Victreebong
Some minor character spoilers occur, but no actual plot spoilers.There's been a strange transition for anime in the last 10 years. Gone are the gritty movies that showcase violence, sex, philosophy, and push the envelope for standard movie conventions. Instead, series are now being pumped out an alarming rate that attempt to do these things at once, but never truly do.No Game, No Life as a whole exemplifies this trend, magnified threefold. Not only does it not quite hit the hardcore market, it winks and nods at every turn to these fabled classic creations, and then makes it's own parodies about them. A meta of a meta, almost too meta for anyone to take seriously. Instead, we're left with a masterfully vibrant and colorful vehicle, completely saturated with fan service that may appeal to the 14-year old demographic, but quickly looses anybody who's past puberty.The ensemble in this series is a cast of over characterized buxom women, constantly swooning around a single (virgin) male protagonist, making obnoxious anime facial gestures, and seemingly defying both gravity and genetics with skinny well endowed bodies that loose articles of clothing for almost no reason. Ironically, not a single nipple or pubic hair is shown in this series, despite just how much time is spent looking at panties under skirts and making drawn out jokes about breasts. A trope that is now beating the horse that was beating the horse to death. You'll see all the skin and shiny bosoms in the world, completely naked men and women, but without actual nudity anywhere. What's the most irritating part is just how much plot IS actually there, as well as the amount of time spent on explaining real-life math theory, physics, chemistry and even vocabulary in this series, through some drawn out exposition usually by the protagonists.The two main protagonists in this series are a pair of nihilist (and possibly incestuous...) siblings Sora and Shiro, whose sole mission in life is to play games to the point of exhaustion and then explain to everyone around themselves how superior they are for knowing the inner workings of the formulas involved in said games. (Where they get the money to pay for rent is never made clear, but hey this is anime we don't need details!) For example, the 9 possible outcomes and random ratios involved in a two-person game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. This is fine the first time or two, but when it eats up an entire 22 minute episode and the same stunned look is on the opponents' faces every time, it gets dull. Like watching Goku continuously and inevitably beat every opponent he ever comes across, there's no potential for defeat, and therefor no REAL risk. AKA, boring.The other members of the cast are a spectrum of female anime tropes who we've all seen over and over and over again; submissive, skinny, sexualized big-eyed nymphos seemingly destined to hover around a lucky know-it-all virgin male who spends all his time playing games. They may be pretty to look at, they may be fun to watch interact, but ultimately it's done. For example, an omnipotent angel-God woman in this series has a Library of Congress size volume of encyclopedia at her disposal, but doesn't know where the erogenous zones are for humans that have the EXACT same body parts in the exact same areas she does... What? Or, what an Ipad is... It's really just an excuse for fan service.The back story in this series isn't clear until midway through, 16 types of humanoid tribes are fighting for ownership of a region based upon 10 laws played out into real-time games, all of which are governed over by an androgynous child being known as Tet. Violating these rules forfeits the battle with the violator losing, unless you aren't caught cheating. This is a theme the lead antagonist uses through-out the series, finding loopholes into situations where the rest of the denizens have no concept of what math is.For all it's flaws and tried tropes, this series does break ground on something I've yet to see, just how freaking vibrant, colorful, and eloquently drawn a series can possibly be! This is a step in the right direction for series anime; this series is the sharpest I've ever seen. Gorgeous is a gross understatement. Every facet of every object has an infinite color gradient, with pinks, greens, violets, blues engorging every single frame. It is jaw dropping saturated with color, and the animation doesn't miss a beat. Having this series on mute playing in the background is just as impressive as listening to it's expositions. Sentai, MADBOX, and all the other firms associated with this franchise clearly brought out the big guns for this franchise. The animation is worth the rent alone.But for all it's colors, and interesting anecdotal information, No Game, No Life just doesn't quite do what it sets out to do. If you're going to show naked women experimenting, show naked women. If you're going to put heroes into vulnerable life threatening situations, have some consequences! If you're going to have virgin men surrounded by overtly sexual concubines... You get what I'm saying. Quit beating around the bush, and actually push the envelope you're attempting to push. I have a feeling that the creators avoided too much detailed sexuality and nudity due to Shiro being an 11 year old girl, but the fact that she's completely naked in the series several times, they show gratuitous pantie shots of her, and the other characters interact with her in alarmingly uncomfortable instances totally voids this caution.TL;DR, worth the rent for it's animation, probably not worth the cost ownership for the Blu-ray.
Jim Fess
What a great show!! I can't wait for them to make the next season! No Game No Life is such a fun and extremely well thought out show, the concept is so basic and straight forward that you don't think it could be portrayed so well. If your looking for something amazing to just take you out of this world on a fun, funny, amazing journey then your going to love this show. The main characters are great, they're both shut-in genius's with great memorable personalities. The artwork & character design is amazing, this show gave me a real "Alice in Wonderland" feel. I felt completely immersed in this fantasy, colorful, amazing world from the first 5 minutes! and that feeling followed through all the way until the very last second of the show! The sound tracks for this show were awesome! Definitely some of the most epic soundtracks I've heard from any show.5/5 Why Perfect? Cause i couldn't think of anything to lessen the value, It made me laugh, feel for the characters in such a short period of time, it was intelligent and caused me to think on a multitude of occasions. I really have high hopes for the continuation of this series, i'm sure anyone reading this will love it too!!
MarkyMarkus
I was really surprised by this anime. I wasn't expecting much from it, but its funny and surprisingly smart. With five episodes left, unless they just completely drop the ball, this is easily is one of my favorites of this season.So, whats it about? The anime is about a brother and sister, Sora and Shiro, who are NEETs and experts at games. I mean they are literally the best in the world. The get transported to another world where games are how everything gets done. No war, murder, crimes, just games. Naturally they fit right in.What makes this show great is the characters. The main duo is great. They are awkward but also extremely cocky. The princess Steph is also great and its funny how the brother and sister treat her. The show has a great sense of humor and I find myself laughing pretty hard quite often.I said it was smart. Yeah, when they play games, you can really see the gears in their heads turning, trying to figure out how to beat opponents that should be superior to them. It never feels like a dues ex machina is what finishes the game. You really feel like the are extremely smart and cunning.At first, I wasn't digging the designs, but really quickly I warmed up to it. The style feels like fantasy meets Las Vegas, which makes sense, considering the world is based on gambling. So yeah, I really like it. The girls are also very cute and the reaction faces are great. The OP and ED are very good as well. The presentation is great.I guess its worth mentioning that it has a decent amount of fanservice. If you don't like fanservice, I personally don't think it will be too distracting... but I'm not the best judge of that. Just try to look past it if you think it might bother you.All in all, I really like this anime and its one of the better ones this season. Check it out!EDIT: Follow up after seeing episode twelve. While I will still leave the score the same because my enjoyment for it never waiver, I will admit that at times it falls victim to the Gambitroulette trope. That is, it almost a bit too incredible what they can pull off. Doesn't change much though, I still really liked it.
Miloschouten
No game, No life has a rather weird description but It's really worth watching and has a huge potential! The story is about two siblings who are hardcore gamers and are known as the Blank players. Legend says that they have never been beaten in ANY game, Chess, Online football, online MMO, shooters nothing. One day they receive a mysterious email about If they ever felt that the world they lived in wasn't where they belonged. The siblings agreed and suddenly teleported into a new world where the God stated that their be no War no Violence and no theft and that everything had to be solved with a game, their are a total of 16 races and Humans are known to be the least powerful up till now perhaps? No game no Life is a comedy/action/adventure/intellectual anime. The drawing style is very modern and looks rather well, similar to SAO or perhaps strike blood. The storyline is to early to say but I have to admit that I have never loved characters of an anime so quickly and that I was laughing on the floor most of the episodes I watched I truly recommend trying it out yourself!
