I’m not sure why this series was so underrated/hyped. My working hypothesis is that the gaming focus narrowed the potential audience quite a bit, and so many other great shows came out in the season that it got lost in the shuffle. It also relies a lot on “cringe” moments as part of the humor, but to me that is just part of the show’s charm. It also makes sense given the context of how the protagonist is presented in the beginning of the show. Personally, this was my 2nd favorite show for the season behind only Attack on Titan and is the only new show from the last few years that I re-watched just for enjoyment. I even decided to read ahead in the light novels, which I haven’t done for any other LN adaptation.

Before I go into more details on the show itself allow me a brief divergence into the genre of romantic comedies.
While romcoms have existed dating back to Shakespeare with Much Ado About Nothing and A Midsummer Night's Dream, for modern anime purposes they truly took off after the success of Rumiko Takahashi’s seminal work, Urusei Yatsura. Once that series made it big, and Lum became the first ever major waifu figure, many of the subsequent series in the genre have emulated certain aspects of Urusei Yatsura.

Loser/loner main character? Check

Harem/multiple love interests? Check

Beautiful waifu(s)? Check

I could go on and on with this list, but you get my point. I bring this up because romantic comedies have largely converged into 3 main categories since then and they stem from Urusei Yatsura’s influence.

First, the “destined pair”, in which there are no serious competitors for the love of the “destined pair”. Second the “love polygon”, usually with a love triangle involving 2 (sometimes more) females competing for 1 male (obviously, Shojo will invert this to 2 or more males to 1 female). Finally, the “harem”, in which the creator says, “Fuck it, why not just give our Chad protagonist all the bitches?”. These 3 categories are all distinct in their style, but all 3 categories borrow from some aspects of Urusei Yatsura. Virtually every single romantic comedy in anime will fall into 1 of these 3 categories. I bring all of this up because Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki doesn’t neatly fall into any of these categories (it is correctly listed under drama, but the author refers to it as a romantic comedy). If I had to pick 1 it would have to be “love polygon”, but it is fitting a square peg into a round hole. This is a good thing, because the series is doing something outside of the usual formula for romantic comedies that inserts a random loser/loner protagonist with random character quirk X to magically end up dating the most beautiful/popular girl(s) in school like most series. This isn’t your usual self-insert escapist BS. Instead, we get a real character drama that examines the nature of relationships between people in society and the way we present ourselves to different people depending on the person and situation. With all of that out of the way, let’s dive into the series itself.

Story/Plot 10

The premise of the story is unique in that the main character’s “quirk” is that he is a great gamer and the best online player of the most popular fighting game in Japan, Attack Families (Super Smash Brothers), so the series treats his growth as “leveling up” and creates gaming metaphors to match the scenarios he finds himself in throughout the story. I don’t think you need to be a hardcore gamer to enjoy this aspect of the series, but if for some reason you hate video games, or get constantly annoyed with the gaming metaphors, this isn’t the series for you. For most non-gamer viewers, they may find the occasional video game jargon used off-putting, but for the most part the series does a good job of explaining the jargon, so the viewer understands what the characters are referring to. As a gamer myself, I enjoyed this aspect of the show and only a casual understanding of video games is likely needed to improve the viewer’s experience.

The story follows the protagonist, Fumiya Tomozaki, as he starts his journey towards self-improvement in the “game of life”. In the beginning, he laments how “unbalanced” (unfair) the game of life is compared to his favorite game, Attack Families (nicknamed Tackfam), that he considers a god-tier game. He thinks the game of life is a trash tier game and doesn’t believe it is worth it to focus his energy on it in the same way he does for Tackfam, which he believes is the perfect game, a game that anyone can enjoy ranging from a casual setting all the way up to professional level play. The show does an excellent job of contrasting how he makes excuses for not making any effort in life with how Nakamura makes excuses for losing at Tackfam to him in the very beginning of the show. Nakamura blames his loss on using a bad character, in a bad matchup, in a bad game (with unfair rules). Tomozaki admonishes him for blaming the game for his loss, telling him that blaming the game when you lose after making no effort is shameful. He offers to switch characters with him to prove his point, then quickly wins again. After meeting the school idol, Aoi Hinami, secretly the 2nd best player in online Tackfam, NO NAME, at an offline meetup, he realizes the cognitive dissonance between his excuses compared to Nakamura, and with some cajoling from the gamer he most respects in Japan besides himself, decides that it is worth making a real effort at life as he does with Tackfam, to see if it is truly the god-tier game she claims it is. After that decision, the rest of the show features Tomozaki being walked through the game of life by Hinami through the use of tasks that mimic what people use in real life to achieve their goals, as she teaches him all the rules of life that make it a god-tier game, based on her own efforts she used to improve herself into the “top tier character” she is currently.

It was refreshing to find an anime that doesn’t coddle the usual antisocial behavior you find in loner/loser protagonists in anime, especially Isekai. Those types of shows offer their viewers an escape from the frustrations of adolescence by blaming everything else but themselves for their situation. Telling them that were it not for excuses A, B, and C, that they too would be popular, good looking, smart, dating the most beautiful girl at school, etc. just like the self-inserted protagonist they project themselves to be. While every person has their own obstacles towards reaching self-fulfillment, with some people having larger obstacles than others, everybody can make changes to their circumstances to get closer to leading a fuller life. That is the overarching message of this story, and it is a great one to pass along to its audience.

Art/Animation 6

The character designs themselves are gorgeous and stand out in the series. Unfortunately, the production quality drops off in the last 3rd of the show, with some scenes quite literally looking unfinished. It is as if the producers had run out of time/budget towards the end and told the animators to just push out whatever they could manage in the end. This is a sad commentary on the broader anime industry, but that’s a whole other can of worms. The overall production quality is mostly fine, but since the show is a character driven drama the focus is mostly on making the characters look good and their dialogue. The show does a good job of expressing the emotions of the characters through their facial reactions and tone, which is important given how much focus is on the dialogue of the characters.

Sound 7

The opening is a catchy upbeat pop song “Jinsei Easy?” from DIALOGUE+, a female Japanese idol group, that reinforces the larger message through its lyrics by encouraging the listener to do their best with some gaming metaphors mixed in. The sound within the episodes themselves is mostly average. There are a few scenes where the sound elevates itself for the moment, but you are largely getting stock tracks for certain types of scenes. The ending is Ayafuwa Asterisk, also by DIALOGUE+, that is understandably more mellow than the opening, but still an upbeat sounding track overall. The lyrics focus on the oftentimes aimless and confusing feelings of adolescence. Certain episodes have the ED sung by the voice actresses for the female character that was/is the focus of that arc instead of DIALOGUE+. That was a very nice touch to add some variety to the ED and also highlight the VAs too. If you enjoy a particular Japanese VA this gives you a reason to tune in to the ED that they recorded! I thought both the English and Japanese VAs did a good job with each character, with Ai Kayano being of note for her performance as Fuuka. I usually only watch anime with subtitles, but the English translation for the dub was well done, and the English VAs made listening to the dub as enjoyable as the Japanese VAs did for the subs.

Characters 10

The level of character development and depth the series manages in only 12 episodes is remarkable for a school drama/romcom. The supporting characters are real people, not just the tropes you usually get. You learn about some of their hopes and fears as Tomozaki slowly becomes more involved in their lives from both his own initiative as well as Aoi’s tasks. As Tomozaki progresses through his development during the show he gains more agency with the direction of his growth. He understands how inauthentic it is to take an interest in someone from an assigned task as opposed to his own desire to genuinely learn about them. He refuses to let misunderstandings form the basis of a relationship, realizes that being his authentic self is the best way to connect with someone, and increasingly pushes back when Hinami’s tasks conflict with his own morals.

There are also 2 potential negative issues for viewers with the main characters that I want to mention. First is how incredibly awkward Tomozaki’s character starts off as. His level of ineptness in social interactions borders on unbelievable, to the point of potentially turning off a viewer. This didn’t bother me, because he starts off just short of a total shut in and he improves over time, but it requires a certain level of suspension of disbelief. The other 1 is the character of Hinami herself. Between how she views relationships, as if they are simply tasks to be completed, to her incredible level of excellence in everything she does, her character can also be viewed as unrealistic too. Almost too perfect at everything to be real. While her views on relationships gets addressed as part of the growth of the protagonist, this can still serve as a turnoff to the viewer. I will say that from my own experience that I have known someone that was similar to Tomozaki in college and to Hinami in middle school. In fact, in a lot of ways they were even more extreme than the characters themselves. The guy I knew in college almost flunked out because he didn’t go to class while playing World of Warcraft all the time. The girl I knew in middle school was so exceptional, I was not even remotely surprised to learn she not only attended Harvard, but was the commencement speaker for her graduating class. While these are extreme examples, they demonstrate the possibility of the characters in the story existing in real life.

Enjoyment 10

As I mentioned previously, I have already re-watched this series once and read ahead in the light novels based off of my enjoyment of the anime. The premise is unique and well-executed. The story breaks the mold of typical school dramas/romcoms. The characters are interesting and receive proper development. While it has some flaws in production quality, particularly in the last 3rd of the show, it didn’t hinder my overall enjoyment of the anime. If you enjoy serious character dramas, light hearted romantic comedies, or are intrigued by the premise, I encourage you to give this show a try.