No Game No Life: Tactician Reviews

by **Akaneia** Wed Jul 22, 2015 2:12 am

There's been a trend with a lot of modern anime lately, that being that the anime is an adaptation of a manga, novel, light novel, etc. While that's not really a problem, it creates a new type of anime. A "Read the manga" ending. The purpose of those shows is to make a show that gains a lot of popularity, only to end it with a cliffhanger, making the watcher want to read the source material. Ladies, gentlemen, and other beings of the academy, today I will be reviewing "No Game No Life", an anime quite enjoyable, but falls in that category.

Story: Let's start with 2 anti-social siblings that only lounge around all day and play games. However, they are really good at playing games. So good, that they are known on the internet as [ ]. So good, that space-time begins to warp reality, as a god from a fantasy world challenges the main characters to a game of chess. After judging their skill, the god drags both of the characters into his world, where there is no violence, no war, and everything is solved by playing games. Literally. The siblings, Sora and Shiro, has never lost a game while on Earth except to each other, and has no intention of losing in this new world. Their goal in this world is to challenge Tet, the god of the fantasy world that Sora and Shiro are in, but to do this, they must beat the other 15 races, only then will they get a chance to challenge Tet. The plot is a typical tournament anime, with many challenges that get harder each time. The main enjoyment of the story comes from how the siblings deal with the games that they are challenged to play.

Characters: Let's start with our mains: Sora and Shiro. If you know what anti-social people are like, you know how these are act. Expect that they aren't 100% into the anti-social lifestyle. These two are the type of characters that you root for, and wish that they'd win whatever challenge is in front of them. You want to see him win, and it's entertaining on how they do so, which is a good thing. Because they're the main characters. Sora however, takes the spotlight over his sister. He has the most monologues, dialogue, references, and majority of the strategies. However, without Shiro, Sora is completely useless. A big part of the enjoyment with those two, outside of Sora is how they win their challenges, as previously stated.

And then there's Steph. Princess of the Humans and a character I hate. That that reason would be: The dumb one. While Sora and Shiro is all smart, Steph is there being stupid so the audience won't get confused with all the leaps of logic the mains characters pull. There are two ways to deal with show this.

1. Have an inter monologue, that lets the viewer know the plan from the get go.
2. Have a middle man, so the main characters could explain the plan to.

The show seems to enjoy making fun of Steph, witch makes it funny because that's the main characters insulting their audience, or at least the audience who can't catch up with the logic that the main characters are thinking off. The show tries to make her sound smart, but her stupid just keeps appearing, to farther boost what the audience thinks on how smart the main protags are.

From there, the other side characters are all generic and fill in archetypes.

Fun Fact: Did you know that the ratio of males to females of this show is completely insane? You'll find out about that yourself if you watch the show.

Animation: The art style of the show is very ... colorful and bright. To makes lots of contrasting colors, which is candy for your eyes. All to reinforce that it's a world about games, and games are fun. The show was animated by MAD House, a lot time anime company with a very good track record. But, MAD House is known to have cliffhanger ending animes, so watch more of their work at your own risk.

Sound: The music is created by the company "Super Sweep Records", who are known to make video game music, not anime music. Some of their works are: Tekken, Fate/Extra, and Episode 2 of Xenoblade are examples. While the music in the show was good enough, the only stand out track is its opening. Man it is catchy.

Final Verdict: "No Game No Life" is a high enjoyable show. The idea is great, but the characters are a mix bag of sorts. The plot progressed nicely, and the games are quick. The problem is that, its ending is one that wants you to read its source material. And, the fan service hurts my enjoyment.

With all of that, my final verdict for "No Game No Life" is 7.5 out of 10. I cannot score it higher due to the ending, and how it leaves on a cliffhanger. While the show was very enjoyable, it wasn't a complete story. Some other anime that would fill what "No Game No Life" has are:

1. Log Horizon
2. SAO

I choose these animes as they both have the main characters in a fantasy world, both with different goals and agendas.

With that, thank you for sitting through and reading my review. Leave any suggestion you have as replies, and criticism would be nice as well, as this is my first review and I wanted to review something many people have seen if they have been into anime for a while, but is something everyone should watch if they're new to anime. With that, I will see you next time.