In this film about the force of familial obligations in an authoritarian, patriarchal household, Tanaka portrays a cold-hearted, invalid Christian woman who manipulates her stepdaughter into the role of servant and surrogate mother to her troubled brother. The girl enters womanhood exhausted, lacking both the energy and the desire to assume a life of her own. Critic and author Tadao Sato (Currents in Japanese Cinema) places Younger Brother among a group of nostalgic films "with heroines who are beautiful because they embody all the virtues that their men lack," but Joan Mellon, in The Waves at Genji's Door, takes a more skeptical look at Ichikawa's message: "Ichikawa demystifies the idea that the patriarchal family accords the individual protection in exchange for his loyalty and subservience, as Ozu would have us believe."