This season features a lot of heavy hitters. However, Young Ladies Don’t Play Fighting Games Episode 1 comes as one of the biggest shocks. Not only does it adapt the rarely covered fighting game community in anime, but it does so in an incredibly compelling and hilarious way through its peculiar characters and wacky humor.
Young Ladies Don’t Play Fighting Games Episode 1 follows Mitsuki Aya and Yorue Mio. The former is a new scholarship student at the prestigious Kuromi Girls Academy. She’s a bit out of her depth but tries her best to fit in and assimilate into her new high-class surroundings and be the most refined lady she can be. In the first few minutes, Aya runs into Mio, the most popular and ladylike girl in her school, who’s regarded as an icon. Aya is understandably jealous of Mio and her reputation, especially because she tries and fails to be just like her.
After messing up a conversation with her fellow classmates and sulking to herself, Aya overhears and eavesdrops on Mio playing a game of Street Fighter 6 in an empty classroom. This shocks Aya, who is surprised at Mio’s incredibly unladylike demeanor while playing.
The anime uses actual in-game Street Fighter 6 footage.
From the first episode alone, the anime does a fantastic job of highlighting the personalities of the two protagonists. Aya is an incredibly headstrong, vocal, but determined girl who tries her best to change who she is. Similarly, Mio seems incredibly demure and ladylike, but she’s actually really crass and crude. Yet, she tries her best not to show her true nature and obsession with fighting games.
Mio is certainly the most interesting to watch, as her demeanor as a player is incredibly true to the personality and energy of the average fighting game fan. The rage, trash talk, and toxicity are portrayed excellently, but watching these traits being displayed by a cutesy anime girl is hilarious.
Another noteworthy detail is that the anime uses actual in-game Street Fighter 6 footage during the sections where the characters play the game. This detail is especially cool, given that it is featured without compromise. The switch between its 3D aesthetic and the anime’s 2D aesthetic is also surprisingly a non-issue, thanks to how natural the transitions are. It’s worth noting, however, that the anime features the game in full only because of Capcom’s sponsorship and collaboration in producing it, as the manga doesn’t feature Street Fighter but an original game based on the series.
Mio demands that Aya accept her challenge in Young Ladies Don’t Play Fighting Games Episode 1.
After loudly celebrating her victory at the end of a round, Mio notices Aya watching her. She reverts to her regular persona and begs Aya not to tell her teachers, since students can be expelled for playing games at school, and Aya agrees not to. However, after their initial encounter, Mio starts spying on Aya and follows her around. This catches the attention of their classmates, who quickly grow jealous of Aya for the attention she’s receiving.
Aya then confronts Mio in the same classroom where they last spoke, but Mio ignores Aya’s reprimands and instead gets intense and up close and personal. She weirdly starts bleeding from the mouth in excitement as she asks Aya to face her in the game. Aya refuses and tells her that ladies don’t play fighting games and know all the technical moves.
She then tells Mio about her past as a hardcore Street Fighter 6 player, triggering a flashback. She explains that she grew bored with the game after becoming too good at it, so she changed her surroundings and took on a new challenge by enrolling at Kuromi. After listening to this monologue, Mio still demands that Aya accept her challenge and goes on a rant about not caring about Aya’s cringy monologue, how she deserves a match after listening to it, and how she only cares about challenging her, which is incredibly hilarious and comes out of nowhere.
The anime’s depiction of advnaced moves is really accurate.
Not only is this scene incredibly humorous and shows how unhinged Mio can be, but it also showcases the anime’s pretty aesthetic. This is shown through the colors and detailed expressions on the characters’ faces during their dramatic monologues and flashbacks, which excellently convey their different emotions.
Against her better judgment, Aya relents and decides to take on Mio. The two select their mains and begin fighting. They both play exactly as you’d think, given the established knowledge about them thus far. Aya fights like a high-level player, using several advanced moves and counters such as Punish Counters, Reverse Drive Impacts, Safe Jumps, and anti-air maneuvers. On the other hand, Mio fights like an absolute newbie, using basic attacks and spamming Shoryukens and grabs to win fights.
What’s especially impressive is how accurately the anime depicts advanced moves and player mannerisms, like how a new player like Mio would use Ryu and how Aya is a Cammy main, which is unsurprising given her personality and how common Cammy mains are. It also shows all the actual moves from the game, including skins.
Young Ladies Don’t Play Fighting Games is very anime to both its benefit and detriment.
The episode also goes into deep detail about the Street Fighter series and the intricacies of its gameplay, common FGC tropes, and more, which is great. However, it is also worth mentioning that in the first fight between the two, whoever on the production team played as Mio did too good a job of showing how bad she is at the game compared to Aya, which only made their battle seem unrealistic.
She barely moved her character at all, and it seemed her character was just there as a punching bag to show how good Aya is, even in the one round she managed to win. Regardless, seeing them both act like true fighting game players, displaying their egos and boastful toxicity, and Mio being a sore loser, is immensely funny and fun.
That said, Young Ladies Don’t Play Fighting Games is also very anime to both its benefit and detriment. While watching the zany characters’ antics is enjoyable, some of their actions are just unnecessary. Their actions, like bleeding from the mouth or the weird gestures they sometimes make in dramatic scenes, feel awkward to watch.
Furthermore, the anime takes brief breaks during scenes to dump some fighting game lore and exposition. While the knowledge is nice, it would be better if the exposition didn’t occur during a critical scene, like when the characters are battling each other.
Young Ladies Don’t Play Fighting Games Episode 1 is an excellent first episode.
After Mio takes a round off Aya, Aya pauses their session to praise Mio for achieving things she couldn’t while still loving fighting games, but their conversation is interrupted by a janitor who comes into the classroom. Instead of the two trying literally anything else, they crash through the window to escape the room, even though breaking a window seems like more of an offense than playing video games. The episode ends with the two acknowledging each other and exchanging pleasantries before separating.
The anime showcases good animation by studio Diomedéa, evident in the character movements and expressions. The opening sequence also excellently captures the vibe of cute girls playing fighting games.
Overall, the first episode makes a great first impression, and hopefully, succeeding episodes follow suit. Young Ladies Don’t Play Fighting Games Episode 1 is an excellent first episode that does a great job of highlighting its protagonists, humor, and fighting-game knowledge in a way not seen in anime since High Score Girl.
Young Ladies Don’t Play Fighting Games Episode 1 is streaming on Crunchyroll.
Young Ladies Don’t Play Fighting Games Episode 1
8.5/10
TL;DR
Young Ladies Don’t Play Fighting Games Episode 1 is an excellent first episode that does a great job of highlighting its protagonists, humor, and fighting-game knowledge