English Dub Review: Shangri-La Frontier “What Do You Play Games For?”

Overview

A “Trash-Game Hunter” whose hobby is beating the world’s worst video games logs into the world’s most popular online RPG.

Our Take

Based on the web novel series written by Katarina, and illustrated by Ryosuke Fuji, This story takes place in the near future where screen-based gaming gets replaced with full-dive VR games becoming more dominant. This consequently results in the market being flooded with low-quality games filled with glitches known as “trash games”. This somehow becomes an unintentional blessing in disguise since a large percentage of players are obsessed with completing these shitty games despite the glitches. One “trash game hunter” we follow is Rakuro (Eric Vale), who frequently uses his screen name Sunraku. Of course what he doesn’t know is that his classmate Rei (Corey Petit) has a crush on him but doesn’t know how to approach the dude. After spending weeks completing his latest game Rakuro suffers mental burnout and is convinced by local shop owner Mana to play something mainstream ginstead that’s not only popular, but completely free of glitches, Shangri-La Frontier.

Sticking with his preferred play style Rakuro creates a Wanderer character with twin blades, extra luck bonuses, and minimum armor except for swimming shorts and a bird head mask. And while most people take the linear approach, Sunraku Chooses to skip the game introduction and begins fighting monsters while heading to the starting town Firstia. With increased luck Rakuro levels up rapidly and is amazed by the glitch-free gameplay, eventually deciding to skip Firstia and go for more advanced parts unknown. In the post credits scene that introduction Rakuro skipped earlier It also reveals multiple playstyles that Sunraku himself might not be aware of…

Overall, The story so far works despite starting out as basic as possible. But I still enjoyed what I was seeing. The animation also looked great despite some of its wacky moments, and it was one hell of a way to start a series. Eric Vale’s performance so far captures the enthusiasm to dedicated gaming with passion right off the bat. And even if the anime is based on a fictional game, there’s a level of potential for the proceedings. Hopefully, this all culimates to something big later on for the rest of this season.