Review:
There’s no mistaking we’ve come along way from the original set-up of Keita being asked to join the Gamers Club at school. That isn’t to say that every step has been good and right now I’m wondering how we got where we are, given if someone described this episode to me and told me I should watch the show I would probably laugh at them, and yet somehow this is oddly compelling.
I think it is the slow boiling effect in that they’ve just slowly turned up the craziness and now we’re fully immersed in this ridiculous love pentagon thing and I’m not sure even the characters remember who they think likes who at this point.
Still, the two characters who stood out to me this episode for contrasting reasons were Chiaki and Aguri. Prior to this episode, if you had asked me which of these two characters I liked the most I wouldn’t have picked Aguri. Yet, coming out of episode 10, she’s the clear winner for one simple and obvious reason.
This episode sees Chiaki waiting around for Keita to help her untangle her part in the story and still fail to actually accept her own feelings. Essentially, she’s playing the damsel in distress and making no moves of her own to get to a happy ending. On the other hand, while Aguri is making no progress with her actual boyfriend, she stands up for herself and abandons a meeting with a ‘friend’ from middle-school when they start insulting gamers. Aguri acts with integrity and determination and sticks to her own convictions. Admittedly, she follows this up with crying and running so it isn’t a perfect character moment, but of the three girls this episode, Aguri is the one who has the most agency as a character and it was really great to see.
As for Tendou, well, she hasn’t really had a part in this story for awhile and her most compelling moments this episode were quite literally phoned in. Hopefully she gets to step up again in the next episode.
It is a bizarre little story and while I’m caught up in it now it is becoming increasingly difficult to think that I would recommend it after it is complete.
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Thanks,
Karandi James.
Ah gamers!, playing the biggest game of all…..love and life xDD. That’s how I see it. Yeah Aguri has really took off character wise, I still prefer poor old Mori. The poor girl can’t catch a break. I’m not sure of Tendou. Her presence feels like she is phoned almost everytime, and her “affections” towards Amano seems….stalkerish.
I kind of have to agree that Tendou’s affections toward Amano are probably the least realistic part of this story. It really exists just to keep the plot in motion which is kind of a shame given all the other characters seem to be developing genuine relationships.