High Score Girl Review: Reliving the 90’s arcade scene all over again

Ahoy me mateys Captain Cats here! The 90’s were unique in so many ways, the music, the vibe, the atmosphere, and of course anime and video games. A lot of people missed out on during that era, and now they can see this how it was in High Score Girl.

The series was set in the 90’s in Japan, and we meet the series main character Haruo Yaguchi, a young boy who only has one thing in mind, video games. Like any gamer in the 90’s the place to be was at your local arcade, and here is where we meet our other main character, Akira Oono. From here on out, we see the series move on throughout the 90’s, and we are introduced to the other main Koharu Hidaka, who at first doesn’t like video games but later does as the series continues she ends up enjoying them.

The series itself you see not only the characters grow up, but also the scene and the rise of the home console. The main topic I believe the show has is progression, you see it with not only with the main characters, but also the arcade scene, the gaming community, and technology. As the series kept going, we all saw the introduction of new arcade games, home consoles, new games, and personnel changes. We all see both the primary and supporting characters grow in one way or another, good or bad change is unstoppable.

The animation is okay at best, and it does get the feel of the manga of the same name the series is based off on, which surprisingly ended its series run this past Tuesday. There are moments where it can look funny and other time will look great. The music fits well with the series as a whole, just don’t expect a lot of video game music references. The opening animation and music is a mixed bag, the opening is lovely, one of the best I have seen this year and there are a lot of them. The music’s ok at best, the song titled  “New Stranger” by J POP group sora tob sakana. The ending animation and music, on the other hand, were fantastic, it has a 90’s sound and vibe to it, and it reminded me of a lot of early 90’s anime. The song titled “Houkago Di(e)stra(u)ction” by Etsuko Yakushimaru and if you get a chance to find the lyrics, read it while listening to this song and you will see how well it works with the series.

If there is one thing I have to say about what this series has done better than any other series that came out this year, either in Japan or the rest of the world is this: it did nostalgia right! This whole series was a love letter to the 90’s in every way it can and made me remember what I was doing in the 90’s. No other series can’t pull that off right, and I tip my hat off to this series. This is one of the best anime series that came out of the 2018 summer season and a very sleeper and under the radar hit.

The series just finished airing in Japan and was announced via the anime’s Twitter account that a 3 part OVA will be coming in March of 2019. If you haven’t seen this sleeper hit of the 2018 summer anime season, Netflix announced that they will be showing High Score Girl outside of Japan this December.

So what do you think of High Score Girl, did you see it as well? What did you think of the 90’s? Let us know in the comments below!