Anime Review – No Game No Life

No Game No Life is an anime about a couple of siblings who end up in a new world where everything is based on games. Well, being an addicted gamer myself, I just have to take a look on this one!

It all begins with a great battle between two groups of players in a MMO (sorta) game.We are at the ending of a massacre where 4 players defeated 1200 opponents. Hey, did I say 4? No, there are just 2 protagonists in this story, so it actually has been a victory of 2 people controling 2 characters each against 1200 other players. And the little sister controled both her characters  using the mice with her feet. While eating a snack. Yep, I think we got ourselves a pretty overpowered pair of protagonists, guys.Hey, is she… You know what:I can accept 4 characters defeating over 1000, I can accept people controlling 2 characters, I can even accept people playing with their feet, but I call hoax on playing on high level using those socks to control the mouse. Have you ever tried to play DotA or whatnot using glooves? It’s horrible, it really gets in the way.Basically, Sora and Shiro are neets who do nothing but play games. Add Anime and they would be like me, but a little cooler. They live their lives in this stuck way in a world they don’t like until this fatidic day where someone invites them to a new world where everything can be solved by gaming.But to be accepted in this world they need to show their power in a game of chess. Cool, this is not just about videogames. I like it. And winning they finaly get transported to the world called Disboard and…Why does this so called goddess talk about her rules at one thousand billion miles up in the sky? I kinda lost myself there. To sum up, gaming is serious business here and you can get anything by gambling.Even a kingdom. Literally, as there is a poker tournament  happening right now to determine the new king. It doesn’t matter that there is a perfectly health princess.But who cares about a kingdom, Sora gambles for a whole little bag of gold. And he bets himself and his sister for it. Personally, I think Shiro, as a cute loli sister is worth a lot more but it IS against a small fry, so…And Sora just beats her. With a Royal Straigh Flush. WOW. What a lucky guy. A shame that is by luck, I myself would prefer a good strategy. Unless… Oh. He cheated! Ok, the goddess rules Do say that you can’t be caught cheating, so it’s fine. Now, how did he do it?And so our first episode ends with promises of many more adventures to come… WAIT!! How the hell did he do it? Seriously? How?By the way, this anime did not show us how did they win any of their games! For reals. They won in the MMORPG but we only see the game graphics, no strategy is ever mentioned. We do not see the chess game except for, like, 3 moves. We do not see the game against the 3 thiefs in the road to the city. And now we do not get any explanation on how the hell did he cheat a Royal Straigh Flush to his hand!Sounds like little to you? He changed 5 very expecific cards from a deck that was handled by someone else, while another experient cheater was looking. That was suposed to be the good part of the game! Is it the generic explanation number one : Magic? Or number 6: It is an elven deck. Maybe it was the number 8: He is really good at it.Yeah… I am not going to crucify this anime just yet, but I really hope it is different in the light novel. It is interesting enough and with good characters so I will keep going but if this “we do not explain” trend continues when we start going to the non small fry opponents I will be going to somewhere else…But don’t forget that this is just the first episode!