Another reviewer claimed that it's better than Sword Art Online, which is a fair comparison, but I have to disagree on the conclusion; in the very least SAO had some tension, while in Shangri-La the protagonist is constantly yelling and overreacting to everything happening, but... y'know... no one can actually die in this game! That's right, there is no risk of bodily harm, which makes you wonder what the point of any of this is. It's not like SAO, where the VR-headsets have a microwave emitter installed for the purpose of keeping the players in the game, here it's just a videogame.
Not to mention the horribly boring romance which feels like it was tacked on in the very last minute to make the protagonist more enviable, because if they hadn't included that element to the story he would be like any other loser who does nothing but play videogames all day. He barely even interacts with the female lead for the first 9 episodes. I'm not exaggerating when I say that they've had like 5-7 minutes of screentime together.
The character-writing is also superboring. No one has any actual personality or struggles that it's worth connecting with: The main character, who is allotted the vast majority of the screentime, is essentially a blank slate; we don't know anything about his family, friends, any other hobbies or things that 'capture his imagination' - nothing. All of his dialogue amounts to, "If this swamp monster has a half-second delay on his upward slash, then I can get one hit in before having to dodge." In the very least, in the show it's a little more in-depth than what I just portrayed, so that I can get a little engaged in the... videogame he's playing that he can't die in, and where all the social interaction he gets is with an npc bunny. Riveting stuff.
Sometimes, he also rambles on for way too long about the game's mechanics. There's this one part in episode 8 where he spends 2 whole minutes describing a series of enemies he's defeating in arena-style combat, which I realize sounds pretty exciting, but it isn't because it's depicted with still images - sort of like a powerpoint presentation. It would have been fine if they had instead quickly regurgitated the names of the enemies whilst the protagonist is posing in the foreground, and the enemies bodies are dissipating in the background or something like that, but the way they chose to do it is incredibly obnoxious. Even the show itself points out how goddamn tedious this whole rigmarole is. So why do it then?
And whenever 'conversation' happens, it almost always commits the most deadly sin of all bad media, which is to have the characters talk at each other, instead of with each other. This is due to the fact that none of the conversations have been written with the intention of strengthening the characters' bonds, they instead exist to exposit information to the audience. For instance, in the first episode when the main character picks up the MMORPG that the series is named after in a videogame store he frequents, he hits up a 'conversation' with a woman who works the cash register. We don't really get any understanding of their relationship with each other, other than the surface-level reading that he's a regular customer who always buys trashy games. Most of the 'conversation' revolves around, again, the protagonist rambling - this time about a shit game he played. The whole interaction is so incredibly stilted; she just stands there, willingly listening to him complaining about a bad game he bought - that he knew was gonna be bad (because he only buys bad games) - which is presumably a 'conversation' they've had tens if not hundreds of times in the past. I can't tell if she's supposed to be annoyed or not at him, or if she's enjoying it, but she basically only responds shortly to his complaints, before recommending that he plays Shangri-La.
Why does she do that? Because the girl who's inexplicably crushing on him plays the game, something the cash-register lady of course doesn't disclose to him, instead giving some bullshit explanation about how playing a 'godly' (actual expression used all the time in the show, yes it's cringe) game will help cleanse his palate of the shitty games he's always playing, to which he agrees. The main character doesn't even know who the girl crushing on him is by the way. I'm not joking. It's so fucking stupid and annoying I can't believe I wasted 3 hours of my life watching this garbage. I'm obviously only writing this review to ramble myself, which I think I've reserved the right to do after having listened to the protagonist's rambling dialogue for a whole 9 episodes.
I could also talk about how many horrible design decisions there are in this supposedly 'godly' game that has over 30 million active players, but that would be even more time of my day that I'm throwing away, so let's not do that.
So should you watch Shangri-La Frontier: Kusoge Hunter, Kamige ni Idoman to su? No. If you're thirsting for some escapism, just play an actual videogame. Then, you might even feel some adversity, as opposed to what you will get from watching this frankly brainless anime.
