If you can't be serious about your own hobbies, you won't succeed at anything [High Score Girl #QuoteNote63]

The quote I'd like to introduce this time is as follows!

This is a line from the manga/anime series "High Score Girl".

Speaker

She is the mother of the protagonist of "High Score Girl," Haruo Yaguchi.

What kind of work is High Score Girl?

"High Score Girl" is a passionate arcade game anime set during the golden age of fighting games in the 90s... that is the ostensible subject, but it is actually a classic romantic comedy.

Meeting a beautiful girl who plays Zangief

The protagonist, Haruo Yaguchi (hereafter Haruo), is a boy who is bad at both studying and sports. The only thing Haruo is better at than others is games, especially fighting games.

The story begins when Haruo is in the sixth grade (1991). By the way, High Score Girl is a fairly long-spanning story that depicts Haruo until some time after he becomes a high school student. However, it is a masterpiece that is compactly contained in 10 volumes in total.

Speaking of arcades in the 90s, they were entertainment facilities with a rather underground impression, where ashtrays were installed on every cabinet and, in some cases, they were hangouts for delinquents. At the beginning of the story, Haruo, a sixth grader, goes to the local arcade clutching his pocket money.

That said, Haruo is not a bad kid or a delinquent, but just an honest boy who purely loves fighting games. His purpose for going to the arcade is not to hang out with friends, but purely because he wants to play fighting games. He has friends at school, but Haruo goes to the arcade alone every day.

The story of "High Score Girl" begins to move significantly when a girl appears in such an arcade, which was like a gathering place for outlaws at the time.

The girl's name is "Akira," and she is Haruo's classmate. Haruo is not particularly close to her, so he calls her by her surname, "Ono." In fact, Akira is excellent at both studying and sports, the type of person around whom classmates gather without her even trying, and her family is a super-rich household, making her a young lady in everyone's eyes. In every way, she is the opposite of Haruo.

Haruo felt, "Ugh! I don't like her!" toward Akira.

One day, as usual, Haruo was playing a fighting game at the arcade, but he met an opponent he just couldn't beat. No matter how many times he challenged her, he couldn't win, losing 7 times in a row... That opponent was his classmate, Akira.

Moreover, Haruo was using Guile, who boasts cheat-level high performance. In contrast, the character Akira used was Zangief, who is in the lowest performance class.

In the end, Haruo, who could not beat Akira in terms of pure skill, resorted to a forbidden tactic at the very last moment. He used "Waiting Guile," where he would land a Somersault Kick, an anti-air move, when he made the opponent jump with a crouching medium kick. And he used a forced throw that took advantage of the recovery time of an opponent who had blocked a small kick.

Both are tactics that can collapse the game balance, so they are prohibited in some arcades, and even if they are not, many players avoid using them as an unwritten rule.

In particular, Zangief has no projectile attacks, so when Guile does this to him, he has no counterplay and ends up losing. This can no longer be called a fighting game.

However, Haruo sticks to this strategy thoroughly and manages to snatch victory.

“The process...! The method...! It doesn't matter at all!”

It's as if he's saying that. Though this is from a different manga. Haha

Akira is a silent character who hardly speaks in the story, so when her classmate Haruo uses such a cowardly strategy, she silently delivers a right straight to his face.

This is the first chapter of "High Score Girl".

From here, as they enter junior high, Koharu appears—a girl of a completely different type from Akira who starts to like Haruo. The love triangle between Haruo, Akira, and Koharu accelerates nicely, making it increasingly interesting as a romantic comedy. Moreover, as the characters grow, fighting games from each era appear, so readers like me who were obsessed with fighting games as boys can really enjoy reading it.

In the end, Haruo and Akira have been in love with each other the whole time.

Through their youth, including matches in fighting games, school trips, and sometimes even fistfights by the river (!?), Haruo and Akira continue their relationship of being neither too close nor too far apart.

After various events, Haruo realizes that he likes Akira, but as he grows up, he starts to feel a bit guilty about the vast difference between himself, who spends his life immersed in games in an ordinary household, and Akira, who is an ultra-wealthy young lady.

He's no good at exercise or sports, and his only merit is fighting games. (Although Haruo has an incredibly refreshing spirit, so he is quite charming as a person just because of that... Maybe it's a good image to think of him as Nobita from a timeline where he got super into fighting games.)

On the other hand, Akira is basically silent, so you don't know what she's thinking, and she goes on to a different preparatory high school with excellent grades. By the way, from the reader's perspective, Haruo and Akira are clearly in love with each other, so it's the type of manga you watch while thinking, "Just get together already...!" Haha

In fact, in the story, Haruo is told by the tutor of one of the heroines, Akira (a super wealthy young lady), that he is“a nuisance getting in the way of the young lady.”

Akira had once run away from home because she was tired of her family's educational policy, and they blamed that on Haruo's bad influence... In reality, the only emotional support for Akira, who had almost no free time due to her Spartan education, was the time she spent playing games with Haruo... Anyway, Akira is super quiet, so people around her just interpret things however they like.

The role as an adult and as a parent

Namie-san also snaps back when Akira's tutor comes to the Haruo household to complain. She shows a certain level of understanding for the tutor's hardships, saying, "It must be tough for you, too, teacher"... It's a very mature response.

Without yielding to the wealthy young lady's tutor who barged in, she fully affirms her own son. She never gets emotional, trusts Haruo, and directly conveys the correct actions Haruo took.

After all, the dynamic is "the tutor of a super-rich, high-achieving young lady" versus "the mother of a son who only plays games and has poor grades." If I were in Haruo's parent's shoes... I might just try to get through the situation by offering empty apologies.

However, Haruo's mother doesn't engage in such superficial communication. I think these words come from the fact that she truly believes in herself and her son.

This is a famous scene that offers a glimpse into the background of why Haruo, despite playing games all the time and having poor grades, has grown into a kind-hearted and upright person without going astray—it's all thanks to his mother.

When raising children,

• thinking things like "I want them to learn how to swim" or

• thinking things like "They say piano is related to intelligence..." or

• thinking things like "Is my child falling behind compared to other kids..." or

it's easy to end up focusing on their abilities.

We get caught up in trying to provide them with "useful experiences."

While I think that's correct in its own way, when you consider the essential part, I believe it's rooted in the parent's own "anxiety."

The worry for the child that "if they can't do at least that much, they'll struggle in the future"...

No, to put it more bluntly, I think another factor is the anxiety we don't really notice but feel in our subconscious: "If I can't get them to do that much, I'll be seen as having poor parenting skills."

It's certainly better to be able to do many things, but in the extreme, there's nothing they absolutely must be able to do.

More than ability or grades, becoming a person who is compassionate and kind-hearted should be overwhelmingly more important.

Namie, Haruo's mother, doesn't nag him about his abilities. However, when it comes to his heart, she gently pushes him forward with sincere, straightforward words.

Don't underestimate 'High Score Girl' just because you think it's a fighting game manga! It's a masterpiece that has scenes that will strike a chord even with parents raising children. I highly recommend it!

It doesn't have that many volumes, so you can read it quickly.

📢 Announcement

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