English Dub Review: Recovery of an MMO Junkie “One Step Forward”

People are fated to be together.

Overview:

Upon seeing Moriko’s new character, Sakurai recalls some of the more dismal portions of his life. He works up the courage to finally tell Moriko that he used to play with her years ago.

Our Take:

We get some backstory on Sakurai, and it’s not a nice one. He doesn’t play MMOs for fun, or at least it didn’t start out that way. The time he gamed the most was after his parents died, and he was left all alone. To combat his loneliness, he turned to games, where at least making friends with strangers could comfort him.  This brings up a good point— people play games for fun, but people also play games to fill the gaps in their life from loneliness. Sakurai at his lowest point didn’t have any family or friends to rely on, so he lived a very isolated existence. Being able to interact with people who didn’t know his problems, and didn’t judge him for his problems, was almost a comfort. There is comfort in anonymity, they say.

While he recalls his past, he notices that Moriko’s new character greatly resembles a character that he used to play with. As one of his online friends, this character made him feel a lot less lonely. He takes a gamble by naming his new character the same as his old one— and it doesn’t pay off instantly. It turns out Moriko really was the player Sakurai used to interact with, and they bond over that.

In a change of pace, the misunderstanding actually gets cleared up within the same episode. Sakurai works up the courage to tell Moriko that he was not only Harth, but that he’s also Lily. While he does initially skip out on telling her that he’s Lily due to his phone dying, he makes up for it by telling her later. To have a miscommunication get resolved easily instead of dragging it out like so many other series do is really refreshing.

Altogether, this series is ending on a very cute note. There are only a couple of episodes until the finale, yet things are turning out quite nicely– even if it is an astronomically improbable coincidence that they used to play with each other. Sakurai and Moriko have a nice dynamic, and I’m curious to see how she reacts to the revelation next episode.