Playing video games alone isn’t nearly as much fun as playing with friends, as Amano discovers in this episode. Amano is seen rejecting Tendo’s game club invitation, and most of his classmates sneer at this, as Tendo is clearly above Amano in social status. However, Tasuku Uehara is intrigued by Amano, as he later runs into the loner at an arcade. Tasuku offers to spend the afternoon playing games with Amano, discovering that Amano had never spent much time at an arcade because he didn’t have friends to play the games with. However, Tasuku quickly discovers that Amano is actually a terrible at all of the games they play!

Gamers don’t need to be good at all games. Yet when someone spends all their free time gaming, it is common for that person to be skilled at one or two elements of a game at least, simply through repetition and learning. That’s why Amano’s complete lack of skill at everything is so awkward! For someone who spends all his time toting how games are fun, and talking about which obscure game is the best, you would think that Amano would actually have some amount of skill to back it up. Of course, this isn’t the first or the last time we see Amano’s lack of skill – which is unfortunate for everyone involved…

Not all gamers are made equal, especially when it comes to social interactions. Sometimes people need things spelled out for them as clearly as possible. For Keita Amano, this is certainly the case! Episode 5 is where the communication errors really begin, with Tasuku seeming to be the only person who really understands what is going on. Tasuku organizes a meeting of gamers between Amano, Tendo and Chiaki Hoshinomori, where Tasuku discovers that Amano and Chiaki have more in common than he thought. Amano believes himself to be unworthy of Tendo, thinking she is using him to get to Tasuku.

While we were frustrated watching this confusing pentagon of misunderstandings form, perhaps the most cringe-worthy part of this episode is seeing just how oblivious Amano remains. It certainly isn’t the easiest thing in the world to deal with crushes, and that is what this show is all about! However, Amano continues to put himself down, not even opening up to the possibility that Tendo could be acting weird because she likes him. And Tasuku’s subtle nudging for both parties seems to have no effect on Amano’s view. As the romantic entanglement proceeds to get even more complex, Amano’s stubborn naivety only complicates matters.

Some people are meant to be together. And some are meant to be enemies for life. For Chiaki and Amano, it is a confusing mix of the two! When Amano starts talking to Chiaki in the third episode, they discover that they both have a lot in common, sharing a passion for similar games and other interests. However, they also seem to disagree on several things, all of which are unexpectedly important to them.

Chiaki and Amano’s relationship starts out so hopeful, with Tasuku even believing that they could be a perfect match for one another. Yet, it quickly goes south, with the two of them calling each other names and adamantly claiming that they hate one another. As you can imagine, their relationship has its ups and downs throughout the season. They remain friends for the most part, even while claiming that the other person is an idiot for their opinions. This scene remains awkward because of Chiaki and Amano’s weird relationship, where they simultaneously seem perfect for one another and also maintain that they are bitter rivals in gaming opinions.

Karen Tendo gives off the vibe of perfection to everyone at her school. But after she meets Amano, Tendo’s life takes a turn she would never expect, which is shown by comparing her average day at school before and after she develops a crush. Although Tendo usually receives a large amount of confession letters each day, she normally rejects the boys with class and grace in trying to be honest. However, Tendo’s perfect demeanor during rejections goes away once she develops a crush on Amano. She still manages to reject her admirers, but does so in a weird and erratic way that shows her true colors!

Tendo’s downward spiral is what truly makes us cringe during this scene. Not only are her facial expressions out of control, but it is clear that she believes she is able to cover up her emotions and keep up appearances for outsiders. And that is certainly not the case! If you’ve ever felt yourself obsessing over a crush, it is easy to relate with Tendo here. Still, her new problem with rejecting her admirers leaves us feeling extremely embarrassed for her!

Gamers! is an anime that seems very predictable at the start. Amano has a huge crush on Tendo, and one day she actually invites him to join the game club that she is the president of! It seems like the most perfect situation for Amano, right? Wrong! Instead of Amano happily accepting the invitation to get closer to Tendo, he rejects it in front of everyone, saying that he prefers to play games for fun rather than competitively. Certainly a harsh way to start off this romantic comedy!

Amano is one of those characters that never seem to think things through, and even though he has a massive crush on Tendo, he doesn’t seem to consider much at all when he rejects her invitation. This is the moment we all realized that this show was going to be about much more than just video games. It was also a moment when everyone simultaneously face-palmed at Amano’s lack of social skills. Not only does he reject the girl he likes, but he does it in front of the entire class! While Amano’s reasoning behind not wanting to join the game club appears sound, he doesn’t think beyond much more than himself. Oh Amano, when will you learn?

When Chiaki finally discovers that she and Amano have been online gaming friends for a long time, she is faced with a dilemma. Should she tell Amano who she is, and get rejected by him on all fronts? Or should she somehow hide her connections to him? Of course, while she can’t seem to hide the truth from Amano for long, Chiaki manages to come up with another plan. She introduces her younger sister as both Mono and the game developer, Nobe!

Chiaki becomes just another girl with a crush when she discovers that Amano is actually her online friend that has been supporting her. Her plan to hide who she really is makes us a bit frustrated, especially since she and Amano clearly have the makings of soul mates! Not only does this complicate matters for Chiaki, but her solution also causes problems for her sister as well. Being a good sister, she takes the idea in stride to help Chiaki out – yet, pretending to be someone you are not is never easy. Even just talking about this scene reminds us of how cringy it truly is, on all accounts!

Throughout the entire season, Tasuku has remained fairly confident that he knows exactly what is going on. This mindset is what gets him into so much trouble, even though he is not entirely aware of it. He has tried to help Amano with his love life as much as possible, but he also begins to help Chiaki as well, since he sees their connection long before Chiaki does. Because of this, Tasuku eventually decides that he is going to root for Chiaki to end up with Amano, rather than Tendo. This all comes to a head in episode 9, where he ends up calling Chiaki to tell her that he is on her side. However, his line, “I’ve decided I’m choosing you,” ends up causing even more misunderstandings than there already were…

In many ways, Tasuku is just as oblivious as Amano is when it comes to relationships. While he is able to see a lot more than most of the other characters, he still ends up hurting Aguri over and over by focusing all of his attention on helping his new friends. Tasuku may have had good intentions when he called Chiaki, but the result of his brief conversation just made us cringe. Because when it comes to Gamers!, one small misstep can lead to five different versions of the same story.

Under Tasuku’s encouragement, Amano asks Tendo to meet up after class. The plan is for Amano to ask Tendo if she would like to be friends, so that he can work his way into her life more and thus open up the possibility of dating. And while Amano’s friends are encouraging him in this public event, they also have secret reasons for wanting Amano to talk to Tendo. It is a fairly simple set-up. However, when Amano accidentally asks Tendo to go out with him, and she instantly agrees, it is a shock to everyone involved!

Amano is brave for asking Tendo out in front of his entire class. Or at least that’s what you would think if he had actually planned to do so in the first place! Amano merely slipped up, taking the text from a dating sim he had been playing earlier in the week and saying it out loud. That is what makes this scene so cringey. While we may have been rooting for Amano to actually ask Tendo out, the accidental manner in which he does so is rather embarrassing. Although both parties were happy with the outcome, Amano’s public confession remains one of the most hilariously uncomfortable parts of this anime.

Amano is encouraged to talk to Tendo by his friends, but it turns out they all have alternate reasons for wanting his public confession. Aguri wants to watch how Tasuku reacts to Tendo being taken by someone else. Tasuku wants to watch how Aguri reacts to Amano being taken by someone else. And Chiaki wants to see if either Aguri or Tasuku are guilty of stringing other people along! Basically, it’s a group of friends full of misunderstandings with one another, gathering together in one place to watch each other’s reactions to different people.

These three characters take cringe to a whole new level with their separate scheming. During each of their individual monologues, we discover that they all really have no idea how anyone feels about each other, or what anyone else’s true intentions are. And this is what makes us want to feel embarrassed about the whole situation. Each of the characters’ facial expressions are visibly uncomfortable throughout this whole exchange, which reflects how we felt about this scene perfectly! Only our next scene could possibly top this one for how uncomfortable it made us feel!

Amano and his group of friends decide to all play a board game together, hoping that it will be fun and they can work out everyone’s misunderstandings. Of course, knowing Gamers!, that is not how this scene plays out at all. In playing a weirdly romantic version of the Game of Life, Aguri and Amano get paired up, Tasuku and Chiaki end up dating, and Tendo ends up alone and with a lot of money. Tensions flare as everyone tries to get the game to work in their favor. Eventually, things do settle down a bit, and established couples are able to reconcile with each other. But as always, it’s a peace that cannot last…

The final scene on our list is certainly the most awkward of the series. With all the misunderstandings between these characters, getting them together in one place to play a romantic “Game of Life” is sure to be problematic. There are many times during this scene that the characters’ outer appearances hides their inner turmoil. And with the exaggerated exclamations and ridiculous facial expressions they put on, this scene became both the most hilarious and cringe-worthy at the same time. While this situation seemed to help the group in the end, living through that moment was pure agony for us!