I don't doubt at all that No Game No Life was a good anime, and definitely worth spending time to watch. It is arguably the best anime of 2014, first and second cour combined.
However, it is also true that this receives too stellar reviews, and not to mention, too glamorized.
As always, absolutely no spoilers, but some of the terms used may suggest indirect minor plotlines.
Story: 7
I HAVE A POINT.
Indeed it was a rare-sighted anime with a code geass genre. The setting of both the characters and the actual site are wonderfully done, not to mention the amount of brain works the anime used. It was not the usual "mc wins because he's the mc". The characters had to actually work in order to get what they wanted.
However, overall, I have 3 scenarios in the anime to which I cut down the points for the story segment.
First and the biggest disappoint was the othello game. It indeed had some interesting ideas that got me curious, but the author failed to deliver the feeling that the main characters had to fight to win. He seemed to show the "main character wins because he/she's awesome shut up" cliche, which disappointed me enormously since I was enjoying the anime over my head.
Second disappointment was the ending. It felt rushed, and not too ideally. Since at this point it is almost a certainty that this anime is going to get a sequel it isn't too big a problem that the ending was unsatisfactory, but nonetheless the hook for people to watch the sequel was too rash as it bore more questions than the rest of the anime did. The final episode alone could get several hot anime debates, and compressing all the foreshadowing and resolutiion into just one episode was honestly too much. If I were to clearly say what I'm disappointed in it'd be how the anime producers poorly divided and scheduled the episodes.
Third, and really more of a minor discomfort than disappointment was the complexity of the characters' conversations. This also has lot to do with the producers' problems, but some--mostly towards the end--of the explanations are unfriendly to the viewers and too complicated for the short span of time they are presented on.
Normally all these would not make a huge deal as it cut off 3 whole points, but all these were presented towards the end, thereby enlarging the disappointment. If an anime is initially mildly disappointing but godly towards the end like FMA brotherhood, Clannad or Steins;Gate, the excitement and enjoyment doubles, but getting disappointing as the episode progresses leaves a long disappointment and lowers the value of the animation as a whole.
Even so, being that the disappointment was not large enough to make me turned off from NGNL as a whole, I gave story 7.
Art: 8
NGNL is one of the first anime with its art style. It wasn't "one" of Madhouse's tries--it wasn't "one" of any anime production company's tries. It was the first anime with this style.
Naturally, this turns off some viewers who is more concerned with artstyle than story or any other factors, which, in anime world, is quite a majority. Some people who like kyoani's style of unnecessarily detailed animation watches only those similar to it, such as A-1, Kyoani or J.C.Staff.
To begin with, Madhouse has a sort of "alienated" animation style, as they are either too beautified to the point that it is hard to recognize the lines and borders of the eyes or eyelashes. While many people don't find this too harsh an issue, some beginning animese would find this a little hard to ignore.
But this doesn't mean that the amount of graphics and details the production studio put on the anime was superb. The battle scenes were almost unnecessarily detailed, the skies looked almost real and the scenery--the scenery was good enough to bloom the entire animation as a whole. Sometimes I would find myself awing at the beautiful scenery that I miss some conversations between the characters.
In other words, if a sequel came out with the same art, I would not hesitate to give a 9, or even a 10, but since this was the first try of the Madhouse, I cut off a huge portion of the art segment.
Sound: 10
This. Game. Was. One. Of. The. Best. Openings. OF. ALL. TIME.
One of my most liked singers so far, Suzuki Konomi, showed what she could do at her best. I couldn't skip through the intro like I usually did with other anime and listened through all of them.
The ending was spectacle as well. Ai Kayano was and still is hands down one of the best singing voice actors of all time. The song itself was fit for Ai Kayano's style of singing too, which embellished the quality of the voice.
BGM's were naturally pieces of art too. Above all, they did their jobs. They created a sense of danger when they needed to, sense of comedy when they needed to and sense of height when they needed to.
But above all, the quality of voice actors the anime used!
First in the line we have Ai Kayano, one of the best voice actors for silent characters, playing Shiro, a silent little girl. We have Matsuoka playing Sora, who needed to play the idiot's role, straight man role and the devil with human's mask role, and through Sorata from Sakurasou and Kirito from SAO, he has proven his worth in all three roles. Another small girlish boy was done by the well-known Kugimiya Rie, a girl with gap was done by a hysteric expert, Iguchi Yuka and another silent yet somehow fearsome girl was done by Noto Mamiko, expert in silent ghostly characters.
Not to mention, the people who watched Sakurasou knows that Matsuoka and Ai Kayano played Sorata and Mashiro from Sakurasou, respectively, which is a laugh since in NGNL they played Sora(ta) and (Ma)Shiro.
Character: 8
For a short, 12-episode anime, it is best to keep the number of casts to minimum since it gets difficult to follow and develop them if there was a huge number, and NGNL follows this rule perfectly as it only casts 11 characters, side characters included.
The reason I gave only 8 even at that was in the unsatisfactory development of Miko and Kurami.
After the othello game, Kurami seems to be given an important role, but her development is replaced with fanservice. This is also a character development in its own way, but even still, she wasn't given as much a development as the story seemed to develop her.
But this could have been easily ignored.
The problem was in the unsatisfactory development of Miko.
She almost seems to be the last boss of the series, but in the end, she gave in too quickly and showed no behind stories, pasts, goals or anything on those lines, and acted in the cliched "kind ruler who becomes mc's ally".
However, the rest of the characters were developed quite nicely, especially the main characters. The producers and author succeed in telling the viewers that they have more to them than just cliched main characters who won't lose no matter what. Stephanie Dora, another main character, also proved to be more than what she conveys to be.
Enjoyment: 9
Like I mentioned at the beginning, this is undoubtedly the best anime of 2014 so far. It manages to rouse all the necessary points of a good anime, with a little disappointment that almost can be forgiven at the breathtaking battles of the main characters that involves not a giant sword or an almighty power but brain and strategy.
Overall: 8.5 to 9
Even if I said all these, there are differences in people's opinions on an anime. While some people enjoy a dark story where it tells the root of humans, some people enjoy an anime where a boy is surrounded by beautiful girls. Some people like anime where main characters are almighty and some people like anime where main characters are weak. A good anime is an anime that makes all these different viewers say in unison that "it was good".
No Game No Life is definitely for a lot of viewers. It has a sense of both the main characters' weaknesses and strengths, sense of ecchiness, sense of moe, and most of all, sense of a strategic fight. I cannot recommend this anime enough.
If you haven't seen this anime yet, go watch it. Don't mind what other people say about the anime and only mind whether you enjoyed it to your heart's content or not.
Then, as always, happy anime-ing.
