By all means, this should have really been my thing. Cute girls doing arcade things? A chillaxed environment where not a thing goes wrong? A lead whose design has shades of Sakura and Tomoyo from Card Captor Sakura, albeit color-swapped? All of these screamed “yes” to me. It took me just several episodes in to realize that this wasn’t going to be the fun little slice of life trek I desired. Everything here in Cultural Exchange With a Game Centre Girl is just so dull, and the cuteness left nary an effect on me.
Our leading girl Lily hails from the United Kingdom. Not that you really notice it. She has an English name, yes, but her British accent is poorly done. It’s too overtly drenched in a Japanese accent, only coming in when the show needs to remind us of Lily’s cultural origins. I feel mean in saying this, especially since I know her voice actress is the bilingual Sally Amaki. I’d like to think it’s not Amaki’s fault that the British accent is so butchered. Perhaps the studio wanted Amaki to maintain that proper sense of “ugu-kawaii-desu”-ness in her British voice a character like Lily would need. Fine. But not only is a good 80% of Lily’s dialogue still in Japanese, you also have scenes where she carries out conversations with her British parents in fluent Japanese, too. Why? Wouldn’t they be speaking mostly in English? It feels like you could have taken the bilingual aspect of the script and have nothing change. The English dub solves this problem by fixing Lily’s British accent, albeit at the expense of having everyone speak English. Lily and her family are implied to be speaking Japanese based on the presence of Japanese subtitles, although because their lines are spoken in English, the bilingual element feels largely absent.
The first half of the show focuses on the romance between Lily and the slightly older Renji. The age gap isn’t problematic since there’s no deeply romantic or sexual tension between the two of them (although there is a line between Renji, Lily, and her father that hints at that, but it’s an aside that’s played off for laughs). Had the show been written better, I’d say it’s adorable. Why not? Besides, it was adorable when, say, Reina pined for Taki-sensei in Sound! Euphonium despite being years apart, so who am I to judge? They’re just naive children who are too young to understand the proper standards of love. The problem with the relationship isn’t so much that as it is how boring and stale these characters are. Lily’s a cute British girl who likes arcade games, and Renji’s an employee at the arcade trying to understand her, and…that’s about it. You can figure out the depths of their relationship right off the bat.
The latter half of the show delves into CGDCT territory when other lasses are introduced into the mix, although things don’t get much better from there. Their idea of fun is very cut-and-dry, with no detailed direction that helps make things stand out. It all feels like the anime was doing a game of checks and boxes, and just cramming in the usual staples of slice of life as necessary. There is no detailed direction that helps make things stand out, and towards the end, it feels workmanlike. “Okay, they’re on summer vacation, so we need a travel episode, but only after they spend a little bit more time at the arcade. Wait, weren’t they already doing that during the school year? Never mind that, though. And then we need a beach episode! And a summer festival episode! ¿Por qué no los dos? How about at the same time? Perfect!”
The slice of life portions of the show don’t make Lily’s everyday life feel any less ordinary. A lot of her free time is spent at the arcade, where she develops a crush on one of its employees, Renji. A lot of time is spent at the arcade, and sure games are played, yet nothing about their merrymaking feels involving. A good chunk of time is wasted playing the same crane game to
win a cutesy koala bear plushie, while another chunk has Lily and Renji delve into some VR games that for the most part don’t look too exciting. There is a moment towards the end of an episode where Lily plays a VR game where she pilots a mech, and by the show’s standards, it’s about as lively and animated as it can be, and perhaps the closest the show gets to boasting sakuga. Another episode throws Lily and company into a gamer tournament. The episode of Haruhi Suzumiya where they play “The Day of Sagittarius” it is not, although it does try its best to recapture those vibes.
Perhaps one of the worst qualities Cultural Exchange has going for it is how very, very, very, very, VERY forced its moe is. I said earlier that Lily dons the look of Card Captor Sakura‘s leading duo, which would have been okay had it not been juxtaposed with a color scheme that’s an absolute eyesore to look at. The backgrounds are awash in so many blues and pinks and other bright colors that it looks like cotton candy throw-up. No joke, it makes Precure look like freakin’ DEVILMAN crybaby. It feels like it was all done to cover up how stinted and stiff the animation is. Proof: the seventh episode of the show has a frame that dons the appearance of a bad Photoshop job where hastily-cut PNG layers sit uncomfortably atop a background contrived in MS Paint. It’s just not a good look.
Outside of a few background tracks (most notably one with a blues harmonica), nothing about this show is memorable. The final moments have a frame that reads “Game Over,” followed by “Continue?” I was inclined to tell myself “No thanks!”
