No Game No Life is an anime by the studio Madhouse famous for works such as Hunter x Hunter and One Punch Man. Its about two NEET Not in Education Employment or Training siblings named Sora and Shiro A.K.A. or Blank who are the best game players in the world. It doesnt matter which game it is theyre probably great at it. The show starts by them getting thrown into another world that basically runs on playing games after beating a computer in chess. In that new world they immediately crush their opponents just as successfully as they did in their world. https://sakugabooru.com/data/cdcb8095ce337335262e141c7026155b. From the main duo we have Sora who understands a persons psychology better than that person does themself. Hes the one that does all the manipulating of the other characters. This is where I have a problem with him. I hold a distaste for anime 4D chess players because the majority of them feel like incredibly unrealistic pseudointellectuals. And Sora is no exception every time he has a match with someone in the show he is instantly able to understand whatever emotions they might be feeling and what their thought process is. I have no idea how he is able to do this even if he spent every minute of his life from the morning he was born studying others he still wouldnt be able to instantly understand everything about a person just from a quick glance. That isnt smart thats just witchcraft. Also for some reason the creators gave Sora an arrogant and prideful personality even though that sort of contrasts with the whole NEET thing. Youd think that a NEET would be depressed or irritable but instead Sora acts just like how a regular person would. On the other hand we have Shiro the human computer. She does all the calculating in the duo and happens to be a genius at it better than anyone in human history. And shes even more unrealistic than Sora because shes an 11 year old. Im not saying child prodigies dont exist but this is just ridiculous. Apart from her whole brocon thing she really doesnt have many other important character traits. I dont know why they made her 11 even though she doesnt act or think like an 11 year old would they could have just as easily made her a high school student and that would have fit her character better. Shes pretty clearly just a loli who loves her oniichan for those guys out there that are into that kind of stuff. There are also some other characters besides those two but theyre all pretty much irrelevant or useless. Like Steph shows that she has the knowledge to run a country but thats completely useless when youre in a world thats run on games. Something which Steph notoriously sucks at unless aided by someone else. And Jibril is supposed to be super smart for her race but ends up just being a jobber for the entire show after shes beaten by Mr. and Mrs. Sue. Now Im going to tell you why Sora and Shiro dont work as characters. When youre writing a smart character you want to give them some realism because when you dont you get characters like these who are practically indistinguishable from omniscient gods. They dont actually look in as smart as theyre made out to be and if anything seem ironically less intelligent. It also doesnt help that they have no flaws. I guess the cant be in a public place without breaking down trait could be a flaw but its not like that actually affects them or the story so I dont think it counts. And this is especially clear when we get into the games and how theyre played. This next part is going to be taken directly from a forum post I made a few days ago In high stakes gambling shows like NGNL even though there really are no stakes usually the creators would have their characters put into a situation where theyd have to find a way to beat the odds through realistic means while playing within the rules of their show which is where NGNL fails. When Sora and Shiro play chess youd think that theyd study their opponents playing style strategize and find/exploit weak points like in a regular chess game right? Instead they decide to make a speech to the chess pieces to encourage them and boost their ability. This writing is in no way smart and seems to come out of nowhere. And it wouldnt be a problem if it were only 1 time but it happens all the time throughout the entire show Like during the coin flip at the end of the season Sora got the coin to land on its side by moving a tile on the road backwards. How did he know the tile would be loose and what would he have done if it wasnt? In fact why didnt the miko lady just ask Sora to flip the dang coin again in a different spot? Ill tell you why because the writers tried to make Sora and Shiro seem smarter than they really are. I think Ive said that to the point where its redundant. The animation isnt anything special either. Take for example the fight between Shiro and that wolf girl. Breaking it down we get: panning shot rotating camera and shaky camera over bright gun fire in that order. They animate it in a way that creates the illusion of good animation when theres barely any. But it didnt look good it just looked awkward and distracted me from the actual battle. A large portion of the animation in NGNL is just slow pans across the screen with minimal detail. And it gets worse once you realize this show is made by people who are capable of making good animation. TLDR: No Game No Life fails because the writing is lazy and the animation is subpar.