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Finally, a Brutally Honest Anime About the Forbidden Love of Fighting Games

'Young Ladies Don't Play Fighting Games' is chock full of johns, pop offs, scrublord-worthy quotes, and demure girls hopping on some good-ass 'Street Fighter 6.'
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You name it, and anime has probably produced an irreverent show about demure girls with that unexpected hobby. While we’ve seen plenty of musical anime like K-on!, Bocchi the Rock!, and Rock Is a Lady’s Modesty showcasing women shredding on guitars, up until now, the only anime that’s treaded water on the wholesome joy of playing classic arcade video games has been Hi Score Girl. At long last, there’s finally an anime that takes an unflinching look at the delightful debauchery of the fighting game community. That anime’s name is Young Ladies Don’t Play Fighting Games.

Young Ladies Don’t Play Fighting Games, originally created by mangaka Eri Ejima and animated by Diomedéa (Domestic Girlfriend), is a girls’ love comedy that’s basically as advertised on the tin. It follows Aya Mitsuki (Ikumi Hasegawa), a transfer student at the prestigious Kuromi Girls Academy, who is keenly aware that she’s not from the upper crust like her classmates, having gotten into the school on a scholarship, and is very self-conscious about how her modest upbringing sets her apart from her goal of becoming a “proper lady.” Whatever that means. She’s basically Will Smith in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Likewise, her Carlton, for lack of a better analogy, is fellow new girl Mio Yorue (Kana Ichinose), whom everyone swoons over and idolizes as the academy’s elegant “white lily.”

But you see, Aya had a problem. Despite learning that the school has a strict no phones policy to prevent students from playing video games after hours, lest they get expelled, she hears the distinct clicks of Mio hitting buttons on a Mad Catz fight stick playing Street Fighter 6—and when I say Street Fighter 6, I mean the anime legit cuts to actual gameplay footage of the Capcom fighting game. What’s more, Aya witnesses Mio go 2-0 against someone who, evidently, called her an easy win beforehand, leading to the biggest pop off anime has ever seen (so far).

Afterward, Mio asks Aya not to tell anyone. Aya, not wanting any trouble with the popular girl at school, acquiesces—until the following day, that is. After Mio gets fed up with rumors swirling around about her and Aya thanks to Aya staring at her all day, she grabs Aya’s hand, leans in close, and exposes her for having calluses from a fight stick. Evidently, Aya quit playing fighting games years ago for a dramatic reason that flies right over Mio’s head because all she wants to do is run a set with her.

When they do, Aya discovers Mio is a bit of a scrub. But after Aya ekes away a victory by conditioning Mio with a series of Ryu hadoken spams, the pair fall into a whirlwind relationship where they play contraband fighting games in secret and fall deeply in love with the euphoric feeling of completely dominating each other.

All the while, everyone around them is unaware and just assumes they’re secretly in love with one another. Which, to be fair, isn’t entirely far off from all the stolen glances, blushes, skipped heartbeats, and PDA over asking each other to hop on some Street Fighter. Anyone who has a friend in the FGC knows that’s just how those folks get down. As someone who owns the first two volumes of Seven Seas’ Young Ladies Don’t Play Fighting Games manga, I can attest to Aya and Mio meeting even more unhinged ladies at their academy who are just as down bad from the affliction of loving fighting games, and the yuri of it all.  

Even if you don’t know shit about fighting games, what’s awesome about the anime is that it’ll explain terms in real time and showcase them in action with real in-game footage. In its first two episodes alone, the show highlights fighting game terminology, logic checks, and etiquette, both good and bad, like Focus Attack, Dash Canceling, confirming with low and medium kicks, option selecting while teaching, frame kill throwing opponents’ wakeup, and calling Johns when someone concocts a bullshit excuse after getting fucked up in a standard best-of-three set. It might not be enough to turn you into a filthy Blanka player, but it’s certainly enough to have you appreciate Cammy tech and the delight in ragebaiting your friends into playing another round.

And honestly, given the year fighting games have ahead of themselves in cinema, it’s refreshing to see media less concerned with box office acclaim and star power and more concerned with the bare essentials of fighting games. The joy of fighting games is not about the hype EVO moments, nor is it about winning trophies; it’s about fucking someone up for the love of the game and the rivalries we make along the way.

Young Ladies Don’t Play Fighting Games is streaming now on Crunchyroll.

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