Stichwort Game Design

Videogame-Tester Alex hängt in der Freizeit am liebsten mit seinen Kumpels vor der Glotze und lässt die Bong kreisen. Das Idyll wird bedroht, als der Vermieter seiner WG kündigt, ein schwarzer Joystick-Ritter in seinem Revier wildert und die hübsche Controllerin Samantha die Bilanzen prüft. Zum Glück kann Alex bei seiner Oma und deren schrägen Freundinnen unterschlüpfen, was zwar nicht cool ist, doch manchen Vorteil bringt, wenn ihn die Golden Girls z.B. mit heißen Tips für den Geschlechterkampf ausrüsten.

Der Weg ist zum Erfolg ist kein leichter gewesen, wie auch Tomoya Aki und sein Team bei der Fertigstellung ihres ersten Projekts merken mussten. Doch am Ende hat sich die Mühe gelohnt: Ihr Spiel erhielt jede Menge Lob und auch die Nachfrage war viel höher als erwartet. Doch während der Arbeiten an »How to Raise a Boring Girlfriend«, dem nächsten Spiel, kommt es für Tomoya richtig dick, denn sowohl Eriri als auch Utaha haben sein Team verlassen, um gemeinsam mit Akane Kousaka am 13. Teil der erfolgreichen Spielreihe »Field Chronicles« zu arbeiten. Anmerkung: Der Film ist die letzte Anime-Umsetzung der Light-Novel-Vorlage und schließt auch die Geschichte ab.

Sato's life – or what's left of it – is a paranoid mess of conspiracy theories and social anxieties. He's terrified of the outside world; his apartment is overflowing with the remnants of cheap take-out food; and his retinas have been permanently scarred by a steady diet of internet porn. But maybe it's not all his fault. After all, the nefarious N.H.K. is out there, and they’re determined to turn society's fringe-dwellers into a brainwashed lot of jobless, hopeless, futureless recluses. Enter Misaki – a mysterious girl-next-door type who is Sato's last chance to beat-down his inner demons and venture out into the light of day. She's ready to help him overcome his crippling phobias, but Sato would rather cower in his existential foxhole and pretend to work on the demo for his virtual sex game. He’s afraid to face the world. She's strangely desperate to fix a total stranger. Maybe together they can be normal.

First-year high school student Tamaki Honda and her SNS club as they work together to create a self-published game. With Tamaki as the project’s illustrator, she works alongside the club’s other (rather peculiar) members, including Shiina (the club president and game programmer), Ayame (the scenario writer), Kayo (their music composer), and Yumine (the club’s boys’ love expert).

After graduating high school, Suzukaze Aoba joins Eagle Jump, the game company that developed Fairies Story, the game she obsessed over as a kid. On her first day as a working member of society, Aoba heads to work swaying in a packed, morning rush hour train. She manages to get to the office building all right but hesitates, wondering if it was really okay for her to take that last step and go inside. That's when a senior member of staff, Toyama Rin, shows up at work and safely leads Aoba inside the offices of Eagle Jump.

Kazama Kenji likes to believe he is something of a delinquent. Moreover, others seem to like to agree that he is. Of course, Kenji's gang finds their way to a group of four not-so-normal girls—Chitose, Sakura, Minami and Roka—and all at once, whatever reputation he may have is nothing compared to the outrageous behavior of the girls. Shanghaied into joining their club, what will happen to his everyday life from that point on?