Gaming anime is hardly a new sensation. .hack was a pioneer in the genre, based on a light novel released in 2002. A more commonly known example is Sword Art Online, which first aired in 2012 and is still on today. Other recent innovations in the genre include The Rising of the Shield Hero and Re:Zero. But both of those shows are what are called isekai, or "accidental travel" stories, in which the protagonist is transported to a fantastical otherworld where they face off against extradimensional threats. Here, they must rely on their wits and understanding of the game world's systems.
Except that's not what gaming is. Isekai takes the trappings of a video game and uses them to tell a surreal story, making use of mechanics and familiar concepts to help sell a new fantasy world. While those stories can be breathtaking and awe-inspiring, they often have very little to do with the real-world experiences of playing a video game. For that, there's The King's Avatar (also known as Quánzhí Gāoshou), a Chinese anime adapted from the web novel of the same name. With the show's second season currently airing and a live-action adaptation on Netflix, let's take a look at what makes the show worth watching.
King's Avatar follows the misadventures of Ye Xiu, an esports player in modern-day China who finds himself stripped of his position as team leader of Excellent Era after the team forces him to break his contract and retire. Prohibited from returning to the professional scene for a full year, he becomes the night manager of an internet cafe and spends his time whittling down world records on the game (called Glory)'s new "Tenth Server." Other prominent characters include the owner of the cafe (Chen Guo) and another employee (Tang Rou) who Ye Xiu introduces to Glory.
Glory is an MMO that seems to take inspiration from World of Warcraft and more recent games like Final Fantasy XIV. It features a number of classes, including Battle Mage, Gunner and Brawler. Ye Xiu's second character, Lord Grim, revolves around making use of an underrated class: The Unspecialized. While the exact details of Glory's system are unknown (it is after all, fictional), it appears that, by forgoing deeper specialization into a specific class, players can choose to grab a variety of skills from all the different classes in the game. Ye Xiu uses a motley combination of different skills, as well as extreme technical proficiency and game sense to create a character far more flexible than any other individual class in the game.
The Unspecialized is unlikely to exist in a real game since the division of specialties is what balances different class choices in popular MMOs. But asides from that oversight, Glory is an incredible stand-in for real-world games. The show manages to transfer concepts like pulling aggro and the popular role divisions of healer/damage dealer/tank fairly well and depicts its fictionalized esports scene in a way that makes it feel real. Sports anime have been present in Japan's media landscape for quite some time, but esports has never been popular enough to warrant their own show. As such, it makes sense that the first big esports anime would come from outside the island nation.
While certain aspects of Glory are unrealistic, The King's Avatar is a fantastic show to set the stage for future esports anime. Demonstrating that an anime focused around what is otherwise not a very visually captivating sport can still work sets an amazing precedent, especially when it takes advantage of the obvious solution -- animating the world of the game. The world of Glory is explosive, with incredibly creative weapons and powers for the show's main characters to wield. The King's Avatar is worth a watch, and even if it isn't your thing, it could pave the way for more esports-based anime series in the future.