Earlier this year, You and I are Polar Opposites became the first anime where I had to do an early review. I liked it so much that I just had to do a short review after six episodes, before doing a full review once the show ended. I liked it that much, and Overgeared is making feel the same way. It caught my attention quickly, because it wasn’t even on my radar a week ago.
I’m just not a fan of anime about gaming and VR. Sword Art Online was interesting because there were real stakes and Full Dive was fun, but that was it. I can acknowledge how good Shangri-La Frontier is, but it just wasn’t for me. I feel that way about almost all the anime within this genre. I wasn’t going to watch Overgeared at all, but then I saw multiple people saying the English dub was legendary. Some were even comparing the humor to that of Konosuba. That made me want to try at least the first episode, and I’m really glad that I did.
Overgeared takes place in a world where a VR MMO called Satisfy is basically the largest industry in the world. There’s billions of players, worldwide news coverage, and livestreams that rivel primetime TV. All the money and fame you earn in the game is translated into the real world. Think of Video Game High School or the OASIS from Ready Player One. I really like this concept for multiple reasons.
Grid is a longtime player of the game. He’s almost level 100, and upon completing a high level quest, he receives an item that changes his class to that of a legendary blacksmith. From there, it’s basically your standard power fantasy as he uses his new blacksmith skills and abilities to earn a lot of money and make a name for himself on the real world. It’s your standard theme of random nobody gets a cheat skill that makes him overpowered, but the anime has a lot of good stuff going on in the first few episodes.
The main reason I don’t care for this genre is that there rarely are any stakes. It’s always just people playing a video game, but it’s a really good usage in this situation. I watched Overgeared because I heard the acting was hilarious, but I ended up loving everything about it during the first few episodes. For starters, I really liked the story because of its ties to the real world. Translating money and fame into the real world is a very interesting concept.
It takes the power fantasy theme and flips it. You could be a nobody in the real world. You could become overpowered in the game, and become a celebrity, politician, or someone big in the real world. I haven’t read manwha or novel, but I’m excited to see if this takes a Ready Player One approach real people and companies try to take advantage of people, money, and situations in both the game and real world. In the first few episodes, we already see how the company that owns the game altered NPC’s and quests to help certain events move forward.
We even see an established economy that’s consistent through the first few episodes. It’s established that 100 silver make one gold and that one gold is equal to 120 yen. That conversion is brought up again later on with the same consistently, while also showing how much Grid makes from his real world job. Most anime that come up with their own economy forget how it works or retcons stuff for the story. Another anime I’m watching this season is Reborn as a Space Mercenary, and the economy contradicts itself multiple times in the first few episodes.
It’s nice seeing an anime in this genre that takes the world building seriously while also having such huge connections to the real world. I’m really excited to see how the story builds up in the future. Speaking of the story being interesting, there’s lots of interesting characters that are introduced right away. Grid is honestly an interesting character. He has a bunch of real world problems at the start and he’s just goofy in general. Yura is a badass and Euphemina, Huroi, and Jishuka are all interesting. I’m even somewhat invested in the company that owns the game.
Just based off story, characters, world building, and animation, Overgeared would have easily been my favorite VR MMO anime. But then you have the acting, which truly is legendary for two reasons. The dialogue, especially from Grid, is absolutely unhinged. Ricco Fajardo makes Grid chaotic, hilarious, and a lot of fun. I got my friend to watch a clip and he was surprised that it was even approved. The voice acting immediately elevated an anime that I already thought was pretty cool to begin with.
But the voice acting was also pretty diverse as well. The game is a worldwide phenomenan, so many of the characters are from other countries. Two of the main characters that are introduced at the start are from Mongolia and Brazil, and the accents are noticable. It’s the same for some of the NPC’s too. The voice acting in general is just great.
I never heard of Overgeared before the anime was released, so I had to do my research on the source material. I was shocked to see that the original novel is at around four million words. That’s basically the entire Harry Potter franchise four times. I was even more shocked to see that it was actually pretty popular. The original novel series has a 7.70 rating and the manwha has the same rating. That gives me a lot of hope that the anime will be really good.
10/10