Alright, I almost dropped this anime from episode 1 because I got influenced by some reviews saying its 'cliché'. Note to self: Never read mal reviews before judging a show by myself ever again.
Just know that clichés do not automatically make a show bad. A very great example of a clichés done right is Konosuba, which utilises the isekai trope to create a wonderful and humorous parody of the actual genre, and in my opinion, another great example is Gamers!. This turned out to be one of the most impressionable romcoms for me.
The reason I almost dropped this show was because I was overly judgemental
...
on its first episode. Admittedly, the following clichés were a bit of a turn off at the beginning: "high school game club" and "otaku-pandering main protaganist". Basically the premise of episode 1 at first felt kind of uninteresting and even unrealistic.
I decided to give this anime another chance after months because I saw that it had potential. After re-evaluating the character motives and making the effort to actually think deeper into the actions of the characters, it made so much more sense. It's evident from episode 1 that the character motives in the entirety of the show can be sometimes hard to grasp and character's actions can often feel unreasonable or confusing (as expected of every drama show tho). However they really are quite meaningful when given a second thought. The premise starts getting way more entertaining after episode 2 with the slight twist. What’s hilarious is that the much hated ‘game club’ cliché was actually almost never mentioned again in the show, despite spending 1 episode introducing it. It just shows how self-aware the humour is, by first baiting the audience into thinking “It’s another one of those shows… .-.” then surprising them and making fun of it. (tl;dr: so if you're planning to get into this show, be prepared for a little bit of confusion. if u want to understand every character fully, give everything some thought and it's actually quite meaningful)
The main appeal of this show is that it handles the relationship drama part of it really well. Its humour stems from how self-aware the show is to the many supposed clichés, making fun of it and deriving humour from that. (I kind of see elements of Konosuba’s humour in this show.) It also does the whole ‘misunderstandings’ thing better than most other shows by making light-hearted fun of it. I find it so funny because it makes fun of exactly what I LOATHE about many drama shows and actually making it work well.
See, misunderstandings in anime, especially in romance dramas, were something that I always hated to the core. It always annoyed me to no end when shows used 'misunderstandings' as a main driving point of its plot as an excuses to either lengthen itself or to drive its melodrama. Shows like the second season of Kimi ni Todoke has fueled my hate for this because it JUST isn't realistic, the character's constant beating around the bush and not noticing the most obvious things just annoys me at how un-humanlike the characters become because of it. The problem is that most of the time, their misunderstandings can all be fixed if the characters just calm the fuck down, sit down and talk it out... Shows like that just feel very unnecessarily dragged out, insincere and boring. Drilling the frankly petty misunderstandings into our heads and making it the main point of the show be the drama that comes from them honestly makes it emotionally exhausting to watch.
Of course, I have seen a small few anime that actually effectively used misunderstandings, but that’s hard to pull off, because you have to make the effort to make the misunderstandings feel genuinely realistic or relatable for the show to be actually be likable. (One example is Tsuki ga Kirei, I could get into why in another review)
However, when misunderstandings are used as a meta plot device to not only get great humour out of it, but also as a way to bond and develop characters, that’s good shit. Gamers! does it so well. Notice how really it doesn’t get sad and edgy all because of some stupid misunderstanding but it not only gets funnier, characters also know each other better and develop through those experiences.
Here are some other small examples of self-aware humour that I laughed way too hard at, which made fun of things other anime did badly:
1. Having Uehara as the intelligent, NOT dense character that actually knows what’s going on. The fact that he judges situations and can read people’s expressions (like a normal person would) is just hilarious. Viewers can really relate to him as he actually reads into things instead of being any other dense character that does not give anything a second thought.
2. The fact that Uehara and Keita consciously calls everyone into meetups to clear misunderstandings LIKE A NORMAL HUMAN WOULD DO. It’s so rewarding to see anime characters use common sense instead of beating around the bush.
3. Small things like the cliché-looking student council members of the other school or other blatant references to different clichés like Misumi Eiichi's little section on the last episode. XD
4. How the game club which was 'supposed' to be the main focus of the show completely became irrelevant later in the show.
5. The extremely amusing and exaggerated misunderstandings that thankfully were not unnecessarily over-complicated and edgy.
I'd give this show a strong 8.5/10
This show is great and it has some silly and lovable characters that unexpectedly develops through light-hearted drama and misunderstandings. The ending was an emotional pay-off and was greatly satisfying. Instead of being sad and edgy and unrealistic, it resolves all the romance and drama like a man, and in heartwarming and gratifying ways! You know a show is great when you actually like and care about every one of its characters. I have not even mentioned the "Gamer" part of this show, which I absolutely loved and related to. References everywhere, and it even teaches some really meaningful values for gamers at episode 4. Gaming is a huge theme (no shit) in Gamers! and fits into the contexts of the plot and characters so well: characters are bonded by and understands each other through the common interest of games. Maaaybe a little otaku-pandering but still relatable to most people. Yes there are some flaws that I won't mention here, but overall it's an extremely sweet and enjoyable show that can NEVER DESERVE THE “4” RATING. HMPH >.<
I’ll edit in more to this review when I can remember more necessary things to add. Right now I’m too tired to remember everything I wanted to say. This was basically a drunken rant at 3 am after getting slightly triggered by the bad ratings in mal and wanting to do this anime some good. Knowing the fact that I almost dropped this show and that more people like me will because of mal reviews, I wanted to do this anime some justice. This definitely deserves more praise imo!
All (321)FriendsAlso Available atRSS Feeds |
Oct 4, 2017
Alright, I almost dropped this anime from episode 1 because I got influenced by some reviews saying its 'cliché'. Note to self: Never read mal reviews before judging a show by myself ever again.
Just know that clichés do not automatically make a show bad. A very great example of a clichés done right is Konosuba, which utilises the isekai trope to create a wonderful and humorous parody of the actual genre, and in my opinion, another great example is Gamers!. This turned out to be one of the most impressionable romcoms for me. The reason I almost dropped this show was because I was overly judgemental ... 
Jun 21, 2017
Highly underrated show that exeeded my expectations imo. I think some ppl need to be more open-minded. Some of the MAL reviews that quickly judge shows with a bad score just by looking at the 'genres: Action, Magic, Fantasy, School' and the 'LN adaptation' tag. Don't get me wrong, I have watched a lot of these type of light novel adaptation shows and I did not have high expectations at all when I started the show. And I was right, episode 1 was really bad, full of the usual clichés and tropes. But if you look past that first episode, this show actually gets better exponentially. This show is
...
|
