Net-juu no Susume

For the first time since graduating high school, 30-year-old Moriko Morioka is unemployed—and she couldn't be happier. Having quit her long-standing job of over 11 years, Moriko quickly turns to online games to pass her now-plentiful free time, reinventing herself as the handsome and dashing male hero "Hayashi" in the MMO Fruits de Mer. With the pesky societal obligations of the real world out of the way, she blissfully dives headfirst into the realm of the game, where she promptly meets the kind and adorable healer Lily. Befriending each other almost instantly, the two become inseparable just as Moriko herself becomes more and more engrossed in her new "life" as Hayashi. Eventually, Moriko adopts the reclusive lifestyle in its entirety, venturing out from the safety of her apartment only when absolutely necessary.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to Moriko, a timid 28-year-old corporate worker named Yuuta Sakurai has also logged onto Fruits de Mer from the other side of town. Coincidentally bumping into each other at the convenience store one night, both write off their meeting as no more than just another awkward encounter with a stranger—however, fate has more in store for them than they think.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Morioka, Moriko Main

Noto, Mamiko Japanese

Sakurai, Yuuta Main

Sakurai, Takahiro Japanese

Lily Main

Ueda, Reina Japanese

Hayashi Main

Suzuki, Ryouta Japanese

Koiwai, Homare Supporting

Maeno, Tomoaki Japanese

Fujimoto, Kazuomi Supporting

Terashima, Takuma Japanese

Kanbe Supporting

Nakamura, Yuuichi Japanese

Lilac Supporting

Aisaka, Yuuka Japanese

Narrator Supporting

Arai, Satomi Japanese

Pokotarou Supporting

Sunseki, Kazuhiro Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Sugi, Takuma Producer

Honda, Fuminori Producer

Herek, Samantha Assistant Producer

Reviews

Dec 8, 2017

Aman_Bhaskar

Recommended

Often There comes a show which we find ourselves enjoying more and more by the passing episode, But when asked, we find it difficult to describe in words,that what is it that we actually like about it. It is something most of us experience and, it all just might feel weird , to like something without a reason.The same had happened with me while watching this anime,I am not really sure why, Maybe it was the characters, the story, the music, or rather the entire show itself, however, in the end, It doesn't really matter, as long as one enjoys whatever they are ... watching.

The anime, net juu no susume, starts off as a MMORPG parody, with some generic elements and run off the mill jokes, However, slowly the game theme starts to fade away, to a point where it seems like a side aspect , But in return, what we get to see later is a show, with one of the finest pace of story progression and character development we've seen in a while. The anime starts with a "person", starting a new life,and not a one you would expect, but rather an Online one. She uses games, not as a means to escape reality, but rather to reject it, to a point where it fades away to almost nothing. However, the world around that her begins to change due to a string of coincidences, which you might call fate,that slowly amalgamate both her online and offline lives together to a point, where both of them just seem unreal to her, and to a certain extend, to us too.

Neet is a term which is gaining more an more popularity in anime, This is clearly evident in most of the recent anime we have been receiving. Of course, it is not a good idea to just sit around at home all day doing nothing,but secretly, its somthing that most of us desire to do, and this desire within us is what makes us relate to these people. The main character, Morioka san, is also a neet, who has left her job in private sector and now dedicates her full time in playing RPGs and making new friends online. The interesting part is how she plays as a male character in the game, and some people despite knowing this, treats her as a normal person and not a freak, which comes to show the acceptance and etiquette of the internet. The show focuses on how she , by meeting new people, is able to come out of her shell and becomes a more social and active person in the society, which in other words means how she recovers from her neet behavior.

Now, It has become quite common to see young high school characters in most anime,especially romance, who have no experience in life and behave like dimwits whose lives are a tragedy. Net juu no susume offers a more mature and sensible cast of characters whose approach to life and the events that happen, are more realistic and makes sense. We see the characters behave in realistic way and not like dimwits , and this is also a major appeal of the anime and also reason for the smooth progression of the story.

Much like Morioka, sakurai is shown as a person with his own problems, despite having a job and friends, he is actually more similar to Morioka san than anyone else. Both are portrayed as MMO junkies who are fed up of their routine and escape off into a world of RPG to relieve themselves. Its also funny how both of them are more closer to one another , than they realize. And as the story progresses, They find that they are tied by a string of fate. The other characters are also not cast aside and the have a pretty well developed personality to show and a good role to play. Characters like Koiwai, Kanbe have provided with a help to both parties in improving the relationship with the other. Honestly, I was also not a fan of Koiwai, because he is pushy and just a big jerk. But, still he was the major reason in bringing Morioka san close to sakurai, And the real reward is when you watch the last episode and realize how far they have reached from just being strangers, It still surprises me, or rather it shows the real power of online games, and how they are able to bring strangers more closer to each other than one can imagine

Its actually these shows, which truly highlight the role played by good characters in an anime and which kind of impact they can have, even on a not so well written story line. The rate of development and character building has been really perfect since the fist episode. Through small encounter, to exchanging email , to going drinking,and finally just getting even more closer , The development being done is something which surprises me the most. Its all too fast and yet seems natural . It truly shows how much we can achieve , in very amount little episodes.

The MMORPG, as I alredy mentioned, is not exactly the main focus of the anime, especially for the later half,however it has also not been completely ignored. We can see some good parody elements just being thrown around casually, Like the Loot box episode. Also we should see that, It is the Game only which started it all and was a major portion of the story development at first. The MMORPG theme in total here, is used really well to be honest, it has not overshadowed the anime but is also not got overshadowed itself or we can say that it was simply used in the most appropriate way .

The art is something I usually don't talk about, as it is quite subjective in itself. From my point of view, The art is pleasant and simple with a good use of cooler color palette , which is pleasing to eyes. The music is very simple and elegant, More than the OP, i am a bigger fan of the ed. It closes up everything very well and is a good way to wrap up things, but Other than that , there is nothing special in the art and music part.

Overall, The anime is surprisingly well made and it is much better than what u would expect it to be. It seemed to me as a very generic and simple show at first, but soon it exceeds my expectations and becomes a show which I would look forward to every friday. From the well developed characters to a good story line, almost everything about it is perfect which ,in my eyes, makes it worthy of the score i have given, And also Sakurai and Morioka san are one of the cutest pair you will ever see in anime. Its something everyone should experience at least once, because It will exceed your expectation, more than you would expect it to

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Dec 12, 2017

pmf96

Mixed Feelings

Story: Average

Being predictable isn't a shortcoming, but being predictable without any charm is.
We know right from the start what is the goal of the series and we are there just to lay down and enjoy the ride, and I sure didn't.
Most of the reason for that comes from the characters, but the plot is also at fault. If you make your end goal known to the public at least make your journey until there fun.
I mean, I'm pretty sure that I have watched this already. Isn't this just a mixture of ReLIFE, NetoYome, and Gamers! ?
- Romance involving two main adult characters ... while having some sort of "rehabilitation". ✔
- Having characters that know each other in a game meeting irl. ✔
- A bunch of misunderstandings or slow progression that could have been easily solved if they talked with each other. ✔

Sound/Art: Fine/Bad

I don't have much to say, I found the music a bit above average while the art being somewhat bad. It's more or less consistent, but I don't think that it has any appeal. Backgrounds and characters designs are really generic and I don't have any memorable moment where I thought that the show looked good. On the other hand, I have several memories where it was meant to look good, but it wasn't.

Characters: Very Bad

So, let me see if I got this right. For a change instead of high school age characters we have adults, but instead of making any good use of that we just use them as if they were still high school age characters.
Yes, we have this huge superficial difference while everything else that really matters is the same as any other anime out there.
This story could easily have been made without them being adults while having almost no differences, just changing some events to something similar or changing them to something different while getting a similar purpose/intent.
I just feel like it was a waste on that part.

But hey, they are not even the only characters, we have more which we know absolutely nothing about and were always there. I guess that we shouldn't expect much since not even the main characters were that well developed. We known about Sakurai's past and we kinda know about Morioka's. But it's in a superficial manner. Sakurai only has that going for him because it was needed. Otherwise, he could not share a bound with Morioka, and the exact same thing with the MC. A superficial plot point for them to have some sort of connection while making it "so beautiful", otherwise they would have 0 reasons to want to get to know one another. Especially taking in considerating both their personalities, especially Morioka's.

Overall: Average

I feel like I made this series seem worse than it is. I honestly just found it average. I ended up focusing on the bad points of the series since most of the reviews are positive with some high scores and I wanted to give some "balance" to it since I really don't think that this series was as good as people make it out to be.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Dec 9, 2017

Jester_Monocle

Not Recommended

The first half of Net-Juu no Susume, otherwise known as Recommendation of The Wonderful Virtual Life (Not Recovery of an MMO Junkie), was actually quite a joyous watch. Typically romance is a genre that lacks variety and intrigue. NJnS takes the additive route of just applying an MMO on top of the bland cliche scenarios you'd normally find and, surprisingly, it creates some level of appeal.

Gloriously followed up by the characters, Morioka or "MoriMori", is a shut-in who quit her job to play MMOs all day everyday. Well, really it is to escape the real world that is filled with anxiety and depression ... but... y'know how it goes. Inside this MMO, she eventually meets the pink barfbag that is Lily and since Mori created a male character; the obvious conclusion is that Lily is also a man.

But keep in mind, predictability isn't always a bad thing. If anything, trying to work around keeping Lily's identity a secret for a given period of time likely would've complicated things and that is a common problem many other anime make. Anyways, Sakurai, who we can already guess is Lily, comes to an understanding that the situations happening with MoriMori in real life is awfully similar to the situations described by Hayashi, Mori's avatar in the MMO. In this scenario, anime has portrayed male characters very stupidly by just having them chalk it all up to sheer coincidence. Not Sakurai, he mans up and investigates what is going on, uncovering the identity behind Hayashi actually being Morioka! And that's really cool! I, very much, appreciated how intelligent and proactive Sakurai's character has been... Up until this point.

But post episode 4 it really falls downhill. A lot of slow dialogues of that do nothing for the show and even though Kowai seems to have read "The Bro Code" front and back, his attempts to set up Sakurai and Morioka together fails time and time again simply because Sakurai lost his pair and decides that he isn't going to go after Morioka because fuck logic. After all this, it is just a slow decline of pointless dialogue to pad the show's run time. Oh and the other characters really don't matter. It is mainly a story between Morioka and Sakurai with actual assistance by Kowai.

I personally wouldn't recommend a virtual life. MMOs are a pain and gets boring very quickly with the repetitive gameplay and pointless dialogue; much like this anime.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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