And you thought there is never a girl online?

Episode 10

Though ostensibly a comedy, Never a girl online's humor has most commonly functioned on a low burn, with few laugh-out-loud-worthy moments. With episode 10, the series borrows a page from KONOSUBA's playbook and indulges in simpler slapstick fare. The result is probably the season's funniest episode to date, although it doesn't accomplish much else.

The set-up for humor is primarily an upcoming culture festival and what the Net Gaming Club might do to represent themselves at it. After all, they haven't actually accomplished much beyond getting Ako to attend school on a regular basis. (And even that is a little shaky, as she has to be reminded that school has resumed after summer break.) They eventually decide that winning a siege war – an upcoming guild-vs.-guild battle for control of a castle in Legendary Age – and showing a picture of the school's emblem flying over the castle is the way to go, much to the dismay of Ms. Saito, who despairs at their obsession with connecting everything to gaming. However, the Alley Cats are fantastically unsuited to PvP battles, especially Master, who soundly gets her butt kicked by everyone. Indeed, the first time she gets face-planted is somewhat funny, but the joke actually gets funnier as it repeats; I'd almost compare it to the Aqua-vs.-giant-frogs scenes from KONOSUBA. The episode also gets some good mileage out of the Alley Cats watching other guilds get obliterated when they attempt to take a castle and the surprisingly capable efforts of Nekohime's followers (again, much to Ms. Saito's dismay).

Though the fanservice quotient has diminished from last episode's peak, it is nonetheless maintaining at a higher level than earlier in the series. The camera rarely hesitates to get a good shot of Master in her skimpy costume, and one brief scene reminds us that Ako isn't so keen on clothes at home. (Honestly, I think if you did a survey of hardcore gamers, you'd probably find a fair percentage of them game while naked or nearly-naked sometimes. The only real stretch here is that someone as sedentary as Ako can maintain a figure like that.)

Beyond that, the only thing of significance happens when someone in Ako's class somehow gets the bright idea that she's responsible enough to handle extensive duties for her class's cultural festival effort. I'm curious to see how far the story goes with exploring this since Ako seems to be in completely over her head, but she has also occasionally shown flashes of intuition and even brainpower well beyond how she normally acts. It's actually a golden opportunity to force her fully back to reality, though given the behavior of the other club members over the past few episodes, it's debatable how much help they'll be to pushing her in that direction.

So while this is a fairly entertaining episode, it feels more like set-up for whatever will transpire in the final two episodes.

Rating: B-

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