Gamers!

What is the meaning of gamer? If we go to our favorite culture dictionary, we will consider a gamer someone that plays video-games. Is it the main topic of this anime? Sadly, it isn't. The video-game idea is irrelevant here unless that we associate the game concept with a relationship. In that case, we can say that the plot of this anime is a relationship game and a "gamer" interprets, acts, and plays on that relationship game. The goal of the game could be ending with someone, maybe love, etc. I can give several convenient titles for this anime, "Misunderstandings," "The mess," "Mistakes," "Misconceptions." Allthese titles point to the same problems in a relationship and how messy a relationship can be. It would be wrong waiting to see a full-time anime about "video-games," tournaments, and more video-games. If you just watch this anime for that reason, you will receive a big blow on your face, you will lose all your health points, and you will end very disappointed with a big question ¿And the games? Story: 7/10 Relationships are complicated and love ones are even worse. How many times have we seen an anime about them? If you answer just this one, I will call you Pinocchio. This anime created some relationships from a simple topic the "video-games." The characters have something in common, video-games or persons that played them. These characters will try harder to find more about other players because they have THAT something in common (games). That's the main story of this anime. Keita the typical gaming freak meets another gaming freak called Karen. Call it destiny, cliché, lack of argument she felt something for Keita. For me, both them are the first gamers. The goal is that they end together. During this adventure, other "gamers" joined this messy match and added chaos with some alternative endings. For example, Keita should end with Chiaki, etc. All this mess is titled "Gamers!" an amusing comedy with funny moments and some frustrating events but enjoyable at the end. I know, Gamers' story isn't that amazing. After the half of the series, we can consider it average and repetitive. Also, several persons expressed unsatisfaction of the same misunderstanding recycling and how it only gets worse. From my perspective, that is the main argument of the series if you remove this "mess" we will end with an empty casket that would talk about video-games, a gaming club but won't be an enjoyable comedy. Besides, no matter if the argument is repetitive we can associate it to the insecurity found in every relationship. They are average students without any relationship experience, they will make several mistakes and will tend to overthink everything. Characters 7/10 We have five main characters. They share the ability to mistake relationships from bad judgment. They don't have any love experience. They will overlook every decision for that reason all ends in chaos. Keita Amano, the conventional freak. We can see him as a zero at the left. None notice about him and he lives in a gaming world. Insecure, shy, but cares for his new friends. Tendou Karen, the freakish idol. She is a beautiful face, desired student, popular, and with a hidden gaming addiction. From a relationship perspective, she is very insecure and timid. Chiaki Hoshinomori, the last freak. We can consider her a secondary freak. She is similar to Keita, they like the same and do the same, but they have several differences when they talk about games. She also is the last acting. Tasuku Uehara, the ex-freak. A reformed "Keita." He was like Keita but changed and became popular. He wants to help Keita, but he overthinks everything and ends creating a bigger mess. Aguri, the insecure lover or better the ex-freak lover. She has a particular personality, but she is very uncertain of her relationship and sees a cheating ghost every time. Even if she doesn't like games, she enjoys being around gamers. All these characters have a twisted insecurity that keeps adding gasoline to the fire but thanks to that we can see some hilarious moments. Sometimes we want to hit the screen with our head but overall the moments are good. Art 7/10 The art isn't that amazing, and there are some angles where we can see some ugly spots or weird faces. In general, the art is acceptable. They focus on the characters, their faces, and details to create an impact on the expressions depending on the situation. The palette is the same most of the time as the lighting model, so they used a bright light with a pastel combined palette. In general, the art is acceptable for a comedy. Sound 8/10 The sound mix helps on the situations and adds tension when needed but also focus on the awkward moments, so it helps with the plot and levels the climax. The OP and ED are good, I loved more the ED, but both are very catchy. Enjoyment 8/10 No matter if the problems are repetitive the show offers several hilarious scenes. The insecurity of this group is presented to the audience with a combination between mess and comedy. This concept works well with the storytelling, a good pacing, and produces a twisted love comedy that we will enjoy. Overall 8/10 Finally, I want to apologize. I overused the word "GAME" maybe you are exhausted from it, but I am sure this simple messy story will bring a smile on your face. It isn't the best comedy out there, but it is acceptable. The characters have their moments, and their insecurity is used to create some epic events. I am sure that you will enjoy some of them. Give it a try.

*Review may contain minor spoilers* Man this anime makes me so angry.. Story 1/10 there is the ''loser" who gets asked to join the game club by the most popular girl in school, once upon going to check out the game club, there are a few very talented people and they won alot of prizes etc, So you might think this anime will be very nice about competitive gaming. NO IT IS NOT!! From ep3 till the end gaming made barely an appearance, It was just a pentagon of love and misunderstanding about who loves/cheat on each other.. And it didn't even have a real ending man.. Art 4/10The art is nothing special only minor point i have to say here is that sometimes the chars look like robots, like when they zoom out on walking scenes etc there arms move like robots, wtf is this sh*t? can't you make them walk like normal? Sound 4/10 the characters sound like they are screaming all the time with there annoying voices, 3 different ending songs also? why? Character 1/10 Like i said in the story, they were really good at competitive gaming, but then it turns out all this anime was just about pentagon of love and misunderstandings , no background on gaming, the mc is a total loser who can't do anything, he even sucks a** at games.. Enjoyment 1/10 Man what is this F**king piece of sh*t anime, it made me so angry, you have such a cool 'story' to work with and you just gonna change everything for a boring love/slice of life/school anime full of misunderstandings and endless screaming? cmn.. Overall 2.2/10 This anime is a ''scam'' and just uses the gamer tag to draw in more people, it has nothing to do with gaming except for the occasional gaming talk they have followed up by misunderstandings about them love triangle. Please do yourself a favor and never watch this. also please do not make a season 2.

STORY: 8/10 CHARACTER: 9/10 ART: 7/10 SOUND: 8/10 ENJOYMENT: 10/10 OVERALL: 8/10 Funny enough ‘Gamers’ is NOT an anime about Games, rather it’s an anime about the people who play Games! The show is more a Slice of life Romcom about teenagers where the story just focuses on their lives at High school and their interactions with one other which may disappoint some viewers due to its Soap Opera-ish vibe. (If you are looking for something similar but with more gaming involved, check out ‘Netoge No Yome Wa Onnanoko Ja Nai To Omotta?’) I too was upset upon learning this, but the anime brilliantly defends itself by delivering spontaneously strong, albeitsometimes cliched Comedy! By not resorting to a Harem anime like everybody else, it’s a breath of fresh air to have 2 main guys rather than 1 and all girls. The 1st episode itself foreshadows uniqueness as the show deliberately sets up a Generic Romcom setting where the MC is invited to a Gaming club by a beautiful girl and the other characters presented clearly looked like the shows main cast. Only to swerve all of us towards the end by having the MC be like ‘Nah, this isn’t for me’! Realizing the show had the balls to create a ‘fake cast’ of characters just for 1 Joke meant I was in store for something Awesome! And I wasn’t disappointed! Another thing I liked was the shows effort of making fun of the Harem genre itself. We actually have a character who calls upon this in one episode! The same character even plots to force a Harem on one of the MC’s which ended up rebounding horribly! ‘Gamers’ uses an old exaggeration of an over the top love triangles which gets everyone confused and misinformed, thus resulting into utter chaos! (The show bravely points it out to us from time to time) You have things like characters hearing only the worst parts of a conversations to someone suppressing important info just to protect another character’s public image which may look frustrating, but it was fantastically executed! All the characters are genuinely interesting by managing to stand out via their personalities. We have our simple looking Amano, who’s very bad when it comes to judgements due to his uncertainties. Nevertheless, he’s a good MC since he’s peculiarly zealous about certain type of games and will fight ‘’verbally’’ tooth and nails to defend his point despite sucking at playing games! He manages to come across very kind to others and it’s his infectious passion for games that resulted into Tendou falling head over heels for him! Tendou herself is a big gaming fan (in secret) so others simply can’t understand her infatuation for Amano which results into Tendou losing her ‘Highschool Dream Girl’ image. (Being REJECTED by a Nobody really hurt her image at school!) Even though she doesn’t do much later, her depiction of a major crush was humourlessly presented to us which never got tiring. After all this is how a person with a real crush acts! The person goes through unstable amount of emotions without ever expressing it out loud. Uehara is another character who comes off looking cool but isn’t as smart as he thinks! Often a prey to his own schemes due to bad decisions, results in being the root for the whole group problems! Aguri bonds nicely with Amano and she’s all cute and innocent while Chiaki turns out to be even a bigger Gaming nerd than the MC himself! I liked how her story went along with the main arc and whenever she said ‘Desu Desu’. These 5 characters provide us with the bulk of relatable Comedy in a hilarious and ridiculous manner that will have you LOLing pretty hard! Animation is pretty basic, though colourful and the character designs are by the numbers. Both the OP and ED were a stand out with very catchy music and bright visuals which is appreciated with great Voice Acting from the cast for both Subs and Dubs. The opening video boasts wonderful ingenuity by showcasing countless parodies of video games like Mario and Street Fighter and the work done on facial expressions were superb! Despite its flaws, I found the anime funny and entertaining. Episode 5, now remembered as ‘The Mother of All Misunderstandings!’ was hands down the best episode the anime has to offer as it managed to deliver a perfect storm of emotions ranging from Jealousy, Love, Envy, Confusion, Shock, etc in a Comedic fashion! (I loved how the MC was totally oblivious to all it!) This reminds me of a movie called ‘Crazy, Stupid, Love’ which pulled of a similar scene of misinterpretations by Comedic means. But exactly like the movie, this brilliant plot unravelled too quickly as the anime failed to entertain us on this level again! The anime tries to repeat itself with the follow up of a Board game, but it just didn’t have the same kick to it! And add in the pretty Meh ending, hurts your final thoughts about the show. Still the characters had their own side plots which were nicely demonstrated though the interactions between them remained the highlight of this anime. Certainly, recommend it to everyone as it’s one of the good anime of this year!

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 judgementalon 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!

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