Imagine if winning in an MMO also meant winning in real life. Well, I damn near have everything leveled to cap in Final Fantasy XIV. All I’m missing is Machinist, which is just three mere levels away from 100. That means I’m rich and powerful as hell in real life, right? Sigh, if only. But in Overgeared, you can do exactly that. Our protagonist Grid (real name Takumi) spends his night grinding away in Satisfy, the massively popular VRMMO — so massive that it has two billion players — because he can actually make money from doing so. That’s crazy, right? But these stories have always tried to justify this degenerate gaming lifestyle. In previous shows of similar ilk, you would die in real life if you also died in-game. Gaming matters, and it matters a lot! But being a top-tier player by itself didn’t translate to actual success in the real world. Why bother logging out if your false reality is so much sweeter? Overgeared wants to change that… somewhat.
Like always, these power fantasies come fast and they come easy. Grid comes across a book that makes him the successor of a legendary blacksmith, which automatically gives him all the necessary skills. This means he can now craft any piece of gear he wants, no prior experience required. I have to laugh, because what is this if not fantasy nepotism. Sure, Grid only comes across the book because he is on a difficult quest in the first place. Even so, we can easily imagine that there are tons of players currently undergoing equally difficult quests if not harder. At the end of the day, Grid just happens to be lucky. He got this quest and they didn’t, and now he gets to dominate both the MMO world and the real world? It’s silly, right? But I think these stories proliferate because we have collectively agreed that working hard no longer pays off. By embracing these power fantasies, we implicitly acknowledge that we need to be born into power or talent — or literally have it handed to us via some magical artifact that we stumble upon in a dungeon — or else true success is impossible.
Sure, Grid isn’t automatically powerful. He still needs to make all of his gear. He is somehow level -2 — yeah, it’s in the negatives — and he’s going to have to climb out of that hole somehow. But eh, it’s just not your standard rags-to-riches story. And already, I feel like taking the piss out of the story. For instance, every time they introduce a new female character, I can’t help but think, “Welp, future waifu.” Some top tier guild leader? Obviously a future wife. The infamous blood witch who also happens to be a model in real life? Oh my god, could she be a more obvious waifu candidate? The NPC in-game who is the daughter of a noble? Whom you have to rescue from an evil cult? Well, duh, waifu alert!
But wait, Irene is just an in-game NPC, right? So how is this going to work? Are we going to have both real waifus and fake, digital waifus? Could you imagine if your husband says he needs to log into a game to spend equal time with an NPC? It’s just the first episode, so the show has a lot to explain. After all, I’m still not exactly clear on how succeeding in Satisfy translates to success in the real world. But the real problem is how Grid will handle his interpersonal relationships going forward, i.e., striking a balance between actual, flesh-and-blood relationships and the fake one in-game. There’s no way you would pass up time with your actual wife to bang a digital character, right? For me, that’s the biggest question Overgeared needs to answer.
Other than that, there’s not much else to say about Grid/Takumi. He has the usual shitty backstory (bullied in high school, high school crush didn’t care for him, etc.). He still has both parents as well as a sister, so that’s kinda something. Mom is, however, not impressed with her pathetic son. Wait till he starts bringing home the big bucks from gaming all night! Then she’ll eat her words! But for now, Grid/Takumi works a thankless, physically strenuous job to pay for his Satisfy subscription as well as the lease on the VR device required to even play the game. Satisfy has to make money, right? So the vast majority of the population probably earns jack shit from playing the game. Even if Grid/Takumi ultimately finds success, this is still a dystopian world. It might be like Ready Player One where one guy gets to reap all of the rewards, but everyone else still has to deal with their shitty lives. Last but not least, I actually find Grid’s voice to be rather grating. I hate to say it, but he does sound like a loser.
This anime is based on a Korean web novel, so the adaptation comes with all the same annoying quirks as other Korean-based series. Basically, we know Grid as Takumi, but he is supposed to be Shin Young-woo in the source material. Other characters have likewise had their names localized for the Japanese audience. I don’t know why they can’t just keep the Korean names. It’s not going to kill them to acknowledge a Korean protagonist.
Anyway, this isn’t an isekai, and even though it takes place in a slightly futuristic alternate universe — futuristic enough to have full-dive MMOs — it looks like we’ll be spending most of our time in a generic fantasy world. As such, I’m going to stick it in the Generic (Power) Fantasy Anime pile.