My Love Story With Yamada-kun at Lv999

Episode 11

As Momo tells Akane early on in this episode, "Timing's everything when it comes to love." It's taken a long while of tumultuous events, and now getting over a serious bout with illness, but as we close in on the season finale for My Love Story With Yamada-kun at Lv999, it seems Akane might be figuring it out, just a little bit. It's an awakening that arrived near the end of this one, Akane rounding back to another meeting with Momo to discuss the nuanced challenges of relationships. But before that, there are plenty of other allegorical filterings of those ideas through regular friendships, as well as this show's ostensible main framing device: Gaming.

The video games aspect of Yamada-kun at Lv999 has been a somewhat oddly utilized angle. Forest of Savior was the inciting instance for Akane's plot kicking off and intersecting with Yamada, and their experiences in and out with the guild members have been a key component of the whole story's structure. But the series thus far has been content to depict engaging with the game as naught but a glorified chat room for the characters. This is perfectly in line with how many game-initiated online friendships are facilitated by these things much of the time. And the series was perfectly happy to reference things in general allegorical terms with a game-based edge, as in the whole theme of "leveling up" as people grow into healthier relationships.

But with Akane finally recovering enough to get back online and at last meet Tsubaki as her new guild-mate, Yamada-kun at Lv999 takes this opportunity to see the two players bond by trying to help each other progress in the game. There is some symbolism to be read in Akane, who's been playing F.O.S. for at least a little while now, still being under-leveled and inexperienced to the point that she and newbie high-school player Tsubaki are effectively on equal footing in stumbling their way through the early stages of the game. Though it's also clearly a setup for raw humor, getting to see these two neophytes try to button-mash their way through a pointedly tough boss encounter that just gives up and leaves partway through.

It's probably the most the series has leaned into the whole game-playing aspect of its setup. It's relevant even after the battle has passed, with Akane calling up and conversing with Yamada specifically asking him for advice on the encounter. It does all feel in line with the show's relatively realistic take on games bringing people together; Common connections through playing the same game give acquaintances an easy entry point to carry on a conversation. And in the show's case here it creates a framing situation of something for Akane to talk to Yamada about while awkwardly dancing around the more pertinent feelings that might have been awakened around that whole cold caretaker situation.

Akane prides herself on being easy to talk to, and it's a trait that's observed by other characters like Tsubaki in this episode. But that doesn't necessarily mean she's effectively leveling up her relationships so much as fulfilling the basic functionalities of interaction. It's like her and Tsubaki button-mashing against that big boss. They can stall things to a draw before parting ways, but there's no advancement or accomplishments until they can pay attention to its signals and find the right approach to its openings. It comes through in real-life context late in the episode when Akane and Momo's day out is interrupted by the group-date interlopers. Akane can placate them with some standoffish non-versation abilities, but it's not until experienced gamer Eita shows up and can directly engage with them that the guys can be made to leave.

As espoused in that cafe conversation before the dudes get in their way, it's not that Akane has some singular major flaw that makes her undateable or unlovable, but that she gets too complacent with her approach and can't find the compulsion to push forward. We might well share in Momo's frustration here, thinking that Akane's big revelation was her realizing she might have full-on feelings for Yamada, but was instead back to fixating too hard on why she got dumped in her last relationship. The presence of Eita in this situation drives home the point since he was the one who also tried to subtly deliver advice to Akane and Tsubaki about dealing with the in-game boss: Just keep putting yourself out there against it and trying, paying attention, until the proper approach makes itself apparent to you.

Whether Akane does figure that out before the end of this season, or if the likes of her and Tsubaki stay in the training phase of the game (of love) for a little longer is one of those spaced-out wait-and-see situations. But regardless of hard plot progression, this episode still did a strong job of articulating the ideas and lessons the characters are supposed to be learning, coming through well for us even if they haven't quite gotten it. And it did so in a fresh way compared to previous weeks, with some of the most fun integration of the game elements yet seen. Whether it's with school festivals, bouts of debilitating illness, or button-bashing boss battles, Yamada-kun at Lv999 seems to always have some interesting new way to show its characters circling their inability to understand their feelings, so I don't mind seeing them spiral a bit more.

Rating:

My Love Story With Yamada-kun at Lv999 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Chris is keeping busy keeping up with the new anime season and is excited to have you along. You can also find him writing about other stuff over on his blog, as well as spamming fanart retweets on his Twitter, for however much longer that lasts.