No Game No Life

One does not simply play video games

Yet the older generation complain about how they aren't good for us. Well, No Game No Life has proved them wrong. Apart from being completely antisocial like our MCs and siblings Shiro and Sora, to the point where we're unable to survive beyond the protection of the dark enclosure sealed by 4 walls with a small square emitting light and pictures in front of our very eyes. I have yet to get that far, but I do sometimes prefer being at home playing games rather than out and about.

It's not all fun and games in the world of No Game No Life; there's so much more to it than meets the eye, which I'm sure many of you will agree when I say there are a lot of mind games played by Sora and Shiro. They're extremely tight-knit siblings who have anxiety issues when separated beyond a certain distance, and Shiro is the brains behind their skills and knowledge whilst Sora is the more "work it out as you play" type of person/player who is keen to graduate from a virgin. You can say they're the two sides of the same coin, which is true since together they form the formidable Blank, and infamous group feared by those who play against them online. 

So what happens when such a team pretty much conquers any game they play? It's simple: take them to a new one with even more games by determining their worth. Yes, that's where No Game No Life is set, but with a twist: everything is decided by playing games. They enter the world through their monitor after playing a game with an unknown person, and soon learn that it's not a dream. Turns out that after a war broke out in this world, the One True God decided enough is enough and ordered everyone to settle things by playing games to avoid further chaos and destruction, and created ten pledges that everyone must abide by before entering into a game. This is where all the mind games start to kick in when Sora and Shiro enter the world and discover more about it after deciding this is their next challenge and start playing against the inhabitants, and it's all about how you get your opponent to think they have the upper hand but really you've been playing them from the start, not just playing well. I guess that's how we expect to play games in reality, but instead we get people who go hardcore on games and become so OP that new players don't stand a chance against them. Or 10 year olds who play COD all day when they should be at school.

But I digress. 

I'll admit that the first time I watched No Game No Life was when it was a new release, but I couldn't get into it and stopped after the first episode. I thought that I'd give it another try, and turns out it's not as bad as I initially thought it out to be. No Game No Life has an interesting story with a funky mix of characters we get to meet during Sora and Shiro's journey through the new world as they get to grips with what's going on there and why they were sent there in the first place. Its delivery of the mind games and how Sora and Shiro shine as Blank is great, but overall the anime does not give me the wow factor. It is a good anime I'll admit, but not one you can expect me to run back to when I can't decide what to watch next. I would watch it again, but not soon. Other than that, I enjoyed it after giving it another try.