Name: Its fun-ish. Not really though. In reality it blows. But its not downright boring, so that's a plus.
Item: No Game, No Life
Rating: 54
Author: aabir

Waifra

Its fun-ish. Not really though. In reality it blows. But its not downright boring, so that's a plus. · Waifora

No game No life is a rather overrated anime.

NGNL is about Sora and Shiro - two legendary gamers. They go by the name "Blank" (represented by a blank space) and unbeatable in any game. The genre doesn't matter, the rules don't matter. As long as the game isn't impossible, blank never loses. Then some mysterious emails happen and they land into a world where everything is decided by games. EVERYTHING.

and Blank never loses.

Story (15/30) and Characters (11/30)

It is based around NEETs and gaming, so you can probably guess where all the high ratings are coming from. However, I don't really see it in comparison to others of its supposed genre, say, BTOOM! or SAO. I consider it more of a fantasy series than one based around the "drawn into a game" one. This is because of its lack of any "survival" whatsoever and the fact that the characters don't really care for their own world any more. The only similarity is perhaps the overpowered main character(s).

That said, NGNL isn't exactly unique in its premise. It has been done plenty of times before, examples being Ixion Saga or Dog Days or even Zero no Tsukaima or the countless others of its type, all of which relied on calling people from a different world into a different world for the sake of ensuring the underdog's survival.

Still, the execution was quite new. But, that does not mean it was good. The biggest reason for this is that blank never loses. The overpowered main duo just pretty much walk through everything. But before they win, the plot decides to throw a lot of thrills in and overall spice it up. Now that would be a good thing if not for the fact that the thrills are cheap. Almost below the belt. In every single game blank looks like they are going to lose, but end up winning through a needle's edge, but if you look at it clearly, there was really no reason for it to be so, since blank pulls something out of their ass to win the game (which they supposedly set up before the game even started). The story then downplays its earlier shocked characters by saying "They ACTED like they were losing, you know, to trick their opponents! To trick them I said!"

Spoiler, click to view

Like in the shiritori game, it wasn't needed for the game to be played for as long as they did, even if the first thing Sora had played was Coloumb's force, they would have won, since there is literally no way to counteract it as it stood in the series.

Which is quite opposite what the characters actually do. Sora LOVES boasting about how he beat the other person by explaining why and when they lost to him and is just good old cocky. For such a person to act defeated....it just doesn't sit right.

The main characters pretty much just walk in the world, read the rules and start taking out one person after the other. Which is conveniently addressed by "they are geniuses". They beat top dogs in a world where gaming is literally everything and they don't even break a sweat. After all, the game is over before it begins. Sora also has the uncanny ability to cold read others. Now, while good cold readers can usually figure out a good bunch, they still can't psycho-analyze others from half a mile away without ever looking at them. Sora can do all of that -because, once again, he is a genius- and then even know what knowledge they get fed and what decisions the person makes without so much as batting an eye. Which is, once again, quite convenient - especially considering that Sora has mental breakdowns when he goes near another person, so he clearly lacks any practice on the subject.

This brings us to the "faults" in the characters as seen from the story's perspective. The major fault in Sora and Shiro is that they can't socialize or even be apart without totally collapsing. Which might sound limiting, but its effects are seen nowhere in the entire (non-comedic side of the) storyline. After all, Sora can give speeches to make armies defect, make the entire city cheer for them and walk into a bar and chat up some girl into a game just fine despite having done any of the above before. The story once again excuses this by calling them geniuses.

A major component of the entire series are the games being played. The question here isn't whether blank wins (since they never lose) but about HOW they win. Not counting all the "thrills" I mentioned earlier, there isn't anything terribly wrong with the games. The first game (rock paper scissors) was interesting, chess was just fine and most other games were more or less fun.Exceptions being, the shiritori game and the FPS. They just abused the artistic license to get away with absolute bullshit. Now, I usually don't question physics in any anime. Girl wants to hit a nosebled guy across the earth with an umbrella? Be my guest. But if the story decides that it suddenly wants to take use ACTUAL high school physics, I expect it to carry it out properly without looking like a dumbass. I really don't like bringing up science as a standpoint against a series, but if the series is going to use actual science as a plot point and pretty much the decider of a game of wits, it can't use BROKEN science as a winning condition.

Spoiler, click to view

In the FPS, Once again, the story saw fit to play the genius card by making Shiro (for a change) into an absolute godly gamer. She can make her shots bounce off off a gazzilion walls and hit a target miles away from her. This is after all, because she is good at FPS games. Wait, back up, back up. I'm good at Call of Duty. Can I -in real life- snipe a guy across the dessert while falling from a water tanker? I doubt it. Just because I'm good at a game doesn't mean I can achieve jack shit in real life. The story mentions time and again that even though the players aren't physically transported into the game, the software doesn't modify the players and they pretty much remain as they were in the real world (like how Sora starts panting after running a while). Shiro still plays the game like she was in an assisted simulator. Other than that, Shiro is also able to track where NPCs will walk (and bets the entire game on this) despite never having looked at the code and not even knowing all the interactions that the NPCs are capable of. Once again, this is conveniently explained by "She is a genius".

After that comes the comedy. I can't really say the comedy is actually even funny, its more like a "stupid people doing stupid things" sort of a comedy. Where the only comedic relief is that someone is doing something totally crazy, or when other characters are humiliated. Stephanie Dola usually ends up being the butt of both the comedy and the ecchi side of things. Sora deems it fit to utterly humiliate her so that the audience can have a laugh. He (and his elite sister) see it fit to strip her of all her clothes, walk her around town, treat her like a literal dog (chain and all), then make her dress in a revealing dog costume after which they tie her to a pole and leave her there for the entire town to see. This is what passes for comedy and the plot completely agrees with it. After such an act towards one of their friends, I just couldn't bring myself to like Blank. I never liked them anyways, but after this I hated them. There is a limit that you can just brush off with a "this is comedy". That said, NGNL did make some clever jokes every now and then which made me chuckle. At the same time, there were references and overused memes (arrow to the knee) that made me want to punch the screen.

Ecchi is probably one section where it delivers what it says. Of course, it would be better without it, but that's besides the point. Even without the BDs, NGNL has a fair amount of fanservice which bypasses the censors by downright not drawing nether region and nipples. So it can still give a lot of fap material without actually being a mass of floating pixels. Then again, the ecchi dominates large parts of the show (in ep06, ten minutes or half the episode is just blatant fanservice) and it ruins the series a bit, but since it said ecchi on the tin, can't really argue against it.

On the other hand, the world and its creation were rather interesting. After having read so much fiction and LOTR rip-offs, NGNL created a fairly nice world and its lore was quite interesting. While my interests were more towards the Flugels, I really liked pretty much everything except humanity's history, which was just personal preference. It was pretty interesting overall. I did find the lack of revolts or actual problems of the realm rather quite disturbing, but the story does provide some (no matter how half assed) reasoning to it.

With all that said, I don't think that the plot was anything above average. Not because it was generic, but because every froward move it made was usually accompanied by a step backwards. Despite being interesting, it wasn't able to be anything beyond that. I think NGNL is one series that is best viewed mindlessly and after just "going with the flow". Dedicated watching is just gonna wreck it. But even with the benefit of doubt on having a S2, not closing the first season even half-properly was just terrible.

The main characters on the other hand were despicable, but I still graded it higher because at least Steph was pitiable and Jibril was kind of fun.

Artwork and Animation (6/10)

The artwork was rather unique with its bright vibrant colors and freely drawn landscapes. That said, it wasn't anything spectacular. It was just....fine. There wasn't anything that made me go "whoa check THAT out!" and the background was a bit sparsely detailed but it made up for that with character shading. It doesn't really handle saturation boosts too well, so it was a bit annoying having to revert my monitor to normal setting every week just to watch this.

The animation was more or less fluid and the conversion to slapstickiness is just fine and ecchi is abundant.

I think the art is fine, there isn't really anything more to say, if you like the freaky colors, then good for you, if you don't, then too bad.

Sound and Music (8/10)

The VA cast was pretty solid. But considering how little the emotions are worth in the main series, I think this was a bit of an unratable area for me. I mean, I suppose they did a good job, but I don't really know.

That said, I do know that the BGMs were intense and enjoyable. The sound of the surrounding world was raised to give a more 'epic' view, and I think that part was just fine.

The music is and always has been a matter of taste, and while I thought that the OP1 was good, its long version is pretty average. This could either be because the OP01 has a great AMV to support it, or it could be because the long version is good old meh. The TV version was more than fine and I listened to it every time. The ED01 was also quite good, but nothing I wanted to download the long version of and listen to.

That said, despite being overall fair, I don't think it was good enough to join the league of 17/20 sound series like say Durarara or Kyoukai Senjou No Horizon.

Enjoyment (14/20)

To be perfectly fair, NGNL was quite fun to watch. Not because it was a good piece of writing or even had half decent storytelling, but because it was interesting. And then there were the games that kept you wondering. After all, cheap thrills are still thrills. That said, NGNL isn't anything more than that, its just....fun. If you can switch your brain off and just watch it as you would some cheap knockoff cartoon, then it certainly can be quite good. Sadly, I can't, and feel it necessary to analyze the story. But even with that, NGNL was pretty enjoyable from start to end, but only if I lose myself in it.