Recovery of an MMO Junkie

Our society is made up of all sorts of people. The everyday working man, prodigies, movie icons, singing legends, book smarts, street thugs, leaders, professional gamers, ladies’ man, creative innovators. You name it. There’s always someone you’ve met in today’s society that you may be familiar with or completely contrasts who you are. There’s one type of people that our society doesn’t have a keen impression on though. That would be NEET. Know what it stands for? At its most generic definition, it’s a person that is “not in education, employment, or training”. The stereotype about “gamers that stay in their mom’s basement” applies there.In a show like this, we get a first inside look at the life of a NEET and how their social life applies to their norms. Jumping into this anime was actually quite easy. This is determined by the female protagonist, Moriko Morioka. She is what most people would define as a “NEET”. After quitting her job, Moriko decided to play an MMO called “Fruit de Mer” in order to embrace the NEET lifestyle. I find this choice of the main character rather interesting as there’s sort of gender swap with her role. Most people would imagine a nerdy male protagonist but instead, we have a single unmarried female character who isn’t bad looking in the beauty department either. Some people may also feel relatable to Moriko because of her straightforward timid personality. As a show that examines the lifestyle of a NEET, Moriko fits perfectly for that role because she is socially awkward. In the meantime, Moriko also creates a character in the MMO world named “Hayashi”. In contrast to her real life image, she makes Hayashi as a male knight character with a handsome look; in general, an antithesis of herself. As such, this anime sets up a lot of storytelling as her lifestyle blends between fiction and reality. Similarly to Moriko, there’s also another character in the series that doesn’t come far off when compared to her. His name is Yuta Sakurai. Compared to Moriko, Sakurai often has hard time talking with people in real life although he does maintain a decent job at his company. This is extremely similar to Moriko as both characters often fret over at what they should say or how others may judge them based on their words. In the MMO world, Sakurai adopts the character name “Lily”. By storytelling elements, he plays a gender bender role as a female character in that fictional world and meets Hayashi. Lily also happens to be an attractive young female in-game and is sociable compared to Sakurai’s real life image. Get the picture here? It basically designates both their characters being completely different between their real life and MMO character persona. However, I do find the character chemistry to be very well executed. From the MMO world, they manage to connect to a personal level and share quite a decent amount of memorable moments together. In fact, character chemistry is what I value this show the most. Through social commentary, character dialogues, and personality dynamics, Moriko and Sakurai stands out as a memorable pair. They aren’t just similar but really bring out their honesty towards each other. It’s like fate often has the two meet together through coincidences as they connect with their relationship. Of course, this anime isn’t just about them as the show also adds other characters to fulfill certain roles. A noticeable character is Homare Koiwai who has a very outgoing personality. In fact, he can be interpreted by some people as a ladies’ man. Unlike either Moriko or Sakurai, Koiwai has little trouble speaking with others and often initiates a conversation. It shouldn’t take long for viewers to realize that he is a foil character for the both of them. There’s also Kazuomi Fujimoto, a stereotypical college working student who also has an in-game MMO character. While I can’t say his role is very dynamic in this show, he does make up an empty void for filling the shoe of the merchandise seller. You ever need some in-game items? He’s your guy. Even as a show that explores a lot of social norms, this anime still fulfills a lot of MMO gimmicks and mechanics that gamers may be familiar with. The idea of character classes, customized gear, lootbox, dungeon conquering, world exploration, etc fits into their game world. However, don’t mistake this anime as one about characters trapped in a world in order to defeat some demon overlord or survive. It’s more of a series that satires the NEET lifestyle in a lighthearted way. In addition, the storytelling gives us insight about Moriko’s life in small but vivid details. It shows how exactly she lives her lifestyle as you would picture as a NEET. The anime also gives some background storytelling about Moriko and Sakurai so it doesn’t just rely on the present timeline to do all the talking and showing. On the other hand, I do find that there’s some problem with the storytelling’s pacing. This anime adapts from a web manga and only consists of 10 episodes. The majority of the first half establishes the characters and ideas while the latter half seems to focus more on Moriko and Sakurai’s relationship. It often flirts with the idea of “will they or won’t they become a couple”. No, I’m not just talking about an in-game romance relationship because that comes off as way too cheesy. Instead, it makes the viewers wonder if there’s a future for them in a real relationship. This anime will test a viewers’ patience as it slowly builds up more and more each episode. Some of them end in cliffhangers that can be a letdown. As such, I’d recommend watching this as a marathon rather than on a week to week basis. On the visual front, Net-juu no Susume isn’t anything to write home about when it comes to raw quality. Signal. MD’s track record consists of a small group of projects that people don’t talk about often. To me, this was their first anime project that people may have taken more notice. The visual quality itself can also be questionable as everything looks very simple. If this anime was marketed as a game in our world, it would be an indie compared to AAA games that you’d see from high budget studios. However, if you look past the quality, you may notice that the anime appeals to more than just quality itself. With its MMO elements, this show is a smart flick that uses its artwork to prove what it means to be a gamer. If you take a look at Moriko’s home, she has everything set up from dual screens to high quality keyboard. In-game character designs, monsters, and items disguises the mediocre quality if you look carefully as it satires the gaming culture. Moriko’s character design can also look appealing especially in later episodes when she gets a makeover. Character expressions also sell a good degree of humor especially with reactions to certain situations. To be honest, this anime will be viewed differently from every viewer but it possesses an innate ability to shine for what it has to offer despite the budget. The quality of the soundtrack isn’t memorable by any means but it’s more of the characters’ voice lines that do the work. Moriko’s voice fits effectively for her role as both in-game and real life. Even when crossplaying, Hayashi still has some of her traits that can be easily recognized. The theme songs for the show speaks for themselves as it comes as colorfully decorated. After watching this anime, I can safely say that it exceeded my expectations. The first few episodes took me some time to accept but after realizing what it really had to offer, it changed my mind from a mediocre afterthought to a show that I looked forward to every week. However, I think it’s preferably to watch this anime as a marathon as the storytelling can test the patience of the viewers at many times. The comedy can be a hit or a miss depending on what you’re looking for. But for me, Net-juu no Susume turned out to be a dark horse that went beyond and over.

(Note: This review contains both positives and negatives, but it helps you decide to watch it or not. 8/10 is just my view) In this present Internet-dominated world, We spend lots of time on social networks, gaming etc and we forget how we behave in the real world and become clumsy, silly and awkward...That's depicted really well in this anime...and it also shows how we want to stay and dream to be in that dream world... Please don't be deceived by the title "Recovery of MMO junkie" , To be honest I thought it must be a story of a recovering MMO addict and it might helppeople with addictions get motivated, but to my disappointment, Its a story about an MMO addict who was forced to quit playing the game as the game was shut down and she finds a new game...so that's what recovery means in this case. Story: It's a common MMO gaming type anime where MC plays the game and interacts with other characters and obviously falling in love with them or developing a crush and accidentally they meet in the real world but they do not know that they are playing the same game. (Which would never happen in real life scenario cos there is no possibility of meeting) . You know what's going to happen next in the story and you know that it is silly but still you would love watching it because the atmosphere in the anime makes you feel that way. The first episode might be boring but after 2nd and 3rd episode you start liking it and it keeps getting more and more interesting.There is no dragging which happens in most love stories (you would understand what I meant at the end of episode 8). It did help bring few smiles and laughs as it exactly depicts how stupid we behave when we live in that virtual world or social networks, as we cant talk to the same person whom we met in social network properly if met face to face. It also makes sarcastic jokes about MMO gaming. Art: Art is Good, I mean since it represents about a game, obviously the characters are designed to be colorful and interesting.The Main character even though with her messy long hair is really cute and there is bit drawback in male characters of real life because most of them look almost same, just the hair color or spectacles vary lol. Sound: Opening and Ending tracks are good and create a gaming feel scenario, The soundtracks aren't worth remembering, except for 1 or 2, I guess. Character: This is the main important feature that makes this anime special, Character development Of the main character is good. I fell in love with the MC as her character is just like me who does clumsy things and speak in monosyllables when talking with opposite sex. Other characters aren't much developed( like other gamers)...We only come to know 3 people from the game outside...So it focuses mainly on the Two MC's and their feelings. Enjoyment and Overall : I would say to watch this anime if you want to see someone like you existing in an anime world and laugh at yourself. It's a good time pass anime if you are bored of high school romance and bloody thrillers. My advice before watching: Please don't start this anime with any expectations, Watch it with a free mind and at a time when you don't have anything to do.

I get it, Recovery of an MMO Junkie is cute and all, but is that really enough to overlook the generic and cliched writing? The conflict is entirely caused by misunderstandings. The characters are shallow and the protagonist is an unrealistic interpretation of a NEET. Moriko Morioka is a 30-something business dropout who has chosen to become a self-proclaimed "NEET" and plays games all day instead of working. Why did she choose this life? She felt like it, despite being good at her job she opted to throw it away playing video games instead… Don’t expect to understand what motivates the characters because their only reasonfor existing is to be cute. Moriko enters the MMO game and chooses to play as a male character, why? Because she wanted to. A potentially interesting start to the protagonist that goes right into the gutter because it's only used as an excuse to hide her true identity from her in-game friends, the first of many misunderstandings to fuel the lazy story. In the MMO world, she meets a kind girl named Lily, who has an air of mystery surrounding her. They grow close to each other quickly within the first episode, but keep their feelings on the down low because relationships are (for some reason) not allowed in the guild they’re in. In real life, Moriko bumps into a man on the streets and they gradually become friends as time goes by with hints at a romance that could form. Their burgeoning relationship gave her a chance to stop being a NEET. Occasionally it’s endearing to see them awkwardly try to talk to each other, but as they run through the same routine over and over I just wanted them to get on with it and skip the charade. However, the other half of me knew that the show would fall to pieces once there was no more misunderstanding to drag out. That’s why MMO Junkie is so predictable, you know that they can’t have the big reveal until the very end, lest they actually come up with an engaging plot to compel the audience for the rest of the runtime. Some of the more annoying contrivances the show dishes out: 1. Supporting characters who understand the misunderstanding between the two leads and willingly choose to confuse and misguide them, preventing them from discovering each other's true identities and also move the plot along. 2. In response to most awkward situations that would reveal either of the leads' identities they say, “I’m too embarrassed to say I’m a gamer/ I have a crush on that person / I am a woman but playing as a man.” If only the characters were actually had the self-confidence to be called role models, I might consider it to be cute and pleasant, but they’re not there to help you but to pander to you. Pure Junk food. 3. Phone Batteries. Why can’t they just charge their damn phones?? 4. “What if they find out that I’m a NEET?” You aren’t a damn NEET! Getting nervous around boys and being too lazy to go to work doesn’t make you a NEET. On top of these flaws is the wasted potential of the MMO counterpart to the real world, along with the supporting cast of Moriko's online friends who she's in a guild with (but they get no development whatsoever). Some of the engagement of watching MMO Junkie comes from trying to figure out which characters in the real world are players in the MMO world and seeing them work together in the game. However, the actual gameplay itself is almost never shown, most likely due to budget constraints. So we are forced to listen to the boring recounts of the gameplay, losing a connection with the characters in the process. Come on, even Sword Art Online got this right. Watching people play games without any reason to care is boring, but being told about people playing games is mind numbing. The fact that the characters are adults changes nothing, they all act just as stupid as the high schoolers in your average school harem anime. Their sole purpose is to perpetuate the frustratingly predictable plot about finding out who likes who. Each character in the show is added to the cast before they’re introduced, the show just expects you to recognize what archetype they fall into and fill in the blanks yourself. The incredibly lazy characterization that only further alienates the audience. Starting with the main character; she tells us she is a neet who quit her job, why? Who knows, she omitted that part, and thus gave the audience no reason to get invested in her character other than being a lady with big boobs who likes video games and cute girls (namely the one who she latches onto in the game). The characters could have just as easily been high schoolers, them being adults adds nothing to them. When I saw that they were in their 20s and 30s I thought we’d get to see interesting dynamics of responsibilities that the main character would face being an adult neet. Disappointingly, the responsibilities of adulthood are mostly ignored and swept under the rug. Despite Moriko not having a job, she is able to pay rent, living expenses, and her MMO subscription. 90% of the issues the characters face could be fixed if they simply communicated with each other and solved their problems like the adults that they are. However, it would be too much to ask for characters who have actual common sense, wouldn't it? My least favorite character by a mile was Koiwai. Even as just a supporting cast member he stands out as being particularly unsettling and he totally defuses any potential comedy in the scenes he's present in. What makes him so unbearable is how creepy he acts, in one episode he takes a picture of Moriko while she's sleeping then texts it to Sakurai and to top it off, Koiwai makes a rape joke. Yes, it was a rape joke. Even if it was meant as some sort of off-beat joke, it put me off from his character entirely. I was constantly wondering why he even hangs around the kind and innocent lead characters while he is so malicious. I'm honestly shocked that more people haven't mentioned how grotesque he is as a character. The worst part about him is that the creators of the show acknowledge him as a good person and build him up to be this great guy through Moriko commenting on his "kindness," truly sickening. This sadly isn't too surprising of a (dark) turn for MMO Junkie considering the director, Kazuyoshi Yaginuma, is openly a neo-nazi and promotes anti-semitism. I wouldn't recommend this show before knowing about the Yaginuma's appalling beliefs. But knowing who had their filthy hands on this show makes it flat out impossible to recommend. I could understand if they intended for the scenes in real life to look bland, but the scenes in the game world are just as flat which leads me to believe that this show just didn't have the budget to handle a project like this. I’ve never heard of the studio that made this show, Signal. MD, and that’s probably a blessing considering how low in quality the show is. The op and ed are catchy but become grating over time, not something I would listen to individually. Another place affected by the low budget is the music, I expected it to be mediocre and I wasn't disappointed. Don't go into it expecting anything great, just your bog standard repetitive romcom-ish soundtrack that adds very little to the show. To spice it up a bit the show would use the MMO specific music in the real world to symbolize how Moriko was taking on life as if it was an in-game challenge, which was a good creative choice, but it me think of how they're just running out of music. I almost never found the jokes to be funny, they try way too hard to be relatable and often feel redundant in an oversaturated genre. The "comedy" is just a constant stream of Moriko shouting in her head "Ahhg!! I'm so embarrassed for x-reason!!" over and over. She can't face life head on like an adult and instead tortures herself (and the audience) by constantly complaining about small issues that make her seem petty. If you think finding out which character in the real world is a player in the MMO could be exciting then look elsewhere, it is very obvious who is who. Like the derivative rom-com of last season “Gamers,” this show is full of head shaking contrivances to keep characters from figuring out who is who. At least Gamers made the effort to include commentary on video games. This show didn’t even bother to go beyond “I can make man character but I am a woman teehee.” God forbid the audience actually have to think at all while watching a show about adults. All that MMO Junkie offers in the way of meaningful commentary (if you can even call it that) is characters mentioning from time to time, "I bought my gear in a loot box~!" It shows that the characters like to spend lots of money on the game, but damn, it's so unself-aware for a show about video games to actually embrace microtransactions rather than criticize them, especially with Battlefront II and other offenders only recently releasing to overwhelming audience outcry. Despite being only 10 episodes long it overstays its welcome, becoming incredibly repetitive and predictable as it desperately claws at the audience screaming out “TELL ME IM CUTE!!” And it made no effort to hide its intentions. I didn’t care if she found out who he was in the game or not. I didn’t care if he confessed to her or not. I just wanted it to be over. Rather than writing adult characters as actual adults, this anime chooses the laziest route and gives them the maturity level of children. If you can overlook the shallow characters, misunderstanding fueled plot, poorly realized game world, then perhaps you may find some enjoyment in this cloyingly saccharine non-romance. Otherwise, I’d say Recovery of an MMO Junkie is best left forgotten.

Story: Average Being predictable isn't a shortcoming, but being predictable without any charm is. We know right from the start what is the goal of the series and we are there just to lay down and enjoy the ride, and I sure didn't. Most of the reason for that comes from the characters, but the plot is also at fault. If you make your end goal known to the public at least make your journey until there fun. I mean, I'm pretty sure that I have watched this already. Isn't this just a mixture of ReLIFE, NetoYome, and Gamers! ? - Romance involving two main adult characterswhile having some sort of "rehabilitation". ✔ - Having characters that know each other in a game meeting irl. ✔ - A bunch of misunderstandings or slow progression that could have been easily solved if they talked with each other. ✔ Sound/Art: Fine/Bad I don't have much to say, I found the music a bit above average while the art being somewhat bad. It's more or less consistent, but I don't think that it has any appeal. Backgrounds and characters designs are really generic and I don't have any memorable moment where I thought that the show looked good. On the other hand, I have several memories where it was meant to look good, but it wasn't. Characters: Very Bad So, let me see if I got this right. For a change instead of high school age characters we have adults, but instead of making any good use of that we just use them as if they were still high school age characters. Yes, we have this huge superficial difference while everything else that really matters is the same as any other anime out there. This story could easily have been made without them being adults while having almost no differences, just changing some events to something similar or changing them to something different while getting a similar purpose/intent. I just feel like it was a waste on that part. But hey, they are not even the only characters, we have more which we know absolutely nothing about and were always there. I guess that we shouldn't expect much since not even the main characters were that well developed. We known about Sakurai's past and we kinda know about Morioka's. But it's in a superficial manner. Sakurai only has that going for him because it was needed. Otherwise, he could not share a bound with Morioka, and the exact same thing with the MC. A superficial plot point for them to have some sort of connection while making it "so beautiful", otherwise they would have 0 reasons to want to get to know one another. Especially taking in considerating both their personalities, especially Morioka's. Overall: Average I feel like I made this series seem worse than it is. I honestly just found it average. I ended up focusing on the bad points of the series since most of the reviews are positive with some high scores and I wanted to give some "balance" to it since I really don't think that this series was as good as people make it out to be.