Young Ladies Don't Play Fighting Games ‒ Episode 11
As we approach the nearing finale, we finally got our long-awaited match between Arisa and Mio—and in-universe, it's happening on stream. For this anime, this is about as high stakes as it gets, and it's a great note to close on. The matches themselves are exciting enough—especially the one where the timer ran out—but the real fun to be had is in the mind games of it all, especially with regards to Arisa who's absolutely crashing out over how much better Mio is than she expected.
As we already discussed last week, Arisa is exactly the type of player—an all too real type of player, unfortunately—with no respect for people she doesn't perceive as taking the game seriously. Of course, she—like many others of this type—doesn't realize that different people have different versions of taking the game seriously, but whatever I guess. In any case, it's finally coming back to bite her this week, as she realizes that Mio is actually tough to beat.
It's not until the end of the episode that Arisa acknowledges Mio as a good player and worthy competition, but even so, she's still got more than a few other misbegotten ideas she needs to rid herself of to be not just a better player, but a better person as well. In particular, with regards to the value of casual players. Let me back up: Arisa is hardly the first player to look down on casual players because she sees them as beneath her. But not everyone necessarily wants to be Daigo Umehara or Tokido. Some people—lots of people—are content to have fun in their own ways with fighting games, even if those same things aren't necessarily competitively viable. Strange and counter-intuitive as it might seem though, casual players are at the beating heart of the FGC. At the end of the day, we're all here to have fun—and at the end of the day, that's what they're doing. Plus, they keep fighting games financially secure—relatively speaking at least (tempted as I am, I won't derail this into a long thinkpiece about the financial issues of esports as a whole, and the unique ones that come with fighting games in particular). The vibes they offer are immaculate, and that also shouldn't go unstated. Take the game as seriously as you want, but at the end of the day, remember to value casual players, and not to totally dismiss them.
On the topic of the games themselves, I wondered, a few weeks ago, about the process through which they get the game footage for this anime. This week, I'm wondering that again, but for a different reason. In the segments of the fight where they're just exchanging fireballs, the timing is such that for the first time since watching this show, I watched it and thought, “Oh, this looks staged. This looks deliberately choreographed.” To be fair, there are times in real life where, by unhappy coincidence, that happens as well. And with fireball exchanges, where the timing is so particular, it could feel especially so. Still, it does make me wonder all my questions about gameplay footage all over again. As I said a few weeks ago, I'd be curious to learn how they went about this.
Anyways, next week is our last episode, and in a season that's been stacked with some pretty heavy-hitting shows—many of which could've been viable anime of the year candidates just about any other year—this has still been one of my stand-outs. Not quite anime of the season material, alas, but a weekly highlight that I look forward to all the same. In the grand tradition of anime about cute girls getting into a hobby, this has been one of my favorites, both in terms of the hobby selected, and raw execution. Memorable characters, absolutely explosive (complimentary) chemistry between our romantic lead girls, and it perfectly captures the thrill of competing and love for community that's so pervasive in FGC spaces. I'll wait until next week to give a more detailed account of my overall thoughts, but for now, just now that I've been really enjoying this show and I'm looking forward to next week.
Rating:
Young Ladies Don't Play Fighting Games is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. One or more of the companies mentioned in this article are part of the Kadokawa Group of Companies. discuss this in the forum (30 posts) |
back to Young Ladies Don't Play Fighting Games
Episode Review homepage / archives
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.