Gamers!

First review, but I felt like some of this needed to be said and I felt I've seen enough.
This does contain some spoilers, I suppose.

Gamers has a cool premise: modern gaming, where there's a school club for it and the leader is a popular and pretty blonde girl who tries to find other gamers and recruit them - but the main lead says no to joining!

The first few episodes seemed pretty decent and I was enjoying the show. After a few episodes, things got really frustrating. The show steered away from video games and gaming culture for the most part and turned into an ... extremely petty and frustrating love drama between the characters. They are all suspicious of each other liking someone else and instead of, y'know, just talking to each other and actually communicating, they have obscured POVs and do petty things to find out if their hunch is right, and, without actual proof, they draw conclusions over the dumbest and simplest things. I thought it would all stick to one, maybe two episodes, but it went on longer than it should have and is still going.

I tried to give it a chance after a couple of bad episodes. I was really excited to watch it and thought it was really cute and enjoyable at first, but the plot just went completely downhill the last few episodes that it became unwatchable. I am only being this hard on it since it's a 12 episode anime. That's short, and if you have several bad episodes within that.. that really takes the quality down several notches.
Instead of the characters developing, it's as if it's the characters just became worse - and not in an interesting way either. They went from pretty cool, smart characters to all of them just making piss poor decisions and failing so hard at communicating that it was cringe-worthy.

I understand that every plot has at least one conflict, but the kind of conflict they went with is very poor, annoying, and unfitting for what the show could/should have been about. There's so much they could have done with this show but instead of sticking to the show's actual theme, they chose to plop in a bunch of negative, unnecessary love drama.. with the odd video game reference here and there to remind you of the title, I guess.

It'd be nice if the plot picked up again and became more about gaming again, but I couldn't stand to stick around. I understand one of the themes of this anime is romance as well, which is fine, but the fact that they made all the characters so painfully stupid and oblivious is extremely unrealistic - even for naive highschoolers.


Other than my disappointment for the plot (so far) and character development (or lack there-of/character decline), the music is decent. The opening is adorable, and the animation itself is decent.


If the show does improve, I'll be happy, but its annoying fall-off in the middle (so far, anyway) is too frustrating to endure for me and seems to steer away from the original premise of what was making the show so charming.

Gamers is honestly a show that made me scratch my head more than I realized. As a gamer myself, this anime really feels relatable at heart on occasions because of its concepts. However, what really follows is a rough adaptation that translated into a questionable story. It ended up being an anime that I can’t fully say it’s appreciable for what it had to offer. And that’s too bad really.

Based on the light novel of the same name, Gamers stood out as an anime at first for me just by its title and it seemed like a show that I felt comfortable with. However, what ... this series actually presents is far more just about gamers gathering together to play games. It became a show with romance themes, misunderstandings, and drama shenanigans that really took relationships to a strange level. On paper, the show’s premise sounds pretty simple as main male protagonist Keita Amano is invited by the prettiest girl of the school Karen, to join her video game club. What follows is a string of misunderstandings that ended up being messy.

Let’s get the obvious elephant in the room out of the way. Gamers is not recommendable if you have an obvious dislike for rom-com. From the very start, it’s pretty straightforward as the anime jumps right into the main picture with the characters and their roles. Karen is a character that I found to be easy to accept as she is friendly and simple to get along with. What might rub people in the wrong way is her obsession with video games and more so, her obsession with Amano. The anime makes it clear that she likes Amano and extends beyond just the idea of video games. For Amano himself, it seems he has a mutual attraction towards Karen although has a hard time to confess the truth. Unlike Karen, he’s also more timid and unpopular at school. Drama follows the both of them as ship teases begins to develop between various characters.

Beyond Amano and Karen, we also got Aguri and Tasuku, a couple with very sociable personalities. They bring in the comedic drama as misunderstandings are often created by plot circumstances and their own personal delusions. Individually, Aguri is also quite an energetic character with a friendly personality. Similarly, Tasuku finds himself easy to make friends with others and very outgoing. Both of their live are intersected with Karen and Amano as the story picks up and they get involved in drama and the misunderstandings. For me, this shows draws and sells its humor through the misunderstandings. Unfortunately, I can’t really say the anime’s plot work overall from this formula. It’s very formulaic and predictable as almost every episode feels the same. You may think there are developments between the main characters but in reality, the anime doesn’t do a clever job at progressing the plot. While I appreciate how the anime tries to sell its comedy with character pairings, it’s really no different in the end with plot resolutions. Beyond the humor, there is some actual drama if you count Chiaki’s role in the show. The character chemistry between her and Amano occasionally has more emotions although is still often downplayed quickly because of how lighthearted this anime is. Surprisingly, I found her sister to be more likable as she seems like a fun person to hang out with and talk to. The sibling relationship Hoshinomori is surprisingly realistic as the two can be easily relatable by their roles in this show.

If you’re a fan of video games, you’ll notice a lot of references. These range from console games, PC gaming, dating sims, and even arcade games. Thanks to these ideas, I think some people may find this anime likable even with the lackluster plot. The idea of gaming is explored with social norms and relatable with the main characters. However, do realize that the anime is very lighthearted and doesn’t really take a serious approach at exploring the cultural ideas of gaming. It’s more of an anime that deals with comedic relationship pairings in order to draw out a casual audience. The lack of background storytelling (with exception of Tasuku and Aguri) also holds this anime back at times. To me, Gamers is an anime that’s easy to accept but hard to embrace.

Adapted by Pine Jam, this anime originally had my worries due to its lack of promotions. More importantly, their previous project was pretty unnoticeable for its technical quality. However, my worries quickly died down after seeing the first few episodes. It’s not at a level that will make your jaws drop but definitely consistent for a light novel adaptation. What really draws the audience into the technical quality is perhaps the character expressions. The biggest sell of this show is the humor so it’s important to capture those expressions. Thankfully, I found myself laughing on occasions when characters react as result of misunderstandings, drama, and other shenanigans. The character designs themselves are also appealing enough to make them stand out; except with the case of Amano as he looks like a generic Average Joe. Unfortunately, this anime doesn’t escape the fan service pit so expect some episodes to have it with suggestive camera angles and swimsuits.

As a lighthearted anime like Gamers, the theme songs aren’t particular noticeable until you realize their style. While it’s not truly avant-garde, it does take an approach that will make the audience talk about especially with its catchy OP song. The gaming references extends to its soundtrack elements as it sometimes uses a similar style for its OST. Still, character voice mannerism is rather moderate as none of them really stand out. Aguri’s accent also took me some time to get used to as she sounds like a kid at times.

Should you watch Gamers? Honestly, it really depends but the anime felt more like a big ship tease rather than an appealing show of sharp writing. The comedy is the main selling factor so if humor is your cup of tea, then this anime will be one that you’ll remember that by. As for the storytelling? It really doesn’t do any favors when the show is like a loop that doesn’t progress the main plot altogether. The anime itself is also an incomplete adaptation as the novels are ongoing. So in essence, it’s rather open ended. For gamers and anime fans, this show is fun to watch when you’re bored and need time to pass by. But for what it really delivered, it’s an anime that I found face palming myself more than laughing.

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." All ... these 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.

Typically I can't even decide if I'll like an anime after just 4 episodes but this time I NEED to write this review in order to persuade people into watching this.

So, first time I saw this I was convinced it's some kind of copy of "Netoge no Yome wa Onnanoko ja Nai to Omotta?". They're both basically about the same thing (slice of life in a video game club) but their execution is way different.

This anime basically completes netoge in some areas and it seems to explore the social aspect of video game geeks. At the same time, it seems to be a manifesto for ... playing games the fun way. Nowadays, with the popularization of eSports a lot of people have started to play games in a competitive manner that, in my and apparently this anime's opinion, spoils the fun.

I'm a sucker for good romcoms that don't have a linear, boring boy-meets-girl-they-fall-in-love-funny-stuff-happens, and this seems to hit the right spot. It's kinda underrated in my opinion, but it can be argued that this anime formula is already overused. Still, I believe it's worth your time.

DEFINITELY give this a try.

Gamers! is a bog-standard, uninspired romance-comedy anime that tries nothing new and fails at every stride it takes, not to mention its offensively bad representation of the gaming community.

Story: 2
Have you watched a rom-com anime before? If you answered yes, then there is no need for you to watch this show. It's your generic story of a loser, socially awkward MC that gets attention from the hottest girls in his school for no apparent reason. The relationship webs between characters are poorly done and only arise because the characters are too stupid to make logical decisions when it comes to their relationships. Ultimately, it fails ... in making the connection between these realistic, therefore defeating one of the main purposes of a rom-com.... the romance.

Oh and about the comedy, it's awful. The only time I laughed while watching this show was at myself after a joke I made about one of the characters playing a what was essentially CS:GO. The comedic timing is way off and characters have no gimmicks to play off of one another.

Art: 3
Think anime. Think anime protagonist. Now you know what our main character looks like. Character designs are bland, boring and just plain bad. However the animation itself is good and the intro has great animation featuring the main characters as if they were inside various types of games.

Sound: 5
Nothing special, background music fits the tone of situations well and the intro and ending are decent. Nothing much more to say.

Characters: 1
This is where the show is most insulting. Not only are the characters generic, underdeveloped, having no rhyme or reason as to why they like the other characters, but the misrepresentation of gamers is what really ruins the charters. You will not find a single gamer in this world that is anything like most of the main cast. They are gamers for the sake of the plot and are given no reason as to why they started playing video games in the first place, which could have given a nice conflict in ideologies which the show tried to do... yet failed.

Enjoyment: 2
There's not much to like at all about this show, if you have seen one rom-com anime, you've seen Gamers!. Do not bother watching, I've done the dirty work for you in order to write this review.

Overall: 2
---DO NOT WATCH---
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

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, albeit ... sometimes 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!

"Missunderstandings" everywhere. You could basically sum up the whole show with these two words. To cut to the chase, the characters are really bad and 1-dimensional. This was one of many griping issues that was bugging me while watching this show; the characters are all dumb/intentionally idiotic (and I don’t mean this lightly), and the cast consists of your run-of-the-mill cliche character tropes you’ll find in any romcom anime. You’ll have your "wimpy loser MC” who is voiced by your average female shounen VA, the "prettiest girl in class that has a crush on the wimpy MC” cause for SOME REASON wimps are chick magnets, ... the "annoying girl with the annoying voice" (you’ll know which one), the "dude that is really popular but likes to hangout with loser MC", and the list goes on.

To add on top of the lame cast, the show never seems to go anywhere. The only thing that seems to be driving the plot forward would be the “misunderstandings” that would occur between two of the characters. This misunderstand could be anything: Character A was caught being close to Character B, Character B shares a drink with Character C and Character A sees this and is surprised that B and C are close (even though in reality it was mutual and not in a way of showing lovely emotions towards each other), Character C thinks Character A hate them thus undergoes depression, THE LOST GOES ON AND IT’S ANNOYING! The whole foundation of the plot in Gamers are the misunderstandings that happen in the show, it’s the only thing moving the plot. Forget good writing, forget good drama, forget good comedy, they were basically grabbing shit outta there asses and hoping anything could help move the plot forward. What a joke.

Rant out of the way, I'd like to say a few things: I don't have a clue as to why I stuck with this show for 5 tremendously bad episodes and I guess I was really hoping I'd actually get something good outta this show. Instead of romance and comedy, I got stale jokes and bad writing. Basically unoriginal cliche romcom horse arse. To be honest, the thing that drove me to stop watching this show the most was the characters. The characters were so bad it got unbearable; I was at a point in the show that I didn’t care about the plot anymore and was just focusing on how utterly terrible the characters were. It was just so...BAD! Words can’t describe how miserable each episode was, watching as the characters go on their daily lives of looping through the same problems over and over again and never learning. The characters have peas for brains! As for the art, it was mediocre AT BEST but wasn't too bad. I’d expect better quality though, the colors and designs of the setting and characters were bland and boring to look at. The Sound wasn't too bad either but not noticably great, though I did kinda enjoy the OP. The OP was catchy and I enjoyed the references to other games (such as PUBG, Super Smash Bros, and Undertale). Besides all of that though, this show could be summed up as a terrible mess or the crap I take after eating the local Chipotle burrito. I don't recommend this show to anyone who wants REAL romance with an ACTUAL plot, but if you like romcom cliches then go ahead and watch.

*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 4/10 ...
The 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.

There is absolutely no way people can be as clueless and absolutely pathetic as these kids are. It's impossible. The amount of trivial misunderstandings in this anime is criminal. Every single conflict could easily be solved with a normal civilized conversation, with questions being asked between two people for clarification of what they meant.

I understand the whole "highschooler logic" thing where everyone gets confused and they don't understand emotions and whatever. But come on. This is going way too far.

Other than the inept communication ability of all the main characters, the anime is alright. Art is good, music is fine, the plot is ... fine too. The communication factor is just too big a problem for me to enjoy it.

The center of videogame stories are almost often gaming prowess of some schmuck who can go hayaku. But there is another important aspect that is not usually touched on: how videogames affects our day to day interactions and how it opens up a whole new way of forming bonds. There's a reason why MMO players say "Came for the game, stayed for the community." It's a beautiful sentiment that captures the often unheralded but nonetheless important aspect of gaming in today's society.

I'm happy to say that Gamers understands that aspect and struggles to make it the core of the series. While the characters right now ... may feel like it'll just fill the check-boxes of typical high school stock models, this series can get by with simplistic characterizations because its potential lies in the character interactions more than anything. This is a celebration of gaming as a community after all.

So far, however, Gamers is an anime you wouldn't feel bad missing out on. It has shown lopsided execution with a penchant for slapstick humor that can grow old easily, especially if its not your type of humor. The artstyle is less-detailed which enables more fluid animation but it's largely centered around the aforementioned slapstick comedy and the OST is nothing standout.

But the anime is not without potential, despite its abysmal first episode which I feel I must warn you about. How it goes about fulfilling that makes or breaks the series.

Happy TI7 everyone.

TNC! Tangerine Chicken for the win!

misunderstandings and really awkward, awfully written characters! nice bait and switch with the gaming theme btw. i really appreciate how this turned into yet another terrible, cliche-ridden, flavorless romcom after like 3 episodes and completely threw away the idea of actually being about games at all. it's so ridiculously convoluted and over the top with the constant misunderstandings (that would instantly be solved by any single character actually acting like a human being) that it's actually somewhat memorable/noteworthy. noteworthy for being shitty, but still.

but seriously, why is this show called "Gamers!"? the show has almost nothing to do with games at this point, and as ... a """"gamer"""", i can't say that any of the characters are particularly relatable. probably because they all have a deadly combination of fetal alcohol syndrome + terminal aspergers and i don't. that and i also didn't have 3 obvious girlfriend candidates and a wide social circle in high school. i also actually played videogames, rather than spending every day poorly handling relationship issues, huffing paint, and making unfunny, forced game references. wow, a character got upset and randomly blurted out the konami code! hilarious! this is the pinnacle of comedy! what's next, a character becoming so happy that they can't help but shout "THE CAKE IS A LIE!"?

any time they do actually talk about games, it makes me cringe so hard i feel like i'm going to implode. they're playing the mario kart arcade game and MC gets an item that apparently has a 50% chance of blowing up everyone around him and a 50% chance of blowing himself up. after this is explained to him, the blonde girl says "it's really hard to use on this map!" .....what? why would the map have even the tiniest bearing on how difficult it is to use? ?????????????????? nice show. totally wasn't written by a 40 year old that only plays a mobage once a week.

i feel like people get so caught up in praising this show for the MC not immediately accepting the club invite (so unique!!!!) that they're able pretend like the show didn't immediately turn into a cliche factory afterward. i turned my brain off as soon as i saw bridge scene in episode 2 or 3 where MC is vehemently defending a girl he has talked to for all of 5 minutes with a "YOU CAN SAY ANYTHING YOU WANT ABOUT ME, BUT DON'T TALK BAD ABOUT HER!" and nearly kills the guy with his retard strength. of course, the girl is secretly watching this exchange and falls madly in love with MC as a result. really breaking new ground here.

in conclusion, this show is basically just Netoge no Yome season 2 but with less games and more glue consumption. only watch it if you love misunderstandings and hate anything resembling actual human interaction.

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!

I don't quite understand the people reviewing this. Are you seriously telling me this is relatable to how "gamers" behave?
That must be a joke, because in the first place, The "Gamers!" in the title is only to lure for viewers, nothing more. The plot itself has nothing relatable to video games, this series is all about misunderstandings and a boring/generic romcom plot.

Let's start with the basics, the story is pretty bland, first 3 episodes do have a bit of game references and how the protagonists game and stuff. That's about it, after episode 4 the misunderstandings and the romcom start, but horribly. I understand the ... misunderstandings are the plot itself, but they are making it so they are slow paced and rather boring, at times it feels like filler when it obviously shouldn't be. It just feels like they are dragging it to at least make it up to 12 episodes because we haven't gotten any progress in the story so far, always at the same point, but it is a "slice of life". Althought, i wouldn't consider a slice of life.

My general problem with these misunderstandings is that they are all the same, i expected them to improvise a bit and make them different than each other, but they only spoil on how a one cheats on another when it doesn't really happen, blah, blah... Tell me, where's the creativity in that? In the end, the plot doesn't move on because of this.

Artwise, the animation is nothing special, but i don't really mind it. The designs are really good for the most part. Environments are quite good looking and scenarios are fitting. The colour palette is quite nice and vibrant too.

Sound/Music is top notch if you ask me, but i feel like the BGM does not fit with the scenes at times. VA are quite enjoyable, and really nice choice. The Op might be the only thing from this anime that includes Game references, the ED is enjoyable as well.

This is the other problem i have with most reviews and the series itself. There's nothing from the character development and behaviour that make me think "oh i act like that" "that has happened to me" "oh i hate that feeling", literally nothing. Well, i didn't think anything of that because, the character development is horse poop, like the only character we know a bit is Tendou, no one else had a "let me get to know thing" thingy were we see their daily lives and stuff. We are already at episode 10, and i would've loved to see a bit of storyline for the game club Tendou has, i would've loved to see more from the protagonists as child' and how they got into games (But, obviously that won't be possible, this isn't a series about gamers)

The whole premise was good, but not with an almost clickbait title "Gamers!", the series is just a generic romcom we see all seasons. Nothing new, nothing creative and nothing funny about it. I did wait quite some time to see if things would've gotten to the start point again, but nope, it's just the same over and over again. Edit: I'm dropping it, i'm just tired of this whole plot, it makes no sense. Lowered from 3 to 2 on overall.
*
Story: 1
Art: 5
Sound: 5
Character: 1
Enjoyment: 1
Overall: 2

As i'm quite repetitive, i'm sorry for any spelling or any grammar error i may have.

Hey guys, do you like video games? Are you a gamer? Are you alone? Are you an awkward individual? Are you also an otaku? If you checked off more than one of the options I listed, I got the show just for you! It's "Gamers!" The show where all of your characters are nothing more than a bunch of awkward teenagers trying to connect with each other.

You can't help but cover your eyes hoping it doesn't get any cringier. Seeing this makes me want to bawl my eyes out as the characters fail to interact with each other like regular human beings. It's a mixture ... of cringe, frustration, and stupid fun rolled into one. First and foremost, I'd like to say, the show is a comedy. Personally, if a show has made me laugh countless times, I'd say it did its job correctly. I'm sure it is also safe to say that the show is one giant ball of confusion. At a certain point, you would hope that the confusions would be solved A.S.A.P. right and everything would be fine and dandy? WRONG! The confusion just keeps going on and on and quite frankly, it feels mundane.

I would also like to mention the casual and competitive gaming portion of the anime. Personally, I was hoping there would be more emphasis on the difference between those two as the anime is titled "Gamers!" but it seems to be more focused on the relationships between the confusion of the character's romances.

The anime opening and ending theme songs aren't special in any type of way either except that it sounds video game-y and the art is art.

To sum this whole show up, there's a love/hate feeling with this anime. I had a good time laughing but also a good considerable amount of time cringing at everything that happened out of pure stupidity from the characters. To a certain extent, what they do is reasonable like being jealous and worrying about their partner cheating but the misunderstandings are just irritating. I had expectations that it was going to be a typical, otaku, video game club anime where the main character is a wuss which is kind of true but there were times when the characters stood up for themselves and I, personally, found that admirable in its own way. There could've been multiple ways where "Gamers!" could've been better but what I got were headaches and laughable cringe. Keep your dreams to yourself. The show is a slap to your face for having expectations.

Just bad, really bad. The start was kinda good and even promising, it had potential for sure. I'd say the first 3 episodes were good, then it went downhill exponentially. Also, don't watch if you got interested by the name, this show has close to nothing to do with gaming, it's more like a tool to try making the conversations/storylines less boring, but even at that it failed. Also, it's more like 11 episodes + 1 OVA, 11th episode is the real ending.

After the 3rd episode, the whole story was about misunderstandings getting out of hand and turning into a crazy love polygon. Honestly that's ... all that's happening. I'm fine with a bit of cliché obliviousness, that's needed here and there to enable the story in a shoujo, but this anime criminally overused it. Is that supposed to be its niche? What a letdown.

The characters had zero depth. Nobody expects crazy characters from a shoujo, I expected nothing and still got let down. And once again, 4/5 of the main characters were "gamers", but it was just a tool and they were "gamers" for the sake of being gamers, because without that their characters would literally be empty, and funnily the 5th character's whole personality is not being a gamer so it's almost comedic how shit the characters were written.

The art was okay but that doesn't matter when it's just a huge dumpsterfire.

--- LIGHT SPOILER ---

Not only the whole show is just a bunch of stupid misunderstandings piled up, the worst part is that none of these get addressed by the characters. That's just so stupid. All 4 of them thinks they all cheat on each other and it never gets addressed, like wtf? They were basically convinced they were being cheated on and all of them were like "okay, we love each other now, I don't care if they cheated" and moved on. It's only really Chiaki coming to terms with not pursuing Keita and that's the ending.

I went into the last episode thinking all the things would be talked through but no, it was some random idiotic rant by the writers about the gaming industry, like ??? It's almost as if the creators didn't even give a damn about making an anime and they just wanted to make a statement. Should've given away the budget for charity honestly.

What comes to our mind when we hear 'Games'? Is it excitement? thrilled? seducing?.. I think it is.. Just like anime itself.. But what if.. There is an anime about 'Gamers'.. You know.. Typical teenagers that goes to high-school then they go home to not study, but game all day. Gamers on real life are like sand grains on the beach. They are too many. We cannot count how many sand grains out there am i right? Thus, games ARE really popular throughout our generation. From toddlers who play 'ABC' games, to adults who play 18+ games out there. Almost all of us are gamers. ... This season we are presented by an anime that you can summarize on 1 word only because of its title.. Yes.. I am talking about ''Gamers!''. The most cliched, cringy (I guess?) and misunderstanding anime out there on this season. While there are some poor stuffs about this anime like showing-off so much rip-off versions of games like in CSGO, Candy Crush and any other RPG smartphone games out there, there are some hidden good sides about this anime. With its very unique opening, to its unique romance style of an anime, I will discuss it if this anime is totally worth it to watch.

Story: 6/10
We are presented by a simple story with a simple set of characters on this anime 'Gamers!'. No, really. Gamers forming a game club and a gamer inviting another gamer that plays smartphone RPG games and arcade games but ended up getting rejected because of the gamer boy's pride then after some episodes they formed like a gamers council all four of them. Simple. But as the story goes on and on. We are like forgetting the title of this series. Instead of 'Gamers!', we are getting introduced by a new title called 'Playing With My Heart'. 'Gamers!' focuses on the characters named Tendou Karen, Amano Keita, Aguri, Uehara Tasuku and Hoshinomori Chiaki, where all of them game AND have a roullette of misunderstandings of love and affections for countless of episodes. Though, the comedic factor is great on this anime because of the misconceptions of the main characters themselves, but the fact still remains that most people thought that this will be an anime that focuses on games itself. From the opening where they showcase so many parody of games, from the actual scenes where the other characters play it, we thought we will have a decent ''gamers'' anime. But instead, we were introduced by an anime about a sole rom-com. Not duo, or even trio, but a Romantic-Comedy Quadro. Though the story itself is interesting (dicarding the game itself but only focusing the romcom stuffs) but for some reasons, each episode of it focuses on characters asking question like ''Is Keita the boyfriend of Aguri?'' Or ''Is Tasuka the boyfriend of Tendou?''. The story was messy but funny at the same time..

Art: 9/10
Art style of the anime is vivid. It seems that its a bit more colorful than an usual one if you think but it adds up the emotions of each characters as well. The art is great on this anime, not only the character sketches and effects but also how the artist represent parodies of games itself.

Sound: 8/10
An anime is nothing without sound. Though some can watch anime without sound by reading the subtitles, but on this anime, i dont know if you can enjoy this one without sound. The opening and ending songs were quite fine for the ears to listen but how the background music tells the scenery change and all. Yeah sure this turned into a Romcom from being a gaming one but still. The sound here is splendid.

Characters: 6/10
Cringe. When the romcom started, thats the first word I come up to summarize it (especially the main character Keita). I mean cringe is a normal thing to everyone but as it goes on, it is sometimes painful to watch the other characters having cringy moments. It just hurts. Though they all suit with their roles and that was good and all, this feeling is hard to forget. The characters are very less on this anime compared to other Summer 2017 animes out there and this makes the anime a little bit not confusing to watch. So.. Less characters = fine story line (for this anime)

Enjoyment: 7/10
We are all watching anime for entertainment. Though not all the time. Some watch it for studies as well to get ideas for story writing and all. But please.. Don't pick ''Gamers!'' for a story to tell. Though, it has a lot of good sides, but cringe is common on this anime. Comedy is fine and all. Romance is good but the characters' misunderstanding is quite cringy enough.

Overall... 7/10 is i can give to 'Gamers!'. With its cringy characters puffing so many blushes on their faces, romantic-comedy at its finest and a story that can either make you laugh or punch the wall, a score of 7/10 is fine.. unless you hate the anime itself.

Gamers is...frusterating.

It is a cluster of things that I enjoy and don't enjoy, I myself being a fairly hardcore gamer, mostly in game types not really covered in the short time gaming is mentioned.

The story itself begins with a very socially awkward Keita, the beautiful president Tendou, boyfriend and girlfriend Uehara and aguri, and fellow gaming addict Hoshinomori.

The series starts out well. The first 3 to 4 episodes are honestly pretty good, with surprises in how the main character acts, and how all the other characters react to him.

But then, from then on, it turns into a cluster of high school emotions. ... So much random drama, so many random "He's cheating!!" So much angst and randomness. And it loses any surprise, so that by the time the two you want to date (Presumably Tendou and Keita) start dating there's no more hype, and that leads to the next issue: The joke has already worn itself down. The joke being that Keita is socially awkward, probably moreso then anyone other then Hoshinomori (Who, for whatever reason, on episode 9, they start pushing for relationship between Keita and her??)

Wouldn't recommend this. There's so many series that do it better, but it's not unwatchable.

"Extreme Misunderstandings – the animation", for better or worse.

Gamers is a bit of a misleading anime. The synopsis primarily gives off the vibe of being a slice of life club anime where the club in question would be focused on gaming. But that is not really what Gamers is about. Yes, there technically is such a club in this anime but it's a very minor part of it, and in reality Gamers is more of a stereotypical love polygon romcom. However, although it is certainly somewhat generic, the show has some decent merit to it all things considered, but ultimately ends up biting off more ... than it could chew.

Above all, Gamers is an anime about romance-related misunderstandings. Multi-layered misunderstandings. You may think that this does not sound like anything out of the ordinary for a romcom at all, and for first couple episodes of the anime you'd be right, and they are quite average at best. However, past a certain point the anime starts going to such an extreme extent in order to complicate matters as much as possible that it starts bordering on sheer absurdity. It makes the types of misunderstandings you'd normally see in romcoms looks like peanuts in comparison, and it almost starts to feel more like a parody of the genre. Once this happens (around episode 6), the enjoyment value of the show suddenly climbs rapidly. Every character is quite clearly described and their somewhat naïve personalities are easy to understand, so their respective misconceptions are quite logical from their own perspectives. Truthfully they are all pretty stupid in their own way, but as a whole it all makes sense and it is quite funny to watch. It becomes a sort of Fawlty Towers plot, where an initial misunderstanding is first conceived and then additional misunderstandings are added on top in order to sustain the logic of the previous one, setting off a chain reaction of exponentially increasing levels of ridiculousness until eventually everything comes crashing down in the most spectacular and hilarious way possible.

The problem with Gamers though is that ultimately it turns out to be somewhat of a one-trick pony. The peak which the show reaches around the halfway mark is quite good, but after that it starts to deteriorate again. Because once pretty much all the misunderstandings have finally been resolved and the plot looks like it's about to take a new, quite interesting direction... it's like the story suddenly has a relapse where it decides that instead of trying something new, let's just bring all the misunderstandings back and do the whole thing all over again. The difference is that the second time around it's just not as funny anymore. The joke has already been demonstrated; you don't need to do the exact same thing again. Not only that, but I also felt that some of the plot developments which led to this relapse were rather unnatural to say the least; Chiaki in particular suddenly started doing some inexplicably stupid things that barely even made sense from her own perspective. It started giving me the feeling that the author was running out of ideas, but unfortunately this kind of plot doesn't have the sustainability to warrant going in circles like this.

Gamers does have some pretty amusing characters (albeit pretty dumb ones) and momentarily has some moments of brilliance. However, despite only being 12 episodes, this anime is honestly still too long. If Gamers had ended after episode 6 or 7 it would actually have been a lot better, because everything beyond that just feels like padding. It's an inconsistent show, but on average still a decent one I think. It has almost nothing to do with games though.

First of all, im not really good at english and this would be just a small review (and my first one), but i need to speak about this GREAT ANIME.
Im a huge fan of "romcom's", and i can't understand how this anime doesn't have a better score, so that's why im writing this [NO SPOILERS]:

This anime has everything that a romcom needs, and of course this might sound like something normal but it is really difficult to found a anime with good humour and at the same time a good romance. This serie has both:

- The humour is just natural and hilarious. There ... are not the typical cliches of this kind of series, the plot create the perfect situations and the characters just need to follow what we, the 3D people, would do in the same situations. Who has never been wrong when thinking about what the girl/boy he/she like's has done with the guy/girl who was with him/her the other day?, well, that's what the writer of this show use to create the comedy.

- The romance is the center of the plot (im not really sure if this is the correct way to say it in english lol), and is always evolving. You can be laughing about some joke or funny moment and in just 10 seconds you found that the plot is using that moment to evolve to something really interesting. Is not just that this show focus his plot in the romance, is that this show have a REALLY GOOD romance plot, or it is what seems up to the chapter 8.


Finally... i just want to apologize about my bad english, but i disagree with the score of this anime and i felt the duty of writing a review .

After catching up with the amazing slice of life-romcom, Recovery of an MMO Junkie, I wanted another game-related romance-comedy and I was hoping Gamers would touch my heart in similar ways. The production quality of Gamers was better than I expected. That opening, the references, the music, the voice acting, the art style—it's fantastic! Though Gamers started off a little bit cliched, it still piqued my interest. I thought the pilot was just a basic starting point and the second episode introduced more characters that could get fleshed out later. That was my initial thought until the anime suddenly dropped the ball after the second ... episode to opt for an endless barrage of misunderstandings. Gamers is the kind of anime where people squirm, shake their head side to side a bit, and go "it has its moments but it's not worth your time."

I appreciate how passionate about games they made each character but every time they interacted with one another, it seemed like the writers forgot the nuance previously given to them. They built and nurtured these great relationships in the second episode with tender moments only to make them one-dimensional again in order to pull off their misunderstandings gimmick. The gaming club concept could have worked to their advantage but they didn't stick with it. Misunderstandings killed anything good that could have been salvaged; the writing was very poorly thought out.

They also kept forgetting the girls were interested in video games and continuously used them as boys' sexual attraction, physically and emotionally which was so creepy. If the poor girls didn't completely forget they were into games, they were ashamed of sharing their passion and grew more obsessive about relationships and boys. Because of that, all of the characters kept jumping to their own conclusions about one another. Why write a whirlwind of confusion that would serve to irritate the audience instead of just communicating as friends and partners should? It's just plain bad writing. In addition to that, there were episodes where I was able to catch the ending CG and they were all creepy boob and ass shots of the girls in swimsuits. They're children and the skeevy producers need to rethink their careers.

This entire anime was a landfill of terrible ideas with few moments of fluff sprinkled into it. The writers would constantly forget that the characters enjoyed video games and then beat it into the viewer's head that they're gamers the next minute. I understand the need to create drama—high school can be fraught with it—but every plotline after the second episode became a string of one misunderstanding to the next. Most high school kids don't know how to gauge their emotions and express themselves, but the creators clearly had no idea how to portray adolescence without taking it to new levels of annoying. Pair that with the random creepiness of sexualizing teenage girls and you get this abomination of an anime. By the finale, none of the misunderstandings got sorted out and on the rare occasion that they did, it would soon be replaced by another. Gamers has its moments but it's not worth your time.