The story resolves around a young girl that plays an MMO with a friend. This MC is a newbie and manages to Op pretty much anyone just by being strange and silly. This is the anime's most redeeming charm. If you like to watch an airheaded girl doing funny and cute things and just being op by doing so, this show is for you. If you want a story, character progression, world building or consistency in its setting then you may not like this anime.
+ Main positive points: Funny and cute MC, no unecessary drammatic scenes or other things that try to give meaning to the anime, peaceful and laid-back atmosphere, very nice animations
- Weak points: No overarching story, Characters are not very interesting and are not evolved at all, no world building, no real consistency within itself (the rules of the world and settings are not really explained, most things just happen without any reason), stereotypical scenes and progression
I will explain some things that I did think were special about this anime and give insights into its main positive points.
Style:
This anime is interesting because it does not really cater to any specific style or audience. After watching it, I was not really certain what the main purpose of the anime was. It is mainly a shounen action, but is pretty non-interesting in that. It is too laid back and silly to really feel like your average shounen. At the same time there is not really enough character interaction and everyday stuff to make it feel like an slice of life anime. Lastly there is also not really enough world building to make it a real fantasy anime (it is one, but not in the same style as log horizon or similar things). Despite not really fullfilling any of these conditions it still feels interesting enough to be a good anime.
This is one of the things that make me interested in the sequel since I am not certain in what kind of direction this anime will be taken. Probably they just stay with the style and keep doing nothing at all. Maybe they start to change things around and give some character insights or some other form of progression. Maybe the give a new story or they do something else. After 12 episodes it does feel like a good setting for an own series that evolves into multiple spinoffs and other things (bit like Sword art online) and has the possiblity to explore different things without really harming the overall consistency of the anime (because there is not much consistency from the beginning).
Progression:
One of the main story loops resolves around the main MC playing the game for fun and becoming op by doing so. She does not really care about optimizing anything but still manages to get interesting skills and friends just by occassion. It just happens so, that she stumbles upon a sidequest that gives her a unique skill and that changes the course of her strategy. Often the anime itself does not even try to really explain why she did get this skill beyond this. Similar story with her friends. All of them just happen to be lucky and get exactly the skills and dropes they need from certain unique quests to give them strategical options inside of the party. Most of the anime then resolves around showing off of those skills in combat. Most unique battle scenes climax around an attack with an unknown skill or combination of skills and the reactions to this by the protagonists or the enemy.
So in some sense, there is not really any progression. The story is just set so that the MC and friends always get the skills they need to overcome the challenges that await. While this might look like an uninteresting thing, it is not. It often is interesting to watch the kind of silly skills or combinations the Protagonists come up with without being too serious about the setting. Meanwhile other characters in the MMO marvel upon the ingenuity and uniqueness of their abilities and are blinded by the glory of their achievements. It just feels super silly and funny. This is what most of the anime is about: Just being strange and silly enough to keep you interested.
Animation and action:
One of the most reedeming quailities beyond this sillyness is the overall animation quality. Especially the battles are animated in a very smooth and intersting fashion. They are flashy and quick. It rarely is over the top with the animations while still being interesting to watch. I usually do not like battle scenes at all, because they most often are just random events whithout much consistency within its setting (think about it: in many animes the MC just wins by doing something out of the box for the first time; this anime is not an exception). Also you get your usual skill shouting and stereotypcial scenes. This is of course exactly the same in this anime. Interestingly is that I did not mind the battle scenes in this one too much. They did feel strategical enough and were animated good enough to even make 5+ minutes battles not super boring most of the time. I guess one of the reasons I did not mind them is because they are not overjuiced with meaning. The people just fight because it is an action fantasy and thats it. No silly reasoning or emotion play beyond that. They fight and win. Point.
Atmosphere:
Lastly one point again for the relaxed and peaceful atmosphere. As I said this anime does not really adhere to a slice of life audience since it does not resemble its scenes and character interactions. It still manages to feel very similar to one since it is pretty laid back and does not have any overarching plot progression. In my view this is a good thing, since the anime manages to captivate without any story plot that has to be resolved or anything. Every episodes in itself tries to be interesting enough so that you will watch the following ones.
