I had a short post on MMO Junkie about halfway through the short season and I found myself enjoying it so much that I declared it was my favorite (new) show this fall. Now that the season is wrapped up I want to reflect a bit on why I liked it so much.
First, lets take an honest look at why this show wouldn’t be consider special by some standards. Did I like this show just because it was a break from all the killing anime this fall? Was I just in need of a fresh romance? You can look at the premise and some say “oh nice a female NEET we don’t get that very often,” but then it is still a slow moving romance where you are just like, “Come on! Just kiss her already! Tell him/her how you feel!” I can sense the frustration at the ending. Okay, they are going on a “date” is that all we really get? Yeah, I myself wished for a bit more from the end, but then if we get those romantic moments it would have destroyed the show. Let me explain…
Morioka seems to be suffering from social anxiety (let me play doctor here, sorry if I’m way off, Theatre major here, haha) and a bit of OCD (she cleans her rug with a lint roller every time she feels a bit anxious). If their relationship at that point would have went beyond the hand holding it would have been like “Oh yeah, I’m cured, you too can get rid of anxiety too my fellow NEETs!” No. It doesn’t work like that. This anime is special because the characters are true to how they were created. It can be painful to watch but that is what makes it so good if you give it a chance. An honest look at how people have miscommunication and are worried about everything in relationships. From getting that first response to your message to having someone text you something and you misread the tone.
Moriko needed the time to feel safe with Lily before she could let Sakurai in her life.
She has so much self doubt and the MMO game in a way saved her. When I watched the first episode again I realized that she came in on the last day of her job. I didn’t notice this small detail and it really put the whole timeline into perspective when she started the new MMO game. Just in the brief flashbacks of her at her work place you could feel her tension and and stress. The anime just touched a bit on this and I really really wish that we would have seen a bit more of this to flesh out her choice to become a NEET. I think that would have given a lot of watchers some closure on her backstory. However, we only got 10 episodes so they probably had a lot to squeeze in and the slow burning romance would have been lost.
The truest moment for me as a female was in the episode where Morioka went to get food with Sakurai and jumped to the conclusion
that the female emploie thought that they didn’t belong together since Sakurai is so good looking. This is a theme throughout the anime since they met. She thinks she doesn’t deserve to be with someone handsome or so kind. She thinks she is useless since she is a NEET. She is ashamed that the loves MMO games. She doesn’t understand why she is like this.
How many times do people put themselves down in life because we think we are imposters? That we don’t belong somewhere? A lot of us like anime, and I see often that we are judged just on that aspect in our life by those who don’t like anime or understand it. It is hard to go through the world and not think that people are judging us and sometimes get to the point where we don’t care about what others think. That takes some time and courage. Morioka is just getting to the start of her journey at the end of the season.
I do think this anime was a nice break from the killing anime this fall and from some of the really confusing anime also. Maybe that is part of what made it stand out so much for me. In a world of high school romance anime this one does stand out. It has a very honest look into problems that adults face when things at work can get to be too much and there is only the “suck it up” option. A nice side plot that you can find a family of oddballs online and they can turn into true friends. Sometimes us weirdos just need to find each other and thankfully the internet with blogs and MMO games lets us do that.
I guess in the end I like this so much because I can just honestly relate to Morioka. I see myself in her and like her I keep pushing forward and I hope you do too.
I’ll get off my soap box and just mention that since I started this blog I’ve enjoyed reading and interacting with all you dear followers! Thank you for following me and thank you for reading. I do have my book deadline at the end of this month so I hope to be able to keep up the posts! Happy watching!
