The first thing most people will notice when watching HSG is the particular art style J.C. went with. The show is largely CG, which I particularly don't mind, but to call the animation 'budget' would be putting it lightly. It's not horrendously bad enough to ruin the show single-handedly, but it certainly isn't doing it any favors.
The writing in HSG is... not great. Momentarily ignoring the shtick of including licensed games, what we have is a largely generic and uninspired rom-com whose writing ranges from inoffensively mediocre to laughably bad, with a remarkably forced romance at its core. Now, add in the fact that a good half of the show is comprised of the writers nerding out about almost every notable early 90's game release, narrated by one of the most annoying protagonists to ever be on screen, but I'll come back to *him*. It's actually somewhat confounding how knowledgeable the writing staff seem to be about these games, and yet completely failed to capture how people would casually talk about them. Imagine several Steve Buscemi's walking around, fully decked out in 'fellow kids' gear, talking about 90's arcades.
The characters are, sadly, remarkably flat. At the three points of the obligatory love triangle are the main characters: Ono, Hidaka, and the protagonist Yaguchi. Ono is tsundere to the max, and inexplicably *does not speak throughout the entire show*. No, she's not mute, she's just 'quiet' or so the show will tell you. Already riding the crutch of not having any dialogue to express herself, she instead relies on Yaguchi to mind-read her intentions and explain them to the viewer. The show already has a "tell, don't show" problem, but this is kinda ridiculous. Next is Hidaka, an uptight girl unfamiliar with games who inexplicably drops madly in love with a guy who does literally nothing but play games and act like a general asshole. She is, after this point, completely defined as a character by this forced romance.
Now for Yaguchi, and oh man is he the WORST. This protagonist is easily my biggest grievance in what was already a mediocre-at-best show. Taking up a good 90% of the screen time, Yahuchi is exaggerated to the point of being a parody of all those negative early gaming stereotypes, to the point of being borderline offensive. His dial is permanently stuck at 100 while he screams in everyone's face about how much of a GAMER he is, while acting like a douche to everyone he interacts with and self-admittedly not giving a shit about anything that isn't a game, which *of course* causes all the panties in his harem to drop. His personality is that of an intentionally hateable side-character that was pushed into the role of protagonist. For someone framed by the show to be relatable, man is he annoying as all hell. Even by the end he, and the other characters for that matter, undergo little to no development other than realizing they like a person, and maybe working up the guts to tell them about it.
Overall, High School Girl is a show that rides exclusively on the novelty of incorporating licensed games. It got people's attention with it's catch line, but had little of substance to actually offer once people got through the door. I have a feeling that without the 90's gaming frame, this show wouldn't be getting nearly as much praise.
