Good Night World

In the online game "Planet," there is a powerful team of four players. This team goes by the name "The Akabane Family," and its members are a pseudo-family that only exists in the game. Although they aren't aware of it, these four players are actually a broken family in real life.

A shut-in older brother. A high-achieving younger brother. A father who is not respected by his own children. A mother who neglects her own household. They do not know the warmth of family. They also don't know that the warmth of their online family is only a passing feeling. And most of all, they don't know they are a real family.

Centered on the deeds of the Akabane Family in the online game "Planet," the story features battles against monsters, clashes with other guilds, and the machinations surrounding "Black Bird," the final objective of the game. The tale takes a major turn as it entangles the real world and this real family.

(Source: Netflix, edited)

Arima, Taichirou Main

Hirose, Daisuke Japanese

Arima, Asuma Main

Shimazaki, Nobunaga Japanese

Arima, Kojirou Main

Ootsuka, Akio Japanese

Arima, Miyabi Main

Endou, Aya Japanese

Pico Supporting

Yuuki, Aoi Japanese

Leon Supporting

Kimura, Ryouhei Japanese

Kamuro, Hana Supporting

Takahashi, Rie Japanese

Arima, Aya Supporting

Minase, Inori Japanese

Sasumata Supporting

Nanami, Hiroki Japanese

Garu Supporting

Nabatame, Hitomi Japanese

Suda, Yasuo Producer

Kikuchi, Katsuya Director, Episode Director, Storyboard, Key Animation

Yokota, Chikako Sound Director

Kuriyama, Takayuki Episode Director

Reviews

Jul 13, 2024

ashleourke20

Recommended

While it's not perfect it does have a good message about the importance of family and while there were a few things I wished had happened it was not bad. Was a little confused with some things and trying to figure them out but felt best to enjoy it and not overthink it.
all in all I thought it was not bad would have liked some more episodes but is fun to watch if you have free time.
Kind of reminded me of similar anime but also different in its own way.
Art was nice the characters were each interesting in their own ways.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Sep 19, 2024

Seeking__Anime

Mixed Feelings

THIS IS A SPOILER-FREE REVIEW :)

I actually thought this anime would be worse than it actually was based on some of the top reviews for it.

However, as another reviewer has already stated, it is more of an anime that has a very interesting concept, but its execution of the concept could definitely use some work.

However, with that being said, the first half of the anime, up until about episode 6, was actually decently well done in my opinion.

This anime is kinda like SAO when it comes to it being about a virtual reality game, and also it does eventually get into ... the whole “this game could actually kill you in real life” troupe.

———

So with all of that being said, I guess I’ll start with the things that bothered me in this anime.

The thing that bugged me most about this anime is how overly rushed it felt, especially on episode 6 and beyond. This anime definitely needed to be a solid 24 episode season at the very least, because the 12 episodes that it has is not nearly enough to properly flesh out the story and the characters. Even when characters die off, it’s like the anime expects you to feel something for them, but it’s like how can we do that when we barely got any time to get to really know the character.

Another thing that bothered me was the main character. I don’t mind tho whole “I hate my life and my family so I’m a shut-in gamer” character troupe, which is how this main character is like, but what I don’t like about him in particular is that he is honestly not that interesting of a main character. He is a bit boring and bland honestly. And when he’s not boring, his personality is just really irritating.

The other thing I didn’t like about this anime, is the constant crying. I don’t mind crying when it’s like someone is gonna die or just died, or something super traumatic just happened. But I hate when it’s overused in anime. Idk it’s just a pet peeve of mine I guess.

Another thing I didn’t like about this anime was the fact that the anime itself was so interesting to me initially because of the whole “I’m playing a VR game with my family as my teammates but we don’t know we’re teammates” stuff, and yet we didn’t really get to see much of that here honestly. We really don’t get to see more than a few minutes of interaction between the family in the VR world.

And honestly, it’s like we were kinda just force-fed certain things in this anime, which was pretty annoying tbh. Like for example, the main character (who in the VR world is called Ichiro) has a really close relationship with a guy named Shiro in the VR game and sees him as a positive father figure, as opposed to how he sees his father outside of the VR world (whom he pretty much hates). I would’ve loved to see more interactions between Ichiro and Shiro in order to see why exactly Ichiro came to love him as much as he did, instead of just being straight up told why he does.

And the other thing I will say is that although the concept of unknowingly being VR teammates with your family is definitely interesting, I will say I am definitely disappointed with the fact that it was like the writers actually expected us to buy that not a single person, even someone outside of the family, was responsible for orchestrating the entire family meeting up and becoming teammates together. I mean, I understand coincidences, but come on. It’s not like it was just a couple people in their family who became teammates, it was the entire family and not even one other random person.

Last thing that was rather convenient to the story but was never explained why it was a thing, is that all of the family in the VR game had this rule about not divulging any part of their personal lives to each other. Why? No clue. It was never clearly explained in the anime. And what makes this even more confusing, is that other groups of people in the VR game have no trouble in expressing the troubles they go through in real life to each other and they like talking to each other about their personal lives, but yet our main character and his family just so happen to have a rule not to talk about anything personal to each other in the VR game.

——

As for what I enjoyed about this anime, I will start with the art style. I actually thought the animation looked really nice in this anime, especially when it came to the characters. Is it the best animation I’ve ever seen? No, but even still there were quite a few instances where I thought the characters were animated really beautifully. Also, surprisingly the gore in this anime was done really well too, which i actually didn’t think there was gonna be gore in this anime, but there was. It was kinda creepy how detailed some of it was too honestly.

The other thing I liked about the anime was again just the very interesting plot. Now of course, like I said the execution of said plot did fall short quite a bit, but even so, I was entertained enough to stick to this anime until the last episode.

——

I will conclude this review by saying that although this anime was not what I would call “bad” and I did not feel it was a waste of time to watch, it is still what I would call just a “fine” anime, not a great or even good one.

It’s watchable, but I would only recommend this anime to people who currently have nothing better to watch and are in need of a new anime that at least has an interesting premise behind.

As for me, although I was fine watching it all the way through the one time, I don’t really have a desire to ever go and watch this anime ever again.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Jun 23, 2024

QueenDilettante

Not Recommended

In the ten-ish years I've spent critically watching anime, I've found that there's roughly two types of 'bad' shows. The more common type, and the less egregious, is a show that seems trashy, unassuming, and/or mediocre on the outset and that ends up being exactly what was promised on the tin; it's not upsetting because it ends up being exactly what it seemed like it was going to be. The other type, the type that is far more frustrating, is a show that fumbles its interesting premise and incredible potential only to fall and barely skid itself into mediocrity.

Good Night World is the second kind ... of show.

Pitched as a family drama exploring grief, trauma, and dysfunction, Good Night World sets up a show seemingly well-poised to deliver on exactly that premise. The first few episodes do a great job of highlighting the parallel lives of the real life Arima family's dysfunction with the picturesque VR Akabane family. The near-unbelievable odds of deeply hurt and damaged people all seeking the same outlet and finding each other in another life (of sorts) where they can embody their ideal selves is an immediately touching premise that easily pulls on the heart strings.

If the show stayed grounded and focused mostly on that, I think this would go down as an all time great.

It didn't, though, and it won't.

Good Night World pulls a reverse of most works of genre fiction, using the promise of a family drama to tell a boring, kitchen-sink sci-fi story instead of the other way around. Viewers are promised "Bittersweet Family Drama" by Netflix, the only place to legally watch this show in North America, and instead get a derivative isekai-lite à la Sword Art Online and speculative fiction about AI that, because of the real world's technological growths, already seems laughably outdated and grossly disconnected from reality.

Science Fiction, more than most tightly-defined genres, relies on an audience's ability to suspend their disbelief about (often) technological speculation. Works like Cyberpunk Edgerunners ask you to imagine a future where X things happened to get there and bust their asses to make you believe it. When Good Night World not only has outdated speculation that rings decrepit on entry, but misunderstands the function of real-world tech that's been tried and true in its function for more than two decades (or more than one decade for the manga), suspension of disbelief is not only impossible, but pathetically unearned.

Good Night World has very little to say, and almost none of what it does is even worth hearing.

As a narrative within these mediocre confines, the show still badly stumbles. The pacing is atrocious; the show could have used at least twice as many episodes to tell the same story with how fast it moves. Watching Good Night World feels like skipping all dialogue in a video game and only being exposed to what the characters say in the boss fights; it's nonsensical and its emotional beats never feel earned.

The show is also unbelievably fond of fake-out episode endings and introducing new conflict that hadn't been established at all previously only to resolve it in less than an episode. There's so little time to get invested or sit with the implications of what the show's saying, as if the work itself is afraid of its fraying seams completely unraveling if it lets its viewers think about anything for too long.

Avoiding specifics, the ending is somehow even less satisfying than every major misstep previously. It skips forward eight years to an epilogue that explains nothing and neglects to actually resolve the final arc's conflict. It's not that I expected any better, but it felt like one last kick in the teeth before the show fully whimpered out.

There are different, better works that explore family dysfunction (see: Clannad), better works that explore AI and the implication of computers (see: Ghost in the Shell, Serial Experiments Lain, Psycho Pass, etc.), and better works that explore fantasy isekai themes (see: Konosuba, Re: Zero, The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess and the Genius Young Lady, etc.).

This show is a waste of precious time with nothing interesting to say about its derivative sci-fi or its family drama. Pass on this.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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