Gamers and the Element of Surprise

There are quite a few shows airing this season that I want to write about, Restaurant to Another World and Classroom of the Elite being a couple of examples.  I want to talk about GAMERS! first, though, because I think the show is flying under a lot of peoples' radars, and who can blame them?  Take one look at the promo art and plot description and the series just screams a generic "boy-meets-girl" story and truthfully, it kind of is.  I'm not here to try and convince you that GAMERS! is some sort revolutionary series that will take the anime world by storm.  What GAMERS! demonstrates, however, is how you don't need to have a novel plot idea or killer production values to have little surprises and delights that add up to something warm and comforting.

GAMERS! starts off pretty much how one would expect.  Lonely gamer boy meets popular girl, boy learns of girl's gaming hobby, girl invites boy to the Video Game Club.  Some chuckle worthy gags combined with clever character introductions keeps the viewer engaged just enough to follow through with the first episode.  It's business as usual for a romcom setup until said boy, Keita Amano, declines said girl's, Karen Tendou, invitation to her Video Game Club.  In a single line, GAMERS! threw away the tried and true school club setting, completely going against the expectations of the viewer who expected a bare-bones, predictable story.  A rather small surprise that makes the viewer wonder where the story will go next if not a club.

It turns out the answer to that question is to focus on character development rather than the story itself.  Shows of the romcom genre typically hobble along for episodes on end, spritzing bits of character development here and there at the end of story arcs that are quickly undone by contrived reasons to maintain a status quo.  Nisekoi is a prime example of such a series.
Real, significant character development within the first two episodes of a romcom is almost unheard of, yet GAMERS! does just that.  The popular Tasuku Uehara was immediately classified as an arrogant, stuck-up kind of guy who looked down on the loner Keita in the first episode.  In the very next episode, however, Tasuku showed compassion for Keita and became a supportive friend for the introvert in nothing but a natural manner.  The sudden development was far from jarring and in fact was carried out in line with expectations in regards to how Tasuku would behave.  To see the show not waste any time on meaningless fluff to make the development appear more important than it is is reason for praise.

Then there is Aguri (who I don't think we actually have the first/last name of yet) who is Tasuku's every clingy girlfriend.  First portrayed as a shallow, air-headed girl, Aguri didn't necessarily demonstrate character growth like Tasuku but more like character exposition.  She was shown to actually be a caring individual who really does love Tasuku for more than his looks and status.  While it's nothing new for a facet of a character's personality to be uncovered later on in a series it was just so unexpected in Aguri's case.  Aguri was a character one would expect to develop from shallow feelings to true feelings of love through the course of the series.  To show that those feelings have actually been there from the start is not only surprising, but has a profound impact on how her character is perceived by the viewer for the rest of the series.  The best part: there's still plenty of room for her character to develop going forward as well.

The more anime one watches the more easy it is to become jaded by it all and learn what to expect from certain shows at a glance.  "Romcoms have to function this way or that otherwise they just don't work," for instance.  GAMERS! is a show that takes advantage of the those expectations and that is the best kind of thrill an avid anime watcher can get.  This is a romcom through and through.  The jokes that make you laugh are there and the misunderstandings that make you cringe are definitely there.  If you go into GAMERS! expecting just that, however, you fall for its trap.  Sometimes it's not so bad to fall for a trap, though.  You might just find diamonds at the bottom of the pitfall.