What are your thoughts on the rise of gamer anime?

"the rise of gamer anime"

The anime industry tries to appeal to the gaming fandom, duuuh...and fails if you ask me.


The only animated show I have watched lately which kind of gets gaming is actually a donghua - https://myanimelist.net/anime/56963/Jin_Zhan_Fashi , also to a degree - https://myanimelist.net/anime/50571/Zanting_Rang_Wo_Cha_Gonglue

For some reason the japanese writers refuse to represent properly game mechanics or to use their imagination for flashing out the NPC perspective. They even suck at strait out game adaptations like Arknights. Also I love Yamada-kun to Lv999 no Koi o Suru and all, but none of the characters appears as genuine gamer.
Not sure from where this comes from.

PS
Now I remember that Isekai Ojisan was more of a Sega nerd statement than isekai. Highscore Girl was also a lot of gaming nostalgia...but somehow ruined by the clumsy romantic melodrama.
So those were a bit better, but their main focus was elsewhere.

I personally loathe the entire gaming obsession with anime and wish the two would stay separate. I do not play games and do not find it a constructive, useful, engaging or meaningful use of time.
A lot of anime viewers are gamers but not all of them are. Too much anime is geared toward gamers to the extent that it's like, okay make up your mind- are you a game or an anime? I don't want stat screens and player categories and levels and bullshit like that. The whole isekai crossover thing got tired years ago and at this point I am done with it- but I am not alone. At least two of the (four) reviewers on ANN are writing about this right now, and they speak to millions.

And personally I can't imagine anything more boring on earth than watching a friend play through an RPG on my tv screen... I liked SAO but only as an anime concept, and it wasn't really directed at gamers- it was more like a Ghost in the Shell style of "what if technology got to this point where you could get ki11ed in your online game and die in real life" for general audiences. But even that was pushing the limit with me- since it was novel at the time to show life stats with those little diamonds or whatever, I thought it was interesting, but now that I'm seeing all these badly made isekai LN or game ripoffs with hack writers I am just finding the whole thing soul destroying and utterly boring.

@SuperAdventure Well, I don't know about the final feeling since I haven't watched the show, but the editor of the original LN cited it as a perfect example of "write what you know" and that he and Kawahara developed the concept as a love letter to the MMO community.

@RobertBobert

Sure okay, *sigh* so you're saying I'm wrong and it's not what I thought... okie dokie. This is the internet, so I guess pointing out where and how people are wrong is always necessary so there you are. I'm wrong. Dead wrong. And therefore everything else I said is worthless and should be discarded immediately.
I still liked it (mostly, the Phantom bullet arc was the best). I suppose that makes me a hypocrite. At least regarding that one anime, though it's not my favorite by any stretch. So that aside, if you like gamer anime then why HAVEN'T you watched SAO?

@SuperAdventure I just said that the anime was originally intended to be a show for gamers, nothing to say that everything you said should be discarded.

I haven't watched SAO because I've never been in the mood to start it and when I was in my "watch whatever is popular" phase, I just heard too much hate towards the title.

One major reason I watch anime is to see lives different than mine. If its an anime about a gamer, then ehh I don't know about that. If its about E-sports, then it may have my interest.

@Zimmu So, aren't you one of those people who like to praise their favorite anime for being "relatedness"?

@Zimmu So, aren't you one of those people who like to praise their favorite anime for being "relatedness"?

@RobertBobert I think the hate of SAO is mainly because it turned out to be a harem anime with no real focus on the gaming aspect of Aincrad. In the story we jump from floor 10 in episode 3 or something (which was hard to clear btw) straight to floor 50 in the next episode -_-' There was even a weak attempt of Guild politics and rivalry between different guilds. The PK guild Laughing Coffin got more exposure in the second season then in the first lol

At the very end of S1 when the MC faces an impossible challenge, he just simply breezes through it by shamelessly activating his plot armor to save the day? o_O

I believe that's why the hate became so big, it was a total mess. It started fresh and new and exciting, but quickly blended itself to the same typical trope you saw everywhere else.

Later seasons just added fuel to the fire. Never was the gaming aspect priority in this show. It was always God Gamer Kirito and his harem + 2 dudes that you ocassionally see fill in a little role (Klein and the bald one).

I thought the movie was going to redesign & change the whole thing, but it really didn't. You just see the same stuff but this time from the perspective of the FL (Asuna).

Lastly the newest seasons Alicization would have been a pretty good show if you simply had cut out all SAO aspects. There is no real reason why we should keep sticking to Kirito and his crew anymore. Alicization could have been great in itself.

Maybe give Alicization a chance if you're bored and don't know what to watch.

@Robert
I’m not that kind of person. Also who praises their favorite anime for being relatedness or relatable? It’s usually the opposite way. All my favorite anime all have things I know I probably won’t achieve in this life.

@Zimmu Well, this is actually what made the phrase “literally me” a meme. People love anime like Oregairu or Bocchi the Rock because they find the characters' experiences similar to theirs.

@Coaghim That is, you think that this is not so much an anime about gamers and the game, but rather pure power fantasy in a gaming setting?

@RobertBobert
Oh I see. Ok that makes sense to me. For me I just don’t really like to see someone who resembles me in anime. Probably a character like that don’t even exist cuz he would be way too boring

@RobertBobert 100% Yes

As a game anime SAO had an amazing good premise, but quickly discarded it by playing it safe and going all in on different popular tropes -> an OP MC and his harem with no ecchi at all (unless you count the scene of Asuna in her underwear just before they go to sleep to do the wild monkey dance, FYI they were married at that point).

Maybe we should ask an anime internet historian or something to be sure? :p But yeah it's my selfmade conclusion I believe in after talking about SAO to many different people over many years. In my experience gamers became disappointed with SAO, non gamers didn't get the hype of SAO, they didn't perceive it as something original and didn't get it at all which is super understandable. It's not original.

If you like permadeath game anime, Grimgar is the one you need to see. Sadly Grimgar has fallen into the black hole far past the event horizon, but that show gives a glimps of what many people thought SAO would become after watching the first episode of S1 (the same episode that kickstarted the huge hype in summer 2012).

@Coaghim Grimgar was one of the first anime I watched after returning to the fandom in 2016. I never understood why it didn't get a sequel because the show seemed to be widely accepted at the time.

So people joke about how Shangri-La is SAO done right because it has a really great gameplay aspect and out of the three female characters one is a man and the other wants to kill the MC for fun?

Well, there are many types of "game anime"

-Gamers getting isekai'd
-VRMMORPG where no isekai happens
-Otome game themed isekai
-Game development
-Retro/arcade games
-Game/Otaku theme with Romantic Subtext and vice versa

And then you have adaptions of actual irl games
-Gacha games
-Western AAA games
-And yes, visual novels

So, Fate, Steins;Gate, and CLANNAD are technically "game anime", and "the rise of gamer anime" has been happening for more than a decade.
Obligatory plug to my stack:
👾Of Gamers, By Gamers, For Gamers👾

@RobertBobert Yeah RIP Grimgar, you'll never be forgotten.

I haven't catched up with Shangri La so I have no clue about 'out of the three female characters one is a man and the other wants to kill the MC for fun?'

But yes, Shangri La is SAO done right, because it does give attention to the game itself and the skills, levels, etc. NOT ONLY THAT! Shangri La even presents the viewers of other less known VRMMO games where the MC exploits glitches etc. As a gamer, that is super relatable :D Glitches are the best, they often generate so much laughter. There's even a whole speedrun community often based on glitches to skip parts of the game. Of course there are also glitchless speedruns which often are more special.

@Coaghim Well, it's written in the character descriptions, although I missed it at first. Yes, I also liked how the MC uses more hardmode games to develop the necessary skills, although it is too idealized as real combat skills for my liking. Jokes about forced conditions even reminded me of the infamous conditions for obtaining some achievements. I wonder if it will actually play out that way.

@RobertBobert Earlier you ment when this chick wanted to kill our bird MC?

Nah she really didn't want to kill him. They know each other from other games, let's call that fight at the gate a friendly spar and if bird MC had died there, the chick(/guy?) would have a good laugh about it. Also he/she was testing our bird MC if he would be ready to tackle that legendary beast with her and another gamer they both know. this one

I admit it was poorly presented in the anime, but I deduced it like this. No real enemies, just friendly rivals to measure up your skills against, because they respect each others gaming skills. The best way to grow is having a worthy rival that always pushes you to the next level. So yeah those 3 respect each other, but would never stop messing with each other to gain an advantage? :P When you actually play a 'dead' game, with time you get to know the regulars which creates a bond.

@Coaghim Well, this doesn't contradict my original point anyway, I wanted to say that there is no harem in this manga and that out of the primarily female characters announced, only one is a love interest. Although I'm only on the 8th episode out of 14 released so far, there may be something I haven't seen yet.

@RobertBobert OoOoOoh ok :D Yeah I checked the descriptions of the characters. Sunraku & OiKatzo are dudes. Arthur... I suspect he's a guy just playing as a girl, but it could well be a very cocky gamer girl. Why shouldn't they be cocky if they got the skills to back it up?

Then again, don't curse it, the harem aspect might yet be activated haha If you look at Vysache, the harem is actually lowkey present there :p

@Coaghim Well, this is a kind of law of development of Japanese media. If the author doesn't know how to further develop the work in the original mood, then either suddenly very serious shit starting out, or the characters feel the spring of youngs and everything becomes a romantic comedy, lmao.

@Ri-KoRin A game adaptation doesn't yet make an anime show about gamers. Otherwise, we will have to conclude that any manga adaptation is an anime about mangaka and manga readers.

@RobertBobert
Did I misread your title - "gamer anime" as "game anime"? Yes, but also:

As media critics and communication theorist Marshall McLuhan once famously said: "The medium is the message"

A game adaptation would not have happened if not for its creators, gamers, and the cultural impact it has on its audience, this is the same as Manga or any other otaku media. The medium that media expresses its message in is as important as its content and ways of consumption.

And then there is the noticeable difference between the adaptations of manga, visual novels, light novels, novels, games, manhwa, manhua, and Western comic/TV. The different tropes, art styles, and demographics reflect on their creators and consumers.

@RobertBobert lol agreed it's their default setting :p

If Pysger-0 is Sunrakus love romance option, I'm surprised of the little screentime she has had uptill now. Surprised but not complaining, would love to see her chase after Sunraku for 25 episodes for comedy relief lol