No Game No Life - Reviews

An anime middle aged neckbeards with loli obsessions constanly say they love. The amount of good reviews for this anime is concerning.

Storyline: It was boring and predictabe, nothing ever happens, and its very messy.

Animation: May be the only decent thing about this show. The colorful animation was pretty nice but it's not for everyone. 

Characters: They were all annoying and unfunny. 

This was just yet another trashy isekai. Too much unnecessary fan service. It also constantly sexualizes minors, and has a creepy amount of incest. There are decent anime that have incest that you can just sweep aside if you please, a lot of even good anime have problematic sides,  but this kept coming up, a lot of this seems like it will just appeal to people with those weird fetishes. I get its anime but how do people rate this high? Even if some stuff is common in anime, that does not mean it should be justified or seen as okay, its just to appeal to more weirdos. 

For a video review, check out my Youtube channel. Link on my profile page.

Positive
*The first positive point were the two main characters Sora and Shiro. I found both of them very interesting. Shiro reminded of, coincidence?, Mashiro from Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo. They’re both very talented in what they do and sometimes there comments can be so random that you laugh so hard.
Sora, then, reminded me a lot off Yugi from YuGiOh. There both master strategists, always have a plan and are always thinking 5 steps ahead of their opponent.

*Related to that, I found the games very interesting to follow. It reminded me, again, of YuGiOh. Which was very nostalgic to me.

*Next positive point was the humor in NGNL. Although the humor was mostly ecchi related, I found it to be absolutely hilarious. Especially the relationship between the siblings and Stephanie and the way they treated her sometimes was just brilliant at times.

*But the thing was caught my attention the most in NGNL was the unbelievable strong bound between Sora and Shiro. In one of my previous reviews, the one of Myself;Yourself, I talked about the strong brother-sister bound between Syuri and Syusuke but this relationship between Sora and Shiro was of a whole other level. They literally can’t function without each other. Although sometimes it was pushing the limit before becoming a relationship that was a bit to close to be health between siblings.
But most of the time their relationship was nice and sometimes even touching to see.

*Which brings me seamlessly to the next point which was the music. The opening song, This Game, a extremely catching tune. But my main interest was the ending song: Oracion. A song that, especially if you read the lyrics, amplifies the bound between Sora and Shiro. Combine that with the nice visuals during the ending credits and it was quite touching.

Negative
*Now my main negative point is actually not legit. Because it is that the story isn’t finished at the end of the anime. There are still a lot of factions that we haven’t seen yet and Sora and Shiro haven’t reached their ultimate goal yet, which is to defeat Tet, the God of the fantasy world.
This point isn’t legit because there is still the possibility that there will be a second season. And I hope that there will be one. I would be insane if there wasn’t a second of NGNL. There’s more than enough content left in the manga, the anime was popular and sold well. So Madhouse, please make a second season of NGNL.

*One thing however won’t change even if there is a second a second season were the specials. I mean come one, why? Why do anime’s always have to do this. It’s a real bother to me and my main point of criticism.

Conclusion
As a conclusion, NGNL was an excellent anime that was a lot of fun to watch. Now I’m not gonna fine it an super high score yet, because I anticipate a second season. Otherwise this will be the final score but let’s stay positive. So for the time being I’m going to rate NGNL at 4 stars.
If you were a fan of YuGiOh back in the days like I was, than I definitely recommend this anime to you.

Fantastic art style and decent story - completely shat on by the fact this dude clearly wants to fuck his underage sister. More sexualization of minors, though I'm not sure why I expect anything else anymore, god knows weebs love their kiddie porn.

Loved the art, loved the concept, hated everything else.

Okay, some of my ratings are going to need explanations (such as the animation), but overall, I feel like this anime has more hype than it's worth.  I suppose it's one of those "love it" or "hate it" anime with no in-between.

Plot

Two genius siblings are defeating all challengers on an online game when they are challenged to a chess match by an unknown person.  After winning, they agree that they feel like they were born in the wrong world and are transported to a world where everything is decided by games.

From there, it doesn't take them long to set their sights on the biggest goals since they are unbeatable even in that world.

Characters

Sora is an 18 year old NEET who is sexually deprived, extremely manipulative, overconfident in his abilities, and a jerk to pretty much everyone except his sister.

Shiro is Sora's 11 year old sister who is a genius in strategy games and has a cool/calm disposition to the point of not having much of any presence.  She is heavily reliant on her brother.

Stephanie Dola is an inhabitant of the world of games, granddaughter to the previous king in the nation ruling over humans.  She's straightforward, honest, and naive...and breathes life into the series since she actually has a personality.

Animation

Okay, here's where I explain my rating on it.  While many people enjoy the vibrant, almost LCD-tripping colors and praise it since it does add to the show's light-hearted nonsense, I found it difficult to look at for too long.

For people with visual sensory issues, this anime is a nightmare due to the colors and lack of distinguishing lines.  Now, depending on how severe, some might not have much issue with it (especially if filtering glasses are worn).  Personally, even with special glasses, I could barely watch it without getting a headache or feeling like I needed to turn out all the lights and sit in a dark room for a while because there was so much to process.

I'm rating it a "5" because the colors and animation does compliment the tone of the anime, so I'll at least acknowledge that.

Overall

In the first couple episodes, you'll probably be rooting for someone to beat Sora and Shiro's tag-team (Blank) to knock them off their egotistical pedistal.  It's like if there was an anime focused around Seto Kaiba before he was defeated by Yami Yugi; the arrogance is that bad.  I actually really disliked Sora, and Shiro has the personality of a piece of cardboard.

I'm a gamer, myself; from video games to tabletop, to card games, ect.  As a gamer, there are three types of gamers you want to avoid being (or running into):

1.  The sore loser; the person who throws a fit and-or starts blaming you or someone else if they lose.

2.  The cheater; the person who uses exploits, hacks, or sleight of hand to try to put things in their favor (even during official events).

3.  The elitist; the person who was either carried to where they are or are honestly good at the game, but then looks down on anyone who isn't on their level and is downright nasty.  Many toxic players are the elitists.

Sora is an elitist; he has a "holier than though" attitude, and more confidence than one would think a shut-in who avoids society would when confronted face-to-face.

Shiro is just sort of...there.  She seems bored with everything, even when gaming. 

I have trouble telling if they're even enjoying themselves, or if they're playing just because it's something to do and something with set rules and predictable perameters.

There is so much I can say about this anime...not much of it good, but I think I'll leave it at that.

The characters are bland, the protagonists are annoying (and boring in Shiro's case), and the anime has to rely on fanservice in order to get any sort of reaction from the viewer besides extreme dislike of the protagonists.

And when I say fanservice, I mean beyond KonoSuba level of fanservice.  One girl nearly gets raped by Sora in the second episode and was about to remove her skirt when she was finally able to say "no" by sheer willpower (as he had won "rights" to her in a game).

This is, to be frank, disgusting.  My opinion of the protagonist was low to start with, and then he nearly rapes a girl...I almost stopped watching (and would have if he went all the way) right there and then.

So, that's another thing.  If situations like that (or an absurd amount of breasts) makes you uncomfortable, you should steer clear.

Frankly, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone.  The characters aren't likeable, it has no plot to really speak of, and any comedy typically relies on the brother-sister relationship (which is questionable as it is pretty much loli incest like it is in the light novel), something perverted, or fanservice.

If you want fanservice and can stand the LCD trip of colors, then your attention can probably stay on the anime.  If you're looking for plot, characters, or even laugh out loud comedy...this is really not the place to look.

The only reason I gave this a "2" instead of a "1" in the "Overall" is because it had potential.

Ok so umm... I want to keep my review short. There are to many long reviews, its like, do they really expect us to read the whole thing. 

No Game No Life is yet another anime about games, but this one is different, and in a lot of good ways, the world created is a charming yet surprisingly deep land of politics and interesting characters all around.

Instead of writing an essay about this i'm going to create a list of Positives and Negatives, I know when you're just looking to see if an anime is worth watching you usually don't want to read all that much.

Positives

- The story always seems to be moving forwards and never seems to slow down always introducing new and interesting characters to meet.
- The art style is beautiful, the world in general is extremely bright and colourful and everything is outline with more of a red tone than most anime's, this helps to differentiate its style from the crowd and really makes it a pleasure to view.
- The characters are all interesting and I always found myself wanting to learn more about them and their origins.
- The relationship between Sora and Shiro is great.

Negatives
- The relationship between Sora and Shiro might turn off some viewers.
- The 'Blank Never Loses' dynamic is interesting in some areas but it does get rid of some of the tension from certain battles.
- The series ends on an extreme cliffhanger
- Sound was nothing special.


I would recommend No Game Life to most people if only because it is extremely short at this stage, it won't take you long to power through the 12 episodes, however if you don't like cliffhangers you should definitely hold off on watching No Game No Life.