Loving Yamada at LV999! is a show that can best be described by the word bland.

It follows a college girl by the name of Akane, freshly dumped and in search of a way to make her ex feel jealous. This plot of hers fails spectacularly, but coincidentally she meets a pro gamer that just so happens to be attending the same gaming convention by the name of Yamada. She ends up telling him her woes and somehow by getting drunk, she ends up in his bed. However, he never intended to do anything with her. He's just a good guy who's decided to take care of a stranger in need. That's pretty much the summary of the first episode - a solid opening, full of potential. Unfortunately, the character's emotions are never fully explored and we get stuck with a bland story. For a show that's supposed to be a romantic comedy, it doesn't have many funny moments. In fact, it doesn't even have many romantic moments. So... what is it? Well, I'd describe it as a slice of life in which Akane decides to pursue a guy who showed her kindness and her path to getting the courage to come to terms with her insecurities and confess.... wait actually no, that's not what happened here.

Now I'll be entering SPOILER territory because It would be difficult to explain what's wrong with this show otherwise.

Instead of Akane confessing her feelings to him, he confesses first while she's drunk. Okay, so maybe the point was Yamada getting past his complete awkwardness and developing feelings for a woman for the first time in his life? The way I'm describing this sounds cute and very mature actually. Two people get past their insecurities and break into the unknown so that they could be together. But it just feels... weak. The show is paced very poorly and many of its episodes are wasted on characters that make no difference in the end and are not interesting in the slightest (looking at you Runa and Kamota). It would be interesting if that time was spent more on Yamada's relationship with the classmate that also likes him, but she was introduced very late, and because of that Yamada's rejection failed to trigger any emotional response from me. In fact, nothing triggered any emotional response from me here.

They didn't bond by doing much together, the game they were supposed to play together... well, they never actually play it together. It's mostly just Akane playing it with the rest of their little game guild. And their relationship develops mostly by Akane bothering Yamada every now and then and Yamada taking care of her when she's in a bit. The last episode flops so badly, there's no kiss, there's no romantic tension, there's no charming funny moments. They get together just ... like that. And that might in fact be pretty realistic, but it doesn't make for a entertaining watch. This is a show with bland characters, and a very unimaginative basic story with no real heart put into it. At the end of the day, it is pretty harmless and inoffensive, its biggest fault being that it's simply boring. I'm unwilling to give it a lower score just because if you watch many episodes in a vacuum, they're not bad. But how it's all connected didn't reveal what the point of me watching this show was. I didn't have fun, I haven't felt emotion, and I didn't laugh. I just... consumed a very average show with little meaning.