Review of Recovery of an MMO Junkie

Story From a story perspective MMO Junkie is a well paced one, it’s just 10 episodes too so it’s such a quick series to complete and get through. And because of its 10 episodes the story really nails down MoriMori pretty well. She’s our main character, and it’s about her really trying to find herself again, and take that next step to find love as well. MMO Junkie takes a bunch of genres like Romance and Slice of Life and somehow takes that and blends it into gaming and creates a romance anime with a modern twist to it. It’s unique because this kind of storyhasn’t really been told yet either, but more on that in a moment. I really enjoyed this story because it felt natural, and because of that everything was so fluid in its delivery. The voice actor for Moriko was just so fantastic in portraying this character. She’s a spaz, a person who has social anxiety and probably has experienced some really heavy stuff in her life. Mamiko Noto was just terrific in portraying in this character, and it does shine a light on anxiety and other heavy things that aren’t talked about. People don’t understand social anxiety, and as a person who has social anxiety, and believe me legit social anxiety, this anime really understands social anxiety and how it manifests itself in just a small corner of society. Moriko to me is someone I can truly relate with throughout the story because I am right there with her. Everything in this anime she goes through, I’ve at the very least experienced before. So because of this, this anime holds a special place in my heart, and I want to thank Rin Kokuyou for making this story and characters, and for Kazuyoshi Yaginuma for beautifully directing it. And to everyone else working on this anime, thank you.

One of the things I find so great about the story is the fact it’s so relatable and it’s cute because of that. Let’s take for example the use of the MMO in this story, and how they use that to make the character relatable, and more human. Our main character, MoriMori, is a 30 year old woman, yet she plays a hot guy on an online MMO and roleplays as him. Now how many times have you guys or girls done this? I’m going to guess that if you’ve played an MMO it’s likely you have done it at least one time before. The show uses this extremely well known thing in the fandom of MMO to reward the viewers who have played MMO’s or videos games where they’ve roleplayed as a character to make our main character seem that much more relatable. But let’s also take for example some other real world elements that are at the forefront of gaming culture. Loot Boxes and Microtransactions, and no, I’m not here to complain about EA or GTA Online, I’m instead going to not talk about that and tell you why this is brilliant them implementing these elements into the story. Through small moments in the dialogue and sometimes visually, MoriMori will go and buy this points to buy Loot Boxes for the game she plays. There is even an episode where she decides to fix her appearance and she equates accessory prices to how many loot boxes she could have gotten. It’s a great way to endear the character towards the viewer as like I said, this is something that’s been HUGE in the news for the last two years, and right now may be at it’s fever pitch. This story is one that 10 years ago could have never been told, and I’m glad that this story has been told so well.

Characterizations

In MMO Junkie, the characters of this series have to be a key focus of your vision. Not just because it’s a Slice of Life, but because it’s a Romance. You see, I think Romance anime need to have a couple things to be well received. What you really need to focus on first is giving your characters a sense of realism, like they could exist. Because how many anime have you watched that has a romance where the characters aren’t really all there, they’re just hollow bodies and the dialogue they speak tries to fill that void. But MMO Junkie has characters you want to like, you remember their names and their roles. How many character names do you remember in Just Because and Girls’ Last Tour? The last thing I look for with romance though is if these characters grow and change, are they human? This could be something as simple as the character thinking they’re undesirable at first, but as time goes on they realize they are desirable. MMO Junkie has this in many ways, Moriko when being caught with a friend runs away because she thinks that her being around people would cause a burden. And honestly, that hits the relatability factor with me here too, as I have felt this way before. But characters that grow are incredibly detrimental, and there aren’t that many great romance in anime like this, so I welcome it.

Art

The art for MMO Junkie surprised me, as just looking at it you can tell it’s not meant to be this crazy detail filled rich world. But the backgrounds while sometimes just being static images to save on cash, there are also moments where the backgrounds are really detail. For example, in one of the episodes MoriMori is in front of a store, and the windows are blurred out, but just enough to see what’s on display in those windows… handbags! There is also the convenience store in this show which really shows that while incredible detail wasn’t something they wanted to completely focus on, they did it to make this world come to life. Another aspect I loved is character designs though, they are really great for this show. MoriMori’s lifeless cold eyes really shows that her character isn’t in the right head space emotionally, and on top of that her design of looking like a slob with unkempt eyebrows and bed head really fill out her character visually. Even when she decides to change her look there are great moments with the art, as MoriMori only dresses up for certain people in different ways. For example let’s take Koiwai, and Sakurai. MoriMori usually dresses up and goes out of her way to look good for Sakurai, while with Koiwai she still wants to look good, but doesn’t put in near as much effort as she does with Sakurai.

But for the MMO side of things, it looks great as well. Hayashi and Lily’s character designs change throughout the series except for the bracelets which they both vowed to never remove, and are there until the very last episode. Another thing I liked about those two characters thought is that their costumes changed to represent, I assume, their experience level. They don’t remain static throughout the whole series at all, and change pretty regularly. I think this is a nice touch, as you change gear in MMO’s pretty regularly. As for the design of the MMO world, it’s not anything special, and I do wish there was some more depth added to it. As is there is really only one episode where you get a feel for its depth, from then on it’s kinda shoved to the side in favor of the real world and all of that. Overall though, I think the art direction for MMO Junkie was terrific, probably better than a lot of anime this season like Inuyashiki. I would put this right up there with Magus’ Bride though, but that’s not saying too much as there just weren’t many anime that were visually great this season.

Animation

Surprisingly here, the animation is very good for this anime. It fits the comedic style it’s going for, let’s take for example the facial expressions of this series. MoriMori who is playing games practically all day, so to me the way she reacts to things in her facial expressions are really well done here. When Lily-san and Hayashi give each other gifts, she is practically on the edge of her seat, she is invested in this emotionally. Her facial expressions in this scene are exquisite, she is blushing and she’s staring at the screen in anticipation. There aren’t any unique facial expressions here, it’s mostly one of anticipation. Which to me is how I would be reacting in this situation, I’m eagerly awaiting a response just like MoriMori is. In other parts of the show though, we have great moments like Hayashi and Lily under the sea and how things are animated there do seem a little cheap, but even then they put enough into it to make out individual details. Things like bubbles and fish in the background really help make this scene animation wise. Another good one where on paper the animation isn’t anywhere where it needs to be is the scene where they are training against a giant rat or gerbil, I can’t remember which. But they re-use a pretty major key animation multiple times. The animation that’s reused is the one where the rat attacks Hayashi, but instead of this being a scene that’s serious, it’s comedic, so the re-use of the animation doesn’t come off as bad as it would otherwise. Overall, it’s pretty good animation everything considered, but you can easily nitpick flaws in most episodes, so don’t expect Evangelion levels of detail, but at the same time don’t go in expecting something awful like Black Clover.

English Dub

Net-juu no Susume is of course licensed by FUNimation, which means it’s apart of FUNimation’s FUNimation Now program. FUNimation Now is basically FUNimation’s version of Simuldub, which aims to dub anime with only a short delay to when it airs in Japan, usually just a two week delay. For this anime, the dub is basically your standard FUNimation affair, it isn’t bad by any means, we have great talent like; Aaron Dismuke (Chihiro from Sankarea), and Josh Grelle. But I think this anime was just simply miscast. We have Terri Doty playing our MC MoriMori, and it just doesn’t fit her. And honestly, Terri isn’t a bad voice actor and she does a great job acting the lines. But when I think of MoriMori I don’t think of Terri Doty, I think a more matured voice like Terri’s but a little more smooth, if that makes sense. But I think this criticism can be leveled at other characters like Lily-san and Koiwai. The way they were cast, the voices just don’t match what I think they would match in my head. So in my opinion, stick with the Japanese subtitles, as you’ll find it just flows better. But don’t get me wrong, the English Dub is fine if you want to just experience the story without reading, but if you want to go that extra mile for a good experience, then subtitles are for you.

Score

The score for this anime is done by Conisch, who is has worked on Appleseed, Hetalia, Yu-Gi-Oh Zexals! (Hurray for Yu-Gi-Oh). And first off I got to say, this guy did a really decent job with the score. It isn’t anything that will blow you away by any means, but it will certainly impress you. The score for this anime is really calm though, as to fit the comedy style that this anime obviously has. But what surprised me even more is that even during small dramatic scenes, it didn’t really lay in on the score at all. Instead there are scenes where the score isn’t even noticeable until it’s pointed out. I think this was done to give the dialogue more room to breath and have more impact. As technically, the dialogue here isn’t really anything new, as this is a romance comedy. I think scoring it the way he scored it was perfect for the series, and while there were no scenes in particular that carried them, I don’t think it was meant to. This is almost certainly a show that is scored minimalist for a lot of scenes where you’d think otherwise. I think people can really appreciate the opening and ending songs though, as I did too. Saturday Night Question is undoubtedly behind Inuyashiki for best opening of this season. It’s fun, catchy and doesn’t take itself too seriously. To contrast that, the ending song is your more straightforward Alternative Rock style of rock music we’ve come to enjoy from Japan. It even has a kickass solo in it that I love too. So yeah, I really like the score for this anime.

Final Rating: 8/10