2D & 3D Worlds: Thoughts on Recovery of an MMO Junkie

Recovery of an MMO Junkie (ネト充のススメ)

(Anime 2017)

Created By: Rin Kokuyō

Studio: Signal.MD

This wasn’t on my to-watch anime list but I came across this one after seeing a random AMV of it on YouTube. Initially, I thought it was just another anime with the same online gaming scenario: an overpowered male protagonist saves the pretty gamer girl. However, I was wrong. In fact, this romantic comedy focused on darker issues such as anxiety and social expectations.

Moriko Morioka quits her corporate job to become a professional NEET and she is also taking some time off to figure out a new career path and life purpose. She spends a majority of her time playing the online MMORPG Fruits de Mer. She creates a male avatar Hayashi and befriends a female character, Lily. While in the real world, Mariko meets Yuta Sakurai who happens to be playing the same game as her.

Moriko Morioka is someone that millennials can relate to because she deals with issues like social anxiety and the pressures of society. She quits her corporate job that pays well to live as a NEET. From a social perspective, people would consider her as a “waste of a life.” She isn’t producing anything that benefits society. As a millennial, I can see how such social pressure could damage a person’s self-esteem, confidence, and mental health. Yet I understand why Moriko Morioka wants to find her true passion and purpose in life as opposed to continuing being another worker in society.

There’s a blending of real life and game life amongst the characters—a person’s online life is slowly being exposed to the outside world. For instance, Moriko learns that her local convenience store employee is in the same guild as her. When Moriko’s real life and online life started blending together, it reminded me of how my blogging life and personal life started merging. Now this anime doesn’t go into detail about her struggle in maintaining a public and private life. However, I kind of empathize with her because she isn’t sure how to interact with people in real life to whom she befriended online first. Similarly, I had the same issue when I met some of my blogger friends at conventions. At first, I wasn’t sure how I’d interact with them but when we finally met, our interaction and conversations were natural—we mostly talked about the blogging community, of course!

Recovery of an MMO Junkie is a refreshing romance anime. Since I’m a sucker for a good romance, I definitely enjoyed Recover of an MMO Junkie.

5/5

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