It’s 1991 and the heyday of the 2D fighting game boom. Sixth-grader Haruo spends practically his entire day at an arcade in the seedy part of town, oblivious to the world around him. However, one day at his usual arcade, he encounters Akira, his female classmate with good grades and money. She may look out of place at the arcade, but she is actually a top-class gamer. Akira completely outmatches Haruo in one Street Fighter II round after another, and their relationship develops from this unlikely encounter. – ANN
Streaming: Netflix
Episodes: 12
Source: Manga
Episode Summary: Haruo considers himself a pretty avid gamer. His current favorite is Street Fighter II, which he plays endlessly at the local arcade. Though he typically dominates the standings, one afternoon he suddenly starts suffering one defeat after another. Who could his new opponent be? Surprisingly, it’s his classmate Akira Ono – a quiet, refined classmate of his whose grades outshine Haruo’s by a mile. Haruo simply can’t stand being outclassed by someone who’s so clearly not the gamer “type.”
Haruo and Akira start to encounter one-another around town more often, where Akira continues to impress with her unusually good gaming skills, as well as her ability to shut down naysayers with her fists. After the kids find themselves sharing a Final Fight gaming cabinet after escaping a sudden rainstorm, Haruo begins to realize the extent of Akira’s gaming knowledge, as well as her inability to suffer fools during a heated co-op session. Though Haruo is still sore about his many fighting game losses, he begins to think he may be gaining a new friend in Akira.
While I have vague memories of watching my father play games on an old Intellivision gaming system when I was a tiny child, the early-to-mid 1990’s were the years where I really started to come into my own as a video-gaming kid. I was a bit of a late-bloomer who discovered the Nintendo Entertainment System after visiting a friend from my second grade class, and from there I became a hopeless devotee of console-based entertainment. I vividly remember how Street Fighter II took the world by storm, how terribly unforgiving Ghosts ‘n Goblins (and all its variations) were, and the joy of working together with my friends to make minimal progress in side-scrolling beat-’em-ups like Final Fight, Battletoads, Double Dragon, and Golden Axe. Hi-Score Girl sets itself in that golden era of gaming, and as someone who lived it firsthand, I am so here for it.
As much as I love being directly targeted by nostalgia vendors, though, nostalgia itself cannot keep an entire anime series afloat. Luckily, while the episode’s opening theme is plastered with arcade and classic gaming imagery, the episode itself is a pretty competent set-up for a cute romantic rivalry.
I’ll say up front, though, that some aspects of this episode are somewhat questionable and rough around the edges. Akira’s characterization is a bit of a conundrum, the main issue being that she doesn’t speak (though she utters a few wordless grumbles when she’s unhappy). Taken in a vacuum this isn’t an issue, just a character quirk. The fact that she’s a girl in a context where a lot of boys are talking about her, competing with her, and making assumptions about her, leaving her without a way to express herself in words and defend herself with speech is somewhat problematic. Her body language is relatively easy to read and she has a repertoire of various dirty looks that do well to slice through any confusion, but I hope that she either gets the opportunity to speak for herself, or that there’s some explanation given as to why she can’t or won’t.
This episode also relies a lot on slapstick violence, and depending on your tolerance for that some of the scenes may be difficult. Most of the time it’s Akira who’s doling out the punishment; as a side-effect of her disinclination to talk, when she’s angry she seems to deal with her problems physically – kicking the arcade machine when she knows Haruo’s been cheating, or punching a couple of bullies who were taking their losses out on others. In the moment I did laugh a couple of times, mostly out of surprise at Akira’s “0-to-60” anger and violence, but thinking back on it, it does make me a little bit uncomfortable.
This show has a very unique look to it; the character designs are already a little unorthodox, and coupled with the series’ 3D animation it makes for unusual viewing. I kind of like it, though; the characters’ faces are all very expressive, and they excel at giving one-another what I’d call “shitty” looks (angry, pissed-off, annoyed, take your pick). The episode also takes good advantage of the 3D space by featuring some sweeping shots of arcade-goers at their various cabinets and cool close-ups of their hands managing joysticks and buttons. It may not be my preferred style of animation, but for a series that’s so focused on electronic entertainment I think it works well.
As this is framed as a story about a girl “invading” a boy’s social space, I found that the specific dialog managed to tip-toe around being horribly sexist, which is a small victory. There’s a little bit of an uproar when Akira starts beating people at Street Fighter II; most of the arcade gamers react with incredulity at this interloper defeating people left and right. I wasn’t listening too closely to the Japanese, but the English translation of Haruo’s dialog stresses that the reason he’s upset about being beaten by Akira isn’t because she’s a girl, so much as she doesn’t seem like the type of girl who would be a gamer (she’s wealthy, pretty, and gets great grades, whereas Haruo has no academic talents and gaming is all he really has). It’s a minor distinction and I kind of wish there’d been no mention of Akira’s gender at all, but for what it is I think it surpasses my (admittedly low) expectations.
More than nostalgia, I think the reasons I enjoyed this episode are a little bit difficult to quantify. I get the feeling that the person who wrote it not only had positive feelings about this time period in gaming history, but also an inclination to use these characters to express that feeling in a way that’s fun, funny, and generally warm. This episode is a cute set-up for a friends-or-maybe-more relationship between two very different kinds of gamers, and I’m honestly kind of enjoying it.
Pros: Avoids a few sexist pit traps. Revels in gaming nostalgia. Unique and expressive 3D character designs.
Cons: Akira’s characterization has some issues. There’s lots of slapstick violence that gets close to the line.
Grade: B