「あなたと俺とキミとわたしと」 (Anata to Ore to Kimi to Watashi to)
“You and Me and You and Me”

The buildup is starting to kill me.

General Impressions

Before diving into things, let me preface the post with the fact that I think we’ve hit the apex of just how much the story can build things up. That and even though I might sound like I’m complaining a little, I’m thoroughly enjoying being toyed with as the story starts to drop all kinds of hints.

Okay, on to the post itself! Starting with the more serious part (and one that I didn’t really want to talk about due to my own embarrassment), I thought this episode did a great job at demonstrating just how real an in-game relationship can be and just how stressful it is when two worlds collide. With Sakurai’s character personifying the struggles of having a character mismatch between your in-game character and real life, his battle between keeping his identity a secret or revealing everything really struck a chord with me. Thinking about my early MMORPG days, I remember a friend of mine getting really invested into a fellow player only to get bamboozled in the end. While the circumstances might be a little different in Netojuu since everything kind of works out in terms of gender, the memories of what happened really helped me throw myself into Sakurai’s shoes as he worried about destroying what Lili had built up with Hayashi.

The thing is (and I’m hoping this is where the story is heading), I feel like Sakurai has this amazing opportunity to take his two worlds and smash them together into an amalgamation of happiness. He already has a fantastic relationship with Moriko in-game and their experiences out in the real world have for the most part went pretty well. I can already picture it now, some fabulous scene where Hayashi and Lili talk things out in-game and it transitions to Moriko and Sakurai staring into each other’s eyes. Boy, what a wonderful world that would be am I right?

Anyways, let’s close things out before the post gets too long. With only three episodes left, I think the show is in a great position to close things out with a bang. What’s amazing though is it looks like we’re about to get a peek into Moriko’s past. Something that I’ve been dying to see since not only would it help flesh her out, but I can’t help but feel that it’d be the perfect opportunity for the show to make us cry our hearts out. In any case, I’ll catch you guys next week. See you then!

P.S. OMG WE FINALLY GOT TO SEE NICO. LJASDKLFJALKJF SHE’S SUCH A GREAT PERSON AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

 

Preview

16 Comments

  1. Koiwai sure loves hamburgers, doesn’t he? Guess it’s not surprising then that he made his character into a beef cake. 😉

    Joking aside, it’ll be interesting to see how things play out next episode. The fact that Sakurai and Morioka run into each other again is promising. And I echo Takaii in that it’s about time they give us a bit more info on why Morioka quit her job.

    Mangakachan
  2. ah hahahah !

    I never expected to see two chibi anime “kids” talking about taking an issue to HR before.

    I appreciate the acknowledgment that working, responsible adults can play games, even MMOs.

    And yeah, Koiwai is as much of a threat to Sakurai as his cushion is a real cheeseburger.
    He was never more than classic confusion fodder and weak fodder at that. He’s trying to help them out.

    danny
    1. that cute character design sure reminds me of Ragnarok Online…
      and yeah completely regular working adults can play games, not only htta – they usually provide the economic base for them by being regular spenders – they have incentive to buy things like prtemium time cause they have limited tiem to grind, while they have the stable income to support the gaming hobby

      ewok40k
    1. For sure its a none zero chance… What makes that chance lower is the odds of meeting that player IRL and it will be much more harder if the player is someone who rolesplays a “character” like he acts sadist but irl he is not

      Jeffers
  3. That “surprised” killed half of it.
    Doesn’t matter what are the dramas and struggles now, everything will be resolved by that trumph card, it’s a shame. Also a shame is that the jewel of the series should be Moriko and her difficulties and decisions and victories but the last episodes gave more and more time for other characters that, preferably, should exist just to support her.

    Even so is still one of the best series this season, just not as good as a had hoped for.
    It’ll be remembered.

    1. I wonder if he has made this character design out of being simpleton, or is he shrewd enough to try and send hints to MoriMori about not every character being same gender as player?

      ewok40k

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