Reviews for Cultural Exchange With a Game Centre Girl

Have you ever been diagnosed with diabetes? No? You might be after watching this one The first thing I noticed while watching was how “crisp” the Engrish is. I went in knowing nothing—not even the synopsis—just on autopilot. In the first few seconds, I thought I’d stumbled onto a dubbed anime; when the male MC started talking, I snapped out of it and thought, “Whoa, this isn’t dubbed—the VA is just that good.” I have zero English-speaking blood in me whatsoever, so I don’t know how authentic it sounds to native speakers, but for someone like me, it’s terrific: I could understand every word even withmy eyes closed and that's impressive because im an idiot.

The English is solid, but what about her personality, her demeanor, and her act?

Does she act like an average Brit? Probably not.

Does she have a British accent? Maybe.

Is she an accurate portrait of a British person? I wouldn’t bet on it.

Do I want her to be a spot‑on Brit? Fuck no—keep her exactly like this. It’s already perfect. The creator balances authenticity with that moe‑kawaii anime girl stuff, and thank God for it—I certainly don’t want Sally sounding like your average Birmingham resident.

How about the story? It’s simple and straightforward: a rom‑com about a British girl falling in love with a game‑center employee after one selfless act. Unrealistic? Absolutely—but it’s a fucking anime, so of course it is. Easy to digest and doesn’t involve much thinking.

When it comes to romance, this is one of those shows that’s so cute and sugary it makes your toes curl and your tummy warm as you go, “AWWWW, THAT’S SO ADORABLE.” At the same time, it makes you want to claw your face off and ram your head into a wall out of jealousy, wondering, “When yah this will this ever happen to me?” Only to remember, with a sigh, that it’ll never fucking happen to you. There’s almost zero melodrama, and it probably will stay that way.

What about the comedy? Personally, I find the Japanese VA stumbling through broken Engrish to be cute and funny. But comedy is subjective, so if that doesn’t tickle your funny bone, it probably won’t work for you because that’s essentially the show’s main joke.

The animation is solid and suits the show’s tone—not a directorial masterpiece, but it gets the job done.

Now, the music—my only complaint. Both the OP and ED feel like they just exist. They’re not bad by any means, but they lack that spice that makes you hum them later. It doesn’t affect my enjoyment, though.

Overall, a very sweet and light watch—totally recommended.

Have you ever wanted to watch an anime that's nothing but fun, games, cuteness overload, and maybe a bit of cultural and language differences on the side? No? Then go find something else. If otherwise, then this might just be for you. I meant it quite literally, If you've ever watched shows like Aharen-san is Indecipherable, Himouto Umaru-chan, or similar, you've already got an idea of what 90% of this show is about, it's pretty much just "diabetes" wholesome fun packed into a show. That's not to say this show doesn't do anything to stand out from others like it, but for the most part it'smain source of entertaining the viewer is very similar. From the gaming at the arcade, to making friends, to learning Japanese, it's pretty much got all the makings for a simple lighthearted and entertaining show. So, sounds good right? Well sure it does, but that doesn't mean there isn't any room for improvement, one such part is the variation, gaming at the arcade is fine but it can get old after a while, this show isn't too bad in this regard, but it doesn't really have that much going on outside of it's arcade focus like many notable slice of life shows would. The other issue is it's focus, some shows run on just 1 single niche they focus on, and they've worked because they REALLY go all in on their niche and do it well. Putting it simply, Cultural Exchange With a Game Centre Girl is pretty average in this regard, it doesn't go too far in depth with the arcade games, and instead tries to use them to push interactions between it's characters. That's not a bad thing, but it mostly just amounts to some cute interactions at best, hence limiting the depth of character to an extent and enjoyment of the arcade portion of the show. Outside of that the synopsis for this show tells you pretty much everything else you'd need to know, except the one elephant in the room.

You might've seen posts all over MAL mentioning the age problem. To put it simply, our main characters, Lily Baker, and Renji Kusakabe are being "shipped" or "paired" together in a sense by this show and are the reason why this show has a romance tag. Renji is 18 and just entered college, Lily is 13 and just moved to Japan. There's many concerning posts trying to say how this show is "grooming" and for "pedophiles", to put it simply calling this show that is blowing things way out of proportion and I'm ashamed people are so immature as to immediately push that. It's like calling a water gun a "dangerous" weapon because it's called a gun. Saying this show has "romance" is a stretch, a more accurate way to describe it is that Lily simply has a crush on Renji, that's it, there's essentially no real substantial romantic development beyond that, after all it has the tag "Love Status Quo" on MAL. For those concerned about it Renji pretty obviously doesn't take her romantic feelings that seriously, and he's obviously not trying to have a romantic relationship with Lily given that she's 13. To put it simply, if a young teen has a crush on a adult who is 5+ years older, and they are pretty obviously NOT in a romantic relationship, and the adult isn't trying to have one, would you feel weird and consider it grooming? If so, then go watch something else, if not then congrats, you understand what a pedophile actually is, and what grooming actually means. The intention and actions from the adult matter heavily, so long as the romance waits until Lily is 18 or something then who the heck cares.

Honestly, this show is pretty average overall, as of episode 4 it's a 6/10, it's entertaining which is why it's easy to recommend, but has little depth of character and it's just a bit too simple to really be better. My biggest disappointment is honestly just with the MAL user base which tend to blow really simple things out of proportion and clearly haven't seen any Hanna-Barbera in their lives. Anybody alive in the 1970s-1980s has probably seen one of their shows, in which basically every Hanna-Barbera show has a female character that likes a male character, and that's it, no romantic development, nothing, just a simple crush and that's it, much like this show. Welp, this is MAL, Ecchi shows are somehow cool, but this show is somehow pedo stuff and is bad apparently.

6/10, It's definitely some enjoyable wholesome entertainment and is easily recommended, but it's just too simple and doesn't draw out enough of it's niche, or have enough variation to be up there with the best of these kinds of shows. This review will be updated with a finale score when the show finishes.

On the surface this looks like an enjoyable anime. And it is, if you don't think about it too much and treat it like a typical brain rot series. If you do happen to think about it, some problems begin to emerge. This is why I chose "Mixed Feelings", because depending on how you approach this one its likely to look very different. To start I'll describe it if you don't think about it too much. The theme is sweet. There's a lot of bright colors and crisp animation. Its cute and bubbly and fun. You want to like the characters andyou root for Lily because she's a cute foreign girl struggling to fit in in Japan's notoriously homogenous society. She forms a bond and bridging those differences with someone through playing games at a game center. Its also cute how she mixes her broken Japanese with "English". KA-WA-IIII.

Though, its best to not think too much about the fact the foreign girl and her foreign mother speak Japanese at home, or that most of the inner monologue is in Japanese with a few token English phrases here and there to remind you she's supposed to be foreign. We'll suspend the believe a bit since we know this is a show targeting primarily Japanese viewers who may not want to read subtitles like those of us who are not native speakers tend to be accustomed to anyway.

Personally, I found the English to be off-putting. I am an native speaker with a background in the UK dialect and accent, and it sounds fake. And not in an American trying to sound British fake, but in a computer generated or setting Siri to British English approximation of human speech fake. It kept triggering an uncanny valley reaction each time I heard it which was jarring. It also played as if it were someone playing a recording of themselves in response instead of saying the words themselves during the course of a normal conversation. It didn't fit smoothly in tone or tempo. So every time Lily used English, it immediately made me focus on that "unnaturalness" instead of the story.

Now what happens if you happen to think about the anime and its plot in anything more than surface level detail?

Look, I love anime and defend it often to people who categorize it as either only for children, or for adults who are either childish or "love" children. This is one of those series that leave you thinking "come on guys, really??" when you stop to think about it. When people accuse anime of normalizing certain questionable behaviors, this would be one of the series that would be used to defend that position and is hard to argue against.

Remember, the theme is sweet. Its bright. It's cute, bubbly and its fun. Given a few plot changes. this would be a very good anime. And all of that might do a good job at distracting you from the fact that this is an anime about the forming of a relationship between a college student (an adult) and a middle school girl(a child) who has a crush on him. There's nothing wrong with a younger person having a crush on an older person. As a young teen, I had crushes on adults. That's relatable and normal. The adult participating, stoking, encouraging, or at the very least not establishing some boundaries on that crush though is not. Nor should it be.

It's not quite as explicit as something like Kodomo no Jikan, but its that subtlety that makes it so problematic. Frankly, there's absolutely nothing about the given plot that would change if Lily were a high school student who was 17/18 instead of 13. But 13 is a magic number (or at least, was at the time of the source materials creation), and likely was intentionally picked for a very specific purpose in mind.

Another review started with "ignoring the 5 year age gap", and others point out in the forums that "its only 5 years" or that Lily (just barely) meets the "age of consent". Honestly, those stances do not do much to help anime shed the image of its veiled glorification of child exploitation. We already have to deal with ones that objectify child like characters or put them in compromising situations, but hey its ok because they are actually 40 or 10,000 years old and only look like children. Well, this one is actually a child. And in 2025 the age of 13 no longer means what it once did. Not to mention, the 5 years between 13 and 18 are much more significant than the 5 years between 35 and 40, or even 20 and 25. Would you feel as good about 17 and 12, or 16 and 11? I really hope not.

With the issue with the voicing and the questionable relationship, its made it hard to continue with this anime as its become impossible to relate to or become invested in despite the inviting theme and fun presentation. The fact this is in the "Romance" category means its quite unlikely that things are going to shift focus to the quirky "cultural exchange" aspect that was appealing. After 4 episodes, the tone has been set and its made it fairly easy for it to be added to the discard pile in a season of top tier anime.

This anime was a nice surprise. Premise is that a foreign girl is going to the arcade and meets a local boy and from there their story starts to develop. It was an enjoyable show from start to finish, but it's not for everyone. Animation and music - industry standard. Animation is solid and I like how they animated characters and various games present in anime. Music was standard one, there was maybe one track that was notable and the rest is there to fulfill it's purpose. Overall - animation and music are fine. Nothing to sing high praise but nothing to complain much about. Characters -Main characters are Lily and Renji. Lily is coming from Britain and she is slowly adapting to japanese culture and way of life. She is in middle school and loves to go to the local arcade and have fun. Renji is student who is working at the arcade, he is noble, smart and serious guy. And it is he who assist Lily in arcade with various games as well as helping her our in other life challenges. Other characters include Aoi, Renji's little sister who is at the same grade as Lily. Even if it seems like she is too harsh on her older brother, unlike other bratty little sisters she is showing compassion and helps out when the time calls for it. And she has high respect for him, which she shows from time to time. Other characters consists of Karen, who is your tomboy of the season. Lily's parents, especially her dad who is overprotective of her. And few school friends. But Lily, Renji and Aoi are the three MC's, and their interactions and relationship is what makes this show shines.

Overall - main characters are fun and enjoyable. Side characters all have their own charm and contribute to making this anime a joy to watch.

Story - the story is about Lily and her interactions with Renji and others in the arcade center. Lily is British so with her she brings a little something from her country and showing it to locals while learning as much of Japan as she can from Renji and the others. At least the beginning is, the rest is slice of life arcade adventures. Lily has a crush toward Renji (which many found very unsettling) but he is aware of it and like any sensible adult he is handling her like he should - being her friend and kind of a guardian. So the story for the middle and later half of the anime revolves about the gang having fun at the arcade, playing on tournaments and visiting countryside. Shame that cultural exchange is not really that much explored outside first few episodes and a single piece if dialogue in the last episode. But slice of life moments in the anime were more than enough to make it enjoyable.

Overall - story is enjoyable, standard slice of life show. But it is not for everyone as it really goes nowhere outside having fun at the arcade.

Overall grade - 8. While I gave it 10 for my personal enjoyment 7.5 to 8 is more realistic grade. The show story lacks more of it's supposed theme outside just going to the arcades, but for what is worth it was an enjoyable journey.

I would recommend this show for those who seek fun and enjoyable slice of life show. But if you want deeper story and having issues with accepting that crush exists as a concept than this show is not for you.

What do you get when you stream sugar, spice and everything nice? This anime! Cultural Exchange with a Game Centre Girl probably is the underrated wholesome romcom of the season. In the plot, after a cultural misunderstanding, an england girl falls in love with an japanese arcade employee, but even after he rejected her, they decided to share a diary in order to learn more about each other and their cultures, striking up a friendship, although the girl, Lily, wants to be "more than friends". The series "sugar" is the characters. Believe or not, their friendship is very wholesome, and it is a delight to watch Lily's"one-sided" relationship with the guy, Renji. But the series has a bit of "spice": there is a 5 years gap between the main "couple". Nothing serious happens, since Lily is the only one in love, but it does create unusual and funny situations, mainly with Renji's sister (who is also Lily's best friend).

Now the "everything nice" would be the animation, which isn't extraordinary, but is very competent; and the acting, since the seiyūs, mainly Lily's, just nailed it. If you are a Sally Amaki's fan, you will love to watch this anime just to see Lily's cuteness, whether it is her expressions, her outfits or her English dialogs.

If you are looking for a weekly dosage of diabetes, just give this anime a try. You probably won't regret it.

I think I've seen enough to give this a fair review. If it changes in the next three episodes, I'll rewrite. I doubt it will. There are a lot of things I like about this anime, and a few things I don't. We'll start with the things I like. This is a very lighthearted "cute girls doing cute things" slice of life anime. The main character is a British girl named Lily Baker. And she is very cute. She has an ever growing circle of friends. And they are also very cute. And a fairly one-sided romantic interest that is fiveyears her senior (She's in middle school, so somewhere between twelve and fourteen). This could go south in so many different ways, but it doesn't. This is not even remotely an ecchi anime. It's a cute anime. That's all it is. Cute and wholesome.

Color palette wise, it's bright and colorful - reminds me of Onimai a lot. I really like it.

Also, this is one of the few anime I've ever seen (maybe even the only one, or at least very close) to get English right. Lily's accent isn't entirely accurate to UK - but you can tell that they got, if not a native speaker, at the least a very competent English speaker, to voice her. Her accent is very tolerable and, if not UK, then close enough that I didn't mind all that much. In the ninth episode, an Australian speaker shows up, and while that's not quite perfect, you can tell she's Australian. I give the English accent about 8.5/10. And for a Japanese anime, that's *really* good. (Lily does seem to speak mostly competent Japanese, but only sometimes, and when it suits her. I still haven't quite figured that out, but I'm just chalking it up to laziness on the script writer's part and moving on).

Put another way, this anime has "cultural exchange" in the name, and this is literally the first anime I've ever seen to take that seriously. They even pay attention to UK customs, and treat them accurately and with respect. There are so many Japanese anime that treat western cultures like they're looking into a zoo enclosure and all us westerners are there for their inaccurate entertainment, and this anime does not do that. And I love them for it. They don't get it perfect but it's a far better effort than I've seen in nearly all of the anime I've seen. (A couple come close.)

When animating the characters, they pay a great deal of attention to facial expressions (think Onimai) and it's actually pretty funny. I'm mostly enjoying this anime.

Now for the things I don't really like.

The animation is okay, but it's not good. There are a lot of places where there are people in the background, and they don't move. They take some care with the important stuff, but kind of phone it in on other stuff. There's a lot of CGI too, and you can tell it's CGI. I don't mind that too much, but it's also not the greatest thing.

Some of the characters are just plain annoying. Most of the middle school girl characters are somewhat one dimensional. You have the annoying but good-hearted younger sister type (with the requisite and admittedly cute fang), you have the tomboy, you have the studious glasses-girl (though I don't remember if she wears glasses)... and they rarely actually break out of their mold (though there is some character growth, it's not awful). And Lily's father... I can't tell if he's over the top for comedy or if they just want you to hate him. One thing about "cute girls doing cute things" is that there are very rarely male characters. This anime kinda doesn't do that, but every male character that's not Renji is just flat out annoying.

I do like how Lily keeps her father in line though. That's kinda hilarious, even though cartoon violence isn't really my thing, even if played for laughs.

The OP, ED, and soundtrack are uninspired and forgettable.

So, ummm.... this is a cute, wholesome anime with so little ecchi that if there is some it went right over my head, going for cute instead, and that they do very well. It's an enjoyable anime that has vibes of "onimai" (without the ecchi) and if you just want to see some cute girls doing cute things with a slight young-girl-romance (meaning innocent and so far one-sided) plot, you'll like it. If technical excellence is important to you, or you're one of those X losers who takes offence at anything, you'll probably hate it. I like it. I'll recommend it, but if you don't like slice-of-life CGDCT, then you should probably skip it, that's what you're getting.

I think it's rated too low, honestly. 7 from me.

What you might thinking.. yes The mc is 18 and the female lead is 13 ... There's a 5 years age gap . Think of it this way it will feel good when she is 23 he would be 28 years old. For me though age Gap is not a problem.. i only see if the MC is cool or not XD ... a 5-year age difference is absolutely not bad at all. It’s actually quite common around the world. What matters far more than age is how well you both understand, respect, and support each other emotionally and mentally. In some communities, people may comment —but honestly, 5 years is nothing unusual. Don’t let outside opinions interfere with your happiness.

In the end i really liked the anime .. the girl is sooo cute.. i usually enjoy stuff when the female protagonist of an anime is foreigner.

You can try these anime to .. I'm sure you will enjoy them..

Alya sometimes hides her feelings in Russian

Tada never falls in love

Gamers.

Iroduku

HERE'S A FORMAL REVIEW FOR NERDS :

Unique Setting: The arcade/game centre backdrop feels fresh and nostalgic, full of color and gaming charm.

Cute Premise: A wholesome story about friendship and cultural exchange between a Japanese boy and a foreign girl.

Warm Visuals: Soft pastel art style and expressive character designs give it a cozy, slice-of-life atmosphere.

Cultural Blend: Nicely captures language and culture differences with light humor and genuine moments of understanding.

Wholesome Tone: Gentle pacing and sweet interactions make it a relaxing, feel-good watch.

Authentic Detail: The use of real arcade culture and bilingual dialogue adds depth and realism.

Let me start this review by saying this: I don't think this is a bad anime. However, I do think it's painfully average. As of the time of writing this review there is 3 more episodes left to air and each episode has felt fine at best. Cultural Exchange With a Game Centre Girl follows a girl named Lily who moves to Japan and goes to the local arcade. She then gets an accidental confession from one of the workers who had a completely different understanding for the word Valentine and from there it dwelves into a friendship / crush scenario between the two. Everyepisode that premiers shows their day to day lives going to the arcade and hanging out. Whilst not in an official relationship. Lily definitely wants to be in one and Renji is trying not to admit it.

I feel like the idea for an arcade style anime only works some of the time. There is so much more they could be doing but every episode of them being at an arcade can get a bit dull at times, especially when most of it is just them playing a claw machine to win the same Koala toy. It just gets a bit lame after a while. I was really looking forward to this anime this season, it had been in my plan to watch for quite a while but it's one of my least favorites this season. It's a shame because I don't find this to be a bad anime, that's why I haven't dropped it. However, I just don't feel excited watching it. Half the time I barely feel like watching it but I continue because it's not bad enough to drop. Those for me are between 1-3 ratings.

I also find it weird how Lily keeps swapping her language time to time, sometimes there's no context for it, she just does it. Her English (may be an unpopular opinion) sounds pretty ass tbh. I appreciate the VA trying but I really don't think the accent translates well. I'm from the United Kingdom and half the time, it just leaves me feeling dead inside hearing the English in this show. I can't even imagine what the dub for this anime sounds like.

Overall, don't hate this show but just not a fan of it. I do like the Dad, I find him to be pretty funny and honestly he's been my favorite part of this show. Playing the role of an over protective Dad that honestly he's justified in most of his actions considering Lily is about 12 and Renji is 17 (or somewhere that age, I can't remember and I can't be arsed to fact check) - some would argue he's too over protective, but I feel like it's mostly justified. Sometimes there's times nothing is happening and he's freaking out but I still like him and find him to be a pretty funny character.

I really can't see this anime getting a season 2, but if it does I definitely won't be watching it. For the sake of 3 more episodes I'll finish it, and I really hope the last 3 are really good that makes me change my opinion but I doubt it will.

5/10

Game Center Shoujo to Ibunka Kouryuu [Cultural Exchange with a Game Centre Girl] revolves around Lily Baker, a girl originally from England who moved to Japan with her family, and a boy named Renji Kusakabe, who works in a Game Centre where the both of them meet for the first time. Within the first episode the implication of a possible love interest between them is, though it is somewhat resolved as a misunderstanding in the following episode. The fact that there's even a hint of them having a interest in each other, Lily being middle school aged and Renji being University aged is concerning. This plotof an English girl and Japanese guy learning about each others cultural would of been adorable if they were both adults in this situation. it doesn't help that other characters in the series, such as Lily's mum, encourage her to try and win Renji's feelings for her.

i do not recommend this series as it honestly was such a disappointment. Basically my thoughts are that it could of been a cute story if the concept of the story didn't have such an uncomfortable age gap romance implied in the plot.

This anime is kind of special. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen an anime this moe. The moe blob genre was at its peak of output and popularity in the 2000s and a little bit in the 2010s, but it was eventually usurped as the dominant anime genre by Isekai, which is still prominent to this day. It’s not that moe disappeared exactly, it just kind of fused with the slice of life genre, so now almost all slice of life anime have moe elements in them. This isn’t the genuine article though, as the classic moe blob animewould normally not have a single male character to offend the eye, and even if they did there would DEFINITELY be no romance between one of the girls and a dude. I’m not sure if this is because the girls were meant to be lesbians, or if they just wanted to play off of the yuri bait, or if the creators felt like it would just distract from the main point of the genre, which was watching cute girls doing cute things. So it’s not the perfect throwback, but it’s closer than I could have ever expected, particularly with the art style. Every single female character is drawn and animated in a way that 100% makes me think of the 2000s moe blob anime, and I am absolutely here for it. They are so damn adorable. It’s also unironically the funniest anime so far that I’ve seen from Summer 2025, (although I haven’t seen Panty & Stocking yet), and one of the funniest of the year. There have been multiple times that I laughed out loud. It also charmed the hell out of me with its wholesomeness. There’s also surprisingly good animation at points, especially in episode six when the main female character has this fantasy about flying around in a suit of armor and fighting mechs in a war. My favorite character is obviously the redhead tomboy, but the main girl is a close second.

'Cultural Exchange With a Game Centre Girl' is a cute and wholesome anime with an ick factor, if you think about it. § Overview A certain English girl randomly enters a game centre in Japan during Valentine's Day. With Lily unable to win the claw machine, Kusakabe Renji helped her. But due to the language barrier, they find it hard to communicate. Renji hands her a card that says, 'Will you be my Valentine?' not knowing that it's a declaration of love. He only meant to thank her, but right then, Lily has started to have a crush on Renji. § Notes 1. Let's talk about the studio andstaff:

⚫ It's studio, Nomad, is relatively obscure. However, it has been operating since 2003. Just looking at the key visuals of its anime, it is mostly about cute girls. An exception can be made for Pseudo-Harem, but even with that, it's all about wholesomeness and cuteness.

⚫ The director is Kikuchi Toshihiro, who also directed Bungou Stray Dogs and Pseudo-Harem. I haven't seen Bungou Stray Dogs, but both Pseudo-Harem and Game Centre Girl are boring. This anime is a bit better than Pseudo-Harem. (Details below.)

⚫ I find the animation here to be just serviceable. It's interesting that the two animation directors have previous experiences in anime that have either mediocre animation or great animation.

Guo Shuling, whose credits started only in 2024, is the animation director for Episode 8. This person also worked as a key animator for two anime I watched: 1) key animator in Episode 6 of Once Upon a Witch's Death, which had decent animation, and 2) key animator for Episode 6 of The Gorilla God's Go-To Girl, which has so-so animation.

Tai Shang, whose credits started slightly earlier in 2023, is the animation director for Episode 4. This person has more anime under his belt, working as animation director and/or key animator, and I watched a number of them: Dandadan, My Happy Marriage Season 2, Flower and Asura, Welcome to Japan, Ms Elf, Once Upon a Witch's Death, and The Water Magician. So here, his works can be great to mediocre.

⚫ The character designs are okay to mediocre. If I didn't know Lily is English, I would have dismissed her as another generick blonde. Perhaps, Okano Rikiya couldn't make many adjustments to the character designs in the manga.

⚫ I did not like the colour designs by Shigemitsu Yukiko. It's mostly muted, leading to the visuals looking off-putting at worst and boring at best.

_________________________________

Let's talk about everything else.

2. Let's talk about the elephant in the room and what makes this anime icky. This anime features two taboos: 1) a college-aged dude possibly dating a minor, and 2) possible interracial dating.

⚫ Even though Lily has expressed her feelings for Renji, he doesn't have a relationship with her, at least not yet. This has led to the usual criticism of anime as promoting pædophilia.

I disagree that this is 'child abuse' or 'pædophilia.' It's a healthy admiration on Lily's part, and Renji seems to be keeping her at bay whilst remaining friendly.

⚫ About interracial dating, I don't have an issue with this if two consenting individuals from different races love each other. It's just that there are demographic and racial issues in both Japan and the United Kingdom. So, for native citizens of both countries, it makes sense that some are ethnonationalists.

If you have ethnolationalist leanings, especially in the UK, you'd better avoid this. It's going to be uncomfortable, and as far as you are concerned, this would feel like propaganda by globalists.

3. With the issues I mentioned in note no 2 out of the way, I'll now proceed with what I think are criticisms that are more material than the above. My criticisms below are given more weight in why I am giving this a low score.

⚫ The anime started with the language barrier. Lily being able to communicate in Japanese within 6 months without problems seems unrealistic, as though she had no struggles.

⚫ The cultural exchange aspect is superficial. The cultural information regarding the UK and Japan seems to have been added after the fact, just to meet the premise.

Worse, video and arcade games are just the long-hanging fruit of culture.

⚫ Ultimately, it suffers from being mildly boring. It's not the type of show that you desire to watch immediately. That's why I can watch at most one episode per day.

The director's previous work, Pseudo-Harem, is boring too. This anime is a bit better. Why? Pseudo-Harem suffers from cramming too many different skits in a single episode, which made me think that Pseudo-Harem should have been short 10-minute special episodes rather than having full-blown 20+ minute anime episodes that run on a single cour.

Game Centre Girl is better in that the episodes, despite being boring, aren't full of separate skits. A single episode is about a single theme, e.g., a video game contest.

4. The target demographic is probably middle-school girls, or even high-school girls. It's low information on culture and more on recreational or worse delinquent stuff that degrades this anime.

5. What it does right is that it's fun in a few moments. It's wholesome banter, and the dynamic between Lily's father and Reiji can be funny.

6. Despite being critickal of the anime, its execution is better than 'Okitsura: Fell in Love with an Okinawan Girl, but I Just Wish I Knew What She's Saying.' In Okitsura, the focus is on overloading the viewer with as much cultural information as possible to the detriment of any romantic development.

With Game Centre Girl, the cultural information is just enough. It's a little in quantity for my taste, but it's at least not overwhelming. The romantic chemistry is there, even if Renji is trying to avoid it.

§ Conclusion

If you overlook the issues I identified, 'Cultural Exchange With a Game Centre Girl' is just your average anime about a cute girl with a touch of romance. For some, this is great. Unfortunately, I find this lacking, even if I don't cite against it, possible cultural issues that are taboo in some countries.

NOTA BENE: A grade of 4 out of 10 means I got some enjoyment out of this anime, but the issues are glaring, or simply I rank it higher than my 3's but below my 5's.

My enjoyment spectrum lies from 4 to 10. If I have scored an anime below 4, I actively dislike it.

Ignoring the 5 years age gap, this is a very cute and wholesome romcom which share a lot of similar vibe to Kiniro Mosaic (KinMoza), particularly the cultural exchange aspect and Lily and Renji trying to overcome the cultural, especially language barrier between them. Lily Baker, being the female protagonist of the series, share a lot of similarities with Alice Cartelet (one of two protagonists of Kinmoza) in which she appears to be shy at first but will almost instantly get turn on the moment she talked about something she likes such as Otokogi Koala and arcade games. Other characters such as Renji and herlittle sister, Aoi Kusakabe are also fun to watch. If you are a big fan of Kinmoza, you would likely to put this anime on top of your list.

Personal Review: 83/100

Before the spoilers: This anime doesn't focus on cultural exchange like it's said :')! I enjoyed it because it showed beautiful things but it doesn't really show what some people thought it would be the point of it (having trouble communicating BECAUSE of language, and more characteristics of a game center) That being said, this was an anime that reminded me a lot of an experience I had (and my name is also Lili! wowz) It's because of that realisticness this had that I liked it a lot, because life has a lot of layers, this had comedy, slice of life, it went into all kinds ofrelationships, romantic, friends, family, and it all felt cozy anyways, having a space where you can feel safe, have friends, that's the game center, and it's not only the location of the place, you could say the game center is wherever those friends are even if it sounds corny.

The main focus anyways are Renji and Lily.

They are... So good together, it's so damn pretty.

I didn't want to dive into this topic, but people seem to pay too much attention to the ages of the characters, a now 4 year age gap, really? Because if that wasn't stated anywhere, no one would even care, you know why? Because their relationship individually was never affected by age, and even then they still made it realistic, showing society was the only one who searched bad things where there aren't, because they are happy, they will protect and help each other, they NEVER hurt each other.

Whoever hates focuses on that, clearly hasn't really understood anything.

Talking about Lily, many people may see her as only clumsy, cute and nothing more, well she has a lot of personality, she's not dumb, she has flaws like everyone else, and she may look cuter with people who she feels safe with, because a lot of people just acts more comfortable with people they care for don't we?

Her love language is clear to me, she loves Renji and she shows that by being proud of being close to him, she includes him in conversations and situations, she helps him and gets closer to him when she can. She's is shy romantically (they both are, canonically btw lol), and this way of showing affection fits that really well.

Renji, oh he is so cute too, because he is also clumsy with his feelings

It shows that he hasn't really thought about how he feels deeply, could be for a lot of reasons that we don't know right now

He just follows the course, and because he is a follower he was scared of this nonsense criticism he could get, it wasn't until his sister reassured him that he was more confident. Btw, Aoi is such a good person and I love that she can be open minded, best friend vibes all the way.

Talking about Renji being a follower, we also suddenly got the fact that it seems change has affected his life at some point, perhaps this is also why he doesn't think about his feelings deeply and follows what he has in front.

These two.. are a pair that could live together so well and they would take things very calmly, because they are both clumsy and shy, and that's also what is going to make them be gentle with one another. Lily is more of a feeler than him, and I also love this type of complementation, we also see that in Lily's parents! She got her mom's more emotional part ahahs

And with that, Renji can feel more comfortable with his emotions, Lily can see a space to be calm and happy. They already show signs of wanting to communicate even through their shyness, and that's a healthy thing.

I think being together is going to make confident they're going to be power couple for sure man.

Thanks to this anime for making me remember. Thanks for making such a beautiful pair, for showing that prejudices aren't leading anywhere, for making a cozy place with so many different people like in real life.

Since chapter 1 feelings haven't changed Renji and Lily,they're destined to be together, even since they were kids they met. Be happy, don't let anyone bother you.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect with this show. It isn't bad, but I don't see a lot of people loving it. Sorry if this makes no sense, I was just jotting down thoughts and got lazy. Not really a play by play.. It's not a gag show or sitcom by any means. Some stuff is funny nonetheless. Lily and others are funny to hear speaking English. Lily doesn't have a perfect British accent by any means, but it works. I really liked Lily's father yelling "bloody hell!!" after losing the crane game. They seemed to have put some extra effort into the Englishand engrish compared to other shows. Everyone realistically doesn't speak at the same level. This doesn't go both ways, Lily and her parents Japanese seems fine to me. Maybe since I'm trying to learn Japanese I got more enjoyment out of this aspect than an average viewer would.

The games in the arcade are used for some jokes and references, but thankfully it isn't too big on memes . There is some fun in seeing Lily and the others play games badly. In the fighting game tournament episode they have one character do the akuma pose after winning like an actual pro named tokido did. I didn't get the sunny or rainy part of this character though. Maybe is related to akumas heaven kanji?? I did like the 4 "gods or heavenly somethings" of the game being a joke though. lol Also the regulars at the arcade have some funny moments once in awhile.

The cast is pretty small ,but expands a little around half way. Mostly consisting of Lily's classmates. The actual notebook exchanges between Renji and Lily kinda get ignored after this and Lily is basically fluent in Japanese by episode 4. So there is no more humor mined out of them miscommunicating; that all shifts to antics with Lily's father. At the beginning shes suppose to have no friends. By the end the whole cast is endeared to her. Renji is your average considerate guy, he doesn't have many other qualities to speak of.

Maybe people won't like that the cast except her dad finds her liking Renji cute. It is a bit awkward at first, but i feel like it becomes less important to each episode over time.

Its all just about making Lily happy. That is the real plot of the show. It isn't so much about culture clash or a fish out of water story. Everyone is nice to her, there isn't even someone who starts out guarded but gets converted.. Unless you count her "rivals". lol I don't mean that as a complaint. She is charming and the show intentionally avoids just about all negativity. No negative talk about foreigners, bad grades, or not getting that toy koala..etc In that way it is a very light watch.

The art is pretty moe as you'd expect. It's not quite cuteness overload though. The backgrounds that are sometimes used are also nice. The actors are good, but I'm not a fan of the music. It's a generally inoffensive show, people worried about Renji being a pedo/abuser don't have to worry. It also isn't really a feel good show , you're not going to see beauty unfold here. 5.5 stars

At first I started watching it in English dub but it was horrendous. Then I switched to Japanese language with English subs, which is ok. The story is not that unique. I am sure there are many anime out there about language barriers. And its predictable more or less. *Do you think others will enjoy/dislike this series, even if you didn't? Why? -Maybe you will enjoy this anime... if you are around 13. Or rather you are 13 and like playing at Game Centers. Or have a fascination or nostalgia about game centers. The show wraps up fine and I don't think there should be aseason 2.

My Rating: 5/10 (Mediocre)

Here we should see some of those funny brain-paying comedies where we would see a foreign girl who arrives in Japan who knows the arcades and discovers these recreational sites with the help of an arcade employee she frequents and her new school friends, giving us moments of laughter due to cameos from other anime, parodies of video games, and the use of the grappling hook machine to obtain prizes, seeing that the only problem you can ignore is the poor handling of English with established English that they use for the protagonist and her family. But I end up finding a romantic comedy about agirl in high school who falls in love with an arcade employee who is a college boy and you would say, well, it's part of the comedy, it's surely a thing of the girl who is idealizing the boy for being her first friend and he doesn't take it seriously, but the college student takes it seriously in each chapter and even knows the consequences of dating a minor but doesn't care, they even have a date and as always in these anime, all the other characters act as if that were the most Normal and beautiful in the world, whatever the author is smoking is very strong and although this ends in a typical comedy ending where nothing serious happens, just the protagonist reaffirming his friendship, for me the author with that scoop killed his manga and the anime