English Dub Review: Gamers! “Gamers and Youth Continue”

It’s a romantic double and a half date to pseudo-gamer Disney land for our Gamers today. How many love confessions will happen?

In a lot of really good shows that I watch consistently there comes a point within its writing that makes the thought click in my mind that “yeah, now this show is in its stride.” It’s at the point of consistent comedic and character writing and the animation is complementary to all of that. Today’s episode really hit that point for me and made me just adorably “awwwwww” at all the sweet moments on display as these awkward dorks tried to be romantic to one another.

OVERVIEW (Spoilers Below)

This episode is basically a true aftermath episode to all of the awkward romantic tension that Keita, Karen, Uehara, Aguri and Chiaki have been feeling for one another in a spider-web of teenage feelings and hormones. So, this time Uehara and Karen plan together to take Keita and Aguri out on a double date to a theme park, to help reaffirm their relationships with their partners. Aguri and Keita agree, also discussing this date as a means to check if Uehara is truly cheating on Aguri or not, and the four start having a fun time. However, Konoha overhears Uehara’s plan and in an effort to get Chiaki to confess to Keita she persuades her to come along to add on even more unclear feelings to this double date of cute floundering affection.

In the grand scheme of the series, Gamers has really very little to do it with actual video gaming. That’s become clear as the episodes have gone on. Rather gaming culture is the framework around these five characters’ personalities and the driving force to kickstart the romance. This episode epitomizes this with the literal setting being a theme park that the characters describe as a cheesy RPG town setting. But this setting doesn’t become the too “on-the-nose” setup to call attention to anything too extreme. It’s just a romantic setup that these gamers just so happen to be in which definitely strengthens the writing. Without needing to overtly force gaming into the romantic aspect Gamers has the space necessary to have high energy and quiet moments to make a roller coaster ride of emotions throughout to keep the audience engaged.

OUR TAKE

I was definitely engaged enjoying all of the cute interactions between Uehara and Karen who tried in vain to get past their own nervousness to show overt affection, Keita and Aguri’s naive and childlike obliviousness adding onto the romantic frustration and the quiet Chiaki trying her best to be true to her feelings, it creates a series of moments that both infuriate and endear to their relationships. It’s a very fun episode, feeling like an almost bookend piece to the first bout of miscommunication and opening the door to a lot more hijinks to follow. The series has mixed beautifully awkward sincerity and competitive bravado and it makes Gamers a very hard series to put down. Definitely, give this episode a watch if you got the time.