DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA ComedyHi Score Girl
OVA ComedyHi Score Girl: EXTRA STAGE

REVIEWS

• 

  Pockeyramune919

  71/100
  This love letter to classic gaming manages to get a (pretty) high score, but loses some health along the way

  [ ](https://anilist.co/review/4983)

  With the number of anime that air per season, even with the large amount of anime fans, it’s a given that some shows will simply fall through the cracks. I feel that High Score Girl is one of those shows.

  Because of this, I found High Score Girl a hidden gem of this anime season. Not a diamond, mind you, but gem, nonetheless (think topaz).

  High Score Girl tells the story of Haruo Yagauichi, a crude slacker, and Akira Oono, the academically talented heiress to a wealthy family. What ties these seemingly incongruent characters together is their mutual love for video games.

  And if you, the viewer, love classic video games, you’ll love High Score Girl, which is a love letter to 90s gaming. Both the arcade and console scenes are given love. If you played the games of this time or simply are tied to decade, you’ll be hit with a blast of nostalgia. I personally adore video games, so even though, unlike Haruo, I’m not big on fighting games, I still got to geek out. It was also nice seeing time progress and seeing Haruo gush over new releases. The anime does move forward in time (going from upper-elementary to the first year of Japanese highschool (sophomore year in America), and the anime utilizes this passage of time well.

  The main characters are written surprisingly well, with Haruo not being quite as dense as you’d expect for an MC of his personality. Oono is hands-down one of the cutest characters I’ve ever had the pleasure of viewing. Her violent tendencies, while annoying at times, don’t really detract from her character. Unlike some people, it doesn’t make her insufferable, and somehow makes her even more cute. Her biggest shtick is that she doesn’t speak, ever. While this can prove frustrating for some viewers, I think the show worked around it well. If I had more money, I’d get her nendoroid.

  

  ...then there’s Hidaka.

  The anime’s a romance, which comes into play very soon. It’s a cute romance and the couple is one of the best I’ve seen. While the anime doesn’t pussyfoot the relationship in the beginning, it quickly loses steam as, you guessed it, a third player joins the game. Enter Hidaka, a member of Haruo’s class who quickly develops a crush on him as he introduces her to the wonderful world of gaming.

  While it could be seen as a “spoiler” that there’s a love triangle, I think it’s only fair to inform you all. Love triangles generally bog down a show, and High Score Girl isn’t spared...kind of. As a main character, Hidaka is quite fleshed out and she’s sure to have her fans. However, the show makes it painfully obvious that Oono is the endgame, yet a large portion is dedicated to Hidaka and Haruo. While she’s not a bad character, her inclusion seems to just take away from Oono’s. In my opinion the love triangle doesn’t really add a new dimension to the plot. It doesn’t detract from it either, but that just makes it seem kind of unnecessary.

  That said, the show’s still good.

  The main thing High Score has going against it is that there isn’t much more to it. What you see is what you get. If you like video games and romance, you’ll probably love this show. If you like one or the other, it might be a bit of slog. If you like neither, there won’t be much for you. Even if you do like both, the show still seems to be missing something. The side characters are inoffensive, at best. Midway through the show, I simply had the feeling that High Score Girl was adequate. It wasn’t bad, no, but it wasn’t great either. I didn’t find myself compelled to watch episodes right away. Still, it picked up again.

  The music is pretty great, but the art might prove a sticking point. The show is completely CGI, which is sure to be a turn-off for some viewers. Watching it can feel off at times. If you like the story, you’ll learn to get used to it. For what it’s worth, it’s pretty harmless.

  I can’t comment on the ending because it ends on a cliffhanger, with the final episodes premiering in march of next year.

  While the show is far from perfect, as a video game and romance fan, High Score Girl scratched an itch I never knew I had, and I’ll be sure to watch the show’s conclusion.

  
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• 

  PixEFit

  100/100
  A heartwarming video game centric anime that displays the growth of a boy and a girl across they're lives.

  I don’t think it was made for me, but I resonated with it all the same. High score girl. Whatever I write here probably won’t put everything I love about this show on paper. This show takes place in the early 90’s with our protagonist, a 6th grader named Yugichi Haruo. He’s not very kind, and his grades aren’t the best, to be honest he’s kind of a shithead. But he is good at one thing, his passion, video games. He spends a majority of his time just dicking around at various arcades around town. On one faithful day, Haruo encounters a beautiful, smart, rich girl from his class named Ono. Who absolutely decimates him in street fighter 2. After 30 consecutive wins against him, Ono follows him around various arcades playing various different games. From then on, the two create a strange bond with each other.

  High score girl is a small slice of life comedy that takes place over Haruo’s life. From his elementary school years, until his first year in high school. The story describes his growth and how Ono along with the various other characters in his life, help Haruo grows and improve. This, by itself, sets itself off of a lot of other slice of life shows. Where they don’t go through long periods of someone’s life. The only example I can think of off the top of my head is Clannad, which is in my top ten and is considered one of the greatest anime of all time. Main difference is, aside from the smaller eyes, is that the characters are a bit more one dimensional then Clannad is. It's not that they’re bad, it's safer and uninspired. They fit into normal protagonist and -dere stereotypes, but they are handled in a wonderful way where you don’t mind. I must say, Ono is the only main character I’ve seen who never says a word over the course of the entire show. She only communicates by facial expressions, actions, and the occasional grunt. She’s cute though. Its heartwarming.

  As you can guess, the show’s main driving point initially was that it has to do with being a kid in the 90’s and an obsession with video games. This describes its audience pretty well. It was appealing to mid to late 30’s Japanese men who grew up to playing these games. To them, it's a nice nostalgia trip tied up with a protagonist that they could easily imprint themselves on. I understood this from the beginning of the show, and I didn’t think I would particularly enjoy it due to how I couldn't relate to growing up in the 90’s. But, I was wrong, and ending up being very invested in these characters and how they’re relationship grows. I loved their character dynamic, and what they did together as friends. Just friends playing video games, Harou treating her as a rival and Ono just following him around.

  Video games is the backbone of this entire show. If video games were involved I doubt this show would have gotten any traction at all for reasons I will explain later. This show was made/sponsored by square enix themselves. Therefore, they had enough to get entire clips of game footage where the characters explain and react to what's happening on screen. The very first episode they explained how some cheap strategies worked in Street Fighter 2. It's not just Street Fighter they reference and directly mention a bunch of big time games that were popular or hyped at the time. There was an entire scene talking about how hype they were for the new virtual boy coming out, which if you know you’re gaming history, didn’t do very well. High Score Girl really put you in the place of a kid that’s hyped for the newest games in the 90’s. I’m not even a fan of arcade games and I feel like I’m that kid being excited.

  The main problem, which is pretty major when watching this show, is the animation. High Score Girl is an entirely CG show, but do not take that away from the experience this show can give you. But man, it does look pretty garbage. I loved the soundtrack for this show, especially with the OP “New Stranger” and ED “Houkago Di(e)stra(u)ction”. I mostly compare this show to Dagashi Kashi. Mostly where 1) its 2 people being brought together by the same passion, and 2) it's a show made to sell things. Yeah High Score Girl is an advertising show, it displays games coming out now in the transition periods between in the middle of the show where ad breaks would role. It’s sort of off putting, but it's neatly and clearly separated from what's happening in the actual show, so it doesn’t really matter. I give this show a 10 out of 10, with the recommendation for everyone and anyone to watch if they don’t mind some CG that isn't really disruptive to the type of show. This was truly the best show of the Summer anime season. This has been PixEFit’s spoiler free but not really review of High Score Girl.

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• 

  SiegmAer

  74/100
  Un pedacito de historia de los videojuegos de recreativa muy bien integrado en una trama no especialmente memorable

  Opinión sin Spoiler

  
  "Hi-Score Girl" es un anime acerca de videojuegos, mezclado con slice of life y una temática moderadamente romántica.
  
  Lo primero que llama la atención es la animación de CGI de la serie. No es santo de mi devoción, pero tampoco es muy sangrante, y en muchos casos lo importante es lo que pasa en los videojuegos que juegan los protagonistas. La serie, en este aspecto, lleva su argumento y la relación que van desarrollando sus personajes principales a través de la relación que mantienen jugando a videojuegos. 
  
  No me parece mal, pero está relacionado directamente con uno de los puntos que menos me gustan de este planteamiento. Está bastante claro que Akira tiene una personalidad tsundere de libro, pero veo extremadamente extraña la decisión de que no hable en toda la serie y prácticamente todas las interacciones con Haruo sean a través de videojuegos y básicamente poniendo caras y señalando cosas. Espero no ser malinterpretado, a través de lo que juegan se pueden transmitir muchas cosas, y más en plena época de recreativas y los piques que se gastaban, pero la serie pierde mucho al no desarrollar conversación entre sus personajes principales más allá de su interacción en el videojuego y las múltiples caras que le pone Akira cuando está celosa.
  
  Dejando un poco de lado este tema, que comentaré más en la sección con spoiler, esta serie me parece una verdadera carta de amor a la época dorada de las recreativas, el fenómeno de las altas puntuaciones, los piques, las amistades que se crean compartiendo verdadera pasión por algo así... Además de introducir poco a poco el salto que se estaba dando de la recreativa a la consola de sobremesa, metiendo historia de los videojuegos de paso. Esto hace que se note un profundo cariño e investigación para conseguir ser fiel históricamente.
  
  En esto radica un poco el encanto de la serie, en su atención a la historia que cuenta, y en menor medida a la evolución que tienen sus personajes, en pleno desarrollo emocional.
  
  En esta ocasión no recomendaría la serie a menos que tengas mucho interés por esta época en concreto y disfrutes rememorar este pedacito de historia con una trama pasable pero tampoco super memorable, por lo menos en la primera temporada.
  </center><center>
  </center><center>
  #</center>__Opinión con Spoiler__<center>
  </center><center>
  En esta parte hablaré un poco más acerca de la trama que se va desarrollando y en algún problema que le veo.
  
  El hecho de que la protagonista femenina no diga una sola palabra en la serie me parece un error, como ya he comentado antes. Añadiré que el hecho de que el único momento en que abra la boca sea para proferir gritos autistas cuando es forzada a viajar a américa ( y por tanto separarse de su amado Haruo) no hace que personalmente le coja mucho cariño.
  
  De hecho, generalmente sería partidario de que la protagonista femenina fuese la vencedora en la batalla amorosa que va ocurriendo entre Haruo, Koharu y Akira, pero en este caso tengo que decantarme por el lado contrario. Aunque en un principio Koharu sea un personaje sin mucho impacto, el hecho de que __hable__ hace que sea más fácil identificarse con ella. Y no me parece poca cosa el camino que recorre para demostrarle como se siente a Haruo, a pesar de estar este como viene siendo típico, totalmente ciego a los esfuerzos de la pobre niña que se ha esforzado en aprender a jugar profesionalmente, le acompaña a casa y le hace más caso casi que su madre.
  
  En este sentido, aunque es cierto que Akira tiene una bonita relación con Haruo con toda la trama de que no tenga permitido jugar videojuegos en su casa y que comparta con su mejor amigo la pasión por estos, me fastidia el resultado de esta lucha entre Koharu y Akira. Fuera de ello, el desarrollo de la trama es relativamente lento, lo normal en un anime de este estilo, y tampoco tiene mucho más que comentar al ser del estilo slice of life. Tal vez la segunda temporada me de la sorpresa, en cuyo caso revisaré este comentario.
  
  Me repito en la recomendación de la opinión sin spoiler, ya que me parece un anime que solo sobresale por el pedacito de historia de los videojuegos que está muy decentemente integrado en su trama.
  
  </center>¡Gracias por llegar hasta aquí! Un saludo de SiegmAer, de Catarina.~~~

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