This is the anime that turns a school club mandate into a login screen, and somehow that's the charm. Itsuki Tachibana is the one kid at Seiga Academy who doesn't play games, so of course Rina Izumi, student council president and certified perfectionist, drafts him into PSO2 to prove the game isn't rotting anyone's brain. What follows is less epic quest and more the weirdly real texture of playing an MMO with people you have to see in homeroom the next morning: the awkward party invites, the classmate you only recognize by their avatar. You do not need a single hour logged in the actual game to follow it, which is rare for a tie-in. Be honest with yourself though, the animation is rough and SEGA is absolutely selling you something for half the runtime. Watch it for Itsuki slowly admitting he likes this, not for the fight choreography.

Itsuki Tachibana stands alone at Seiga Academy in 2027, the one student who doesn't play Phantasy Star Online 2. While his classmates lose themselves in the massively popular game, he sticks to good grades, perfect attendance and filling in for any club that needs a hand. That changes when Rina Izumi, the perfectionist student council president, notices him and sees opportunity. With the school reviewing whether the game harms its students, and Rina set on proving it isn't to blame, she makes Itsuki the council's new vice president and orders him to play PSO2 while keeping his grades up. His mission: report his findings to her every day and weigh the game's merits. First, though, a boy who never touches video games has to learn how to play one.