English Dub Review: Gamers! “Keita Amano and Chapters of the Chosen”

Now that gaming is main stream popular, time to give gamers the anime treatment.

During my high school days, I was a very hardcore gamer, getting the latest consoles and video games and sinking hours into each one. Sometimes playing them through the night to the early morning. This is a sentiment that I’m definitely not alone in. From hardcore to casual, gamers love of gaming has grown from a secret embarrassment to a full blown billion-dollar industry and the concept of the “gamer” has transformed as well. The old stereotype of just the overweight nerd living in their mother’s basement is becoming less of the norm and now a variety of gamer clichés have manifested for all to see. So, a manga and now anime adaptation of that subculture was inevitable.

Gamers! is the chaotic romantic comedy set around a group of gamers with our lead Amano Keito as the focus. Amano is your atypical lonely gamer, always with his nose pointed at any screen and very much blocks himself off from other people. That is the case until the most popular girl in school Karen Tendou approaches Amano and asks him to join the school’s video game club. In the club, the members play a large assortment of games from Call of Duty parodies to BlazBlue parodies and take part in competitions to win funds for the club and I would assume the school. This all seems like a dream come true for a socially inept weeny like Amano but his social awkwardness and dedication to playing games for his own enjoyment and not for competition makes him decline to join the club, which even the show tells us will end up ruining his and Karen’s reputations right away. It’s great when the show actually spoils itself, defeats the need to actually watch the full episode.

There is also a mild subplot with the cool bro character Uehara Tasuku and his girlfriend Aguri where Uehara shows off his crane game skills to win her a derpy cat. Not too much available to really review in detail but it opens the door to the closeted gamer storyline for Uehara even if the show also puts a notice on the door spoiling future plot points concerning the two. I’m not really meaning to rain on the show’s parade as I do feel the performances of the voice actors are solid and the story of just a slice of life gaming club is a fun concept to center on. However, like Amano, it is starting off very awkward narratively, artistically and joke wise. Narrative wise it is setting up many relationships that Amano will form throughout his new time forming bonds with the gamers around him, but the show pushes his inept dorky angle so hard that it feels like it leaves out a character for Amano. An ironic key moment of this is when Karen asks Amano and the other new game club member why they play games. He answers that he plays games just for fun while the new member tells he lost his memory until he started playing puzzle games and got into gaming again.

While overblown for the comedies sake it also highlights the show is missing giving a meaningful drive to Amano. A lot of gamers say that they play games because they are fun but I think we can agree there is a certain drive to games that keeps gamers coming back, whether it’s for completion, social, adrenaline, excitement or any assortment of feelings, it may boil down to the simple “I think games are fun” but a lot can be explored on a characters reasoning as to why they are. We get small bits of that as Amano plays and helps his online friend and smiles at the “thank you” message they send to him. That portrays his want for socialization but at a distance. An interesting character trait. Too bad it’s glossed over for Amano being googoo-eyed over Karen in cliché romantic comedy fashion. The biggest danger the show might fall into is just being half hearted with showing a meaningful nature in gaming because it’s too busy showing relationship shenanigans.

The animation by Pine Jam on the other hand definitely captures the light hearted tone the series is going for but I do have to question some of the aesthetic choices they made. Only two of which really need any sort of mention. Firstly, some of the drawn-on mouths for the characters come across as unnatural. It assuredly is meant to convey an over the top “whaaaaa!?” sort of expression on the faces but when you compare the excessively curvy mouth to the laser eyes and brow it more conveys the thought a hyperactive child drew the mouths for those expressions. Secondly and more annoyingly is throughout the beginning of the episode twice the show does the visual joke of on screen text spoiling the future plot thread of the story to contradict the characters’ dialogue. This sort of joke falls flat for me especially as that sort of narrative through line is supposed to unfold naturally through character interaction and careful plotting. This isn’t any different than just having a narrator just pop on screen and give an audience a sneak peek at the script. I sincerely hope this doesn’t become a running gag for the show as that might critically handicap the pacing of the show later on.

Gamers! has definitely not sold me yet with this pilot. It’s rather toothless in execution and its writing is standard at best. Definitely is pretty enough to fill up a time slot but may very well just be forgotten soon after. If the concept interests you at all I’d say it’s a harmless watch but as for me I’ll continue to the next level and see if Amano’s awkward gaming will make the show better or worst.