Reviews

Jun 21, 2022
Yamaguchi, Mikoto, the writer for Tomodachi Game's manga, desperately needs to pick up a book on psychology and how relationships work.

Look, I like high stakes gambling anime and manga. Usugoi and Kaiji are great. Yes, they're kind of dumb, but you know, that's just what I enjoy. Yet, I still hate this show. I usually can suspend my belief, even if the gambles are kind of stupid like Kakegurui.

Tomodachi Game is just a super cringe show. It's super unrealistic, and unnecessarily edgy. Mikoto Yamaguchi, the writer of the story, has absolutely no idea how human psychology works. I'm not even going to get into the drama or characters. The mystery is honestly alright, and the drama--while forced--works.

It's just the "backseat gamers." What I really mean, are obviously the cringe observers, Tsukino and Maria, that watch over the game itself. First of all, it breaks all immersion. Did you really need to include these people talking about this group of friends? Really? Oh no, the audience is really so stupid that they can’t make surface level interpretations of the show, so instead, we can see the uneducated opinion of these observers--we all know it’s Yamaguchi projecting. It really breaks any tension at all in the game itself, considering that the anime jarringly pans the attention to these observers that throw out the most edgy and WRONG things about relationships, friendship, and romance, it made me drop the show.

Tsukino makes two statements about friendship in the earlier episodes. The first one being this: “"While there is unconditional love, there's no such thing as unconditional friendship." Who the hell said that? Like who? Nobody. No psychological professional would make that statement. Perhaps Tsukino should read Aristotle’s Nichominean ethics, where Aristotle speaks about friendship. He claimed that friendship can be divided into three types: ones of pleasure, ones of utility, and ones of goodness.While the other two types can be easily broken, Aristotle claims that the ones of goodness are “everlasting.” Perhaps Aristotle’s literature is a bit too old. How about something more contemporary like Robert Selman’s work, where he divides friendship amongst peers into multiple categories, the last one being Autonomous Interdependence. Friendships of this stage can certainly be unconditional. I only speak of a few theories, but I really don’t think any psychologist would utter what Tsukino just did. There’s no basis.

Tsukino also states that “Ultimately, whether or not he can forgive...her...will depend on how aware he is of his own impurity." I like how Tsukino talks with such confidence and gusto, like she has the entire personality profile of Yuichi examined. Even if that were true, she just assumes that the only reason that anyone would care about whether or not a person is a virgin or not is based on their perceived purity and their shallow egos that compare themselves with others to feel self gratification. What a pedantic statement. As if that’s the only reason.

She then states that “Women are sensible creatures… No matter how much they like someone, they can fall out of love in an instant. Especially if they connect with someone else who understands them even better.” First of all, good job generalizing women into a single generic statement, and second of all, even if this were 100% true, LMAO, this is such an incel thing to say. Like haha, how the hell can I even stay serious, when the so-called expert on psychology that is Tsukino is throwing out cringe bombs like that? Also, did you see how hypocritical she sounds? She just stated that there’s unconditional love, and then throws out the same exact opposite statements about how a woman’s love is transient. While not entirely contradicting each other, it really doesn’t seem to be two statements made by the same expert.
Then Tsukino has the audacity to say stuff like “You must have noticed…as long as you’re not some gullible idiot.” Oh yeah, I’m sure Tsukino should be the one labeling other people as stupid. I could go on, but I think you get the idea as to why I think this show is cringe.

Sure, there are other problems, like despite this show being a high stakes gambling, there are really a ton of outs and relatively low stakes and punishment than it should be. The tension is diluted, and drama takes the forefront of a lot of these episodes. Honestly, the show could have gone without the damn game in the first place for how much it emphasizes drama and relationships. I’m certainly not a licensed psychologist, but I’m also not an idiot who can watch this show butcher basic psychological principles.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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