English Dub Review: Gamers! “Keita Amano and Karen’s Best Entertainment”

The beginning of the most stilted and cutest gamer romance.

Finally, just, finally, we’re at an episode that does not have as much of the forced misunderstanding drama. Those forced narrative shenanigans were doing nothing but draining the colour from this alright gamer rom-com. Gamers is at its best when it focuses on the unique connection these two gamers, Keita and Karen, form through their equally awkward methods to break out of their emotional shells. With Keita’s turmoil of finding the confidence to approach Karen who he idolizes as someone leagues better than himself and Karen who struggles with controlling her feelings behind her first true infatuation, it creates a budding romance of awkward trial and error that is darling to watch.

OVERVIEW

Continuing the shows more disjointed episodic writing, we continue on from episode 6’s second story as Keita and Karen are dealing with the fallout of his accidental confession to Karen. Keita reacting in his typical self-deprecation and Karen preparing herself for Keita to reject her again to soften the inevitable blow to her heart. But much to her shock Keita, with the help of Aguri’s pep talk, strengthens his resolve and asks Karen out on a proper date with an awkward stiffness to it. See, Keita is still as thick as a brick so unlike Karen who internally is screaming for joy, Keita wants to pursue their relationship one step at a time so he doesn’t mess things up. Karen picked up on this and plays along so the duo can head off on their date where they act like the most awkward dorks in the world.

Now I don’t mean that as a put down when I call them awkward dorks, on the contrary in my personal take on love and relationships that awkward dorkiness I find holds a lot of character for the relationship. Their chemistry fighting that stilted feeling but still finding joy in playing games together makes their interaction feel natural and genuine. Despite the moment where Keita reads off another monologue about how he perceives gaming. It’s less obtrusive here but I’ve noticed that almost every episode when Keita is asked a question related to gaming and then societal tendencies he has the perfect monologue to sound profound. I do just mean “sound” profound as with how the anime has characterized Keita it is hard to suspend my disbelief to think such a socially dim individual can have the perfect phrase to say to make everyone go… Oooooo… at his surprising in depth look into how gaming affects society and relationships.

This all continues to make Keita come off less as a character and more a pawn the writers can use to be their mouth piece which is to be expected. Similarly, Brian Griffin from Family Guy has been the mouthpiece for Seth MacFarlane’s views since the show’s inception but unlike Brian who’s mouth piece persona turns a once likable character into a reprehensible one, Keita doesn’t sound like a character at those moments. The character we have watched up until that point vanishes and what’s left is just a contrived emotional response maker.

Karen, on the other hand, continues to be my favorite character of the cast. Portraying her awkwardness and sincerity beautifully in writing and voice performance and apart from Keita’s non-character monologues, I do see where the two have a strong romantic connection which is good for a rom-com. I do fear as we continue forward into the misunderstanding contrivances that the show may sacrifice those natural feeling for wacky shenanigans. However, if it can prove me wrong and even make those future misunderstandings work like the relationship aspect works in this episode then it should be a cute romance to watch.

OUR TAKE

This was a much more solid episode primarily due to the focus on the casts’ misunderstandings was shelved for the time being. The interesting aspect to the series isn’t the romantic love pentagon between the five, what is most intriguing to watch is the simple slice of life moments these gamers have. Going to clubs, getting to know each other over games, even in this episode of just showing a friendly game competition between some of the characters show ten times more heart and character than any of the misunderstandings so far. This episode is a cute one and if you have been enjoying Gamers then Keita and Karen will be the best entertainment.