Review of No Game, No Life: Zero

I had the pleasure of watching No Game No Life Zero in the cinema, despite quite the delay from its original release date, it's definitely worth the wait. For your information, this movie tells of a prequel 6000 years ago, and it had little to do with the TV series from 2014. Hence, you can watch this without watching the TV series. But it's better that you watch the TV series since you will get a better understanding of the plot and world. The movie had quite a good story, with some good world building. I'd rather have you watch it than tell everything. It's a shamethat it had so much to squeeze into only 1 hour and 40 minutes, making it quite rushed and leaving almost no time to explain a lot of things and situation. However, the story flows so well despite it being quite rushed. It looks like they are more inclined to "Show, don't tell" kind of narrative that i have to say is quite successful, since there are not many things i was left to be confused about.

In its short duration, the movie put a lot of its focus on its character, more specifically, its 2 main character, Shuvi and Riku. You will get to see a lot of character development for those two, enough to maybe give you some sort of attachment to the characters. You will get to see less of the other characters, but it gave enough focus for it to not feel like they were useless or ignored.

If you watch the TV series, you know what to expect from the art. It's very similar, (you can see the characters are quite identical to the TV series) not that it's a bad thing. There's a lot of gorgeous scenes with vibrant colours and was very pleasing for the eye. The art and animation is truly well done.

The music was very good, different pieces fits well for different scenes, really helps with setting the atmosphere. Some tracks are really strong, but none really stand out for me.

There was some fanservice, in NGNL style (no genitals means safe, right?), but it may be off putting for some people. No worries though, you probably won't be bothered too much and forget about them while enjoying the movie.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable watch. There was enough time for the main characters for us to care about them, combined with good soundtracks and amazing art, resulting in the climax being really powerful.