“On A Moonlit Evening”
Fridays at 11:00 am EST on Crunchyroll
After running for shelter during a rain storm, Moriko hangs out at Sakurai’s apartment for the day. The episode is so adorable that my heart stopped and I had to be resuscitated to write this.
Jel’s thoughts
I have to admit It’s been a long time since I’ve been romantically interested in someone, let alone in a relationship. I’m cool with that as it’s mostly my fault. The past few years I’ve been too lazy to put in the work. That said, this episode kind of made me miss it. Watching Moriko and Sakurai fumble around trying to express their feelings brought back memories of awkward moments and conversations that I fondly remember now. Sure I might cringe at some of the embarrassing things I said at the time, but the actual words didn’t matter in the long run.
Needless to say I really loved this episode as it did a good job capturing those feelings. Moriko and Sakurai’s relationship has been developed to the point where this was the only natural conclusion. Through all the stuttering apologies we know deep down how they feel about each other, they just needed to make one last little push. I think most people will look at the final scene with the couple holding hands as the definitive moment but I actually think the part with Sakurai struggling to say he’d like to be partners in real life was more important. The words didn’t quite come out right, but he made the effort and I think the point got across. That’s all that matters.
And now just like that, it’s all over. We’ve been having this discussion for weeks but now that we’re here I’m not sure how I feel about stopping at just 10 episodes. On the one hand, you could argue they’ve been stretching out the build up to this moment longer than it needed to be and that this is the perfect place to stop. On the other hand, I’m going to argue I would have preferred we hit this point a few episodes ago and spent the final weeks with Moriko and Sakurai being an adorable couple. Ultimately that was probably decided by the source material so maybe it doesn’t matter, but that’s what I would have preferred. Nevertheless, I still thoroughly enjoyed what we got and I don’t feel unsatisfied. I’m looking forward to the upcoming OVA and maybe around that time (assuming I survive year end previews and our end of the year posts) I’ll get together some final thoughts on the series.
The Glorio Blog 
Certainly, MMO Junkie is adorable, and I understand that we all crave escapism sometimes, but it’s also incredibly slight and deeply unconvincing as a believable portrait of romance, especially when it shares a season with Just Because, whose teenage characters talk and act more like real people struggling with life and love than the putative adults of MMO Junkie.
I think its just that the writing was a little inconsistent at times. I think how Moriko, Sakurai, and Koiwai acted in the date episode was much more mature and natural, but I can also see people getting tenser the more they realize they’re really attracted to each other, especially if they have self-esteem issues, which they both clearly have.
I also think someone closer to Moriko’s age is going to sympathize with her struggles more, and someone closer in age to a high school senior is going to sympathize with the struggle of the Just Because characters more
The actual plot of MMO Junkie is extremely unrealistic but I don’t know, I have had some days pan out pretty similar to what happened this episode. You don’t magically get over all your anxieties and hang ups when you turn 30 and suddenly get good at communicating with people. You do get more comfortable accepting that is who you are and opening up about it though, or at least that’s been my experience.I think they do a good job re-creating that feeling.
As Marlin pointed out, it just depends what you are interested in. Right now I find awkward adult nerds a lot more interesting than precocious teenagers. There’s plenty of room for both though.