Net-juu no Susume | I found something to watch.

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.

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First Impressions

It’s not everyday you see my going back in time to watch an anime that aired several years ago. Today’s anime aired back in Fall 2017. Which felt like it was only a year ago, but nope. Net-juu no Susume, is six years-old. Now how did I find this anime? Why thank you for asking, I found this anime mindlessly scrolling through my “Discovery” page on Instagram.

What I thought was great about this anime, first and foremost is that it’s only ten episodes long. Which is shorter than your typical anime and to me that told me that I can get through this semi-quickly which is what I plan to do.

Now then, what were my first impressions?

I like Moriko Morioka in large part due to the fact that she prides herself on being a NEET. Which is something you don’t normally see or hear people admit, but she did so I like her already. So after quitting her corporate job, what does she do? Jump into MMOs, a yes, very logical. I also loved that she created a male character in the game as well.

We all have friends who have done that before, where they pick the opposite gender in a game. I don’t know why we as people do that sometimes. But I find it very cool that they added that little detail in, it made everything feel that little bit more relatable. If we were to go off that theory, then I think that Lily (the in game character, Hayashi meets (Moriko’s created character)) is a male character in real life.

The first episode was a fairly good introductory episode. It did establish the premise, a NEET spending her time playing an MMO. I think she’ll (Moriko) end up finding someone she’s attracted to in game. This person of interest, I think will be Yuuta Sakurai, considering we’ve seen this character twice already it’s only a matter time.

Overall, I’d say the first two episodes were okay. They definitely could have been better. When you only have ten episodes, a lot of progress has to be made. Well that’s what I think anyway. I mean, when you have fewer episodes than the typical anime, then its to be expected.

So far all we’ve had was conversation between Hayashi and Lily, both of which are created avatars in this MMO game that we’ve found ourselves in the majority of the time in both episodes. Is that a good thing? Not really, I see it more as a bad thing. I say this because the character development we see in-game does not translate in real life. So Moriko hasn’t been developed at all.

She’s having too much fun playing with her in-game male character, who is in turn interacting with a in-game female character who I assume is being played by Yuuta.

I am most looking forward to seeing them interact outside of this game they find themselves playing because I’ll be honest watching their in-game characters gush over each other has gotten pretty boring and I need a change in scenery.