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Crunchyroll's Let's Play Panel Discusses Anime Production's Cultural Exchange
by Jeremy Tauber,
Let's Play's creator, Mongie, shared the stage with those involved with the production and direction of the show. She briefly discussed the origin story of how she was inspired by both her love of YouTube Let's Plays going back to 2016. One particular Let's Player she watched trashed a person's very first indie game, which brought about Mongie's empathetic side. "The Let's Player had a really harsh review at the end of the video," Mongie said. "I felt bad for the developer, and I thought to myself, what would happen if those two bumped into each other and said, 'Hey, I'm the one who made that game for you." I imagined the interaction, and then I added romance, and that's how I came up with Let's Play.
The real meat of the panel came while discussing how translating an American webcomic like Let's Play into a Japanese anime would be received by international audiences. Specifically, it was director Daiki Tomiyasu who said that upon reflecting on Let's Play's modern themes, he realized all of Let's Play's characters are introverts.
“When I first came to this, I was naive and was not quite aware of the U.S. culture,” Tomiyasu said, “I only understood the stereotypical version where everyone just says what's on their mind and muscles and everything. That was my image of the U.S. But after reading Let's Play, it opened my eyes because our protagonist is quite introverted and doesn't say things too directly. She's kind of mindful and conscious of her feelings as she expresses herself. Even though this was a story that took place in the U.S., some sensibilities could be understood by and interpreted by Japanese audiences.”
Crunchyroll producer Heather Horn added her two cents on this topic. “[Let's Play] is a story that you can look at and see where there's a lot of Japanese culture and the consumption of Japanese culture,” Heather said. “And something that has inspired me, it's inspired the readers, it's inspired the themes. There are video game references, there are anime references, and now to have a story where that American gaze is reflected on us with the Japanese gaze, it was not easy and a little bit insane, but I found that appealing.”
Fitting the story's real-life American settings into Japanese anime proved to be a major focus, too. Tomiyasu discussed how his staff scouted locations across Los Angeles so they could replicate them in anime aesthetic while remaining authentic to its American roots. Also noteworthy is that since the show's catalyst comes in the form of the main character's hospital stay, the team also felt it necessary to visit real hospitals to see the various nuances and differences between Japanese and American hospitals. “This anime is made of blood, sweat, and tears,” Crunchyroll producer Heather Horn proudly said.
They then showed the premiere of the first episode, which I thought was decent enough. I have never read the original webcomic, so I can't speak on the story or the changes made from the webcomic to anime (if any). That being said, the plot of this episode goes through some very simple motions: The MC Sam's passion for playing and creating video games is introduced, her workday is made stressful and awkward when her friend almost gets sacked, and toward the end the angry commenter who gave her indie game a bad review comes into the fray. The plot doesn't engage me quite yet, but it's nifty enough to make for a decent first episode. The animation and designs are fine, although the show has an orange filter in every scene that I find distracting. We'll see how the rest of this anime pans out when it finally airs on Crunchyroll in October 2025.
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