What do a British girl, a Japanese guy, and a game center have in common? They are all important pieces to the new anime, Cultural Exchange with a Game Centre Girl, which aired this past weekend as part of the massive Summer 2025 season. I’d never heard of Cultural Exchange with a Game Centre Girl until I was looking over a list of Summer 2025 anime, and was intrigued by its poster art and title. The anime is an adaptation of the manga of the same name by Hirozaku Yasuhara.
As a non-Japanese person living in Japan (aka “gaikokujin” or “foreigner”), I get easily drawn in by shows such as these, which feature a foreign character living in Japan (e.g., 2013’s Kiniro Mosaic). I dove into Episode 1 with no expectations and came out the other side shocked at how well-executed the episode is, especially in the voice-acting department!
Boy Meets the Game Centre Girl
Cultural Exchange with a Game Centre Girl introduces us to Lily Baker (voiced by Sally Amaki), a young girl from England, as she takes on crane games in a local arcade (which I may refer to as a “center” instead of “centre” as a filthy American). A Japanese worker at the arcade named Renji (voiced by Shouya Chiba) takes an interest in Lily, but, unlike many “gaikokujin” characters in anime, she can’t speak Japanese one bit! This leads to miscommunication between the two, which makes for some hilarious and charming moments throughout the episode.
The premiere episode of Cultural Exchange with a Game Centre Girl simply, yet appropriately, lays out the surface pieces of the plot. We don’t learn anything about the two main characters’ pasts, families, or future goals. The episode’s biggest plot point is the misunderstanding that develops when Renji gives Lily his crane-game prize; he panics due to not knowing English and claims it’s a gift for Valentine’s Day.
Lily takes this gesture as a love confession and gives him a card in return, which reads “Be My Valentine.” After using some Google Translate and doing a bit of cultural research, Renji realises he must have led Lily on, which wasn’t part of his plan! However, Renji communicates to Lily that they just need to get to know each other better before even considering her as his girlfriend.
Throughout Cultural Exchange with a Game Centre Girl Episode 1, I was incredibly entertained, but I also had so many questions. I want to know why Lily is in Japan. Perhaps her parents work in Japan? She seems to have a school bookbag, so does she attend Japanese school? And if she attends Japanese school, will she be able to learn Japanese?
The most intriguing part of Lily’s character is that she doesn’t speak Japanese at all. Many times, we see foreign characters using a few phrases in their native tongue, but 99% of their dialogue is in Japanese – I think of Emma Verde from Love Live! Nijigasaki, or Alice from Kiniro Mosaic. Sally Amaki voices Lily in a British accent, but as an American myself, I won’t even begin to review her performance.
Still, Lily’s voice was believable enough for me, especially considering just how bad English performances can be in Japanese dubbed anime. Overall, the funnest part of Cultural Exchange with a Game Centre Girl is hearing Renji use broken English to communicate with Lily.
The art style is perfect for this kind of show, and it reminds me of the soft color palette of Onimai!. Most of the episode was set in the arcade, and the topics and plot issues were kept light. This will be the perfect anime to sit back and relax to after a hard day.
At the end of the premiere episode, Lily claims that she’ll need to make Renji fall in love with her, and I’m looking forward to how she does this throughout the season despite the difficulty in communication. For all my fellow slice-of-life and moe girl lovers, don’t sleep on this premiere episode.
You can watch Cultural Exchange with a Game Centre Girl on Crunchyroll.
©Hirokazu Yasuhara/KADOKAWA/Cultural Exchange with Game Center Girl Association
