English Dub Review: Recovery of an MMO Junkie “Like A Maiden In Love”

You can’t escape gacha hell.

Overview:

Lilac manages to get the new set from the latest gacha, but Hayashi has much less luck. On the real life side, Moriko manages to meet two new people by chance– Furuya and Koiwai.

Our Take:

Gacha hell is real. The game seems to run on microtransactions— free to play, but you could pay real money to get additional gear. The top prizes, which Lily and Lilac both manage to get, are both extremely hard to pull unless you’re extremely lucky or sink a lot of real money into the game. Lily is definitely a whale, in the fact that she spends as much money as necessary until she gets the items that she wants. They talk about the desired sensor, where talking about what you want means you definitely won’t get it, and that is real too. They also include a Yugioh parody! Whoever’s writing this definitely has their experience playing games like these! It definitely helps the immersion of the show, especially if you’re familiar with games featuring microtransactions (mobage as a good example).

A new character is introduced— Furuya, who works in the convenience store. He also plays the same game as Moriko, and is excited to talk to her about the game. Unfortunately, they don’t manage to converse much, but likely they will interact in future episodes.

Koiwai happens to run into Moriko at the convenience store, and they reconnect. Moriko is quite overwhelmed, but Koiwai is insistent at seeing her again sometimes. Since Moriko is so adamant about remaining a shut-in, it will likely take a large shock for her to snap out of her way of life. This might seem like a good first step.

Koiwai is a playful type but doesn’t seem to be a playboy. He teases Sakurai about getting Moriko’s number but doesn’t lord it over him. It almost seems like he’s rooting for Sakurai, in a way. It almost seems like it might become a love triangle, but it doesn’t initially seem like Koiwai has any romantic feelings for Moriko. They used to converse as employees speaking for their respective bosses, so they have connected in that way. If anything, they seem to be like former coworkers reconnecting than prospective romantic interests. It should be interesting to see how things develop on that level.