Recovery of an MMO Junkie

I recently rewatched one of my favourite anime: Recovery of an MMO Junkie (i.e. Recommendation of the Wonderful Virtual Life). Even little dude likes this one and has re-watched it a few times himself, even though the target audience is definitely not 12 years old little dudes.

Moriko Morioka is a 30 something NEET. She quit her soul sucking corporate job (SO been there) and is living off her savings and...well, basically living out her life online in an MMO called Fruits de Mer. Her character is called Hayashi and is male. She falls in with another player playing a character named Lily, who is kawaii as all heck and joins the same guild. She's enjoying her time with them all, though her life in the real world is a bit bleak. She and Lily in particular are very close and become partners in the game, wearing matching cloaks.

Coincidentally, in real life, she has an encounter with a kind blonde haired man named Sakurai Yuta (he was adopted so he's actually blonde and not just anime blonde). He is drawn to her immediately. Of course, he's the one behind Lily, though Moriko doesn't know that. It takes him a while to clock it as well that she's Hayashi, but as their characters in game grow closer and tell each other things, he figures it out, mostly because his friend/co-worker (and an old work acquaintance of Moriko's) called Homare Koiwai interferes like some kind of strange cupid.

Over the course of the show, Moriko also realises that the guild master is the friendly guy that works at the convenience store she frequents. And that Sakurai was her old friend from the MMO she used to play. Basically, every version of themselves, they share a connection. It's destiny, man.

It's a very sweet show and even though they are 30-somethings, they act more like teenagers who have never been in a relationship before. I wish it were possible to find the manga, but it was a Comico webtoon by Rin Kokuyō and publication was halted prematurely due to her failing health so it has been on hiatus since 2015 (the anime came out in 2017?). As far as I can find, it was never published in book form and doesn't have an official English translation. Such a shame, because it's so lovely and I'm sure the extended written version has even more backstory / character development.

So I just re-watch it once a year or so because it makes me happy. Now seemed like a good time to watch it again. It still makes me smile. I just wish there were more.