No Game No Life
Plot:
Siblings Sora and Shiro do everything together. They are hikkikomori NEETs who spend all their time indoors on games. It doesn’t matter what the game is, new or old, digital or physical, their combination of gut instinct and book smarts carries them through any game to victory. They leave their usernames empty, and it earns them the name of ‘Blank.’
Their victories attract the attention of the god of an alternate world in which everything is governed by commandments surrounding games. Politics, wars, futures, successes and failures. They quickly take over the kingdom and learn that the entire world is one large game of conquest between races. The victor earns the right to challenge – and even become – god himself.
Director: Atsuko Ishizuka
She was a story-arc director for Aoi Bungaku. She has directed Tsuki no Waltz, Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo, and Hanayamata. Otherwise her most high-profile shows were only smaller roles such as episode directors or storyboards.
Source:
Light novel by Yu Kamiya that started in 2012 and is still ongoing. It currently has 6 volumes.
A manga was started in January of 2013, also published through Media Factory, and has only one volume.
Studio/Animation:
The anime is produced by studio Madhouse. As a result its production values are fairly high for the majority of the show. It has decent movement and fairly elaborate fantasy-esque fantasy designs.
The anime has a strange, glow-like, wash to it all, as though it’s almost blurring neon. This could be something that could easily be a turn-off or turn-on for many people. However, it is a fairly creative approach.
Music:
The in-show music has its high and low points. It mostly equals out to just above average, I would say. However, the opening and closing are fairly catchy.
Review:
This anime bears all its cards right off the bat. Within the first episode we learn the dynamic of the brother and sister and their affinity for games. And, when I say ‘dynamic’ I meant that awkward ‘No of course they don’t want to bang they’re brother and sister… but really, they want to bang.” And, when I say ‘affinity’ I mean, ‘They win by impossible chance, small margins, and things even a supercomputer couldn’t figure out – but we want you to believe the girl is a supercomputer anyways.’
As of episode 4 they’ve entered into the world, become king and queen, and are now trying to take over the world of games. This is an anime that revels in the ridiculous and celebrates the stupid. Each of the characters are over the top and have their own archtype.
We learn how the boy really wants to get laid, despite wanting to bang his sister, and ends up enslaving a girl to him – because that’s a super cool thing to do. We learn how the sister can learn a language in an hour, I wish. And we have a girl who can’t stop walking into things, or being dumb every second. We have cat girls, wing girls, name it, this anime likely has it.
Oh, what more can I say? The games are won on backwards and barely strung together logic until it stops making sense at all. We spend as much time in the bath as playing games half the time. Oh and we can create a world where people conveniently don’t have nipples or genitalia so we can show them naked.
The show has pacing problem that you begin to pick up right around episode 5. That’s when you learn that if you take over all the race pieces of the world you can challenge god himself. Cool right? I think so. But, then they just don’t have the time to finish that goal before the series is over. Don’t worry, there is time to fit in a love-shooting catgirl dating sim though.
The best I can say for this show is it has benefits if you revel in the ridiculous it’ll supply that. There are mildly amusing moments and there is a small excitement of ‘how will they do it’ to the game. But don’t look for anything substantial or serious. This anime was not even trying to it from the start.
[starrater]