Morioka Moriko has had enough of being an overworked corporate slave, so she decided to retire herself to the NEET lifestyle. While at home, yearning for the previous connections she once made in online gaming, she starts up a new MMO. There she creates her character, the handsome Hayashi. However, in her newbie struggles she meets a Lily, another character willing to help her and they begin to grow closer to each other. At the same time, in real life, Moriko also has a shocking encounter with a handsome corporate employee.
There are lots of series about people being trapped in a game, but this series displays the good, old-fashioned fun that MMO gamers have each day. It’s relatable, funny, and at times very adorable. While not the best of the 2017 Fall season, it is certainly a heart-warming watch.
Anime Like Recovery of an MMO Junkie
For Fans of Gamers Gaming
And You Thought There is Never a Girl Online?
After proposing to a girl in a video game, Rusian is not only rejected, but finds out that girl is really a man playing as a female avatar. Afterwards, he makes a sweeping declaration that he will never trust girls online again. However, years later a girl named Ako proposes to him. Although he thinks she might be a guy, he accepts. When Rusian meets this Ako and his other guild mates in real life, he fines them not only to be classmates of his, but cute girls.
Both shows are about people playing MMOs, not being stuck in them. That sets both of them apart from the rest of the pack right away. However, they also feature characters that fall into the classic trap of people not playing the gender of character online that they are in real life. It causes trust issues, but eventually these people meet in real life and it only deepens the relationship that started in a game online.
Gamers
Keita Amano is an average high school student and gamer. After having an awkward encounter with Karen Tendou, the school’s idol, he discovers that she too is a gamer as she passionately begins to try to recruit him into the game club. After paying a visit to the club, he witnesses a completely new side to his hobby due to the eccentric array of members.
Ostensibly, both series are about gamers playing games and having fun. However, as you watch both shows, you discover that it is about so much more. It is not just about MMO and gaming comedy, but the relationships that gamers build with other gamers.
The King’s Avatar
In the multiplayer online game Glory, Ye Xiu was a legendary professional player. However, when he gets into an altercation with a team mate, he is kicked from the team and forced out of the pro circuit. Ye Xiu manages to find work as manager in an internet café and resigns to his fate. One day he notices that Glory has launched a new server and throws himself into the fray once more. With ten years experience, Xiu is hardly a noob and he is set to play towards the summit.
While both series are about gamers, MMO Junkie is MMOs and King’s Avatar is more League of Legends. They are both games, yes, but two distinctly different games that breed different attitudes. This leads to strongly different attitudes in both series that make King’s Avatar a more serious show, but both show how gaming can have a huge effect on a person’s life.
For Fans of NEETs
Gabriel DropOut
After graduating high school in Heaven, angels are sent down to Earth to guide humans down a righteous path. Heaven had high hopes for Gabriel, the top of her class. However, when she descended, she ended up skipping classes and getting addicted to online games.
There is one uniting thing in both series: sometimes it is just easier to drop out of society and play games online than struggling to find happiness in other ways. Both main characters in each show were elite at their previous jobs, but after awhile just had enough of it. They decided to disappear and just enjoy life instead of getting caught up in the rat race.
ReLife
Arata Kaizaki is an unemployed 27-year-old that has thus far been living with the financial support of his parents and part-time jobs. After leaving his first job after only three months, he has not been able to find proper work. However, after a night of drinking with his friends, he meets a mysterious man that offers a drunk Arata a pill that will turn him 17 again so that he can redo a year of his youth, all expenses paid. Will Arata find what he needs to live a happy life after one year in high school again?
While ReLife features a NEET getting a redo at life, they are both about NEETs finding some sort of peace of mind through meeting another person of the opposite sex that doesn’t actually know how similar they both are. However, it is more than that, both series, while also being based on web comics, are bright and colorful with ridiculously adorable, yet relatable characters.
Princess Jellyfish
Kurashita Tsukimi loves jellyfish, to the point of obsession. One day, when she sees a jellyfish being mistreated in a pet store, she tries to stick up for it, but her social awkwardness gets in the way. Thankfully, a sparklingly beautiful woman steps in and sparks the beginning of an unlikely friendship. While Tsukimi’s new friend charms her and her roommates, what they don’t know is that this princess is also a man.
Both series tell the rare tales of female recluses who prefer to spend their time doing their unique hobbies rather than anything else. However, after they have a fateful run-in with another, seemingly more outgoing person, this new appearance in their lives causes a shift that helps them in various ways.
For Fans of Self Improvement
Welcome to the NHK
College dropout Tatsuhiro Satou has been living as a hikikomori shut-in for four years now. In his extreme isolation, he has come to believe a number of conspiracy theories, primary among them is that the Nihon Hikikomori Kyokai (NHK) is responsible for his isolation by spreading hikikomori culture. However, while struggling to go out into the world and get a job, he has a run-in with the mysterious Misaki Nakahara, a girl who might signal a great change coming to his life.
While obviously both shows have the NEET main characters in common, more so they are also about those NEETs being somewhat rehabilitated through the fateful meeting of someone of the opposite gender. In both shows, neither really end up being completely cured, but they take small steps towards being better people.
Pet Girl of Sakura Hall
Unable to resist taking in abandoned kittens, and amassing quite a collection of them, Sorata Kanda is forced to move to Suimei High School’s infamous Sakura Hall. This dorm is used to house all the misfit students that don’t quite fit in the regular housing. There, Sorata meets an array of different oddballs that inspire him to work towards getting back into the regular dorms and away from them. However, when a new transfer student moves in, he meets the incredible artist, Shiina Mashiro. While talented, she is completely incapable of taking care of herself, and so, Sorata brings her into his care and his strange days truly begin.
Although featuring younger characters, Pet Girl of Sakura Hall also features a relationship between a sort of NEET girl who meets a guy who seems to be more high-functioning. Yet, like in Recovery of an MMO Junkie, that guy also has problems of his own. In both shows you get to watch both female and male leads confront those issues and sort out what make them happy in life.
Space Brothers
After spotting what they believe to be a UFO, two brothers Mutta and Hibito vow to become astronauts. Fast forward to their adult years and Mutta’s life isn’t going as expected as he toils in an automotive company while the younger Hibito is well on his way to be the very first Japanese man on the moon. When Mutta loses his job and is given a chance to catch up to his brother by joining the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency, he jumps at the chance.
While the plots are very different, Space Brothers and Recovery of an MMO Junkie are all about adults sorting out their desires. The both feature characters that aren’t extensively happy with their choice of work, and so they make a change. However, Space Brother doesn’t feature a character retreating into NEET-ness, but rather trying to find something to make themselves happy. You also have a similar sort of heart-warming comedy in both as well as having characters that are extremely realistic, something that sets both series apart from many others.
Do you have any other anime recommendations like Recovery of an MMO Junkie? Let us know in the comments section below.
