New Game!

New Game is a joy to watch, medicine for the mind, the perfect cure after a long day of work. It doesn't do anything too notable, but at the same time, never really needed to in the first place.

Where most slice-of-life anime fumble and stumble in an effort to figure out what they want to be, New Game knows from the very start what it is. It is a cutesy tale of the mundane, a cross of sorts between Shirobako's look into the world of production, and K-ON's more fluffy elements. It is heart-warming when it decides to take ... a more meaningful turn, and never ventures into the realm of melodrama. Even if it may not contain the same depth and insight into the industry as Shirobako did, it very much succeeds in being simple, yet well-crafted entertainment.

Cute slice-of-life anime are a dime a dozen, but ones like New Game are noticeably rarer. We do not often get anime with exclusively adult characters. It is something the industry needs more of, too, as high school and middle school club activities are inherently less interesting than those of a working adult. Rather than focusing on the video game industry from the eyes of a bunch of kids who play Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy after school, it takes an insider's perspective as a result of the setting, a glimpse into the art of game production. It just never really develops beyond that glimpse, with the vast majority of the anime focusing on Aoba and friends' daily adventures rather than their actual job as game developers. More often you'll see the girls fight over pudding or air conditioning rather than, y'know, developin'. It would have been nice to see New Game do something more substantial with the setting, as it can sometimes feel more like a stage than a real place. Even as incompetent as they all are, they still end up producing an excellent, finished product by the end. If New Game were an accurate representation of game development, their game would have gotten delayed so hard it would give The Last Guardian competition.

If there is one issue with regards to the characters, it is that they never truly behave like adults. Heck, most of them could even pass for primary schoolers, a fact that New Game does not hide away from, what with most of the cast dressing as kindergarteners in the ending sequence. If lolis are your thing, hey, enjoy! But if you are expecting ladies in their early-to-mid twenties to have an interest in the opposite sex and actually behave their age, you may find yourself a bit disappointed. I think, to some extent, it is justified, as the worries and the activities of the average adult are at odds with the light-hearted, relaxing nature of the genre. To ask for change would be to ask for change entirely. And I don't think New Game needs change.

I say this because New Game is more than just pudding fights and lolis-who-also-happen-to-be-adults. There are some honestly beautiful moments throughout the show - frequent enough to be notable, but never incessant to the point that it feels like it is beating you over the head with themes of friendship and healing, as some (many) slice-of-life anime do. What is there in New Game is subtle: in one early episode, Aoba is speaking to her friend about her recent experiences with game development, and the movements and crossing of her legs suggest that she is actually very excited about what's been going on, despite her casual tone over the phone. It doesn't sound like a whole lot, but subtle moments like these are effective and heart-warming all the less. It demonstrates a great deal of talent and effort on the animators' part, and makes the case for why the quiet often rings louder than the dramatic. You don't need crying and arguing and death and angst to make us care for the characters-- you only need to show that they are human beings like us. As idealised as New Game's characters are, they feel more human than the vast majority of anime characters today, even if they may all be lacking a wee bit in the brain cell department.

New Game has ample amounts of cuteness and sexiness, if that is your sorta thing. Occasionally there will be moments such as Aoba changing clothes in the bathroom, but rather than zoom in on butts and boobies to the point of blindness, it will focus on more tasteful (and less creepy) areas like the neck and the legs. The fanservice does not ever reach the point of feeling desperate, so I think, maybe, you can watch it without feeling too bad about yourself? Aoba is also, without a doubt in my mind, one of the cutest anime ladies my eyeballs have witnessed. Her adorable smile fills me with joy and sunshine. If it weren't for miss Yazawa Nico, well...

As I've gotten older and more experienced with anime, I've started to ask myself what it is I truly look for in an anime. There are some absolutely beautiful stories out there, and there are also fun little shows like New Game which provide a laugh and a smile after a long day. There are many anime fans who swear themselves to one or the other, or battle, much as I did, over which is more meaningful. I think the answer I've come to is a bit simpler: we need both in our lives.

Nay. I should rephrase that: I just need Aoba in my life.

The CGDCT (cute girls doing cute things) genre is something most people should be quite familiar with by now. It has been one of the most time-tested and consistently successful types of anime in recent years, very rarely leading to disappointment. In particular the most popular ones tend to be those adapted from series published in some edition of Manga Time Kirara, and once again this trend has been upheld with New Game. In fact this anime isn’t just very good by CGDCT standards, but it’s possibly the best slice of life anime I’ve seen in the last year.

First and foremost, what really separates New ... Game from most series of its genre is that it takes place in adult society. Specifically it takes place at a fictional video game company called Eagle Jump, where 18-year-old Suzukaze Aoba seeks employment as a character designer after having just graduated high school. The show follows Aoba and her senior coworkers in their daily lives at the office where they’re currently working on the third installment of one of Aoba’s favorite childhood games.

Of course seeing as this is a CGDCT anime, naturally all the employees at the company just so happen to be female. Does that seem a bit overly convenient somehow? Maybe, but who cares. New Game never tries to be an accurate representation of what working in the multimedia industry is like. If that’s what you’re looking for, go watch Shirobako instead. New Game is simply about a group of lovable characters interacting with each other in a somewhat unusual setting in order to keep things a bit refreshing, and it accomplishes that goal almost flawlessly.

Aoba is extremely cute and fun to watch with her bubbly and enthusiastic personality. She’s perfect in the protagonist role for a show of this nature as she’s naturally able to generate amusing interaction between the girls, even if she’s not the one doing the talking all the time. In other words she helps the other characters shine as well, and it really shows. As far as the other girls go, there’s Aoba’s mentor Yagami Kou, who acts somewhat boy-ish a lot of the time, sleeping half-naked in the office instead of going home after work and always poking fun at others whenever possible. Then there’s her counterpart: the art director Tooyama Rin, who is a very sweet and caring person who also has a rather blatant crush on Kou. We also have the quiet girl Takimoto Hifumi who always feels uncomfortable talking face-to-face with other people, but instead is surprisingly talkative in chats, spamming emojis whenever possible, as well as a couple other girls. All-in-all, it’s a pretty diverse but wholly enjoyable character cast who pretty much never fail to entertain.

Another thing that tends to happen almost unavoidably with shows like this is subtle yuri shipping between its characters, and New Game is no exception. The most obvious example is, as briefly mentioned earlier, the relationship between Kou and Rin. While they’re supposed to be best friends who joined the company at basically the same time, the way they act around each other always seems to suggest something... more. Especially Rin always gets incredibly jealous and/or upset at little things that make it pretty clear that she isn’t looking at Kou the same way as she does the other girls. The show also provides quite a few scenes with a rather lovey dovey atmosphere just for the two of them. There are also a few other potential couplings with how Hifumi and especially Nene tend to act around Aoba for example, but these reactions feel a lot more friendly than romantic in comparison.

Something that definitely surprised me with New Game though was the unexpected amount of fanservice it has. I’m not talking about the typical moe-type fanservice you’re used to in CGDCT shows, but rather the ecchi type. These girls actually aren’t afraid to show some skin on camera. However, while I’m usually against the idea of throwing in ecchi scenes in anime where it doesn’t feel like it belongs, in New Game’s case it actually only makes the show even better, because this is honestly some of the best usage of ecchi I’ve seen in a long time. First of all it’s not very explicit (most of the time), but most importantly it actually feels natural. You never get to see a service shot when it doesn’t make sense. It’s only going one step further than they normally do in CGDCT anime by actually putting the camera inside the shower or the dressing room etcetera instead of outside it. So it never interrupts the story progression or feels forced, it just provides some eye candy along the way, and it does so without devaluating the characters at all. It doesn’t make them appear like sluts or cheap cash-ins, all it does is show off the fact that these girls are actually quite attractive physically speaking on top of being likable in person. That’s never a bad thing. Also, though this is more of a personal matter, I’m pretty sick of seeing so many physics-defying watermelon boobs flying everywhere in your average ecchi anime, so getting to see some skin on girls that actually look like normal people is actually pretty refreshing. That’s a bit of a sad realization when you think about it but oh well.

Speaking of which, another factor that makes the fanservice scenes so enjoyable to watch is how good the art is. Doga Kobo has in my mind always been one of the absolute best studios at drawing cute girls, as they’ve shown in the past with shows like Yuru Yuri, Mikakunin de Shinkoukei, Plastic Memories and Himouto, and they’ve done a great job with New Game as well. Their art always looks so clean and shiny, truly emphasizing both the cute and sexy sides of all the characters at the same time. On top of that we also get easily the catchiest OP of the season and the only one from Summer I never skipped once, so there’s an overwhelming amount of good points for this anime all-in-all.

It’s hard for me to label a CGDCT show as a masterpiece given the simplistic concepts of the genre, but New Game comes close enough. Or at least there really isn’t a whole lot left to ask for from an anime of its kind. It has a fairly original setting, an overall great character cast, fantastic art, catchy music, and some surprisingly impressive usage of fanservice. I guess you could argue that it isn’t very realistic and provides a rather skewed image of what working in the video game industry is like, but honestly I can’t think of that as valid criticism because the anime was never about that at all, nor should there have been any reason to believe it would be given the manga’s origins. So ultimately I can only give this anime a full recommendation for fans of slice of life, comedy and/or moe... and who knows, maybe even ecchi.


PS: That ass shot of Kou in episode 6 is still one of the greatest things I’ve ever seen, holy- O///O

While I was quite disappointed that the show didn't turn out to be like Shirobako, I still ended up enjoying this anime so much and it's now one of my favourite slice-of-life anime.

(If you think my reviews are too long, scroll down and read my "Pros and Cons" list or my [VERDICT]. They're basically a summary of my review)
(My Review will contain some SPOILERS)


[Story]
New Game! is basically a "cute girls doing cute things" show but it takes place in a game development studio. Before this anime started airing, I was expecting the show to be like Shirobako, an anime about making anime. I loved ... Shirobako because it isn't just some simple slice of life show about cute girls making anime. It was more than that but that's all I'm going to say since I'm writing a review about New Game! and not Shirobako.

New Game! still shows you what goes on in the game development studio but they only show you the gist of it. They don't show you what really goes on behind developing games. In other words, New Game! only shows you the simplistic side of what goes on behind developing games. They don't show you the shitty side (time constraints, delays, huge stress in staff and etc) of the game industry and they don't show you how hard it is to even work in the game industry. Actually, there was one scene where some of the characters stayed up all night just to finish a certain task but the show flips it into some lighthearted moment that makes it enjoyable for us to watch. There's no such scenes in this anime that that will make you go "Oh shit, just look at how stressed these characters are" or "This industry is a hellhole to work in".

The story, while simplistic, is surprisingly well done. The story of the show is about an 18-year old girl named Suzukaze Aoba, who just graduated high school and joined a game company named "Eagle Jump". It follows Aoba and the staff working on a game called "Fairies Story 3".
The premise is a bit unbelievable but I learned to just roll along with it and the story never got dull or boring. It was really fun watching the slice of life moments and at the same time, watching the characters develop a game in a span of 12 episodes. Yes, I was also shocked. There was a story in this show about them developing a game and finishing the game in the final episode. Usually, slice of life shows are setup in a way where they'd introduce a story in the first episode and just forget about it just to focus on cute, moe girls but in New Game!, they made sure not to forget about the story.

The comedic aspect of the show was amazing. I pretty much laughed at almost every comedic scenes in the show and none of it fell flat. For example, the scene that I found to be one of the most hilarious is the scene in Ep. 5 where Hajime and Kou were constantly turning up and down the temperature of the AC without either of them being aware of who was doing it. Another example is a favourite joke of mine where, Aoba and Kou were talking about how part-time workers generally get paid the same amount as full-time workers while working less hours and they also get paid more on their overtime. Aoba realizing that full-time workers are just a loophole to keep the wages down had me dying. It may be be funny but there's actually some truth to that.

The interactions between the characters were also fun to watch. Like watching Rin and Kou together was just adorable or watching Aoba and Hifumi trying to have a decent conversation was too cute and hilarious. Also, that "first paycheck" conversation between the characters was really interesting to watch and it made me definitely made me feel nostalgic.

The pacing of the show was well-done. I never felt bored of the show. Not even for a minute. For a 24 minute episode, each episode felt like 5 minutes. They made sure that the characters have always something interesting to say and that's one of the reasons why I found the show to be enjoyable. I also surprisingly enjoyed New Game!'s fan service. I generally hate fanservice scenes in general but New Game! is an exception. Probably because they're all over 18 and so, I don't feel uncomfortable when they show a glimpse of Hifumi's HOT steaming body xD'!
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[Art/Animation]: (10/10)
Ever since Sansha Sanyou (Another slice of life show from Doga Kobo), the studio's visuals have been pretty amazing and New Game! is no exception. The show's visuals are top-notch and the character designs are amazing. Now this is the kind of character designs that I'm looking for in a slice of life show, even though Aoba and Nenechi's character designs looks really young for their age. The show is self-aware of the fact that they look like middle schoolers even though they're 18-19.
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[Sound]: (9/10)
What can I say about this show's sountrack? I love it but don't expect anything groundbreaking though. Actually, there's that one soundtrack that really stood out to me and I ended up falling in love with that OST. I don't know the name of the OST but the OST sounds like something that you'd hear when you get this "feeling of accomplishment". If you have the name of the OST, please PLEASE leave a comment on my profile with the name of the OST because I really want to know. Now the OP and ED theme song(s).

The OP theme song is "SAKURA Skip" by fourfolium. I straight up loved this song the moment I first heard it. The song, in a whole, was really catchy. Especially the beginning part of the song where the characters were singing in front of their computers.
The ED theme song is "Now Loading!!!!" by fourfolium. The ED theme song was decent but when I went ahead and listened to the full song, it sounded much better. I even have the song downloaded on my phone. The Full ED song was much better than the 1 and a half minute version that we got.
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[Characters]: (9/10)
New Game! doesn't have a single ounce of male main/side characters. You may see one but they're just forgettable background characters. No guys in a game developing company? Almost no guys plays video games in this universe? Haha.....right..... I'm going to let that one slide since this is just a slice of life show about cute girls doing cute things.

Aside from the slice of life on a game development setting, one of the reasons why I really enjoyed this show are the characters. The cast of characters are enjoyable to watch. Their personalities are absolutely lovable and the character interactions and their dynamics are perfect. For example, one of the character dynamics that I enjoyed watching was Aoba and Hifumi. They both have different personalities (Aoba is a sweet, kind, and almost-naive girl and Hifumi is the cute introvert with a steaming hot body) but when they're both having a conversation, it leads to a whole array of cute/sweet/heart-warming/hilarious moments between them.
But...The character dynamic that I really enjoyed the most was Kou and Rin. Yea, they've been best friends for a long time but I enjoyed watching the "Yuri undertone" moments between them. They may not be an official couple but when they act like a couple, I just scream like some shipping fanboy. They're just both sp sweet and adorable together.

Also, as you may already know, in every slice of life show, there's that one annoying female character with a squeaky voice. That character, folks, is Nene Sakura or "Nenechi". At first, I found her to be really annoying and when she joined the Eagle Jump company, I was like "Oh God". Surprisingly, she turned out to be one of the best characters in the series. She made me laugh, her personality is a bit-childish but still enjoyable to watch and the interactions between her and Umiko (the military enthusiast girl) was spot-on.

I know someone's going to ask me this so I'm just going to leave this here. Who's my best girl in the series? Hifumi, hands down, is my best girl. It's mostly her introverted personality that I find cute but when they showed her naked-censored body in one of the "Bathing" episodes, I decided on the spot that she's my best girl in the series.
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[Enjoyment]: (9/10)
I just want to say that I really enjoyed this show. This was a show that I'd looked forward to every Monday and now that it's over; I'm, once again, experiencing an "Anime withdrawal symptoms". I'm probably going to go ahead and read the 4-koma manga now that I finished the anime.
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[VERDICT]
"New Game!" is a slice-of-life series that I almost discarded because I came in expecting it to be like Shirobako. While it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to be, I still enjoyed the show so much. The premise may be a bit unbelievable but the slice-of-life moments are well done and surprisingly, the show has a story. The story may be overshadowed by the abundance of slice of life scenes but we still kind-of see the progress of them developing a game and finishing it on the last episode. The characters is what takes the cake though. I didn't find any of the characters in the series that was unlikable. They all had unique and likable personalities and their interactions with each other was just perfect and is one of the reasons why I ended up loving this show. If you're a fan of slice of life shows/CGDCT type of shows then this is for you.

Now I have one more request for Doga Kobo.. Please, please make Season 2!


Pros:
+Enjoyable Slice of Life series
+Comedic aspect of the show is well done
+Amazing Visuals and Animation
+Great Soundtrack
+Fun cast of characters with enjoyable personalities
+Character dynamics are perfect
+One of the few series with enjoyable fanservice

Cons:
-Premise is a bit unbelievable but not a big deal.


[OVERALL]: (9/10)

I hate to simply reiterate what others have been saying, but no other phrase fits this anime more perfectly than "cute girls doing cute things." Anime like New Game are usually classified as moe, a genre that is one of the most common out there, with multiple titles airing every anime season. While enjoyed by some, others have become exasperated over seeing what is essentially the same basic thing continuous done over and over again in these shows without much difference between them. So what did New Game's author do to add a little flair of originality to his work? He changed the setting.

That's ... right, instead of taking place in a high school, New Game takes place in the frightening world of adults, specifically at a game development facility. Now we all know that this hardly changes anything, just the motivation and goals of the characters. Oh, wait, since the girls are in their twenties (besides eighteen year old protagonist Aoba, who looks like an absolutely adorable thirteen year old) it does mean that the girls in this moe anime can legally get drunk, which they do often.

Now at this point it may seem like I'm disappointed with this anime because it isn't "different enough." However that is not the case. I didn't watch this anime to find something "new" and "innovative," and you shouldn't either. Instead, come in to this anime expecting a bunch of lighthearted entertainment. New Game does a great job of being what it was designed to be, and that's a show filled with adorable characters, well executed comedy, and fun situations.

Plot: 5/10

New Game follows protagonist Aoba as she experiences the benefits as well as hardships of life after school. She is very determined to succeed and enters work directly after high school (I'd personally wait until I received a college degree, but each to his own). After receiving a position at her dream job, Aoba assimilates herself into the work force. She is initially nervous about meeting her co-workers, but is relieved to find that they are all very kind, though incredibly quirky, people, who also happen to be all young attractive females. I'd love to have a work environment just like that when I eventually get a job. And by that I mean having friendly co-workers. I'm definitely not referring to the "quirky and attractive girls" bit. Essentially the anime follows the daily lives of Aoba and her friends as they work to produce video games. While this anime has many adorable moments, no significant plot details can be found, hence my mediocre scoring of the plot section. Of course, some "elitist" anime watchers may nod their heads in disgust at the simplicity of the story presented in this anime, and I agree that it is quite basic. But once again, I'll iterate that for shows like New Game, one shouldn't consider the plot to be as important in scoring as it is for more advanced anime such as Fate/Zero and Steins;Gate. Instead, simply sit back, relax, and enjoy the cuteness of this show.

Art and Animation: 9.5/10

The gorgeous visuals of New Game are the reason why I started watching it in the first place. The very beginning of the first episode was animated beautifully, and the quality of the animation remained strong throughout the entirety of the anime. The characters are designed with many vibrant colors that allow them to stand out against the fastidiously animated scenery. The girls are drawn in a lovely manor, and I particularly appreciate the detail on the eyes. When Aoba is occasionally shown walking outdoors while surrounded by cherry blossoms, the entire scene looks absolutely breathtaking due to the high quality of the art. The only reason why I can't give this category a perfect score is because there aren't many backgrounds in this show, with the most reoccurring one being the somewhat simplistically designed office room where the characters work at. While it doesn't look bad, the office room is rather plain, especially when compared to the outdoor scenery.

Sound: 5/10

New Game has a group of seiyuu who manage to make their characters sound as adorable as possible, especially Yuuki Takada, the voice actress of Aoba, who is only in her second anime role. Also the more experienced Yoko Hikasa, who voices Kou Yagami, does a great job as well. The soundtrack provides a lighthearted feel to the anime and the opening and ending themes, while musically basic, have a cute and upbeat vibe. The sound is all around fine, but nothing particularly stands out.

Characters: 6.5/10

It is quite apparent that many of the characters seem to possess the same qualities as characters from similar shows. However one must understand that there must be a reason that the same personalities are constantly reused (and I vehemently refuse to believe that it's just lazy writing). It's probably because these traits just work the best for the characters in these settings. Each girl in New Game has her own little quirks that are fun and cute to watch, and it just works. While they may not be anything special on their own, the girls in this show manage to keep the viewer entertained throughout the course of the anime, and I'd call that a success.

Entertainment: 6/10

This was a fun show to watch. I smiled and sometimes even let out a little chuckle during a few of the scenes. Each episode was filled with the adorable cast getting themselves into funny and cute situations as they proceed with their daily lives. Each episode is structured in a similar way, so, depending on the individual, watching this show can get boring as it progresses. However I personally feel like each episode provided fresh comedic material and new and interesting situations, so I remained entertained throughout the majority of the anime.

Overall: 6/10

By now you should realize that New Game and shows like it don't have any deep and significant plot elements and don't boast characters with ample portions of development and depth. However that's not their point. They're made to provide tons of lighthearted comedy and entertainment and showcase adorable and lovable characters doing, well, cute things. New Game is a nice show all around, and while it did not bring anything "awesome" or "epic" to the table, it was still enjoyable to watch.

New Game's goal as an anime is to be a mediocre "cute girls doing cute things" show. It succeeds in that regard.


Normally I try to review an anime in the context of what it was trying to be. I don't expect action anime to seriously delve into character's inner minds. I don't expect slapstick comedies to have a coherent plot. I found it difficult to accept this show for what it was trying to be.

There are no well written characters, there is no interesting story, the setting is barely passable and there is no "point" that the show is attempting to make. There ... is absolutely no reason to watch it unless you are a fan of "cute girls doing cute things" shows.

More power to the people who enjoy this kind of show, but I personally will continue to avoid watching it and it's ilk.

New Game is a unique title that holds its' own individuality among other " let's create-a_____" type shows.

Story 6.5/10

New game is supposed to be about an 18 or 19 year old girl Aoba Suzukaze, whom after graduating High-School joins the game company Eaglejump... You know what, you can just read all this in the synopsis…

Getting the most difficult things out the way early, the major re-occurring flaw in this title is consistent story-telling and maintaining the plot. Rather than focusing on the main plot which is completing the game Fairies Story 3 (I think that’s' the title.) The plot is completely detoured by somewhat ... unnecessary and intrusive sub plots or as the young people say “filler.” Some may argue that this is a bad thing however; I believe that a majority of the filler shown are quite tolerable for the most part. This is because if the show stuck with a straight-forward approach, the entire series would be fast paced, avoid paying attention to details and more than likely uninteresting. Creativity and freedom to explore outside the office, the characters workplace, is shown to make the show more about "cute girls, doing cute things" while making video games or just having free time. It would not sell very well with serious, fast paced dialogue and actions. The slow pacing allows viewers the opportunity to not only see but, butt-cheeks, understand who the characters in the story are.

The story introduces an all-female cast, that had always left the possibility of yuri or "girl on girl romance" lurking. This "unsurprisingly" caught my interest. It made me want to see what direction the story would go in if they actually allowed romance between the characters. Fan service featured through-out the story appeared to be forced. I do not know any developer or person that has to strip into their underwear in order to be comfortable enough to work. I understand that there are people in reality that like to strip down to fight, or to "play" video games for money but in a workplace environment that isn't porn or modeling hell even sports, I doubt it.
The camera moving onto areas of the ladies bodies like their asses, panties, boobies, etc. were in bad taste too. I am unsure whether or not the fan-service is displayed in the manga this way. However, I would hope they go for a more naturally approach next time.

Overall the story department could have used some patching up (Ha, get it? patching more game puns are coming) especially in the presentation and story-telling. They needed to just stick with "one" or at the very least "two" plots at a time and leave it at that. I felt that it was just all over the place to the point where a majority of it just came off as filler... bad filler. After a few episodes you're most likely going to realize that New Games' main plot isn't the most important thing. It's' constantly side-tracked, and inconsistent. I ranked it a 6.5 out of 10 from IGN for the effort.

Characters 7/10

The characters introduced in New Game have one-sided personalities and act upon common.. or typical anime archetypes. Archetypes like the gundere girl, dandere girl, moe girls, etc. Now character growth or development does exist in this title. Each girl learns something new about each other which makes them grow closer together, like a work-place family should. The girls all share a common goal to bond with and I like seeing them interact with each other, they really show of that teamwork! I would rank the characters a 7.0 out of 10, featuring Dante from Devil may cry. These video game references, are they working?

Art & Animation 7/10

Art and animation was pretty solid. The use of 3D models, digital art work and software like Autodesk's maya were present, although altered as to avoid copy-right. With anime similar to New Game, it’s not uncommon to see little references to real programs. Having the characters use programs on real world tablets like Wacoms’ and computers show the viewers all the effort and struggle developers... well most developers go through in order to create & finish a project. Character designs were pretty nice for the majority of the series. As mentioned earlier, the characters are designed to be “cute.” Their “cuteness” or appeal rather is the bait used to hook and reel you in. The background settings are pretty nice to look at. The office is the most appealing in particular. It is full of work related objects, personal items that the characters collect etc. All objects animated are neat, vibrant, and standout a bit.

Sound 5/10
The soundtrack was “okay” at best. This is a show that I wouldn’t consider even downloading a single track from. I was not impressed with the background music, opening title song, outro song, etc. The music composed just seems to play in the background and doesn’t add any sort of “enhancement” or “ambiances” to the show. With titles like these, music really isn’t the strong-point though. This was rather upsetting too because Hajime Hyakkoku (worked on K-ON and Kokkuri-san) is a great composer. Voice actors were pretty good. I think that they all did an amazing job with their perspective roles. Lastly, I think that each actor’s voices matched their characters personalities perfectly. Overall I think the sound could’ve been better however, music wasn’t the shows focal point.

Enjoyment -/-
I’ll say this; the show wasn’t the best thing out this season. Compared to the other shows I was watching, new game didn’t offer as much enjoyment. Yeah its’ cute however, that’s about the only thing it has going for it. The story was weak; the plot was a mess and the events happening lacked any excitement. As mentioned earlier New Game is literally just “Cute girls, doing cute things.” There is always “this” sort of show every season. Almost a majority of them are the same thing with different circumstances. I cannot say that I didn’t enjoy New Game however; I can say that it wasn’t as good as I would’ve liked it to be so I left enjoyment blank at the moment. I highly doubt I'll ever come back to edit this review.

Overall,

The show is a mess! The plot is all over the place, characters are the only main attraction and astonishingly, Composer Hajime Hyakkoku didn’t put forth his best effort composing songs. I simply was not impressed with a majority of the features that New Game had to offer. While I wanted to give this show an overall rating of 7/10 for introducing cute and friendly character appeal along with fantastic environments & animation, I simply cannot deny the fact that bad story-telling coupled with messy a messy story & plot were a huge fault. I gave the show a 6/10 "Fair" because I believe that the show could've had more to offer. They stuck with a route that people are more familiar with and for the most part it worked... and I think that is fair enough.

NEW GAME! is an anime about the development of a video game so I can't help but compare this Moe anime to Bakuman (anime about making a manga) and Shirobako (anime about making an anime).

If you have watched one or both of the animes I've mentioned, don't expect that you'll get the same kind of story here, because unlike:

(1) Bakuman, it does not focus much on the development of a video game (as Bakuman focused on the making of a manga, with details on what mangakas do and does not.).

(2) Shirobako, you will only see the character design part of the gaming development, and ... some debugging and motion but they're not that much explained to the viewer (Meanwhile Shirobako has the main character as the production assistant who basically is like a jack-of-all-trade secretary so she was able to mingle and know the job of different people working for the company.).

What NEW GAME!'s flaw in my opinion is that it focused too much on the daily life of the main characters outside their work, yes, it gives them character development but I felt it was unnecessary for a 13 episode anime, and what I liked about Bakuman and Shirobako is that they explain most things that are foreign to the viewers ears. NEW GAME! did explain some but most of them are basically work etiquette that aren't exclusive for the gaming industry. Also, as this is a Moe anime, it is like watching K-ON! which means less video game development and more eating cakes or donuts in NEW GAME!'s case.

The characters are very cliche though, Hifumi-senpai is the ultra-shy, Hajime-san is the jock or sexy one. I think that only Yagami-san got the character development and she isn't even the main characters. Aoba-chan, the main character didn't stood out for me. Nenechi, Aoba's best friend was likable and their duo with Ahagon-san (I mean Umiko-san) was very funny but if at the sidelines they told us how debugging works instead of looking at video game girl's panties.

The opening song of the anime was catchy but ending song wasn't. There's not that much music that stood out for me.

The best part of this anime I think is the trailer of their finished anime, but I think if we knew what hardships they did just to make this game, it would have been better. I mean they did went through hardships but it's not like it's that dramatic which I think should have been included.

Overall, I enjoyed the anime but it was kinda underwhelming due to how it is about making a game, but it focused more on hardships of working and leadership problems.

Ah the workplace. A place where employees finds themselves anxious about their days at job especially if it’s their first time there. Just ask Aoba Suzukaze, a girl that came right out of high school who looks like a middle school kid. However, what if a person finds their “dream job”? A job that they’ve always wanted and finally gets the chance to make their life into a miracle?

I have to admit, New Game is a series that has always been rumored to get an anime adaptation. It’s popular in Japan and there has been many fanfiction about the series. So when the time came, ... expectations of the show became exciting. Remember Shirobako? Think of New Game as something similar although it has its own principles. Essentially, both series takes place at a production company and focuses on jobs that are related to their field of study. As the title may imply, Aoba gets involved in the gaming industry (Eagle Jump) that opens doors to imaginations. What’s also interesting is that she works directly under a person that inspired her to get the job in the first place as well as her favorite game. Put pieces and pieces together and you’ll soon realize that Aoba is living the miracle dream.

For what’s worth, New Game is essentially a slice of life story. There’s no linear plot that spans over multiple course of episodes but rather concentrates on some meaningful ideas about the premise. However, don’t always expect New Game to focus everything about making games as the show also likes to have fun with its gimmicks. That being said, the series has a small yet very colorful cast of characters. Every one of them has their own personality and role in the series. For instance, the main female protagonist Aoba is a character designer who works under Kou Yagami, the lead character designer of the company. From there, we also have other roles such as art directors, debuggers, programmers, motion designer, and so on. It’s actually quite realistic in a sense that these roles all come together as we see the girls work together as a team to make games. Furthermore, Aoba develops connections with her co-workers that makes her into a more interesting person.

That being said, the series itself blooms with personality. It mostly comes from the characters. Aoba may be the stereotypical new kid at work but some of the others are veterans with their own established positions. For instance, Kou appear to be as a well-rounded lead character designer but also very lazy and carefree, a contrast to Umiko Ahagon’s role as a programmer. Kou’s relationship with Rin Toyama (the art director) also implies some yuri undertones that will raise some eyebrows. Meanwhile, the show has more timid characters such as Hifumi Takaimoto and Aoba’s friend Nene Sakura. And of course, who can forget the family girl Yuri Iijima? The main point is the show establishes itself with these characters and their personalities, all quite diverse but comes together in one union.

Most of the series is filled with comedy rather than drama. Although there are occasionally some episodes where circumstances gets tense, there’s minimal drama that evokes emotions. It’s a pretty lighthearted show that portrays the working environment with a realism while having fun with a lot of its gimmicks. There’s also a lot of ship tease between characters with some that may feel more obvious than others. Furthermore, the show sometimes goes a little beyond usual realism we’ll see in the workplace such as using airsoft guns by Umiko or Kou sleeping in her underwear at work and getting away with it. Still, the show itself is more or less a comedy-slice of life story so nothing more should be expected beyond that.

New Game is a cute show so of course, it has cute character designs. The most obvious of this is Aoba who looks like a middle school kid. Sakura also falls under a similar category. In contrast, Kou and Umiko gives off more of a mature vibe while other characters such as Hifumi falls around the middle. Nonetheless, the series itself maintains its lighthearted image every episode with the cartoony yet vibrate designs. There are fanservice as well with Kou being the guiltiest. Most of it is harmless though that inspires more of imaginations than actual shock value.

Soundtrack and voice mannerism in the series is one of the lesser dynamic features. In fact, I actually find the voice mannerism a bit irritating at times for characters like Aoba and Sakura. Still, most of the music style works for the show with the gentle OST to portray a lighthearted working environment. The OP and ED theme songs are also very catchy and hard to ignore.

Why should you watch New Game? The answer is obvious. If you fancy a show to relax yourself with, then this is definitely something to check off from the bucket list. Every episode depicts the office life with antics that you may or may not be familiar with. Characters are also what makes this series really shine. It’s a series that blooms with personality and comedy to bring you entertainment.

I think 2016 has been a great year for anime. We've had a number of excellent series come out, including the second season for Shokgeku no Soma and a new season of D. Gray-Man. However, while we've had a lot of good anime, there were still a lot of bad anime. Fortunately for everyone involved, New Game is one of those anime that is actually highly entertaining despite not sounding all that exciting.

So, the premise for this anime is pretty basic. You've got Aoba Suzukaze, who, immediately after graduating from high school gets a job with a video game company. Now, I'm not gonna go ... into how unrealistic this is, nor am I going to harp on about how someone who doesn't know how to model would never get a job in character modeling. While this is unrealistic, I don't think it necessarily matters, and to me, it doesn't take anything away from the series.

Like most slice of life anime, this show doesn't have any real plot. It's basically giving us the daily life of Aoba as she works at creating a video game with her fellow game developers. For the main cast outside of Aoba, you've got Hifumi Takimoto, Yagami Kou, Ijima Yun, Shinoda Hajime, and Tooyama Rin. Perhaps not surprisingly, all of these characters are girls, and all of them are exceedingly cute.

Each member of the cast seems to represent a different life-style. Hifumi is an excellent character modeler, but she's very shy around people and doesn't like to talk much, though she's apparently super friendly when texting. Ijima is sort of like the loli of the group. Not only is she short and young-looking, but she wears classic lolita clothes and has a tea set that she sometimes breaks out during work hours. Shinoda is the enthusiastic and always moving animator. She strikes me as highly athletic, and Tooyama Rin is the hard working and respectable art director. All of them have a personality that vastly differs from the other, which sometimes leads to comedic missunderstandings.

My favorite character of the series, however, has to be Yagami Kou—and no, it's not just because she likes to wear nothing but a pair of panties while she's sleeping. Yagami is probably the most interesting of the group outside of Aoba, and I would say she's even more interesting than our main character. She's always staying late at the office to get her work done, which makes her seem very dedicated to her profession. She lives, eats, and breaths character design. However, for as hard working as she is, she has some really odd quirks and seems super lazy about things like her appearance. Of course, the biggest of those quirks is that when she sleeps at the office, she doesn't like to wear pants.

Like I was saying before, a lot of the anime is based on these characters interacting with each other and causing some comedic misunderstandings. A great example of this was in episode 5, where Rin and Yagami were working late. The topic of their conversation somehow ended up on how Yagami always sleeps in her underwear. Yagami said that it's a lot more comfortable and that Rin should try it. Rin refuses. However, after Yagami falls asleep, Rin wakes up and decides to see what it's like. Naturally, Yagami wakes up to find Rin without pants on and teases the hell out of her.

This sort of interaction is what makes this anime so worth watching. Yes, there isn't much of a story, but not every anime needs to have a story to be enjoyed. It's the little things, the small details, and the every day interactions, that make it such a fun show to watch.

Something else that I want to discuss is the artwork. Now, I don't usually talk about the art because I honestly don't care very often. Artwork in anime has become pretty generic these days thanks to studios like A-1 pictures, who you'll probably know as the people that produced such anime as Sword Art Online and Asterisk Wars.

The artwork for New Game is incredibly cute. The colors for the characters are all very bright and vibrant, and their eyes are large and have a reflective quality that makes them seem more expressive than most anime characters. This also gives them an innocent appearance, which is used to further highlight the nature of this anime.

The nice use of vibrant colors for the characters and plainer colors for the background serves to emphasize what this anime is about and makes the characters pop out more. There are also times where the world around our characters will disappear to be replaced by sparkles and various colorful backgrounds. This enhances the cuteness to “oh, my god too much fluff!” levels. While that can sometimes detract from a story, in this case, I feel like it merely highlighted what this story was about.

One thing you'll notice as you continue watching this anime is that there are no male characters, and there shouldn't be. First off, this anime isn't a romance. It's just an anime about cute girls doing cute things. Second, part of the charm to this anime are the various yuri moments that happen between our characters.

The perfect example of this is actually the first meeting between Aoba and Yagami. When they stand face to face for the first time, Aoba blushes, the background changes to one of vibrant rainbows, and a heart suddenly pops up between the two. There are numerous moments similar to this one, which helps set the tone and mood of the series.

If there was one failing of this show, it would be episode 6, which is the episode that doesn't involve Aoba working with her colleagues. I understand that the purpose of this episode was to show what everyone's life was like outside of work. However, compared to the other episodes, where I got to enjoy watching all of the cute and funny moments between Aoba and her co-workers, this one didn't have the same level of humor. That said, it does help introduce Nene, Aoba's best friend who becomes a part-time worker as a game tester, so I guess you could say this episode was sort of like an introduction episode.

All that said, the biggest question on everyone's mind—at least, I hope it's the biggest question on everyone's mind—is whether or not New Game is Worth watching. That would be up to you. I personally found this show a joy to watch. If watching an anime that's about cute girls doing cute things is something you like, then this show is definitely for you.

If you are stressed after your busy life,here's the anime for you-New Game,which is a unique anime with New Ideas in every episodes.When you Watch this anime,you'll find your time is consuming fast because of how relaxing this anime is.The comedy moments,enjoyable time,ugh!Its revolving my brain!!!

STORY(8/10)(35%)

The story revolves around the protagonist Aoba,who is a little girl working in a gaming company.This anime is about Aboe's daily life,her working schedule,daily life with her childhood friends and her working partners.Its seem simple but it's actually kind of decent because this anime is filled with LOTS of hilarious moments and it's time consuming,while different events in the story ... keep the plot moving forward to the success of the Fairy Tails Story 3 and it's definitely unique and relaxing.

But don't think New Game! is just a comedy show,it also contains touching moments in later episodes and different kinds of feelings when characters saw different things.For example,Aboe felt excited when making games,felt happy to work with working partners.......I really like how the story is trying to impress us with different ideas and feelings.

However,what comes good,must has its flaws.In the case of New game,story seems unable to connect each episode around.In new game,each episodes are new ideas,which is a good way to deliver ideas in New Game.However,it failed to focus in just a few ideas mainly,which makes the ideas are completely shattered and unable to connect each episode.

Well,at least this problem doesn't appear at the ending in New Game.I enjoyed that the ending of new game concludes all the story elements and also told the future development of the game company.

ANIMATION(9/10)(10%)

The animation of New game is surely pleasant to watch because of high quality of art.Bright colour visuals and the character designs are cute and pretty,which fits the comedy style of this anime well.But if they could use more special visuals on the background or the environment,it would be better.

SOUND(8/10)(10%)

New game could able to use little amount of soundtracks but it's inadequate.If they could able to add more soundtracks,which fits the the theme,it would add more relaxing and hilarious elements in it.

Fortunately,the op and ed of New Game are the most remarkable songs in the whole show.The fast and smooth lyrics with fast-paced soundtracks inserted inside both songs could really take off your negative emotions.Op and ed will also change too when the style or the main idea of the story changed,which also fits the theme well.

CHARACTERS(8/10)(25%)

Characters in new game act as characters in a hilarious drama,their reaction towards every moments could able to add hilarious elements inside the comedy,which makes the whole show full of laughing moments.The characters inside the show also grow as well.The characters in New game inspires each other and they will make changes immediately,which Im pleasant to see characters growth in this anime.

Some of the story events also revolve around the likes and dislikes of a certain character.For example,Yagami likes to wear pants when no one is in the office at night,which shows Yagami likes to do whatever she wants without any limitations and hardworking.Such events could let me know more about characters in an interesting way.Therefore,I like this kind of character development.

Though I think the characters design are a bit simple and the side characters,like hajime and Aoba,are likely needed more description,such as:adding some more flashbacks and their past,it'll be better but the overall character development is still laudable.

ENJOYMENT(9/10)(20%)

You just can't miss this anime because of how enjoyable it is.Hilarious moments,relaxing op and ed,you just can't miss this one out.This anime works out perfectly when you are in depression or stressed after your busy life and may also give you positive feelings as well.Though the plot isn't the most thrilling and inspiring,you should give New game a try.It may give you a new impression towards daily life.Therefore,if you're feel bored,try New Game :D

Overall:8.3/10(A)<Outstanding>

What i really didn't like about this show is the fact that the story have nothing about with the reality in the video game industry.i was spectating some serous and painful story about someone who want to make a life in the video game industry but NO, the main character arrive to this company and all was so easy to do!!!!!! i have spend more than a year learning the bases of 3D (modeling,texture,lighting, rendering, concept art and animation and i can tell you that you CAN NOT learn 3d in some weeks! I remember i did my first 3d character ... after 4 month learning 3D, and my character was really BAD done, UGLY as hell whit ERRORS everywhere. i means, how does someone get a job in a company who have done a game for PS3 without any knowledge about what 3D is? I really get a little angry after episode 2 of this show. This have no sense. in an other hand, why there are only girls in this studio?? As i know, in this industry there are more mens than womens. The writer of this story have not idea about what he/she was writing. Does the writer know what unwrap is?? well, it is a painful and required job to do before texture any object that you create in 3D and i didn't see the main character doing this kind of stuff with her 2 creations!!!!!!!!

Anyway, im ok with the simple art, sound and characters done in this show.

so, if you like the cute girls doing cute things you will enjoy this show but if you are looking for some solid story that are more close to the reality of the industry of entertainment i recommended you to see bakuman, nodame cantabile, Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso or even skip beat.

This is NOT spoiler free, you have been warned.

New Game! Is freaking amazing and has some of the best cast of characters in a moe show to rival love live and K-On!

New Game! is an anime from the summer of 2016 (winter for me, I'm Australian) produced by kadokawa Shoten and delfi sound based on the manga of the same title.
The manga was written by Tokunou and drawn by Shoutarou. (If I got the two mixed up please correct me in a civilised manner) the manga begun distribution in January 28th only three - almost four - years ago in 2013 and is still being ... published.
Both manga and anime are comedy slice of lifes. Under the studio Doga Kobo New game! Begun airing on July 4th 2016 and the final episodes aired on September 19th of the same year making for a total of 12 episodes each around 24 mins long.
The show will take you about 4.8 hours to watch and is available on just crunchyroll as far as I can tell (be legal guys) if I missed a LEGAL way to watch it then please be civilised in your corrections.

As a 4-Koma slice of life, the story of New Game is surpassingly present. Usually these things have a loose story just to give the characters a reason to be together and make jokes and while this is true there's more too it then usual.
Aoba is a young girl (she's only 18) who has just finished school and has decided to jump straight into the workforce rather then attended a university.
The company EagleJump makes games, in fact it made Aoba’s favorite game and the game that made her want to be a game designer. The story follows her and other members of the art division (as well as a motion member, programmer, play tester and director) as they make this game.
Despite being a situation to have these characters all working together in order to set up jokes there's is a large amount of attention paid to the game and its creation, we see things like people sleeping at the workplace, energy drinks, work being done and stressing over deadlines.
It pays more attention than the average 4-Koma slice of life normally does and it's very good, but that's all it is, just good, as nothing too much outside of this happens and everything else is jokes and character interactions.

I hope you like reading because New Game has 9 characters of importance, yes a majority of these are technically supporting characters but I feel like they are all important and I like them all a lot, so I want to talk about each of them.
Plus there's also the fact that characters is New Games! Strongest point and I'm giving this a high score so I should focus on what made me love it so much so you can understand.
So I'll start with the protagonist Aoba Suzukaze, I really like Aoba, she's pretty cool. Aoba is a character designer, she joins the company not knowing how to make 3D characters so she's just made to go through a workbook first learning the basics and getting a hang of the program.
I really like this as I do 3D modelling in my university course and we use the industry standard, so obviously so does Aoba. Seeing her use the same program I use on a somewhat regular basis (I don't have the best attendance) is cool.
However later on Aoba ends up making a bunch of NPCs all of which have to be done with great detail and made with hard work even if they aren't that important.
Since she joined late, the majority of her work are these villager NPCs, she gets to make one important character though and so the show gives this character a fair bit of attention in the game's promotional material since it was made by the protagonist.
Aoba interacts with every single other character, being the protagonist makes that kind of a must. However I haven't got to those characters yet since I'm doing her first so I'll get to her relationships with others when talking about the others.
Aoba kinda does and at the same time doesn't have development, in the way development is commonly used in anime I would say that Aoba doesn't change throughout the series in the end she's the same person really just with new friends and a vastly different life but only due to her work, the development for her is her relations to others and how her life has evolved due to her job.
And she also gets better at the job as times go by, she gets quicker and quicker at making models and such. However for a show like this development isn't really needed, I like Aoba from the get go just like every other character and we learn things about them at a steady rate making them grow into what they already are in the eye of the viewer since we aren't told everything about them right off the bat.
To summarise, I love the chick from New Game!

Kou Yagami is the art team's lead and the second most important person on the team, she leads the designs and concepts and everything art and design related has to get her approval first.
I really like Kou, she's pretty chill and a good person, she expects high quality work from her team members and it's clear how much effort she herself puts in.
She's first seen sleeping at work without pants on and although the show has many shots of her in her panties and butt shots there pretty short and it's not a massive thing they use in every single episode and as the show goes on and things start to get a bit more serious towards the end they use it less and less.
She’s not a fan service device is what I'm saying. Despite her somewhat lax and chill personality she does put the effort in. And she only sleeps at work majority of the time because she is working through the night, she puts in the work and someone like Aoba says multiple times that she aspires to be like Kou.
Kou also did the character designs for Aoba's favorite game and the game that made her decide to become a game designer ‘fairies story’ so of course Aoba has huge respect for her as the character designs were the main aspect that had an effect of Aoba.
So Aoba and Kou start off with a strong teacher and student vibe, Aoba needs to learn how to 3D model so Koe gives her the book Aoba followed and she slowly learns how to do it.
Eventually Kou gives her a job to make a villager NPC, Aoba spends many episodes working on this one villager as its her first and every time she tries to submit it to Kou, Kou says it needs to be re done and this done over and over as Aoba slowly gets better and better at making a model.
Like I said before Kou demands good work from her members and Aoba only respects her for it rather than despising. The two slowly form a better friendship as Aoba gets more familiar with the work place, also starts spending nights and gets good work done fast. The two have a very close friendship by the end, in the final episode (I gave a spoiler warning remember) we find out that Kou use to be the art director but was too strict and caused a new employee to quit which caused her to revoke the role and go back to lead designer.
She gets offered to move back into the AD position as the new AD is getting a promotion and so they yet again need a new one, Kou declines however Aoba consoles her saying that she would follow her and they each both have a touching moment to end the show off.
Kou also interacts with everyone as she has an important role within the game's creation however only Aoba and Rin matter. I'll get to Rin next so I'll talk about their relationship there.
Kou actually gets a fair bit of development towards the end, as I said there's the whole inner battle she has with whether she should be the AD again or not as it didn't work out so well last time. Also at the games release party she has a speech and in it says thank you which the director clearly states is a rare thing to hear from Kou and something that she thought she would never hear Kou say.
This of course is only small but it defiantly shows in Kous movements and expressions for the rest of the episode that she is very much not happy with the new AD suggestion. Her talk with Aoba is one of the best moments in in the show for sure and leads to a nice end.
Kou has an interesting design, she has blue eyes and blond hair so although it's never said she looks like she's white, but her last name is Yagami so I don't really know what's up with that.
She's very pretty and very young for someone in such a high position in the field not even 30 years old, she usually wears the same things and her lower area switches between being jeans or a long brown dress, or she's just wearing panties as she sleeps at the office. A good design overall and I really like it.
There's also one episode where she gets changed into really cute clothes since she has to do an interview and photoshoot for a magazine to promote the game, it really is cute despite Kou basically hating the whole situation.

Rin Tooyama is the actual AD. She joined the same time as Kou and is also the same age as her. Rin is the calm level head of the art team, she had to direct and control everything after all, she basically does all the planning and makes sure people are doing there work and reach deadlines on time, you know, like what a producer for a movie does.
I really like Rin and before the final 4-5 episodes she was definitely my favourite character, she has one moment where she goes down to her panties like Kou, very good stuff. Anyway moving along, as a director most of Rins work is actually in meetings and done off to the side and that's also a bunch of boring stuff, at one point I saw a Gantt chart on her computer which made me laugh because I hate those little suckers.
Just gonna say it now but as someone who studies game development at a university level I can relate to a lot of this stuff and it makes me smile, a personal thing but I also have friends who don't study this and love it, some more then me so don't think you have to know the industry well to enjoy the show, just someone that added extra enjoyment for me.
Because of Rins work most of it's not actually shown to us, the work is focused on the art team and the last few episodes also give the play testing a pretty big focus, but most other things even the programming is mostly glossed over.
Because of this we have to turn to character interactions as to why I enjoyed Rin so much. Rin and Kou are totally gay for each other, just gonna say that right off the bat. You like Yuri undertones? well Rin and Kou are the gay girls. Although it's a little more than undertones with both of them kinda knowing that everyone else sees them as girlfriends.
One of my favorite moments is when Aoba is sad about having a fight with a friend and Kou goes over to her in a somewhat sad state too and says ‘Rin dumped me’ rather than showing shock or pointing out that they aren't dating Aoba's just like ‘oh, I see’ to which Kou tells her it was just a joke.
But that basically shows you what kind of relationship they have that other characters don't really step around how gay they are together. It's cute and I like there interactions, it's all nice stuff and they both support each other's, it's not super tsundere or anything which is nice, sometimes I just wants girls to have gay undertones while also just acting like the good friends that they are.
Rin doesn't have too many interactions outside of Kou. Her job as AD makes her have to be series, even her Aoba interactions are pretty small time and while it's definitely there, no moments stand out to me.
Rin also has a nice design, she has red hair that's basically just like Makis hair (from love live, if you don't know love live then go commit sudoku) she also wears very formal clothes but it's like formal pretty, like really light colours and nice frilly parts, she's a very pretty lady while also being a lot of fun.
She also thinks Aoba is a little kid at the start, everyone does but she does it first so she gets to own that joke, haha.

Yun Iijima, Yun is cute. Yun is another member of the character design team. She's kinda odd in her importance to the story, she doesn't talk much about the work she's done and most of her gags are about her wanting to lose weight which has been done to death in anime. And the Dandy talk gag which is one of the funniest ones in the show, but despite that she's a mixed bag of importance.
She's not as important or used as much as Hajime (more on her later) but she's just slightly more important than Hifumi (also more on her later) although she has cute siblings that are in just one small moment of one episode to make a joke, a recurring one that's mostly okay. And sets up a pretty good joke later.
However Yun's best moment is definitely when she joins in on the Dandy talk and also when she goes to mess around with the cooling unit to try and make it hot so she can sweat to lose weight at work, not the funniest thing on its own but the setup that leads to this moment is what makes it funny.
Yun however works right next to Aoba and she does a lot more early on as she pulls out a table they out in the middle of the work area for the art team and enjoy tea and stuff during lunch, however they kinda stop doing this after 4 or so episodes as they get more focused on the work and they have more characters become important and thus can do more interactions and don't need to focus on just the art team as much.
After all of the nine characters only 5 are actually a part of the art team. Which is just a little over half so there's way more to work with once more are in.
This puts Yun in a weird spot but despite this I really enjoyed her, maybe it was just her simple design and simple way she just kinda glided through the show, or maybe she's reminding me of nene too much (also more on her later)
Overall I liked Yun even though she kinda lost most of her importance and her wanting to lose weight is funny, it's just a little overdone.
She also doesn't have that many relations, she just kinda friends with everyone in the art team and Hajime and at the start I really thought she would be more gay with Hajime but they kinda just stopped talking since Yun wasn't doing much. Just kinda in the background working away and thrown into scenes that involve the whole team.
Like when they go to a convention Yun is just kinda there with Aoba and Hajime and she doesn't really seem to do much, I'm not saying I don't like her, cause I love her and she's definitely not useless like chitose from orange was (shameless plug, go read my orange review) but yer, she's a weird one to talk about because she does stuff but none of it stands out.

Guess now is a good time to talk about Hajime Shinoda, Hajime is not on the art team but rather she's on the motion team, she makes the characters move and yer basically makes movement and motion happen in various points throughout the game and this workload is spread out throughout multiple members of that team.
However there are too many member in the motion team, so they can't actually fit them all into the same office space so Hajime has to do all her work in the art team's office space.
Hajime is pretty cool, I definitely enjoyed her. Despite being a member of the motion team she's obviously much closer with everyone in the art team but that's to be expected due to her position.
She starts off seeming to be pretty close with Yun and I guess in the end that's still true but there not nearly as gay as Rin and Kou for instance. Hajime eventually moves on to be closer with Aoba at least in my opinion.
Hajime is good set up for jokes too, the one where she thinks she lost her wallet is pretty good and I've already said how much I love the Dandy talk gag and Hajime is the catalyst for it (kinda Aoba too)
Hajime has a close friendship with Aoba and wants to try and act like a Senpai to her since Hajime and Yun were the most recent recruits before Aoba came along and it's cute how grown up she tries to be.
I'd say Hajime doesn't really grow that much, she's kind of a simple character when it really gets down to it and she's defiantly the same in the end as she was at the start with no real defining moments. Still a really good character though.
I also really like her character design, Hajime bikes and she also wears not much clothing since she'd get hot biking and the period of the games creation seems to mostly take place in summer.
Hajime doesn't wear much, her shirts rarely have sleeves and she usually has booty shorts on, this and the show makes sure you know hot fit and nice her body is and I'm just saying it makes for some great shots.
Mainly this one elevator scene where Aoba observes her bottom to top and we get a nice shot of how good she looks, this also later leads into the air conditioner situation which I also found pretty funny. Again a good Hajime set up.

Hifumi Takimoto is a kinda weird character. I kinda liked her at the start a little bit but as the show went on everyone overshadowed her and she slowly faded into the background.
Hifumi is a shy girl who has trouble interacting with people and has a shy quiet voice and I'm so fucking sick of these characters.
I guess a lot of people like them it I don't, these quite off to the side characters are not nice to watch, I don't even think it's cute, it's always the same thing and I'm pretty sick of it.
You know what I mean right, the shy girls who doesn't talk much or under her breath and is a little weird, I don't know if she's a popular character for this show it's doesn't seem that way to me but I might be wrong.
Either way I didn't enjoy her that much cause she's the same bland thing I've seen over and over.
In the first few episodes she has a lot of prevalence and seems to be the girl who Aoba will be gay with but somewhere around episode 4 or 5 she just stopped being a part of anything. Her shy attitude doesn't mix well with the other cast members.
So while everyone else is off doing something fun she's just in the background doing her work or when everyone else in the office is talking she's too shy to get involved.
It's a serious problem because it means that she just loses all relevance and as you get closer to the end she just doesn't matter at all!
She's also a member of the art team so she's always there maybe in the background or having one line here or there or being used for a joke where she doesn't even talk, but I don't care because she was always bland and now she doesn't even matter.
I don't hate it, it's just that I don't care for her and she does have her uses unlike some characters in other shows.
Like I said she basically only talks to Aoba throughout the entire show and so she has very few interactions, even more so given that she just stops doing anything shorty after the show starts.
She has one good moment after she drops out of importance and that's at least with Aoba. Hifumi is trying to get over her shyness (I'VE SEEN THIS PLOT A THOUSAND TIMES SOMEONE STAB ME PLEASE!) by becoming friends with Aoba, she says that she wants to befriend Aoba but is worried that Aoba might be mean.
Which is stupid by the way cause Aoba is super nice.
Anyway Hifumi tries to help Aoba out with an errand and afterward when Hifumi gets all shy Aoba comments on how it's cute and that she might make her get flustered again.
Aoba is just having a fun tease and even says she's joking before skipping off but Hifumi takes it the wrong way and thinks Aoba is being a little devil and we get this nice cheesecake shot of Aoba is a devil outfit and it's pretty good.
So Hifumi has no growth, obviously she can't even get over her damn shyness and it's the downfall of her. She tries to break out of it towards the end but it's too little too late and outside of that one Aoba scene she's still stays irrelevant in the end.
Not too much lost cause as I said she's generic, but she could of been more, a shame really.
He design is also kinda bland, there's just not much going on and not much to look at and you're also not going to be seeing her much since she doesn't do anything.
If it weren't for the her massive relevance in the beginning and that fact that she's all over the opening then I would be hesitant to say she's an important character, yet here we are.

Now let's talk about Nene Sakura, A.K.A best girl!
I love nene, she is the most adorable thing ever and I love her and I want to hug her and I hope New Game! gets figures because I want one of her and she is just so great.
Now we getting into some meat!
Nene is pretty important, early on she doesn't do much and later down the line they slowly start to make her important again, giving her a few movements here and there before bringing her fully into the fray,
She at first is just a friend of Aoba's from back when she was in high school, Aoba moved into the work force straight out of high school while nene has decided to go to university first.
I don't know if we ever find out what she's studying, maybe we do but I can't remember and that's because it's not important. What's important is that come summer break nene wants to hang out with Aoba but Aoba is much too busy working on the game.
However Eaglejump is looking for game testers to start testing the game and help look for bugs and the like.
Nene sees a bulletin at her school about this and worried about Aoba and how much work she has, nene takes up a position as a part time game tester for summer break. With nene added into the main cast and working at the company for the last 4-5 episodes which isn't even majority of the show but these last few episodes are where the show really shines and what ended up making it a 10 for me, it would be much lower if the show had stayed the way it was before the last batch of episodes.
Nene first joins and is instantly a problem for Umiko (more on her later) as she constantly goes off to see Aoba, however most of her early antics are forgiven as nene is an amazing game tester.
She finds a ton of bugs and has long notes with many things that she was able to find, she also finds ways to do things the game doesn't want her to do like being able to endlessly protect an NPC that's meant to die.
She's also able to find small inconsistencies within the game and players dialog, as well as finding inconsistencies from past games in the series too now since she had played the older games in the series.
She also ends up basically discovering what is somewhat a bug that ends up becoming a feature of the game thanks to the crazy director.
Sakura is awesome and is clearly a great game tester, she's super adorable and has some of the funniest moments.
Nene is obviously close with Aoba so they have there interactions, mainly they talk outside of work going to and from it and also the moments before nene starts working there we see them having lots of phone calls with each other.
They also have an outing to the movie at one point which is super cute and Aoba is able to get an adult ticket and nene has to settle for a student ticket, it's cheaper but she wants the adult one, it's really cute.
They're also giving out toys to the kids who go to see the movie and Aoba and nene get some even though they are both adults, they're just so small and cute that they get mistaken for kids, it's really adorable.
Nene also has strong interaction with one other character, this is Umiko but as I said we will get to her later so we will talk about their relationship then.
I'd say that nene actually does get a fair bit of development in her time on the show, she starts out as this new uni student who clearly doesn't know much about the world and as she goes into the workforce like Aoba did she learns a whole lot more, she developed a friendship with another older working adult and has to stay late nights and do other stuff in order to get work done and puts in the effort, she grows into a full adult despite being a cute little girl all the while.
I really like her if you couldn't tell, haha.
I also really like nene's design she's also got blond hair and blue eyes making her seem like a white chick, but, again, the name makes it obvious that she's not.
I really like the way she dresses usually in a cute hoodie with booty shorts, I'm pretty sure.
Not actually sure how her bottom looks but I know she's normal in a hoodie and girls in hoodies are cute, deal with it!

Well it only makes sense to touch on Umiko Ahagon now, this will kinda have a fair bit about nene in it too since those two are very close in the show both socially and physically when working (if not in a weird way)
I like Umiko, she's pretty funny in a way despite being a little bland at time, due to her important role in the company she gets a fair amount of screen time and most of her character interactions are enjoyable and fun to watch.
She also gets to interact with a lot of character, again because of her important role and I'm really happy with this for reasons that should be obvious due to what I just said before.
Umiko is a programmer, in fact she's the lead programmer and I really like her.
She is around at the start, mainly roping in the director whenever she starts to get distracted from her work and do things she shouldn't be doing.
Umiko is defiantly a strict person or at least is shows to be at first but she later on shows a more friendly side with people like Aoba and nene.
Umiko is also in charge of looking over the game testers although she is much too busy with her programming work to constantly be looking over them.
It's how nene is able to mess around so much early on, however due to her constant antics umiko has to do something and she doesn't wanna fire there best game tester.
So instead Umiko has nene's workplace moved to be right next to her and from then on nene works in the programming office space next to Umiko.
Umiko at first only interacts with shizuku (that's the director, more on her later) and thus she isn't actually seen much for the first few episodes but like nene she slowly starts to become more relevant and then eventually becomes fully relevant for the last 5-6 episodes, a little more than nene since we know about her before nene starts working there.
Umiko also has interactions with Aoba and Kou a fair bit, and of course she has a lot with nene.
At first Umiko comes to Aoba saying how there were errors with the models she made, Umiko being the lead programmer obviously has an issue with this and teaches Aoba what she was doing wrong.
She then of course gets mad at Kou for not teaching the new recruit fully and correctly.
Aoba is able to get the errors corrected very quickly and Umiko rewards her with a goddamn bullet, like an actual bullet and then we learn that Umiko has an obsession with guns for some reason, she doesn't have any real guns they're all air guns, but still.
She shows clear passion as she talks about the bullet and the gun it belongs to to Aoba and eventually Kou joins the conversation and we find out that Umiko has a shooting range on the freaking company roof.
She explains that she has permission to do so but that doesn't make it any less wierder. It's a freaking shooting range and I freaking love her for it. Such a weird person, she also has air guns lining the back of her (and nene's I guess) workspace.
Umiko relationship to Aoba mostly ends there, apart from just updating her on different jobs that she needs to work on that are related to programming, and one really funny joke but that's more so because Umiko has nene do something more so than directly at Aoba, it also only happens because of nene.
Umiko also doesn't have much time with Kou outside of there little talk and adventure to the roof to see her shooting range. Umiko does have many interactions with shizuku as I said before, always making sure she stays on track with her work.
But Umikos main interactions are with nene as I've said many times before and they are always hilarious.
From the get go Umiko wonders if she can fire nene since she's late to the first meeting and from there it just get worse, however nene is to skilled to fire.
That's how they end up sharing a workspace as I said and constantly they cause problems for each other.
Mainly it's just nene stuffing up and Umiko being hard on her for it. Like nene swinging her feet around at the workplace and accidently knocking out the cord to Umikos computer, which as someone who has done programming before, I would murder someone if that happened. Nene should be dead.
Another good one is when Umiko and all the other programmers are basically dead and she asks nene and Aoba to go get energy drinks and to make sure they grab a business receipt and nene says they don't need one since they just need a list of items.
Not knowing that a business one is needed in order to claim it as a business expense, which it is. They also buy one super expensive energy drink for Umiko since she's the programming lead and normal ones for everyone else.
Umiko does get mad at them for this however she is very surprised and revitalised by the energy drink they got for her which is a nice little moment.
Umiko basically is hilarious and I love her interactions and time spent with nene especially how there relationship was at the end of the season, in the last episode Umiko gives nene a gun saying it doesn't suit her and she need a more powerful one.
Nene also talks about coming back to do game testing for there next game, however Umiko informs nene that they will use a proper game testing company next time however hands nene a business card and it's just so cute and nice and I love it.
Umiko has an interesting character design, I like her simple outfit and hair, she's got just a tiny bit of her hair hanging over the top of her face and I don't know why I like that so much. I guess it made her face more memorable to me, to just have something going on, a good design.

And now we have shizuku Hazuki who I'm not gonna spend much time on. She's like a supporting character that's actually supporting, unlike some of these others who could very well be main characters but technically aren't.
Shizuku would go into (other semi-important characters) but she's the only one so might as well just make it be her own section.
Now, shizuku is the director of the game, despite this important role we don't see her working much or at all really. Instead she goes around and talks with people, being a little silly and funny before being dragged away but Umiko.
She isn't that important to the story as she just comes in for jokes, although she is funny.
Personal favorite is when Kou is dressed up real cute for an interview and shizuku goes out of her way to go see her, takes a hundred or so pictures on her phone of Kou and then just walks away.
WHY WAS SHE THERE, so funny. As I said, she's just there for the jokes.
She has many interactions with many characters, pretty much everyone but there isn't much to talk about as she's just making jokes, like when nene is able to glitch the gamera in order to see up a NPCs dress.
Umiko tells her to report it as a bug but shizuku shows up saying it's a feature, this causes more work for basically everyone which is good for some nene development but overall it just helps show how crazy shizuku is, but it's part of her charm.
Her design has a fair bit going on, she's one of the more complex characters in her design. She's got a scarf and some other thing over her shoulders, she's got long hair, she's wearing glasses.
There is a fair bit going on but it's alright to look at, it's not complex in a bad way, however I do think it's too much due to how little she actually shows up and how little she does in the show itself.
So for that reason I say her design is too complex for her character but not to complex on its own, if that makes any sense.

The animation of New Game is solid, it's definitely better than the average I’d say. It has vivid colours, nice movement and motion that flows really well. The camera is almost exclusively static which can get a bit boring but I don't think it really matters too much.
The only animation that I find a little weird is the in game stuff, which is fair because games always look weird in anime.
They don't look like the rest of the animation but the also don't look like a game, they like a CG abomination and definitely not something that I would ever want to buy and play. The game seems fun and that I'd enjoy it but it looks way too weird.
There is one point where they go to a video game convention and a trailer for there game is showed off and that actually looks solid but I imagine that's meant to be a cutscene or something.
The background music is forgettable, I'm sure it's actually good but I can't remember any of the tracks that played. And this is something that I have an issue with cause I remember the background tracks for shows like Nichijou, K-On and NHK. With the exception of NHK these shows are very similar to New Game and K-On is also a 4-Koma slice of life.
The background music for these shows can be memorable, it's just not the case for me in new game but that's not to say it's bad, I just don't really remember it well.
However the exception is the opening and ending, now obviously I'm going to remember these better, that's just always the case with anime. But the opening is actually amazing.
The opening has amazing visuals, like I can't get over how well the opening is animated. We got great colors and efforts flying across the screen, we have Aoba falling backwards into the center of the screen which is done very well as purple circles pulse out from the middle that's she's falling into.
Another part has her floating in the center as the other characters fly by her and touch her, spin her and lightly grab her before pushing themselves away, the flowing movement and motion in this part is greatly done and looks well.
The opening also have the main four girls moving around in the office space which is beautifully animated like the rest of it and we also get an amazing moving shot from Aoba's eye outwards and as it zooms out it spins around to be behind her in a beautiful environment.
The opening is easily the best animated part of the entire she and I love it to bits.
The ending is a bit more simple and doesn't have nearly as much going on but the music is great, I like the music for the ED more than for the OP, the endings visuals are lacking in comparison though.
It's still beautiful and I like the white dress’ everyone are in, it look really pretty and gorgeous. There's also bits of pixel and sprite art mixed in which is a nice touch.
The end part of the ending is extremely well animated though, it's a disc that's spinning cause it must be in use and then when it stops spinning it looks just like how a disc slowly down looks in real life.
Discs slowly down in real life look weird they are going full speed and once they are meant to stop they have a brief moment when they kinda stop instantly before actually slowly down.
It only looks like this because it's stopped it's consistent speed, however since it just stopped for a moment it had a jerk motion where it goes back slightly however it then resumes its speed, it's still going pretty fast so it's hard to tell what direction it's spinning in making it look like it's now going in the opposite direction.
This is not the case and once it's slowed down some more you notice this and it slightly fucks with you for a sec before the disc comes to a complete stop.
New games disc spin at the end of the ED pulls this off perfectly. It looks just like a real disc slowing down, I know I kinda went on about disc spinning for too long there but I wanted everyone to know what I'm talking about and how new game is able to emulate it perfectly. Which is hard to do in animation especially this were is clearly not CG.
Everyone this was purposefully done for that disc spin and maybe it means nothing to everyone else but I found it incredible, haha.
The voice acting is also solid most of and a lot of the new game voice actors haven't been in too much and aren't that well known but they all do a good job, they all convey how there characters would sound in real life and while they obviously don't sound real people because it's a TV show, they aren't super anime voices. Except maybe nene, but she's meant to be super cute.
One of my friends seems to think that everyone has a super high voice but outside of nene I can't really say that anyone's voice is high at all, maybe Aoba's is a little higher than normal but it's not as high as anime girls normally tend to get.

I enjoyed new game, like I really enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot. It's a really good show. It's has good animation, strong visuals, an interesting story that reflects the Japanese gaming industry accurately (except for the fact that they're all girls) and some great, loveable characters. Characters is definitely the strongest point of the show and my enjoyment comes from there's characters, there interactions and the bond that I created with them. It's like a lot of our Moe, slice of life shows, if you don't like the characters then there isn't hard to enjoy it even with the amazing animation.
So if this sounds like the kind of stuff you don't enjoy then don't go watch it, you clearly have a different opinion to mine.
I'm not saying that all of this is fact, it's mostly just my silly opinion, but if it's sounds like you share my opinion then please, go check it out cause it's a great show. And if it sounds like you don't share the same taste as me, then consider what I've written and see if you can get behind it, otherwise don't watch it.
I'm not forcing you too after all.

However with all that in mind guys I'm giving New Game! a 10/10 cause it's incredible!

Wrap-up
Story does more than it needed too and is a great representation of the Japanese gaming industry.
Characters are the shining point and make this show an absolute joy to watch.
Presentation is amazing.
Enjoyment is absolutely though the roof, thanks to fun visuals and amazing characters.

New game! An anime where one would proclaim as " oh another moe show " when shown the cover photo. I hate to admit though, it's true. It is another moe show, but not just ANOTHER moe show. It's something much different. It brings out something that seems lacking in other "moe" shows. That is the feeling of catharsis. Shyness, Frustration, Triumphant. These were feelings I was able to relate with the characters, despite not experiencing it myself first hand.

Story: 8/10
It was a relatively decent story, bringing out something unique due to its setting. It has a much different feel as compared to other ... moe shows set in a high school setting that seems as though they will never graduate. It helped to put my mind in a state of ease, amidst all the pent up stress for an upcoming examinations. It didn't kept me glued at the end screen and craving for more, like what 91 days did. But instead, it left me at the end screen, feeling much refreshed and ready to face whatever life throws at me. This is perhaps what New game is trying to accomplish, as a slice-of-life anime.

Now, I would rate New game a 9/10 mainly because of personal enjoyment, given my current situation(in the midst of exams), and thus may or may not be subjected to change in the future. However, as of now, I would make a firm stand at this rating. " Since you're already giving it a 9, why not 10?". Well, the main reason why I chose not to give that final push, was due to the characters, and mainly one. But, let me give my opinions on some of them.

Characters: 7/10
Suzukaze Aoba, the MC of the show. The fact that she is 18 years old actually left me wondering if that was actually true. Yes I know, it's a moe anime so the characters should act like that. But that is so when the setting is set in a high school world. I highly doubt there are any young adults of that age being like her (correct me if I'm wrong). However, I don't hate her. In fact, I felt a strong sense of connection, similar to that of a close friend. Through the wondrous 12 episodes, though not to a large extent, I believed that she developed into a better person, especially in the last episode. Overall, she was an essential character in the anime. Without her, what would happen to the release of Fairy Stories 3?

Other characters include Yagami Kou, Tooyama Rin, as well as Aoba's 3 co workers, whom I shall not delve too deep into. Briefly,  they all had proper screen time and development, especially Yagami.

Now, the character that made kind of detest the anime, Sakura Nene. Some of you might think that she adds to the laughing factor of the show. But heck, are you really sure she is there to bring out laughs or bring out annoyance? Her high pitched voice, coupled together with her boisterous attitude could drive a person insane. I agree that she was essential in helping the team, but besides that, what else is she good for. The incessant whining made me wonder if she really is a college student rather than a kindergartener.

Music: 7/10
Well, all I can say is that the music didn't really stand out much. However, it suited the theme quite well as a Slice-of-life anime. I really preferred the ending to be the opening song though. :/

Animation: 9/10
Nothing much to comment on besides the fact that it was absolutely perfect for this anime.

Well that's that, I would really recommend watching this, especially after a tiring day, and I'm sure you will feel relaxed afterwards, except for when Sakura Nene gets her screen time. This anime brings the expression " Cute girls doing cute thing" to a whole new level. At least, this anime had an ending (?) Now, to end off, Hifumi or Yagami? :C

Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m a pretty shallow person when it comes to picking the next anime to watch. And by that, I mean the opening theme pretty much determines what I watch. New Game caught my eye and I decided to watch it. I’d already watched Shirobako, and according to recommendations, it seemed quite similar, so I thought why not? And after finishing these 12 fun episodes, I have to say that I pleasantly enjoyed New Game.

Game production has always intrigued me for a while so New Game felt like a nice show to cover that topic. It does cover the main aspects of ... the game making fairly well, but truth be told, I’ve seen it better done on other shows. It’s not like the show doesn’t cover anything within the gaming industry, I just felt like (and this is coming from someone who has never had experience within the industry, so never take my opinion as final) it could’ve gone deeper. The protagonist’s department that she works on actually seems to get a fair amount of attention, however other areas are only touch on lightly and I would’ve wished that they would’ve received more depth. But, I still have to put in perspective that the series was only 12 episodes long and it can’t do everything in that amount of time, though.

The show falls under the slice-of-life and comedic genre and it truly does live up to it. The show is quite laid back and that creates the more light-hearted feeling when watching it, in my opinion. Some episodes do appear to be more serious than others, but it still does feel nice watching them. The art definitely helps the show. The colour schemes shown throughout are extremely bright and vibrant, making the entire environment that the show is set in feel much more alive and buzzing. The inside areas more or less felt the same but the outside scenery is what really caught my eye. It wasn’t spectacular in the way that other anime have done it, but everything felt … fun. I couldn’t help it but love watching the show.

The episode plots were, whilst not conveying too much story progression throughout, helped massively by the characters of the series. I appreciated the fact that most if not all were introduced by the end of the first couple of episodes mainly because of the fact that I knew I had a longer timeframe within the show to learn about each personality. However, there were some minor problems I had with the characters, one of which mainly ties into the plot. Whilst I did say before that I was looking forward to lots of insight into the characters, some just didn’t feel that they had that much attention during the span of the show. In a way, I felt like those characters’ personalities were sort of being used as an excuse to not be given more detail, as it could’ve possibly have been contradicting what they were like. In terms of another season to go into the characters in more depth, I would probably have to say that’s probably not likely. Not because I don’t want it, but mainly because of the ending, which I won’t spoil doesn’t really open up for another season.

On another note, sound I thought was a very good aspect of the show. The music used was extremely catchy and upbeat, definitely fitting comfortably into the general theme. The opening and ending themes I thought were especially good, fitting well with the crazy mood that the show sets. All in all, I found New Game to be an extremely enjoyable anime and I recommend you watch it if you haven’t already. If you’re fans of shows like Shirobako then New Game might be a good choice since they are quite similar in theme. To conclude, great show, hampered slightly by lack of development of characters but sound and art for example more than make up for it, creating an extremely well made show.

There's nothing ground-breaking or amazing about this show, but it succeeds in the sense that I'm left with a silly grin on my face when watching it. I typically don't like slice of life shows, but I must say I really enjoyed New Game. It benefits from a refreshing environment, namely the office environment, instead of the school setting that has been recycled over and over again. There are many moments where I burst out laughing, but what surprised me was the presence of a few scenes with real emotional power too. Without resorting to any stupid melodrama, the show manages to be really touching ... at times.

My only complain is that if you're looking for a depiction of a realistic work environment, you won't find it here. There's no office politics. Every one is more or less pleasant and nice to each other. The main character, Aoba, is genki and hardworking and has no flaws to work on. There's also some fanservice but nowhere near outright sexual and it can be overlooked.

The characters are all likeable. In particular, as someone with social anxiety, Hifumi was really relatable. I think she's one of the few realistic depictions of social anxiety in anime these past few years. In fact, she's the reason why I was drawn to the show, before I gradually became attached to the other characters.

Don't be fooled by my 7 rating; I don't give out high scores lightly unlike most of the people on MAL. By 7, I don't mean average or so-so, but a really solid piece of work. Definitely best anime of 2016 Summer season along with Konobi and Planetarian. If you're a fan of the slice-of-life genre you'll definitely love this show, and even if you're not, I would say this is one of its better offerings. Just go into it without raising your expectations too high; this is just a show that is nice to watch for half an hour every week, nothing more, but it's good fun and never tries to be pretentious.

I love this Anime, and I think anyone looking into it may also like it as much as I do.

Story
The story was well put together, and interesting. I have never, and maybe it's just me, seen an anime over the life of game developers. It wasn't rushed, and kept a nice steady pace. This anime also had a great ending, and gave me a sense of completeness. (Be sure to watch after the credits.;) )

Art
The art may not be one of a kind, I'm sure you'll see it another show, but it was meant to be cutesy, ... as it was, and really fits with the stories concept. The coloring and style of all the characters was amazing and very different from eachothers.

Sound
The voice actors and their vibe fit with all the characters and their personalities. ALL characters were voiced well.
The Opening and Ending Song Really fit the peppy lives of the group. The background music also fits the scenes, when it was meant to be awkward, it was, when soft and heart warming, it was, and so on.

Characters
The characters, were all unique, and as you watch will get to know a lot more about their personalities, and traits. Their reactions/actions to different things were realistic and you might find yourself doing the same things as they did in certain situations. Though the anime did not go as deep into some of the characters lives as I wanted to. It pretty much sticks to their lives at work, with some exceptions. But all characters were alive and the 'supporting' ones (They were all mains in my opinion.) really helped make the show fun! I can't bring myself to pick a favorite, because I like them all so much, but I would like to cosplay Ahagon Umiko, one of few great characters.

Enjoyment
Now I can loosen up a bit and talk to you as a friend and fan! This anime was amazing! It kept me hooked, and looking forward for the next episode to come out. It kind of reminds me of kiniro mosaic which is another favorite I have. I may not rewatch the series, which I don't usually do anyway, but I may in the far future to refresh the memory of their lives. I do hope to read the manga, hopefully in the flesh, but if not online definitely. I would also hope to buy the series once it on dvd, or something related to it, when/if I have the money! *cries*

Lastly, I do hope that you watch the show, don't take my word about this, amazing, Anime, see for yourself.

It's funny after seeing the show it kind of makes me want to try Aoba's Occupation.

New Game is like a more comedic Shirobako meets video game developing. There is a large cast of women and all of them have a passion for video games. Because so many people were introduced in the beginning and the audience doesn't have a good grasp on their personalities yet, it was difficult to tell them apart for a while. Around the 3rd or 4th episode, the writers started developing each character and illustrating how well they work together. I love that there's no ridiculous pettiness or rivalries between the girls. It's the exact opposite—there's a ton of really intimate moments in each episode that ... I wasn't expecting!

The girls share each other's passion for video games and truly enjoy spending time together. Each character has something quirky about them but their entire personality isn't centered around the oddity which is good. I also appreciate that there's a brown character among the cast and she's just as quirky and important as any of the others. There were times when a few characters got self-deprecating for the wrong reasons; like they're all skinny and the writers dedicated a whole segment on characters feeling chubby. If there was anything to focus on, I would've preferred it to be the joys and the nitty gritty process of game developing. There were also times when the girls would randomly be sexualized. For example, there's a character who hates wearing pants (I share that sentiment) and she had an ass shot that lasted 5 seconds too long. It was awkward to watch.

There's a lot of ship-teasing between the women which is fine because I enjoy romantic fluff between girls. I can only hope that the ships actually lead to something more concrete in the second season. The video game references are very subtle and fun to spot out. Overall, New Game is a fresh take on the shoujo ai genre. In some ways, it reminded me of Shirobako with how hard they work and how much passion the girls have for game development. It's a strong jumping off point for the second season and I'm excited to see where they run with it!

New Game is based off of an ongoing manga by Tokunou Shoutarou. The manga started in 2013. The anime came three years later and was brought to us by Doga Kobo. Yes, the same studio that brought us Yuru Yuri. So, we know they can do high quality slice of life comedy. Let's see if that happens here.

Story:

We open with our protagonist, Suzukaze Aoba, starting an exciting new job as a graphics artist for a game developer. More impressively, she's right out of high school (do game developers hire people right out of school like that? I thought you had to study at the university ... level) and it's not under the thumb of a trash publisher like Electronic Arts. They provide her with some training and give her her first tasks, modelling characters for the latest sequel to her favourite game series. We basically watch as Aoba interacts with the quirky people at the office and they try to bring the game to light.

The biggest issue I have with this series is that they feel the need to explain very basic video game terms that every gamer knows. You know, just in case someone who hates games is watching this slice of life that revolves around games. And we are talking very basic terms like “NPC” or “FPS.” Even non-gamers know those ones.

That being said, the comedy in this series is really damn good. It really takes advantage of the setting with a lot of jokes revolving around the launch, the testers looking for the kinds of exploits that actual gamers would and other such things. It helps that a lot of its set ups are vague enough that there are multiple directions for them to go with the jokes, leading to punch lines that work but aren't obvious. The comedic timing is spot on. There are jokes that aren't uproariously funny but there aren't any that aren't enjoyable or that just fall flat.

Characters:

This is one of those comedies that doesn't have the most complex characters, but it has ones that mesh very well for a comedic series. I will also give it credit for having some really strong interactions that aren't comedic. The final episode, for instance, has a really good conversation betwixt Aoba and Kou. I shan't spoil it, but it's actually really heart-warming.

Art:

The artwork is cutesy and definitely one of the areas where this series resembles that other Doga Kobo work. I will give this series credit on a few counts, though. First off, the trailer they have for their fictional game is really well done. It looks like the kind of trailer that would get you excited for a game. The cubicle decorations are really good too. Each of the major girls has decorations for her work station that really reflects on her. My only real issue with the art is that there's some pointless fan service because... you can't have a series about women without getting fan-servicey. It's literally against the law.

Sound:

They got some strong actresses for this. We've got Toda Megumi (you may know her from Sakura Trick,) Hikasa Yoko (k-on, yuri kuma arashi,) Kayano Ai (Anohana) and quite a few less prolific actresses who still do their roles really well like Takada Yuuki and Yamaguchi Megumi. Hyakkoku Hajime's soundtrack is excellent. Which is to be expected from the bloke who did the music for K-on.

Ho-yay:

Honestly, I think this entire game company is populated by lesbians. To the point where Eagle Jump might as well just merge with the lesbian coven across the street. Rin blatantly has a crush on Kou and there are some strong indications that it's reciprocated. Yun mentions that she would fall for Kou if she was Rin, which really says something about her. Hazuki flirts with other women constantly. Mifumi really wants to get close to Aoba. In a way she isn't close to anyone else. Actually, Umiko seems oddly interested in Aoba too. And when Aoba meets Kou there are hearts and sparkles everywhere. 

Final Thoughts:

New Game is a really good series. It has some relatively minor issues, but it's thoroughly enjoyable with a strong comedic sense, fun characters and it's definitely an example of a slice of life comedy that does it right. My final rating is going to stand at an 8/10. Next week I'm looking at Black Lagoon: Roberta's Blood Trail.

New Game!

Art/Characters: The art style that we see in New Game! is pretty generic when it comes to the basic details. However, the smaller details that the show takes advantage of are what really make this show stand out visually. I am referring to the shimmer in their eyes, the emotion when some characters feel apathy. The hair on each person’s head has a sheen to it that makes it look soft and bouncy. The folds in their clothing really make it feel like the illustrator had great care and wanted to make sure that the clothing would bend and crease as if it were ... real clothing. The main character, Aoba, really stands out to me for her passion and excitement going into this new job that she only knows a little bit about. She is surrounded by equally energetic and somewhat timid co-workers. While Yun and Hajime are the stereotypical “excited-about-everything” characters, Hifumi takes a while to really get to know Aoba, as she is only really comfortable talking through Instant Messaging. As for Yagami, Her stern yet soft personality on Aoba really showcases her best traits and makes her fit very well with the cast of characters. The relationship between the two of them really makes the finale special.

Music/Sound: Being able to hear and listen to the music and sounds in this show really was a treat. The opening and closing songs really were a highlight that I enjoyed listening to week to week because it was so catchy and the animation of the opening was so cute and so enjoyable, I really struggle to say anything bad though, the sound direction of the episodes seemed to lack a little bit. I felt that there could have been more interesting sounds from within, and I really would have loved to hear more of the in-game music of the game that they are creating. However the background music often would fit the mood quite well and because of this I was getting more invested that I think I was planning on.

Story: Aoba has just graduated high school and got a job as a member of the art team for the game company EagleJump. As she prepares for her first day, she reminisces on her favorite game, Faerie Story which has also been created by EagleJump. When she finally arrives, her boss, Yagami, is the Yagami, as in the person who helped create her favorite game of all time and now she was going to work directly with her! The story follows Aoba as she explores what it is like to have a real job and what it is like to be an adult. From working with co-workers, to falling behind schedule, to even getting her first paycheck. Aoba sure has a lot to learn!

Personal Reflection: The concept of this show really made me excited. If I had even a shred of talent for game design, I would want to have an opportunity like Aoba. Because of this, I was immediately drawn to this show with eager anticipation of what was going to happen next. I feel the way Aoba learns and experiences things with her co-workers and friends really make the shows something special. There isn’t just the run-of-the-mill episodes happening, but they are unique and move the story along in a fantastic way. Thinking back on it now, it is amazing that such a deep and rich anime came from a 4-panel manga. Learning what it’s like to be an adult is not easy. I have lived in the realm of confusion, and to be honest, I still am. But like Aoba, I have people that are able to come alongside me and help me out with whatever I need. I think the reason I loved this show so much is it came at a time in my life that I could really relate to it, and because of that, it was something I would watch each week to take myself out of the confusion that is life. Lastly, I really loved the overarching story that happened through the entire show. There could have easily been just randomized episodes that could have taken place at any time, but instead New Game! embraced having only 12 episodes, and created a full story that was the perfect amount of fun, drama, excitement, and anxiety that I’ll probably watch it again before too long. New Game! is a show that deals strongly with the theme of growing up, but is relatable enough to be embraced by people of all ages. So if you love video games, and have ever wanted to be a designer, check out New Game!

Overall Rating: 8/10

New Game is the kind of anime where you'll just get blue-balled if you expect a bunch of yuri sex scene. 'cause you wont be seeing it.

Story, bland as fuck, but enjoyable to say the least. It's basically you seeing the "game-making world" in a nutshell (specially around chara design, in the nutshell). No interesting plot what-so-ever so just treat it as a trip to McDonald or any fast food chain, really (maybe Walmart, who the hell cares).

Art, it's a solid 8 for me. Nothing to complaint.

Character, lovable. There are SOME (scratch that, A LOT) of undertone yuri here and there. But at least each ... of the character has something to do (i.e hobbies, back story, etc). Don't expect it being memorable.

The OP and ED is pretty generic, nothing really special for me really.

Enjoyment, I genuinely like it. It's pretty fun and engaging. Lots of pretty funny stuff where I chuckle a bit. The character interaction is pretty great.

Overall it's a solid 7, not to shabby but don't watch it WAY too much, treat it as a fast food. The more you watch this, the fatter you get.