Anime Review: No Game No Life

Here's the thing when it comes to my boyfriend and I. We're much better at finishing an anime series if we're watching it separately. My boyfriend has a lot of free time when he's at work so he spends a lot of it watching Crunchy Roll, Netflix or Hulu on his Ipad. When he isn't here, I'll fill my time by watching anime. When we're together, we're often playing video games together. You can see why I haven't gotten very far in YuYu Hakusho since it's the anime we said we would watch together.

Anyway, my boyfriend told me to start watching a show he had binge watched called No Game No Life. I had heard of it from a Kotaku article but I never actually went out of my way to watch it. Since I was finished with Black Bullet and my interest with Captain Earth had tapered off a bit, I decided to give it a go.

The Good!

Animation

Right off the bat, the first thing that got my attention was the animation style. It's fast moving, intricate and downright fun. I'll go ahead and post the intro for those who are looking for a sneak peak.
I almost want to compare it FLCL, that is if there was a Diet version of that show and all its insanity. It's also just so intricate that you often worry your going to miss something. Makes me want to watch threw it again just to make sure I didn't miss anything.

The Story

A lot of shows I've been watching lately take way too long in order to get to the main story. One show like this would be the newest iteration of Kamen Rider, Kamen Rider Gaim. Don't get me wrong, I love Gaim. The only problem is that it took somewhere along the lines of 20+ episodes to finally figure out who the bad guy is and even then we're not quite sure just how bad they really are. Some shows can pull this off. Not a show like this. No Game No Life is very quick to set up what type of show it is and you have the full idea of what the characters goals are going to be from episode 3 on. I won't spoil it here since it's kind of fun to figure it out and since it only takes 3 episodes, it won't hurt you just to watch and find out.

The Bad

The Batman Syndrome

A big complaint about Batman is that he is always too prepared. He is always at least 13 steps ahead of everyone else in the DC universe. If I had to give one major complaint into the series, its that the brother/sister duo are able to plan WAY far in advance despite the fact that even they admit that a lot of times, they are blissfully unaware of all the facts. This could very easily be rectified later on but we will have to wait and see. 

Cliche Characters

The characters can act just smidgen cliche at times. Not by a large amount but it is noticeable if you watch a lot of anime. I wouldn't consider this a bad thing though. 

The Ugly

The Cliffhanger!

This series is based off a popular light novel series, something that is becoming incredibly popular lately. The first season is only 12 episodes long and the last episode only gives us a taste of what's more to come. The only problem is that I can't find any information out there in regards to weather or not there will be a second season or not. This is quite literally killing me. I want so bad to see what happens next and I don't see anything regarding a Season 2 announcement. I'm sending them a message letting them know I would watch a season 2. If you're interested, there twitter is @Madhouse_News . Granted it's all in Japanese but that's what Google translate is for.