To be fair it was always ambiguous early on because most of the things he does can be seen as trying to help or tease his little sister who he's no longer ignoring

It's called "My Little Sister Can't Be This Cute" how did you not get an inkling of incest? I expected it from the start and got worried when it started to go in different directions

though Kirino's little-sister-eroge obsession did keep the incest theme there in a silly little way. I do think it's been only in Season 2 of the anime, where toying with various love interests for Kyousuke became the focus, that the "oh yeah, we're probably going there" vibes started humming strongly as more than just a little jokey thing.

But just before the final volume came out, my guess from the way the plot had developed, was that he was going to end up with Ayase.

I could see Kyousuke kissing Kirino, but I could never believe that they were genuinely in love with each other, just had very confused feelings

Kirino end

Whilst the Kyousuke's relationship with Kirino has always been the central theme, I never believed they were in love, just highly confused . I don't know how much of it will get animated, but I'm staggered after the sheer amount of work the author did in Volume 10 to turn Ayase into the number one contender. She gets pushed to high heaven, then in Volume 11 we get the explanation for the siblings confused feelings

It was obviously a possibility that the Kirino incest ending could occur, but I doubt many people thought it was obvious. It fact most people didn't think it was obvious, hence the shock.

I kind of view it a bit like a horror movie. There's always a possibility that the main character will get killed off, hence the tension that keeps you on the edge of your seat, but there's a difference between tension and crossing the line and doing it

I was always hoping for a Kuroneko ending but knew it would be Kirino.

I always thought Ayase was the best pick for Kyousuke but knew that Kirino would probably be the choice in the end. So I am not that surprised though I do not like the incest part.

However, incest is wincest

I'm pissed at the ending for blowing the entire world to smithereens and turning entire novels into massive red herrings for the sake of selling controversy in a final volume the shoots everything else in the foot. There is no build up of "real" romantic feelings of Kyousuke towards Kirino and the most laughable part is volume 11 basically states hes been in love with her since middle school. Yeah cause 14 year olds really understand romantic love(that goes for Kirino too as well lol). It's such a massively weak plot development it boggles my mind watching Kirino shippers eat it up and say how much of a talented author this guy is.

While we knew it was an option all along, it seemed less likely as the show went on. At least for me. Although if there was one thing I liked about the ending, it is that Saori didn't confess to him as far as I know. The only 2 girls he could have ended with that would make me content would be Kuroneko and Saori. The grandmother girl (forget he name since she was so boring) had a funny reaction. I know it was supposed to be serious, but this show has always failed at that. Also, did I miss the reason for everyone confessing to him in the time span of a week? Seemed stupid.