About 8 months ago, I made this tier list, ranking all the characters on if they played video games or not. Frankly, I don't think this list was the best researched. I didn't take MYSEKAI into account since it wasn't on global, and using Petit SEKAI and the anthology manga with the same importance as the actual game was a weird choice. With this in mind, as well as suggestions I got and my own research since, I have made an updated tier list. Admittedly, there are some areas I skipped out on, but I believe I at least put everyone where they are supposed to be.
Explanations (warning, they are much more detailed than last time):
- Ichika Hoshino: Ichika doesn't have much mention in the main game of playing video games. Ichika is in Nene's 2023 birthday story, where the party ends up at the arcade, but she's not specifically shown or mentioned to have played games. For some reason, the only mention I found is in Rui's first birthday story of all things, which doesn't even feature Ichika. Tsukasa mentions he played a game called Cookie Kart with her, Toya "and the others". Either way, it's enough for the list. Anyway, in MYSEKAI, she knows Puyo Puyo by name (and says she's awful at it which is really funny), and doesn't own the game console that looks like a Switch. And in chapter 2 of the anthology manga, she plays a game that looks like Taiko no Tatsujin.
- Saki Tenma: Contrary to my belief in the previous version, I don't think Saki has as many mentions of playing video games as I thought. She definitely does mention them more than the rest of her team, at least, though I don't have any specific examples I can remember. She is one of the few characters who has a card specifically playing video games, the trained version of Our Dreams Back Then. She also knows Puyo Puyo by name in MYSEKAI.
- Honami Mochizuki: Honami is one of exactly two characters in MYSEKAI who has no interactions with the Puyo Puyo and CHUNITHM machines. This is slander that I will not accept. In her dialogue for Nene's 2023 birthday, Honami does mention that she played video games during the party. As well, in her first side story for the card How Does It Taste? (the only time I will be bringing up content not currently on the English server), Honami mentions playing video games with Haru in the past, and expresses desire to play with him again. Finally, in Chapter 2 of the anthology manga, she plays the Taiko lookalike with Ichika. Take THAT MYSEKAI.
- Shiho Hinomori: Shiho's a bit weird. In all area conversations, she only mentions playing mobile games, and specifically pet simulators. But in MYSEKAI, she actually mentions video games a lot. Her dusk interaction is about login bonuses, but one of her random interactions is just mentioning how the vast greenery reminds her of a game she's playing (how is she just like Nene). Though she's not good at Puyo Puyo or rhythm games, according to her interactions in MYSEKAI with arcade machines. Additionally, she doesn't seem to own the Switch lookalike.
- Minori Hanasato: If it weren't for MYSEKAI, Minori would have exactly one piece of evidence. One shot in episode 8 of Petit SEKAI of Minori playing a survival horror game. Anyway, according to MYSEKAI, she's played Puyo Puyo, and only played CHUNITHM on the easiest difficulty. She also played the Switch lookalike with her brother, and similarly to Honami, watched as he slowly got better than her.
- Haruka Kiritani: Haruka might have the most immediate obvious evidence (or at least she used to). She's seen playing a light gun shooter during Friend and Rival 1koma, along with An. Besides that, her MYSEKAI dialogue implies she's not familiar with Puyo Puyo or CHUNITHM. The Switch lookalike does reveal interesting lore, that Haruka once had a video game tournament with another idol group during her time with ASRUN, with her outlasting the rest of ASRUN but not winning.
- Airi Momoi: Airi's pretty simple. Unless I missed something, she never mentions video games in any story. And in MYSEKAI, she seems unfamiliar with Puyo Puyo and CHUNITHM. To drive this home, she actually has a MYSEKAI interaction with MMJ Miku with the Puyo Puyo Champions cabinet. Neither of them play it.
- Shizuku Hinomori: Shizuku is one of exactly two characters in MYSEKAI who has no interactions with the Puyo Puyo and CHUNITHM machines. This is not slander (which makes it even worse slander for Honami; you compared her to Shizuku???). Shizuku, unless I'm missing something, doesn't have any sort of dialogue in any story, side story, MYSEKAI, anthology manga, Petit SEKAI, or the movie. The only place you will ever find Shizuku playing a video game is that she can play CHUNITHM by random chance in MYSEKAI (everyone can), or the SEKAI Gaming Day YouTube videos, which feature all the characters playing games.
- Kohane Azusawa: Just like MYSEKAI slandered Honami, I definitely slandered Kohane last time. It's even sort of implied in the first card story of Popping Puyos At Lightspeed that she's more familiar with arcade games than Toya. Other than that, in Nene's 2023 birthday card she mentions that she played games with everyone, and she knows both Puyo Puyo Champions and CHUNITHM according to MYSEKAI. I'm sorry for doubting you, Kohane.
- An Shiraishi: An doesn't mention video games too much in the actual stories, but she does have that 4koma with Haruka as mentioned above. She gets a lot thanks to MYSEKAI. She of course mentions Kohane when describing how she played Puyo Puyo with her group, considers holing herself in your SEKAI when she sees you have a free CHUNITHM, and the full group interaction item with Vivid BAD SQUAD is a Puyo Puyo 2 cabinet, that Akito and An immediately go head to head on. If you're wondering, An wins.
- Akito Shinonome: Despite being one of the characters in close game/offline, Akito doesn't really strike me as much of a gamer, at least compared to the other three, especially since he loses both in Puyo Puyo 2 and the shooter. Regardless, he still does play games, so he gets on the list. Side note, it's really funny that every other team in MYSEKAI gets something important to them (the jungle gym crucial to Leo/need's backstory, the diner N25 holds their after parties at, NeneRobo, MMJ's livelihood) but VBS just gets Puyo Puyo, which the Puyo Puyo guy of the team doesn't play.
- Toya Aoyagi: Toya's a bit hard to rank, because it definitely seems like he goes into arcades more for the plushies (as I mentioned in Kohane's entry). However, he loves Puyo Puyo, as shown in both close game/offline and the first Vivid BAD SQUAD episode of SEKAI Gaming Day. Nene and the rest of his group were on the receiving end of that. In fact, he loves Puyo Puyo so much, he's one of only two characters who can actually play Puyo Puyo Champions in MYSEKAI. All the other characters just talk about it (and Honami and Shizuku just ignore it. Honami hates Puyo Puyo confirmed canon???). As well, the Rui birthday story also mentions Tsukasa played Cookie Kart with Toya.
- Tsukasa Tenma: Despite me trying to attempt to be more meticulous, I almost missed the biggest one for the male members of Wonderlands x Showtime. During Rui's first birthday story, the troupe plays a really weird kart racer called Cookie Kart. Chapter 7 of the anthology manga also features him playing one of Nene's games with Emu. According to MYSEKAI, he doesn't seem good at games in general. He thinks dancing to the rhythm makes you better at CHUNITHM, for example.
- Emu Otori: Emu is pretty similar to Toya in that she loves Puyo Puyo, since she used to play it with her brothers, and was definitely better at it than them. Though according to herself in MYSEKAI, both Toya and Nene are much better than her. She also can't play Puyo Puyo Champions in MYSEKAI, for some reason. She's also the tertiary protagonist for close/game offline. Besides that, she won at Cookie Kart in Rui's birthday story, and there's the anthology manga example I just brought up with Tsukasa.
- Nene Kusanagi: Just from the offset, I am not tracking every single video game reference I heard from Nene. She is a distant first place. She mentions video games so much it honestly can be obnoxious sometimes. I'll only mention that she is one of the singers of The MMORPG Addict's Anthem cover along with Emu, that she has won at least two video game tournaments (in KAMIYAMA HIGH FESTIVAL! and close game/offline), the fact that she is the second character who can play Puyo Puyo Champions in MYSEKAI (why is it just Toya and Nene? not even Emu?), and, of course, her best line, "It's so green and beautiful...! Almost like an open-world RPG!"
- Rui Kamishiro: I wanted to mention the Cookie Kart thing here first, but with the way I structured this, I had to mention it with Tsukasa. Besides that, MYSEKAI reveals he prefers puzzle games if he places restrictions upon himself, and while he owns the Switch lookalike, he's modded it so much it doesn't function like the standard model anymore. Isn't he breaking Japanese law? (side note: the anti modding law is horrible and I completely disagree with it)
- Kanade Yoisaki: Kanade's probably one of the funnier cases. According to an area conversation, she owns a video game soundtrack and is going to a concert for it, but specifically for study. In the same conversation, she mentions she mostly watches playthroughs online because she gets so distracted by the music in games she gets killed instantly. Her MYSEKAI dialogue for Puyo Puyo and CHUNITHM suggests the same, since she mentions she panics quickly playing Puyo and choosing easy mode for rhythm games, and even then can still be overwhelmed. Does Kanade have to be a loser in everything?
- Mafuyu Asahina: Mafuyu is a rare case of a character who was denied the opportunity to play video games. As far as I'm aware, her only mention of video games in any story is her birthday story in 2022, where her mother specifically tells her to refuse video games as gifts. What an amazing mother. Thankfully Mafuyu didn't entirely listen, since her MYSEKAI dialogue suggests she at least went into arcades enough to know how Puyo Puyo works, and she might have tried the Switch lookalike once when someone snuck it into school? The dialogue isn't fully clear on if she actually played it.
- Ena Shinonome: Ena's sort of a hard one to categorize. The only time she mentions video games in any capacity in game is in What lies behind. What lies ahead. Basically Mizuki asks her to go to a place with VR games, which Ena eventually agrees to go to, before Mizuki ditches the meeting before they even get to the VR place, due to really sad plot related reasons, to put it simply. MYSEKAI reveals that she does play video games, as she mentions that she played CHUNITHM but can't remember the names of the songs she played, and she brags that she's pretty good at Puyo Puyo just winging it. I didn't expect to relate to Ena so much, even here.
- Mizuki Akiyama: Mizuki's back must hurt for carrying gaming in N25. For some reason, the first thing that comes to mind for me is KAMIYAMA HIGH FESTIVAL!, where she simply expresses interest in what Nene is playing when she wins the school gamimg tournament. In And Now, I Wear This Ribbon, Mizuki mentions that she first downloaded Nightcord for online games. Admittedly I still can't be bothered to dig deeper. I know she specifically likes rhythm games but I don't know where she says this. And in MYSEKAI, she mentions she used to skip school to play CHUNITHM, can only do up to a 5 combo on Puyo Puyo (SHE'S JUST LIKE ME), and owns the Nintendo Switch lookalike. This is no longer your sole Nightcord gamer representation, she has her girlfriend to at least play Puyo Puyo with. Trans rights once again btw
The rest: WxS Miku tags along to the arcade during close game/offline. The rest of the WxS vocaloids are present during the Cookie Kart game, or for Luka, when Nene mentions the tournament in close game/offline. The rest (plus WxS Miku and KAITO) can play CHUNITHM and talk about Puyo Puyo Champions in MYSEKAI.
Also additionally for fun, all the characters who mention Puyo Puyo by name (nobody mentions CHUNITHM by name): Ichika, Saki, Kohane, An, Akito, Toya, Emu, Nene
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