NGNL is my favorite title of all time, so please read on being fully aware that this is purely subjective and almost certainly biased point of view.

I love isekai genre, mainly because it's so perfect at setting up something I like to call "care-free adventure". While you can have something like that in traditional fantasy (i.e. Majo no Tabitabi), I just love how isekai lends itself to letting go of your everyday worries and giving in to wanderlust. But every title is different, so what makes NGNL so good?

Firstly, lets talk visual style. Yes, today there are many visually impressive titles, but back when this came out, I distinctly remember being blown away. Art here has a nice modern touch, clean graphics, tight animations and great use of after-effects to add a style and character. Although I do think this style suits a more modern day setting, but that just ends up making opening scenes and city battle at the end even cooler.

Now, the setting... On the surface it looks uninspired: yet another parallel world where main character gets wisped away to, fantasy races, magic, dragons and villains. Oh and there's a princess, who falls in love with main character, but she's kind of a tsundere. And they end up living in her castle. But here lies one of the strengths of the title: the ability to take the most overused and unimaginative setting, so dull, that Le Blanc de La Vallière, Louise Françoise might confuse it for her homeworld, and make something interesting out of it.

So the big gimmick this time is that everything in the world is decided by games. And yes, we had anime about games before, be it SAO, Log Horizon, Ragnarok or //hack, but they all tried to bring real life in to game, while NGNL does the opposite: it brings the game back in to life. If anything, it's closer to Kaiji, just less depressing. And NGNL manages to appeal to gamers as a whole, not just the Asian MMO and/or VN players.

I also love the MCs. It's a fantasy of any gamer to be unbeatable, so it makes it easy to relate and understand their motivations. The duo get right to business abusing the world for their own gain and enjoyment, and it's a breath of fresh air from typical "hero" MC. Well, at least it was back when it came out, now we have more anti-heroes in the mix.

And then there's the humor. Probably the most subjective part of any show, and it's hard to pinpoint exactly what made me like it so much. Probably the combination of verbal humor with spot on body humor, references, selfish attitude and in-jokes between the siblings. I just find their, frankly incredibly codependent, relationship to be utterly fascinating.

Something I do have to mention though. Sound, overall, was serviceable, but what annoyed me the most was soundtrack. It felt... uninspired. Both in terms of opening/ending and music during the show itself. One would think that by this time directors understand the advantages of memorable music, but here it was mostly generic fantasy/fighting anime scores, completely alien to the nature of the show.

One final thing I need to cover is fan service. To be completely honest here, first time I've watched the series, I did not notice it at all. Considering that I'm not a fan of it normally, it was rather strange. It took me a second viewing to realize what was different. It felt organic and not forced/out of place. Both MCs lived in a world exposed to ungodly amounts of it, to the point where it became somewhat of a background thing. As a result they were using it for their own entertainment, as opposed of ham-fisted "accidents" that plague ecchi anime. It was also employed by them for their own need, be it to tease or to distract, as well as a nice addition the their, honestly, rather unhealthy relationship. I can only wish that more shows would put so much though in to their fan service.

As a conclusion, I would say that NGNL is often mistaken for mediocre anime riding on popular tropes, but I see it as an amazing melding of Asian and western gaming cultures. If you consider yourself a gamer, it's a wonderful treat, but it still has a lot to offer for everyone else.

P.S. Now that you've read it, I would like to apologize. Technically, this is a "remaster" of a review I wrote about 6 years ago. I did my best to reign in my old idealism and cut the dated references. And, obviously, I still stand behind all that I wrote. So hopefully it's a good read.