Title: I Want a Gal Gamer to Praise Me Vol. 4
Author: Geshumaru
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 162
Genre: Romance, Comedy
Publication Date: April 22, 2025
The Story
It’s a fight for attention as Yuu and Rion each fight for Raito’s attention in different ways! We open up with Yuu helping Raito clean up after a gaming session. After some back-and-forth dialogue, things get a bit heated, and Yuu places Raito in an arm bar, claiming that she hasn’t changed much since she was a kid. When Raito opens his big mouth and alerts her that it’s causing him to touch her in weird places, she gets flustered and admits that maybe she has changed a bit.
Meanwhile, Rion and Raito interact at school. She praises Raito for improving his Kill-Death-Ratio stats after a trios match only sees him net one kill, which gets him down. With more practice, Raito climbs up to the Platinum rank, which garners more praise from Rion. As this happens, Rion cannot help but think about Raito constantly. She has an upcoming tournament and wants to invite him; however, she becomes increasingly nervous. She eventually gives him the ticket, though.
When he arrives, he finds Yuu is there along with Rion’s friends, Yakumo, and Kokko. As they head in, Yuu spaces out about Raito, but he brings her back to reality when he offers to go buy some drinks and snacks. She spaces out again and tries to hold his hand, but ends up tugging on his shirt instead. She plays it off as wanting to get his attention so that they can go buy food from a nearby Takoyaki stand. There, the person behind the counter says something that Yuu likes.
We wrap things up by going back in time to the night before the tournament. Rion can’t sleep, so she decides to talk to Raito and put him on video chat!
Characters
Both Yuu and Rion received the same type of character development through putting them in different situations.
What it all boils down to is that both of them have come to realize that they have feelings for Raito. Both of them go through the same roadblocks of daydreaming about him, getting nervous around him, wondering what they should do about it, and finding ways to get closer to him. Of course, with their individual personalities, they approach the same concept differently.
Yuu, being tomboyish, uses sarcasm and a more brash-like approach. Whenever she is caught being embarrassed, she just gets a bit mean, runs away, or just calls Raito a pervert. Rion, on the other hand, becomes nervous and flustered. Her crush seems more like a typical high school girl’s crush than Yuu’s.
Despite them having similar development paths, the fact that their characters are so diverse, it allows each path to seem different. However, the same cannot be said for Raito as he is still oblivious as ever… or is he? There is a moment in the manga that may suggest that he’s finally realizing his feelings for, at least, one of them; however, unlike Yuu and Rion, he does seem too dense to act upon those feelings… or probably even comprehend what it is he’s feeling. I mean, Raito is pretty stupid, after all!
Final Thoughts
Each volume of Gal Gamer can be summed up as fun. While yes, there are a lot of ecchi moments, this series balances them out perfectly with great humor and natural chemistry between the characters. Even though the gaming portion of it continues to take a back seat, it’s still there in some form. The character work is great, and even though I didn’t mention it in the character development section, there is a moment that shows that Raito has a backbone, which was a catalyst for a lot of Rion’s development. I want you guys to discover that moment for yourself because it was probably one of the biggest standout moments in the series thus far!
Yuu continues to be my favorite character. I just love tomboys, plain and simple. Plus, with her introduction, this series continues to do something that I wish a lot of other slice-of-life rom-coms would do… and that is create a love triangle where there is no clear victor. While Yuu did come in later than Rion, they are still on equal footing. I mention this because that is driven home perfectly in this volume.
Both Rion and Yuu are fighting for Raito’s attention; however, neither one of them is fighting with each other. There is no conflict between them, there is no jealousy, no backstabbing, no plotting, no underhanded tactics… nothing. They are just interacting with Raito in natural ways, letting their feelings blossom in the process. This is what natural development looks like, and it proves that you don’t need to turn everything into a competition or introduce an arbitrary and pointless drama plot. What is happening here is how romance stories involving two characters and their love interest should be told! Raito could end up with either Rion or Yuu in the end, and when that happens, you just know someone’s heart is going to get shattered…
…or this series does the worst possible thing and never ships Raito with either one of them and leaves is all on friendship terms. Yeah, please don’t do that!
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This item was purchased for review.
