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This Week in Anime - Hi Score Girl is a Heartfelt Nostalgia Trip for Arcade Lovers

I really enjoyed Hi Score Girl, I cannot wait for a new season, maybe I should read the manga.
One thing I didn't understand was the fact that they used the amercian names for the consoles like Turbografx 16 and Super Nintendo instead of PC-Engine and Super Famicom even though the story takes place in Japan, also M. Bison instead of Vega.

I also didn't expect a reference to Mortal Kombat because I thought American arcade games weren't popular in Japan..

KabaKabaFruit wrote:

Been noticing criticisms of Akira Ono being a mute and how it is detrimental to the series. I humbly disagree as Ono's muteness adds a sense of mystique to the character that would otherwise be lost if she were to actually talk and I think that was what Rensuke Oshikiri was also going for when he made her for the series.

While I agree with what you're saying, one of the hosts of the We Still Don't Know the Name of that Anime We Saw on that Day podcast did a really good job explaining how she was less turned off by the fact that Ono was mute than by the fact that so much of what we know about this girl gamer's personality, desires, and motivations are articulated by a boy gamer who just never seems to shut up. It's hard to emotionally connect with the core romance of the show when the guy reminds you of dudes who pissed you off back in high school, after all.

I'm also not understanding what else about the series that you found frustrating.

So if Ono doesn't speak a word in the entire series, what's the point of her having a credited voice actress? Does she occasionally grunt or come close to speaking before interruption, maybe have an internal monologue once or twice? If none of those, it seems kind of like a waste of money, if you ask me.

Exactly.

We have to hear the boy just whine around her and do a crap-ton of exposition.

The emotional high point in the series was in episode 3 at the end of the... leads, let's call them the leads... elementary school days when Ono left for America. But here's the problem; It was the emotional high for the series but not the characters. It's an emotional trinket giving to Ono but without her saying anything we the audience can't be certain what the plastic ring really means for her, if it's a symbol of a promise Haruo made or if it represents her often denied freedom or if she sees it as a absolute symbol of love... and considering her actions through the rest of the series up to their high school years, I'm not sure I can say it's any of those. To Haruo, it's a cheap plastic ring he gave her instead of a gift.

Great ending to a great episode, ultimately made meaningless through character.... I can't even say "quirks" because the cast treats her like a normal person. Maybe if she really was a deaf-mute this would be easier to explain but that series was already adapted and it certainly didn't need video games to be interesting.

Would it be character design? Or is it that we only see Ono through Haruo... no, that doesn't work either. Hidaka treats her the same.

Hidaka and Haruo, let's call them the leads now as they have the pull the actual narrative weight of the story and by being in that position, they manage to push Ono into the category of "plot device" as the series.... progresses? Circles itself mostly. The finale episode takes one actual step that should have happened earlier and it would have if not for the return of the "mysterious" Ono and her "uncertain" feelings.

Tsundere who only manages to express her feelings by physical assault: bad.
Tsundere who can ONLY express here feelings through physical assault: cute. Really?
I liked the series a lot more when Ono and Haruo were clearly just friends... and she didn't hit him as much. That is so odd since I don't have a problem with Love Hina's Naru Narusagawa.... oh right, she talks and her physicality was an alternate method of communication. When it's the only method of communication... Ono hits him when she likes him and when she's angry with him and it's up to him to reason out why....

Haruo and Hidaka, please go with Haruo and Hidaka...

Silver Kirin wrote:

I really enjoyed Hi Score Girl, I cannot wait for a new season, maybe I should read the manga. One thing I didn't understand was the fact that they used the amercian names for the consoles like Turbografx 16 and Super Nintendo instead of PC-Engine and Super Famicom even though the story takes place in Japan, also M. Bison instead of Vega.

That's a big mistake the Netflix translation did. The fansub did it better and just used tl notes, like other licensees do now (CR/Funi/Sentai). First if you're watching the subs, it's a cognitive dissonance since what you hear in reference to the name of a thing is completely different from what you read, second, there's an even bigger mistake where the references on-screen don't match the subs.
It's also too bad the Netflix version doesn't include the mid-show in-universe sponsored game commercials with the characters

It's less of a mistake and more as mandated by the license holders of those games and consoles. And, as as already mentioned before, not everyone outside that specific niche knows about those tidbits you mentioned about.