I decided to watch GAMERS! on a complete whim. That’s it. There was absolutely nothing else about the show that was remotely interesting other than the fact that it was described as a show about gaming. Even when I started the first episode, I was convinced that the show was going to be a somewhat camp, slice of life about a nobody loser joining a gaming club and becoming a video game god, but boy was that not the case.

While GAMERS! may set itself up like the adventures of generic anime protagonist #3012, The show, within the first episode, becomes a ROM-COM where the most popular girl in school invites the main character Amano to join the schools gaming club, but gets rejected by Amano because he doesn’t like how the club plays games, telling said most popular girl Tendou that he doesn’t like playing games competitively. Tendou, who starts to develop a slight crush on Amano, feels utterly rejected. A lot of the comedy from that point on stems from watching the most popular girl in school start awkwardly stalking Amano as he starts to make friends outside of the club.

It was indeed surprising watching what I thought was going to be pretty standard anime garbage into something a little less conventional. From the moment of Tendou’s rejection I couldn’t stop watching, and it has so far been thoroughly entertaining.

The way it so far has played with the expectations that it has set up is fascinating. For example, when Chiaki was introduced, the expectation is that she would be the main rival to Tendou in getting with Amano, since Chiaki and Amano both love so many of the same games and often times share a very similar philosophy when it comes to how they both enjoy games. This, however, ends up not being the case at all, as much of the philosophy that the two share involves being passionate about games to the point of insulting each other over there disagreements.

Another one of the ways it flips expectations is with Amano’s first real friend Uehara. When Uehara is first introduced, he is made to look like he is part of the popular crowd, the group of people that wouldn’t dare associate themselves with someone like Amano. However, its been revealed throughout the first few episodes that Uehara has a past very similar to that of Amano’s current situation: an introvert who only wants to play games, and because of that Uehara decides to start hanging out with Amano.

Of course, none of this actually makes the show good, or bad for that matter. While the show does subvert expectations, and that does add to its presentation, it doesn’t feel yet like a show that really is going to stick with me for very long. One could even argue that the show subverts expectations for the sole purpose of getting attention, and while it has certainly caught mine, its not a tactic that creates quality art. If the show wants to come off as anything more than gimmicky than its going to have to make its characters a lot more interesting than they currently are.