And you thought there is never a girl online?

Episode 3

Ever since Nekohime reappeared at the end of episode 2, the thought had crossed my mind that she may have been feeding Hideki a line of BS about her real-world identity just to throw off in-game marriage proposals. By the end of her prologue appearance in this episode, I was certain of it and had narrowed down the likely players to just two. By her second appearance in this episode I was down to just one candidate – the person she turns out to be. So the revelation at the end of this episode was no surprise to me.

However, it is a pleasant surprise that the series actually seems to be doing the one thing that I have previously said would be its make-or-break point: taking its main story thread – that Ako is having trouble distinguishing between the game and reality – seriously. In episode 3, at least, it isn't playing the situation as a joke after all. The way she crosses the line in her behavior towards Hideki in class is more troubling than cute, and Hideki and the other girls are genuinely concerned about it. They do make a serious effort to get her to separate the two, and the sincerity behind Ako's almost desperate question about why she needs to keep the game and reality separate is practically heart-breaking. At the very least she's a lonely girl, perhaps one that's been isolated and/or bullied in the past (or perhaps isolated as a part of being bullied), and the game is her “out.” The writing also allows an open question of whether or not the game and reality need to be separated. Hideki is firmly in favor of compartmentalizing the two, but the other two girls aren't so sure. If you come to like someone in a game and they essentially propose, then what's wrong with extending that into real life? (And while it's tempting to make an SAO comparison here, full-dive VR and normal on-the-screen gameplay are not equitable in this situation.)

This seems to be leading towards the conclusion of making Hideki Ako's boyfriend for real, even if he's not ready to call their relationship that. He definitely cares enough to act when Ako's about to do something rash, and based on Ako's behavior in this episode, he's certainly going to have his hands full – and no, I don't mean because of her bust size. If this series were ever to take a darker twist, then she could easily slide into being a yandere type. Surprisingly, the other girls seem to be encouraging him rather than competing for him, though we'll see how long that lasts. Everyone knows that these kind of situations in anime rarely remain platonic even if they start out that way.

Definitely not everything is serious. The writing does have some fun with the gameplay aspect, such as having to revamp Ako's equipment (which she chose on cute merit rather than practicality), limiting Kyo's use of premium items (which she pouts about), comically showing Master getting pounded down when her spell isn't good enough to stop the enemies, or messing with the equipment settings for Schwein when Akane steps out of the club room for a bit. The uber-powered leek was an especially nice touch. (And really, who hasn't done that to their friends in a video or board game at least once?) The series also seems to have decided that transplanting the real-world appearances of the characters onto their game selves is going to be a regular thing, which continues to give the series one of its main doses of fan service; Kyo's outfit as Master might be fitting on a male character, but is distractingly sexy on a well-endowed female character. The series does get points for not going out of its way to emphasize that, though. In fact, this looks to be a series where the fan service will merely be present instead of dominant.

The conclusion of this episode also concludes the set-up arc, probably marking the end of the adaptation of the first source novel. I'm really not sure where the story goes next, but so far it has proven solid enough to deserve retaining its viewers. Rating: B

And you thought there is never a girl online? is currently streaming on Funimation.