Moriko Morioka is a 30-something business dropout who has chosen to become a self-proclaimed "NEET" and plays games all day instead of working. Why did she choose this life? She felt like it, despite being good at her job she opted to throw it away playing video games instead… Don’t expect to understand what motivates the characters because their only reason for existing is to be cute.
Moriko enters the MMO game and chooses to play as a male character, why? Because she wanted to. A potentially interesting start to the protagonist that goes right into the gutter because it's only used as an excuse to hide her true identity from her in-game friends, the first of many misunderstandings to fuel the lazy story. In the MMO world, she meets a kind girl named Lily, who has an air of mystery surrounding her. They grow close to each other quickly within the first episode, but keep their feelings on the down low because relationships are (for some reason) not allowed in the guild they’re in. In real life, Moriko bumps into a man on the streets and they gradually become friends as time goes by with hints at a romance that could form. Their burgeoning relationship gave her a chance to stop being a NEET. Occasionally it’s endearing to see them awkwardly try to talk to each other, but as they run through the same routine over and over I just wanted them to get on with it and skip the charade. However, the other half of me knew that the show would fall to pieces once there was no more misunderstanding to drag out. That’s why MMO Junkie is so predictable, you know that they can’t have the big reveal until the very end, lest they actually come up with an engaging plot to compel the audience for the rest of the runtime.
Some of the more annoying contrivances the show dishes out:
1. Supporting characters who understand the misunderstanding between the two leads and willingly choose to confuse and misguide them, preventing them from discovering each other's true identities and also move the plot along.
2. In response to most awkward situations that would reveal either of the leads' identities they say, “I’m too embarrassed to say I’m a gamer/ I have a crush on that person / I am a woman but playing as a man.” If only the characters were actually had the self-confidence to be called role models, I might consider it to be cute and pleasant, but they’re not there to help you but to pander to you. Pure Junk food.
3. Phone Batteries. Why can’t they just charge their damn phones??
4. “What if they find out that I’m a NEET?” You aren’t a damn NEET! Getting nervous around boys and being too lazy to go to work doesn’t make you a NEET.
On top of these flaws is the wasted potential of the MMO counterpart to the real world, along with the supporting cast of Moriko's online friends who she's in a guild with (but they get no development whatsoever). Some of the engagement of watching MMO Junkie comes from trying to figure out which characters in the real world are players in the MMO world and seeing them work together in the game. However, the actual gameplay itself is almost never shown, most likely due to budget constraints. So we are forced to listen to the boring recounts of the gameplay, losing a connection with the characters in the process. Come on, even Sword Art Online got this right. Watching people play games without any reason to care is boring, but being told about people playing games is mind numbing.
The fact that the characters are adults changes nothing, they all act just as stupid as the high schoolers in your average school harem anime. Their sole purpose is to perpetuate the frustratingly predictable plot about finding out who likes who. Each character in the show is added to the cast before they’re introduced, the show just expects you to recognize what archetype they fall into and fill in the blanks yourself. The incredibly lazy characterization that only further alienates the audience. Starting with the main character; she tells us she is a neet who quit her job, why? Who knows, she omitted that part, and thus gave the audience no reason to get invested in her character other than being a lady with big boobs who likes video games and cute girls (namely the one who she latches onto in the game).
The characters could have just as easily been high schoolers, them being adults adds nothing to them. When I saw that they were in their 20s and 30s I thought we’d get to see interesting dynamics of responsibilities that the main character would face being an adult neet. Disappointingly, the responsibilities of adulthood are mostly ignored and swept under the rug. Despite Moriko not having a job, she is able to pay rent, living expenses, and her MMO subscription. 90% of the issues the characters face could be fixed if they simply communicated with each other and solved their problems like the adults that they are. However, it would be too much to ask for characters who have actual common sense, wouldn't it?
My least favorite character by a mile was Koiwai. Even as just a supporting cast member he stands out as being particularly unsettling and he totally defuses any potential comedy in the scenes he's present in. What makes him so unbearable is how creepy he acts, in one episode he takes a picture of Moriko while she's sleeping then texts it to Sakurai and to top it off, Koiwai makes a rape joke. Yes, it was a rape joke. Even if it was meant as some sort of off-beat joke, it put me off from his character entirely. I was constantly wondering why he even hangs around the kind and innocent lead characters while he is so malicious. I'm honestly shocked that more people haven't mentioned how grotesque he is as a character. The worst part about him is that the creators of the show acknowledge him as a good person and build him up to be this great guy through Moriko commenting on his "kindness," truly sickening.
This sadly isn't too surprising of a (dark) turn for MMO Junkie considering the director, Kazuyoshi Yaginuma, is openly a neo-nazi and promotes anti-semitism. I wouldn't recommend this show before knowing about the Yaginuma's appalling beliefs. But knowing who had their filthy hands on this show makes it flat out impossible to recommend.
I could understand if they intended for the scenes in real life to look bland, but the scenes in the game world are just as flat which leads me to believe that this show just didn't have the budget to handle a project like this. I’ve never heard of the studio that made this show, Signal. MD, and that’s probably a blessing considering how low in quality the show is.
The op and ed are catchy but become grating over time, not something I would listen to individually. Another place affected by the low budget is the music, I expected it to be mediocre and I wasn't disappointed. Don't go into it expecting anything great, just your bog standard repetitive romcom-ish soundtrack that adds very little to the show. To spice it up a bit the show would use the MMO specific music in the real world to symbolize how Moriko was taking on life as if it was an in-game challenge, which was a good creative choice, but it me think of how they're just running out of music.
I almost never found the jokes to be funny, they try way too hard to be relatable and often feel redundant in an oversaturated genre. The "comedy" is just a constant stream of Moriko shouting in her head "Ahhg!! I'm so embarrassed for x-reason!!" over and over. She can't face life head on like an adult and instead tortures herself (and the audience) by constantly complaining about small issues that make her seem petty. If you think finding out which character in the real world is a player in the MMO could be exciting then look elsewhere, it is very obvious who is who. Like the derivative rom-com of last season “Gamers,” this show is full of head shaking contrivances to keep characters from figuring out who is who. At least Gamers made the effort to include commentary on video games. This show didn’t even bother to go beyond “I can make man character but I am a woman teehee.”
God forbid the audience actually have to think at all while watching a show about adults.
All that MMO Junkie offers in the way of meaningful commentary (if you can even call it that) is characters mentioning from time to time, "I bought my gear in a loot box~!" It shows that the characters like to spend lots of money on the game, but damn, it's so unself-aware for a show about video games to actually embrace microtransactions rather than criticize them, especially with Battlefront II and other offenders only recently releasing to overwhelming audience outcry.
Despite being only 10 episodes long it overstays its welcome, becoming incredibly repetitive and predictable as it desperately claws at the audience screaming out “TELL ME IM CUTE!!” And it made no effort to hide its intentions.
I didn’t care if she found out who he was in the game or not.
I didn’t care if he confessed to her or not.
I just wanted it to be over.
Rather than writing adult characters as actual adults, this anime chooses the laziest route and gives them the maturity level of children. If you can overlook the shallow characters, misunderstanding fueled plot, poorly realized game world, then perhaps you may find some enjoyment in this cloyingly saccharine non-romance. Otherwise, I’d say Recovery of an MMO Junkie is best left forgotten.
