大 SOS 団 Discussion #1: Full Dive: This Ultimate Next-Gen Full Dive RPG is Shittier Than Real Life

The 大 SOS 団 Discussions are back!

The Dai SOS Brigade discussions are back. This time with one on “Full Dive,” an anime about a “realistic” Virtual Reality MMORPG where players feel pain, stats are based on real life etc..

Brief Plot Overview

Ten years ago, at the height of VRMMO development, "Kiwame Quest" debuted with unmatched potential, boasting 10 gazillion story branches and unparalleled realism—from lifelike NPCs to perfect sensory replication. However, its excessive realism led to its downfall, mirroring the gradual decline of VRMMOs as a whole. People don’t want games to be realistic.

Now, high schooler Hiroshi Yuuki, burdened by an “accident” in his past, uses full-dive RPGs to escape reality. When he fails to get the latest version of not-final fantasy, a chance encounter with the “”charming” shop clerk Reona Kisaragi leads him to purchase "Kiwame Quest."

Hiroshi's excitement at the game’s realistic nature soon turns to dread as he triggers a chain of misfortunes, finding that he’s treated like shit in the game just like he is treated in his real life. Yet, despite his mounting frustration and disdain, Hiroshi can’t resist logging back in (why?). With no retries in sight, his only goal becomes clear—beat the game, no matter what it takes!

Although I could have just used the title as a summary: Full Dive: The Ultimate Next-Gen Full Dive RPG Is Even Shittier than Real Life!

What’s Kiwame Quest

• The word Kiwame (極め) in Japanese can mean "extreme," "ultimate," or "mastery." It's often used to express reaching the highest level of something or thoroughly mastering a skill. It can also be used as a verb, kiwameru (極める), meaning "to master," "to go to the extreme," or "to investigate thoroughly."

• Kitame Quest is a “Full Dive” Virtual Reality RPG that’s worse than real life because it is “realistic.” Is it though?

• Players can feel some “pain.” Cheat skills are rare but they do exist.

• Real life attributes reflect in-game attributes.

• Can’t log out during combat and “Events.”

• NPCs seem to have a filter which prevents them from hearing or perceiving anything which points to the fact that they are NPCs

• Game progress is measured through an obscure system of titles/keywords on the player’s necklace. E.g. “Lolita Complex Best Friend Killer” or “The Best BEST Friend Killer: The Best Amicide.”

• NPCs who die in the game “never” come back to life.

• City of Ted is the only setting explored in the story but there are more since the first goal in the game is to escape Ted. The whole anime is about escaping the starting town lol.

Is Kiwame Quest an MMORPG?

• There is multiplayer, even though there are only three named players in the starting town of the game, including the protagonist.

• However the rather than the multiplayer what seems to matter more is the story quest which so-far hasn’t required multi-player to beat.

• The very idea that an MMORPG can be “beat” is weird because those games are designed not to have an ending.

• The game STOPS every time the protagonist logs out.

• So I conclude that Kiwame Quest is more of a JRPG with optional multiplayer.

Is Full Dive a SAO-Clone?

• By SAO clones, I mean isekai-like anime set in VRMMO RPG settings.

• The biggest difference, at least in the first few episodes, is that there is more of an emphasis of things happening in the outside world (or the “real world) rather than just in-game. The players are not stuck in the game.

• As for similarities, Kiwame Quest is also just a video game, not an alternate reality/world.

• In some ways, Full Dive could be said to be a Parody of Sword Art Online.

• I mean the asshole who beat the game and wrote the game guide is voiced by Kirito himself.

• On the other hand, the protagonist is not stuck in the video game. Unless we are talking about some sort of stockholm syndrome, masochism, or game addiction.

• Also, much worse than in-game death leading to player death, “If the player dies then the console dies too.”

Hiroshi Yuuki

• Is the protagonist retarded for wanting to go back into the game? In the MAL episodic discussions, people gave up on the anime bcz they couldn’t get why the protagonist would log back in.

• Here’s the reasons why he logged back on: Reona’s boobs, sunk-cost fallacy abt his $100(¥10000) he paid for the game ($100 is a lot of money for a highschool boy), and wanting to beat a hard game.

• You may not like it but this isn’t that implausible for a high school boy.

Reona: Big-*****d Fairy Helper? Happy Merchant? Rejected High-school Boy Hunter?

• Some of the advice that she gives Yuuki is legit. Like for example not just accept Tesla’s request to go to training grounds.

• You could say that Reona is on a Love/Revenge Quest to find someone else who cleared KQ and marry them.

• Boobs get nerfed in her fairy form. “Tits like an holstein cow” according to Kamui.

• As a game-advisor she can be kind of shit, especially by not being there at the start.

Best Friend: Martin “Time” and Childhood Friend: Fruit Knife Wielder from Hell Alicia. Alicia

• They were supposed to be the party members for the protagonist.

• The whole Exurbance crime misunderstanding causes Hiro to kill Martin. Was the game not giving any info just shitty game design or Hiro being retarded?

• Alice and Martin are both not very “realistic” characters and set the tone for this being a comedy, if that wasn’t clear enough.

• Martin Time made me wonder how horror games would probably do pretty well in VR, oh and that Hiro hasn’t played any of them.

• The first arc pretty much revolves around resolving Martin’s and Alicia’s feelings towards Hiro.

• The Promise under the Kenura Tree.

• Martin comes back to save Hiro and Alicia sacrifices herself for Hiro. Childhood friends can “never” win.

Gingi

• Middle-aged loser with gout who plays a dead game pretending to be drunk?

• Murdered his best friend and childhood friend NPCs in a realistic VR out of curiosity.

• Spends his time in the town’s casino

• I thought the interactions he had with Yuuki were kind of funny.

• Reona suggests that he might login into the dead game because he feels sorry for having killed the dead NPCs. I doubt it.

• Brass-knuckles so fantasy!

• He’s been in the game for 10 years but never figured out the words of the promise under the kemura tree “we’s the best friends forever.”

• Ginji being the “boss” at the crime “event” during the goblin attack.

• He intentionally commits small crimes to be sent to prison irl and get free food and housing.

Kaede

• Yuuki’s Sister

• Probably a bro-con.

• Concerned abt her brother, and angry w/ him bcz she used to look up to him.

• Doesn’t want her brother to give up. Best girl? Not that the competition is that high. Tsundere? Yes, she’s best girl alright.

• If the story continued then she would probably play the game too.

Inquisitor Mizarisa

• Sadist Pervert. Shark teeth.

Kamui

• The only guy to beat KQ as a high schooler.

• Author of Auberdine Walkthrough.

• “Kuso gaki (shitty kid)” - Reona

• His title was something along the lines of the eternally undefeated. In other words he allegedly didn’t die in even once.

• Works at the Tokyo Metro office (tokyo local gov basically) after graduating from full dive games.

• Also if he has guides for all the different routes that a player might go through, as he does on Auberdine Walkthrough then that means he must have played the game from the start over and over again? Does it mean that even though it looks like time is passing, things just repeat themselves through different game “instances”? Gingi had his own childhood friends with different names. Is he on the same “instance” as Hiro.

• “Can you do it? I did. Now it’s your return.” Yuuki on Kamui.

• “A failure who can’t overcome this[the training arc], will never succeed in life.”- kamui. Sums up the conceit of the show. Anime like this, which are about “graduating” from games, shoot themselves in the foot. Getting good at video games will not make you good at life in the normal world, and if it did then it would make the game just a stepping stone, training wheels, “a school of life” (sounds sickening)… That kind of message is unappealing to both the “game addiction is great” and “game addiction is evil” crowds. But at the end of the day, this is sci-fi, not what we have now. A game which is actually realistic might actually have some toughening effects on a personality, but is that something people want?

Grananda, Cathy, Merc Training Arc

• The whole training arc, was kind of, disturbingly realistic. Probably the most realistic part of the show.

• Well, except Reona saving the day through morally questionable means, err I mean through the “holy power of a fairy” lol.

• Cathy is a guardswoman who saw Hiro’s heroism when saving the little girl from the goblins but then abandons him when he gets bullied for his incompetence basically.

• Granada and his minion, Palu, mirror Hiro’s bullying/extortion in real life.

• I wonder if the whole training arc thing comes from some sort of work-experience of the author lol. As an example, take the “Consultation Office” which listens to all of Hiro’s embarrassing hardships but does fuck-all for Hiro.

“Thundering” Tesla Wolf Carmine

• Special move: Lightning Extreme Super special move: Lightning Extreme Despair. Ultimate technique: Lightning Extreme Ultima.

• How quickly did you figure out he was full of shit? Also did you know that Hiro would lose his console before it happened?

• Reona liked him because she has bad taste/luck in men.

Final thoughts, scores, thoughts on the ending

• 7.5/10. The adaptation itself is very unartistic, like minimum effort but nothing obviously wrong with it, but I can see a good story in it. A story based on a light novel which will probably not get translated. Last I checked the author has also gone AWOL.

• Unlike Light Tsuichi’s other anime-adaptation, Cautious Hero, this was not as much of a self-contained story, and so the anime feels it’s lacking a conclusion.

• I liked how Yuuki gradually starts to like the shit-game, but on the other hand the “get good at game, get good at life” I haven’t seen a story make a convincing argument for it, however it added an extra dimension which is absent from most “stuck in the game” stories, basically you can see the protagonist doing stuff in the normal world as well (mostly bcz a full time mmorpg player wouldn’t have a life outside of the game or he wouldn’t be a top player).

• In conclusion, I guess this anime felt like a prologue.

Final Question

• Would you play KQ?

Highlights from Q&A with author from Funimation subreddit

Big fan of cautious hero. What motivated the idea of a novel about an intentionally bad MMORPG?

Also who is best girl?

Tuchihi-sensei: As you know, there are many anime that feature Full Dive-style immersion. In the world of Full Dive, this whole genre of MMORPG and their popularity has dwindled. The era of full dive MMORPG is old news, and nobody's playing these anymore. That's the whole idea of this kusoge genre. This is something I haven't seen authors doing, so it was a new ground I felt I could reach.

Additionally, we have YouTube and streaming services nowadays, so we can watch others playing kusoge and it's entertaining to watch. It may not be pleasant for the player, but looking in from the outside is very enjoyable. It's another reason I chose this kusoge style.

As for best girl, I would say Alicia, for sure. Although she's an NPC in the story, she's very human-like, which I really enjoy.

I feel like there's a lot of heart in Full Dive. Did you draw any inspiration for it from your own childhood?

Tuchihi-sensei: I will say that I haven't exactly been nearly stabbed to death by a best friend, but the story does take loose references and inspiration from my own experiences.

From the beginning with Alicia's introduction, you know how Hiro is trying to run away from his problems in that scene? The lesson is that if he hadn't run away from his problems, maybe things wouldn't have turned out that way. These lessons, of course not specifically, are inspired by my personal life experiences.

How is it working as an isekai creator? Is it easy to create the new world rules and contrast them to our world?

Tuchihi-sensei: The basic approach I take is looking at things that already exist like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, and using those as a sort of general foundation that I add my own coloring and flavoring to. For example, comedy is a flavoring. For Cautious Hero and Full Dive, comedy is an ingredient I put in along with the duality between comedy and seriousness.

Does Kiwame Quest boost martial arts or athletic abilities and turns them into a "power" or "skill" like being good at running turns into super speed?

In Kiwame Quest there isn't much in terms of numerical value stats. It's really just real-life physical abilities being reflected in the game. However, that's not all there is to it. There's an additional element that I won't share since it's a spoiler, but you'll find out soon. Please look forward to it.

When writing, do you have a firm idea of the story you want to tell from the start or does the direction of the story change as you write?

Tuchihi-sensei: In terms of the direction, I would say 80-90% of the storyline is set in stone, or at least I try to set it, at the start before writing it all out. The other 10-20% varies with different character behavior or interactions that may need a little adjustment based on the surrounding situations. That's where I would give that leeway. Nothing major though. I wouldn't change the end sequence of a story or anything like that.

In Full Dive, Hiro is subject to a lot of ridicule. It is unusual for a story to focus so much on this aspect, for so long. What motivated you to create such a story?

Actually, I was having a conversation with another viewer and I realized a lot of people have an emotional investment in Hiro. It was surprising for me to hear because, when I was writing the story, the comedy was coming from a very objective standpoint and I wasn't investing as much in the characters. It was more, "How can I make this funny from a third person POV?"

If I put myself in Hiro's shoes, I definitely wouldn't want to be in those situations, and I don't think I could even laugh in those scenarios.

I think the ideal mindset to watch Full Dive is like watching The Simpsons. If you pretend you're watching The Simpsons, you won't be as emotionally hurt.

The end

終わりだ