Netoge no Yome wa Onnanoko ja Nai to Omotta?

After mustering up the courage to propose to a girl in an online game, naive otaku Hideki "Rusian" Nishimura is devastated when she flat-out rejects him. To make matters worse, the girl reveals that she is actually an older man in real life. With his dreams crushed and his heart broken, Rusian comes to an abrupt decision in the midst of his raging fit: he will never trust another girl in an online game again.

Years later, Rusian is now in a guild with three other players, one of whom possesses a female avatar by the name of Ako. Ako is deeply in love with Rusian and wants to marry him. Although he entertains the possibility that she might be a guy, Rusian accepts her proposal, claiming that her gender does not matter as long as she is cute in-game. However, after a discussion between the guild members that led to all of them having an offline meeting, Rusian finds out that Ako, along with the other members, is not just a girl but also his schoolmate.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Netoge no Yome wa Onnanoko ja Nai to Omotta? adapts the first 4 novels of Shibai Kineko's light novel series of the same title.

Episode Videos

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Adaptation:

Supporting

Yamashita, Seiichirou
Japanese

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Staff

Cook, Justin

Producer

Fukura, Kei

Producer

Herek, Samantha

Assistant Producer

Yanagi, Shinsuke

Director

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Opening Theme

"1st Love Story" by Luce Twinkle Wink☆ (eps 2-12)

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Ending Theme

	1: "1st Love Story" by Luce Twinkle Wink☆ (eps 1)
	2: "Zero Ichi Kiseki (ゼロイチキセキ)" by Yoshino Nanjo (eps 2-12)

Reviews

May 22, 2023

Aphasic_MAL

Recommended

I watched this anime in May 2023 and my God was it refreshing.

I'm not going to put icing on my words, the plot isn't great, a lot of plot points just get dropped after a few episodes. The plot isn't a literary master piece. But that's not what it's about for me.

I began watching anime back in 2016 and watching this anime was like opening a time capsule. This show captured every trope the typical male lead surrounded by females do stupid stuff while progressing the plot 1 step in 13 episodes really well.

From the art style and sound choices to the character writing and ...

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Sep 6, 2021

DeathlyPi9

Mixed Feelings

If you're looking for something to mix up the standard highschool club anime formula, you've come to the wrong place. A group of 4 nerds form a club based around their shared hobby, playing MMOs, and it proceeds pretty much how you might expect.

Thematically, the show is pretty basic. The overall message of the show is: Your relationships that you make with people online are real, but it's important recognize the difference between the real and virtual worlds. Ako and Nishimura are on opposite sides of this message at the start and I don't think Ako made much progress by the end.

The strongest aspect of ...

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Jun 9, 2023

OtakuIntellect96

Not Recommended

The main problem with this series is the female lead, Ako. The author could have just given her a blend of ditziness, personal insecurity, and shut-in tendencies. These traits would flesh her out, pretty well; give us reasons to root for her; and still have her fill the role that Ako is supposed to fill. Instead, what we get is a girl demonstrating serious signs of mental illness, which go largely unaddressed. The problem here is that neither the characters nor the story seem to take this issue seriously (or seriously enough, anyway). Consistently, they would try to address a problem in ... conversation, not really offer a proper solution, and would even sometimes get sucked into Ako's own twisted reasoning. As a result, the other characters (intentionally and unintentionally) encourage and reinforce aspects of her often unsettling behavior when what she needs is some combination of professional help and support from her new-found friend group in getting that help.

What's the story's solution to this very significant problem, though? They create a club where she can clock even more hours into the very thing she's already confused about. That's just brilliant. Unfortunately, even when the characters actually come up with some half-decent ideas, like actually getting her away from technology via the beach episode (because of course it was a beach episode), it's still built on top of the way they've already horridly mishandled the situation, thus far. Consequently, any supposed progress Ako makes through out the series requires some serious suspension of disbelief, and it really doesn't help that the main character, "Rusian," can't seem to decide whether Ako is his "wife" or if reality and the game are separate. Again, get this girl some professional help. What's worse is that one of the teachers and Ako's own mother (the adults in her life) should have been able to recognize, at least, some of the symptoms she's displaying and actually contribute a meaningful solution, which doesn't happen.

There's plenty of examples to list, but what are just some of Ako's symptoms? She's overly obsessive, possessive, jealous, and controlling; a natural shut-in; struggles to distinguish between fantasy and reality; goes on literal psychotic rants about how normies should die; and jumps on "Rusian" as a potential partner in a similar manner to abuse victims. Keep in mind her past experiences and that she struggles to distinguish between fantasy and reality. She technically is an abuse victim when you think about it, throwing herself at the first guy who was nice to her without regard for whether or not it might be some form of manipulation. More concerning is that a not insignificant portion of the audience seems to find Ako's behavior cute/charming, speaking more of society and its current mental health crisis than anything else (in my opinion). A contributing factor may have also been the music for this show, which tries to disguise how disturbing the whole situation is, but I digress.

Let me put out a challenge to anyone who thinks I'm overreacting. Go watch Welcome to the NHK and observe the main character, Tatsuhiro Satou, and all of his behaviors. It's not a 1-to-1, but watch closely enough and you'll find some very eerie comparisons between him and Ako. What is the major difference between these two series, though? NHK makes it very clear that Satou has a problem, takes it completely seriously, and makes you watch the consequences of his actions. As a result, it's not always the most satisfying series to watch, but that level of sincerity is what makes it great. Conversely, Ako is never taken seriously enough and will probably have to be cared for the rest of her life, despite what the series would have you believe.

The kind of behavior that Ako exhibits raises flags that - while laughed off in the show, at times - would carry down-right terrifying implications out in the real world, especially by anyone who isn't a cute anime girl. Over and over, I went from having a good laugh to feeling very uncomfortable, very quickly. If Ako were written and handled differently, the show would probably be a decent 6 out of 10 with its slice-of-life take on gaming, but Ako and all the problems surrounding the way she's written manage to taint the quality of every other part of the story, in drastic fashion, resulting in a badly written and executed product with a very confused message. If there's just one positive in this mess, it would be that this show is done so abhorrently that it can be used as an example of how not to handle mental illness in a piece of fiction (or real life). Even dumpster fires can sometimes be both entertaining and educational, after all. Otherwise, don't waste your time like I did.

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Poll: Netoge no Yome wa Onnanoko ja Nai to Omotta? Episode 3 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Stark700 - Apr 21, 2016	153 replies	by hich4n_ »» Oct 4, 5:21 AM
Poll: Netoge no Yome wa Onnanoko ja Nai to Omotta? Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 ) Stark700 - Jun 23, 2016	178 replies	by Losho »» Sep 29, 6:34 PM
Poll: Netoge no Yome wa Onnanoko ja Nai to Omotta? Episode 11 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Jun 16, 2016	83 replies	by vadoyager7 »» Sep 10, 7:05 PM
Poll: Netoge no Yome wa Onnanoko ja Nai to Omotta? Episode 10 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Jun 9, 2016	77 replies	by vadoyager7 »» Sep 3, 9:33 PM
Poll: Netoge no Yome wa Onnanoko ja Nai to Omotta? Episode 9 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Jun 2, 2016	119 replies	by JohnZ_GGs »» Aug 25, 2:21 AM

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