YMMV / Hi Score Girl

aka: High Score Girl

• Alternate Character Interpretation: As Akira never says a word through the entire series, one is left to wonder what goes on in that head of hers in any given moment, such as:
  • Considering how much she's normally willing to put up with before running away from home, is she in fact more proud of her role as an Oono and more appreciative of Moemi's training regiment than she usually lets on?
  • What are Akira's thoughts on Koharu? Is she in fact more respectful of her than Koharu realises? Are all of Akira's Death Glares towards her all in Koharu's head, or just Akira's way of letting her know she's taking her seriously?
  • When was the exact moment in the first volume that she first started truly falling for Haruo?
• Awesome Moments: Hidaka playing Mortal Kombat (1992) for the first time as Scorpion, and pulling off a Fatality by chance.
• Crazy Is Cool: Namie Yaguchi, being the German Suplexing matriarch that she is, was already a joy to behold in the first half of the series. Once Makoto Oono becomes her tag team partner they're an absolute slobberknocker.
• Die for Our Ship: As is typical of a romance manga
  • Fans that want Koharu to end up with Haruo don't take kindly to Akira for her violent tendencies and poor communication skills. Koharu fans also feel that Akira and Haruo's mutual love of video games isn't a strong enough foundation for the two to build a healthy long term relationship.
  • On the other side, Akira fans note that Koharu's interactions with Haruo lack Akira and Haruo's natural chemistry. Not only that, but later in the manga she begins to border on manipulative, relying on gotchas to get her way, breaching the terms of her own agreements and refusing to take "no" for an answer when she should be saving face.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Koharu has a lot of fans, be it because they consider her to be especially well rounded as a character compared to Akira, they empathise with her overall story arc or they just plain find her cute.
• Fanfic Fuel: Pick a retro game. Any retro game. Chances are, Haruo, Akira and Koharu have taken the time to play it.
• Fridge Brilliance:
  • The English dub uses the Japanese names of Street Fighter II characters (calling the dictator Vega instead of M. Bison). It might look like a mistake, until you realize that the story takes place in Japan's Arcade scene, whereas Japanese names were used, so it made sense that they'll not use the international names for the dub. Interestingly enough, this is averted in the Latin American Spanish dub and very likely in other western language dubs.
  • Akira's The Silent Bob status that has her using physical pantomiming and actions to speak her mind rather than ever say a word is very reminiscent of a number of video games with a Heroic Mime, albeit in this case not as the protagonist. What else but a series about people bonding over video games would manage to fit a Cute Mute that isn't actually mute?
• Fridge Horror: How often and how readily does Moemi use Ziiya the Butler as kicking practice whenever Akira skips out on her lessons? Ziiya was at one point desperately trying to drag Akira back into the limo literally kicking and screaming even at the risk of making a scene. It makes a reader wonder how the butler even manages to walk without so much as a cane.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: In the Latin American Spanish dub, Akira is voiced by Alicia Velez, whose debut role as a voice actress was as Boo in Monsters, Inc.. The hilarity part goes with the fact Boo is a little girl who is not afraid of monsters or scary stuff, compared with Akira, who is.
• Superlative Dubbing: The Latin American dub has been highly praised by the anime community thanks to the combination of a good cast, excellent voice direction and some Woolseyisms sprinkled here and there, while there are some translation mistakes, they are barely noticeable thanks to the excellent performance of Diego Becerril (Haruo) and Jessica Angeles (Hodoka) plus the funny-as-hell performance of Irwin Daayán as Camp Straight Bishie Sparkles Doi.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Some readers aren't fond of Akira smacking Haruo for every single little slight. Most instances come off as cute, but others become fairly ridiculous or would come off as borderline horrifying were Haruo not Made of Iron. It's obvious she does it to voice any displeasure, so to speak, or to get Haruo's attention. But a lot of this could be mitigated if only she would speak her mind.
• The Woobie: Akira Oono is a lonely girl who never speaks and spends all her free time at arcades as a form of escapism from her life of nonstop tutoring and having no real say in her life, including running away from home and leaving for the United States twice. She ends up meeting Haruo during one of these arcade outings in elementary school and falls in love with him, but doesn't get to spend much time with him due to moving overseas and because of her tutor. She ends up moving overseas at the end of the series after saying goodbye, resigned to never seeing him again.