TEN COMMANDMENTS (no relation)
1. All murder, war, and robbery are forbidden in this world.
2. All conflict in this world will be resolved through games.
3. In games, each player will bet something that they agree is of equal value.
4. As long as it doesn't violate pledge three, anything may be bet, and any game may be played.
5. The challenged party has the right to decide the rules of the game.
6. Any bets made in accordance with the pledges must be upheld.
7. Conflicts between groups will be conducted by designated representatives with absolute authority.
8. Being caught cheating during a game is grounds for an instant loss.
9. In the name of god, the previous rules may never be changed.
10. Let's all have fun and play together! (Fandom, Inc., n.d.)
Consider the following. Or rather the followed. Extract, if you will, commandment 5. I quote, "The challenged party has the right to decide the rules of the game." Suppose I am the challenged party. Not mentally mind you, challenged by a proposing force (opponent). The opponent bets 500 smackaroos, I bet 2 sacks of dirt (for I am not a materialist, and I value the Earth and Mother Nature more than currency). Now, as the challenged, I get to make up the rules. I shall now propose a mock set of rules: "Rule 1. I win." I have now acquired 500 smackaroos. The easiest game known to man. The opponent objects: "What a preposterous set of rules!" But alas, we had bet, and we had pledged. Like a smug politician weasling his way through legal loopholes, I gleefully point to rule 6: "Any bets made in accordance with the pledges must be upheld." What a freaking idiot. Also; seek 8: "Being caught cheating during a game is grounds for an instant loss." Add on 7: "Conflicts between groups will be conducted by designated representatives with absolute authority." Now, reasonably NOBODY would cheat since any sad sap could accuse them of such trickery and thereby summon the Holy Jury to investigate. In other words, one might as well accuse the other of cheating during every turn! It would only be natural. Yet they CHEATED in the show! What fools they are! Now, one may be skeptical with regards to the omniscience of these divine beings. Well, if they don't know any better, then why not accuse your opponent of cheating just for the sake of it? If rule 8 is divine law, then it must be fulfilled. If the representatives don't know that it WASN'T cheating, then they just have to assume that it WAS! Or else, how could rule 8 ever truly be enforced?
Second on my agenda of criticism: they gave up after rule 8! Rule 9 simply states that the other rules exist, as if I couldn't figure that out already. A heckler cries out: "Quite the contrary, it ensures the permanence of the previous rules!" To you I say this: if the god of games believes that the rules should not change, then why would such a god change them in any case? It is merely affirming one's own opinion, that is, I made these rules, and I will tell myself that I will not change these rules (but of course I wont!). Now, here's the real kicker: what rule protects rule 9 from change? I see no such rule. Therefore, I propose an amendment: rule 11: "Rule 9 now says that all the previous rules will change." Now let's shift our eyes over to rule 10. What a pathetic excuse for a rule! And all in a sorry attempt for a satisfaction of base 10. A true god would know the superiority of base 12 anyway.
Let me give you a better set of rules, from a far more mature kind of game.
1. Play the game on a board with a 19x19 grid.
2. Black plays first.
3. Black can place up to 9 stones on the designated points of the board as a handicap.
4. On every turn the current player places a stone on a legal empty position of the board.
5. Friendly stones are connected by any of the four adjacent points.
6. If a stone or group of connected stones has no empty spaces, then the stones are captured and taken off the board.
7. A stone cannot be placed if, after captures, it has no free spaces.
8. If a stone which would otherwise be captured when placed survives due to immediate capture of one enemy stone, then the opponent cannot place a stone in the position of the captured stone during the next turn.
9. Players may pass their turn.
A. If both players pass their turn, then the game ends.
B. The player with the most surrounded empty living territory (territory that cannot be captured) plus captured stones wins the game.
10. White gets a bonus score of 7.5 points.
Now, back to the show!
Throw in a nice little-wittle baby-waby girly-wirly character into the mix (a younger sister, no less) for the nice, misunderstood middle-aged men to gawk at in the misty sauna scenes, and we have lift off. A successful anime. A true artist knows that art cannot be judged by any other than its fulfillment of the author's purpose. If this anime was attempting to do what the rest of anime does, which is, to entice me to turn it off as quickly as possible, then I truly say that this is art of the greatest kind!
Reference
Fandom, Inc. (n.d.). Ten Covenants. No Game No Life Wiki. https://no-game-no-life.fandom.com/wiki/Ten_Covenants
