Ah, the '90's - what a brilliant time to be a gamer. Arcades were pumping out some amazing titles with Street Fighter II leading the charge and redefining the entire hobby - competitive play was at its peak, and Hi Score Girl is set during this fabulous decade.
Haruo Yaguchi is a loser outside of the arcades - no real academic ability, lousy attitude and average looks, he's going nowhere fast. The only thing his manly pride can latch onto is his incredible gaming ability, and he's never more at home than when playing Guile on Street Fighter II. His skills are legend, his techniques unmatched... until a snooty rich-girl from his class kicks his ass using inferior fighter Zangief. His kingdom publically obliterated, can it really be that Akira Ono, a girl no less, is a better gamer than he is? Inconceivable!
I wasn't expecting much from the show, but by Ryu's holy Hadoken did I enjoy this! Let's look at what makes Hi Score Girl so entertaining for an old-skool gamer like me.
Firstly, the passion for gaming of this era is clearly evident, and during the episode there are explanations of playing techniques and why some characters are better than others. There are common gamer phrases thrown in, like "turtling" whereby a player constantly blocks and charges countermoves against frustrated players. With this, the series gains an air of authority, not to mention explaining to newcomers exactly why the characters are reacting the way they do to certain techniques and situations. Very smart.
It's not all Street Fighter either - Splatterhouse, a scrolling horror beat-em-up, is used to set up a pretty good joke, and Final Fight gets some serious screen time too (when the legendarily hard Ghouls & Ghosts is the only other game on offer). There's an authenticity to this series that really works in its favour, and I for one was completely won over, even before we got to see some classic arcade cabinet facts at the close of the credits.
I'm surprised too by just how much they fit into the first 20 minutes. The story is told entirely through Haruo, since Ono doesn't say a single word throughout the episode. His frustrations and realisations are all narrated, with the English dub being of sufficient quality to convey the drama effectively. Ono's actions speak louder than words, and after punching Haruo, beating up a couple of whiny gamers and jabbing Haruo repeatedly while he tries to help her with Final Fight, she's clearly a force to be reckoned with. I was pleased to see that she wasn't unbeatable however, neatly avoiding her becoming a Mary-Sue character.
Sadly given the current climate I'm sure the shock conveyed by Hasuo that he was beaten by a girl, and his attempts to help her on a game she clearly understood better than he did, will be met with outcry and labels of misogyny applied. This was the 90's however, and hardcore female gamers were certainly not the norm back then. Anime feminists can rest easy knowing that the show is historically accurate. Hopefully, anyway.
The show, however, has not been without controversy elsewhere. The anime was originally announced for release in 2013, but the use of SNK Playmore characters in the manga, allegedly without permission, led to the publisher's office (Square Enix) being searched by police. Gaming Historia gives the full rundown of events, but the issue was only resolved once SNK was purchased by a Chinese operator, and charges were dropped. Which bizarrely created more legal problems, and only now has the manga series been revitalised as Hi Score Girl CONTINUE, with all SNK properties removed. Quite the stir for a series that clearly loves gaming!
Happily many games companies have thrown their support behind Hi Score Girl, and it's all the richer for it. The opening credits showcase plenty of classic arcade games which are fun to accurately name, and even the venues hosting the coveted games themselves are reminiscent of the time.
Can I recommend this show? Hell yes! It's funny, contains some genuinely amusing slapstick violence (and I hate slapstick as a rule) and a little bit of heart which I'm sure will expand as the "Rom" develops out of the "Com". So long as you have a Netflix subscription, this anime is free to play, so settle in and binge it - I've now planned my weekend around doing the very same based on this episode alone!
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