Manga Adaptation by Studio Silver
Streaming on Crunchyroll

Premise

Konoha is a struggling illustrator who longs for the glory days of bishojo games back in the 90s and 2000s. After visiting a mysterious used game store, she finds herself transported to a bishojo game company in 1992.

Jel’s verdict: PC-98 Not Included

On paper, this is the kind of self-indulgent wankery I usually hate. There’s a very specific subject that the author is passionate about, he’s created a self-insert character to preach about how great it is, and conveniently the cast is mostly cute anime girls. Chances are if you’re under 30 and have not been very deep into anime and anime adjacent media over the past twenty plus years, you will have no idea what this show is going on about.

And yet, as someone who is over 30 and has been very deep into anime and anime adjacent media over the past twenty plus years, this episode hit me with a wave of nostalgia that carried me through it. I don’t even care for this particular genre of games, just the fact that I remember it all made it fun to watch.

To dissect this further, I think it’s important to make the distinction between this and say, the works of Tsukasa Fushimi, which structurally take a similar approach. Using Oreimo and Eromanga Sensei as examples, both series feel like they’re more about the author’s insecurities and self-pity than sharing something he loves with the world. 16bit sensation feels like a love letter coming from a place of genuine admiration for the subject matter. Do I personally think the visual novel Kanon is a masterpiece that everyone should play? Absolutely not, but I can appreciate where the author is coming from.

I think it’s also notable that there’s not an ounce of perviness in this first episode, another key difference from similar shows in the past. We’ll see if that holds up, but so far Konoha has been allowed to live her life without fear of the Anime Creeper Cam™ showing up. It all feels so… respectful, if that makes sense, like the focus is meant to stay on how much the author loves bishojo games and how drastically times have changed.

Having said all that, it would be hard for me to recommend 16bit sensation to anyone who isn’t interested in the subject material. Even for myself, I was mostly swept up in nostalgia and I’m not sure if that would keep me interested long enough to stay. My only hope is now that Konoha has arrived in the 90s, they start getting into the weeds on how these games were made back then. I would at least find that academically interesting, but I’m guessing most people will not feel the same.