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Our Crappy Social Game Club Is Gonna Make the Most Epic Game #1
Our Crappy Social Game Club is Gonna Make the Most Epic Game: Volume 1
Past trauma leads Shiraseki Kai to abandon the world of social game development, so he transfers to Maikun High School to start a new life. But on his first day he meets Aoi Nanaka, the president of a low-tier social game club, and finds out that the club is on the brink of disbanding—and is also populated by total weirdos! The programmer, Oushima Aya, is a crazed gacha addict, and the illustrator, Kuroba Eru, faints from the cuteness of her own drawings?! Kai joins the club, which gives them enough members to continue... or so they thought. The student council hands down an ultimatum: “Win a competition against another school or disband!” Now their management talents will really be put to the test. With the skills that he’s nurtured and his new set of friends, can Kai face his fears to create the ultimate social game?!
- GenresLight Novel
256 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 4, 2021
4 people are currently reading
11 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
June 28, 2022
I thought I was going to read a fun story about high-schoolers forming a school club, making games, getting into various antics, and laugh about them. What I did not expect was a story about running away from people, overcoming trauma, and facing your doubts along the way. There was even a little bit of social commentary about trust in the game development industry. For a light novel, it was surprisingly serious. Why, even the non-coloured illustrations were serious.
Don't get me wrong. There were still plenty of light-hearted tropes and jokes interspersed in the story, and, depending on the reader, the novel may have more than enough of them. However, it has been a long time since I felt serious stakes while reading a light novel. It has also been a while since I really identified with the portrayal and struggles of both the male and female lead of the story. The side-characters may be less well-developed, but its hard not to take the fear of social judgement, frustration at the internet's apathy for the truth, and the feeling of being inexperienced seriously.
This is probably a good time to share the synopsis. This novel follows the story of the reluctant Shiraseki Kai and the bubbly Aoi Nanaka, members of a social game development club (think of mobile games and gacha systems) in the "boonies" of Japan. The story is set in a world where the Japanese government, in an effort to promote IT development skills, endorsed the creation and funding of these social game clubs in school. These clubs then participate in regular competitions to determine which club and their game's performs the best, and success means not only a position in the national leaderboard but also the opportunity to find educational and employment opportunities post-graduation. Shiraseki Kai was originally a member of Japan's most prestigious social game school club, but due to a scandal, his name was thrown into the mud, and he entered a self-imposed exile to the "boonies" (at least compared to high-tech Tokyo).
A fun novel, serious themes, meaningful character development, a balanced use of familiar anime tropes, interesting glimpses of video game planning and management. Whether the subsequent novels in the series could keep this up may be a different story altogether, but this volume at least was an engaging read from beginning to end.
Don't get me wrong. There were still plenty of light-hearted tropes and jokes interspersed in the story, and, depending on the reader, the novel may have more than enough of them. However, it has been a long time since I felt serious stakes while reading a light novel. It has also been a while since I really identified with the portrayal and struggles of both the male and female lead of the story. The side-characters may be less well-developed, but its hard not to take the fear of social judgement, frustration at the internet's apathy for the truth, and the feeling of being inexperienced seriously.
This is probably a good time to share the synopsis. This novel follows the story of the reluctant Shiraseki Kai and the bubbly Aoi Nanaka, members of a social game development club (think of mobile games and gacha systems) in the "boonies" of Japan. The story is set in a world where the Japanese government, in an effort to promote IT development skills, endorsed the creation and funding of these social game clubs in school. These clubs then participate in regular competitions to determine which club and their game's performs the best, and success means not only a position in the national leaderboard but also the opportunity to find educational and employment opportunities post-graduation. Shiraseki Kai was originally a member of Japan's most prestigious social game school club, but due to a scandal, his name was thrown into the mud, and he entered a self-imposed exile to the "boonies" (at least compared to high-tech Tokyo).
A fun novel, serious themes, meaningful character development, a balanced use of familiar anime tropes, interesting glimpses of video game planning and management. Whether the subsequent novels in the series could keep this up may be a different story altogether, but this volume at least was an engaging read from beginning to end.
March 27, 2021
Finished reading. This is a dramatic romantic comedy focused on game development in high school. Basically, Japan enacts some spending bills that encourage schools to set up social game development clubs (social games are basically phone games, often with gacha character drops that encourage users to engage with them socially).
The story begins with our hero on trial for leaking information about his highschool club's social game, info that negatively impacts the game's performance and reception online. This results in the game plummeting in the sales rankings, and as a result of the unofficial class trial grilling, Kai resigns from the club and leaves Tokyo behind for a quiet mountain school in Niigata prefecture. Escaping to the countryside unfortunately doesn't end Kai's worries as he's soon unwittingly dragged into joining a social club in Meikei High School.
Book has a lot of interesting themes that it deals in, including not giving up, finding a path forward, dealing with your past head on / dealing with your anxieties through forms of meditation, and changing yourself for the better. It's nice to see characters that actually progress / get better over the course of a story, although there are also some seemingly perfect characters whose only flaws are their personalities / desires.
On the subject of those personalities, there are a decent amount of abrasive and / or broken characters in this story too that I think can bring down the enjoyment for some. There's the annoyingly playful older sister who likes to act the part of the books she is currently writing while also generally harassing her younger brother (in a playful way? At the least, Kai suspects her act is meant to keep him distracted from his anxieties, and she is a decent listener when it comes to his problems). There's the artist of the club, Eru, who sees Kai as another clingy man trying to get into her friend Nanaka Aoi's good graces (you get the sense this has happened before with Aoi). Finally, there's Aya who has a gacha fetish that threatens to steal all her club time and has to be reigned in to work on the game.
Not mentioned above of course is Aoi Nanaka, the mostly positive force in the club. She's had the role of the planner foisted on her because of her lack of skill or knowledge in other roles. Kai acts as the teacher to Nanaka for about half of the book, using analogies about game development to help her understand the technical terminology and skills needed to improve the Meikei social game club games. You'll learn that despite being a bright, personable student, she has a secret in her past like Kai that may threaten her ability to run the club. Aoi is often presented as a defenseless character that needs to be more aware at times, almost verging on the "ditzy" stereotype. While she's very capable and supportive when she puts her mind to things, this element does come up a few times throughout the plot (namely her misunderstanding of Kai as a "cool / mysterious" individual because of his dull + silent as a rock persona; her "upskirt" moment; not following the trends or info about social games enough to know about Kai's incident). Kai too lacks awareness though as evidenced by the ending (your typical harem lead; capable in recognizing and reacting to everything but romance), so I don't think this was a nefarious presentation or anything. Kai also got his game knowledge that he is passing down to Nanaka from a woman named Akane who participated in the Tokyo social game club, so his explanations to Nanaka have no origin in "mansplaining".
Outside of the sister character, there weren't too many cringeworthy moments (barring the one time Kai notices Nanaka's bending form which felt a bit out of place up to that point). I might go back to read some of the more technical scenes (I have a hard time imagining the game that they're making as some of the more executive decision type things and data analysis of the game dominate the plot, only the occasional mention of the actual game mechanics and character designs). It ends on a decent note, but there's only a second volume so far. I hope it continues to be supported in Japan, though the ending to the series is something you could guess / imagine unless the author wanted to switch things up.
The story begins with our hero on trial for leaking information about his highschool club's social game, info that negatively impacts the game's performance and reception online. This results in the game plummeting in the sales rankings, and as a result of the unofficial class trial grilling, Kai resigns from the club and leaves Tokyo behind for a quiet mountain school in Niigata prefecture. Escaping to the countryside unfortunately doesn't end Kai's worries as he's soon unwittingly dragged into joining a social club in Meikei High School.
Book has a lot of interesting themes that it deals in, including not giving up, finding a path forward, dealing with your past head on / dealing with your anxieties through forms of meditation, and changing yourself for the better. It's nice to see characters that actually progress / get better over the course of a story, although there are also some seemingly perfect characters whose only flaws are their personalities / desires.
On the subject of those personalities, there are a decent amount of abrasive and / or broken characters in this story too that I think can bring down the enjoyment for some. There's the annoyingly playful older sister who likes to act the part of the books she is currently writing while also generally harassing her younger brother (in a playful way? At the least, Kai suspects her act is meant to keep him distracted from his anxieties, and she is a decent listener when it comes to his problems). There's the artist of the club, Eru, who sees Kai as another clingy man trying to get into her friend Nanaka Aoi's good graces (you get the sense this has happened before with Aoi). Finally, there's Aya who has a gacha fetish that threatens to steal all her club time and has to be reigned in to work on the game.
Not mentioned above of course is Aoi Nanaka, the mostly positive force in the club. She's had the role of the planner foisted on her because of her lack of skill or knowledge in other roles. Kai acts as the teacher to Nanaka for about half of the book, using analogies about game development to help her understand the technical terminology and skills needed to improve the Meikei social game club games. You'll learn that despite being a bright, personable student, she has a secret in her past like Kai that may threaten her ability to run the club. Aoi is often presented as a defenseless character that needs to be more aware at times, almost verging on the "ditzy" stereotype. While she's very capable and supportive when she puts her mind to things, this element does come up a few times throughout the plot (namely her misunderstanding of Kai as a "cool / mysterious" individual because of his dull + silent as a rock persona; her "upskirt" moment; not following the trends or info about social games enough to know about Kai's incident). Kai too lacks awareness though as evidenced by the ending (your typical harem lead; capable in recognizing and reacting to everything but romance), so I don't think this was a nefarious presentation or anything. Kai also got his game knowledge that he is passing down to Nanaka from a woman named Akane who participated in the Tokyo social game club, so his explanations to Nanaka have no origin in "mansplaining".
Outside of the sister character, there weren't too many cringeworthy moments (barring the one time Kai notices Nanaka's bending form which felt a bit out of place up to that point). I might go back to read some of the more technical scenes (I have a hard time imagining the game that they're making as some of the more executive decision type things and data analysis of the game dominate the plot, only the occasional mention of the actual game mechanics and character designs). It ends on a decent note, but there's only a second volume so far. I hope it continues to be supported in Japan, though the ending to the series is something you could guess / imagine unless the author wanted to switch things up.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews