miya’s new stepmother and stepsisters don’t hate her: in fact, they love her a lot and want to make her feel welcome. There’s just one teesy-weensy problem: Miya still thinks they’re out to get her…!

Just like any Cinderella in her story, Miya Nakamura’s story starts with the death of her beloved mother, who is sick and fragile, likely from the incredibly delicate life she and her daughter live. Not quick for this world, Miya’s mother breathes her last on the day of the first snowfall, leaving Miya in limbo as she picks an iris in early bloom.

Fortunately, this isn’t the end of Miya’s story, nor does it fade her deep resilience as she goes to the Kounokura residence to meet her daunting new family: eldest daughter Marika, second daughter Arisa, and intimidating mother Teru. Fiercely intimated by being an illegitimate daughter, Miya experiences a hellish greeting… only it isn’t quite accurate because it turns out Teru and Arisa are actually frustrated with their father and his outright disregard for their newfound sister. Mother Teru immediately banishes Miya’s… father’s stuff to the cellar so Miya can have a proper bedroom. Together, they break bread and establish a new life for Miya, who has only known hardship up until that moment.

Soon, Miya finds herself settling into her new home not with hate, but with a warm hearth and a family that loves her and is determined to adore her whether or not she’s up to the same level of social nobility they’ve lived with thus far.

Call me Cypr-ella because I’m clicking off my glass heels and running home! My Stepmother and Stepsisters Aren’t Wicked is my exact kind of humor, the type that turns what we expect on its head in a way that feels hilariously over-the-top. Just like the fairytales, you fully expect a story about Miya being thrust out of the frying pan and into the fire, but immediately, My Stepmother and Stepsisters Aren’t Wicked subverts everything by placing Miya in a filial situation where she’s immediately cleaned up and dressed up like a doll. 

It’s this dynamic—Miya being humble and immediately being thrust into being cared for so fiercely—that shapes this premiere, and it makes for a wonderfully heart warming and belly-aching twenty-four minutes of media. Even though My Stepmother and Stepsisters Aren’t Wicked tells you that its stepmother and stepsisters won’t be, well, wicked, you still kind of expect it because that’s what’s been done with the genre. Yet each and every moment proves that Miya genuinely has so little to worry about: if anything, her stepmother and sisters are perhaps a bit too enthusiastic for poor Miya who is accustomed to living in rags and sharing a single bed.

I also want to point out how refreshing it is to have an older female character sound like an actual grown woman. Of course, being voiced by the prolific Kujira (Sakura from Danganronpa, Orichimaru from Naruto) helps add a richness that fits the more solidly built matriarch without ever tripping into “oops accidental transphobia” territory. Instead, Kujira gives Teru the sound of a woman, and it’s really beautiful to experience as a viewer who immediately was like “Mommy? Sorry, mommy?” about how utterly stunning her design is.

It’s a nice twist in a season where we have another fairy tale subversion that’s also deeply filled with feminist potential, at least so far. I can’t say that this will be a big feminist wonder tale, but I will say that already, what I saw in this premiere made me smile from start to finish. While I’ll always love seeing an underdog story, it’s also just really nice to see a story where the girls love each other and forge immediate friendship, which I find is much more true to life than the narrative that girls will always compete and be nasty to another. Here, we get to see the hilarious subversion of expectation versus reality, and I think the joke is strong enough to last for a few episodes as things evolve into a much more rich story.

This is a lovely addition to the packed Summer 2026 roster, offering nice animation, excellent voice acting, and a really touching start to a story about Miya finding her footing in her impressive and deeply caring family. Once question I have is will we ever see her father? Probably, but right now, he doesn’t matter to the family dynamic being established. For now, I’m content with just seeing Teru, Marika, and Arisa dote on Miya for the next twelve weeks.