By Yuu Kamiya. Released in Japan by Media Factory. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Daniel Komen.

Until I read the afterword of this volume, I was going to comment a lot on how this volume’s release was delayed, I believe, four times, to the point where I’ve forgotten almost everything that came before it. But the afterword indicates that it was delayed in Japan the exact same number of months, which made me suspicious and wonder if it was delayed here deliberately. Probably not, but given the nature of this series, you can never be too paranoid. Things are not helped on the “remember what happened previously” end by the fact that Volume 6 was a flashback, and also the best volume in the series, which Kamiya sheepishly agrees with – he had writer’s block trying to top it. Sadly, I don’t think he did here, as this 7th volume of NGNL is bout 3/4 irritating and wordy faffing about, and it only really picks up towards the end. That said, if the ending is doing what I think it’s doing, the 8th volume may be much better. It’s out in February. Theoretically.

We start off in media res, which is a difficult thing to pull off for a normal writer, and even more difficult when you’re this writer, who tends to expound about eight times more than is necessary. Sora, Shiro and the rest of the cast have apparently agreed to play a game against an Old Deus, with the shrine Maiden’s life at stake. This surprises them, as they have no memory of having agreed to the game. It’s a dice game with complicated rules, which Sora says is based on a game from Earth but which I was mostly blank on. Much of the volume is spent with our heroes (and Steph, who sadly is reduced to a cliche here) whining and being creepily fetishistic as the dice board is the same size as the world, which is to say it takes days to travel across spaces. And they also gain or lose age depending on the dice they have, meaning a lot of 2-year-old Steph here. And when you arrive at a space, you have to do a task that another player has assigned, which can be very difficult and dangerous.

I’ve talked a bit about the translation before. I don’t think it’s the worst thing ever, like some NGNL fans do, but it’s not doing the prose any favors either. Kamiya, as I said earlier, tends to expound a lot, and Sora and Shiro also speak in a jaded gamer sort of way. Add to that the fact that, unlike a lot of other translations, there’s very little “Sora said” or “Steph replied” added to the text to help the reader, and you get a book that feels like a slog much of the time. Thankfully, this changes towards the end, when we see a) Plum trying to become a full-time villain in the real world, and b) Jibril challenging [ ] to a game where SOMEONE is going to have to die. Actually, the nature of the game she’s challenging them to intrigues me quite a bit, and I’m interested in seeing how it’s handled.

Unfortunately, looking forward to Vol. 8 does not make Vol. 7 better. Kamiya was right in his afterword, this is a step down from the previous book. Still, if you enjoye NGNL, you’ll need to read it anyway.

By Yuu Kamiya. Released in Japan by Media Factory. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Daniel Komen.

The author says in this afterword that this 6th volume was very last minute, as the anime was coming out soon, they needed something quick, adn his editor suggested that he do this flashback explaining the past of Disboard that he had laid out for “some point in the future”. I applaud the editors, because it’s an excellent choice, and ends up giving us what is easily the best volume in the series to date. Told by the God Tet (in disguise) to Izuna (mostly so that she can break in and point out the obvious similarity between the stars in the past and our current stars), we get a “grim and gritty” backstory that actually works for more than just “being dark”, showing us the horror of the war-torn land and why it was worth sacrificing so much in order to ensure it became the game-ruled world it is today.

Of course, we’re not necessarily dealing with an entirely new cast – as Izuna testily points out, Riku and Schwi are clearly analogues for Sora and Shiro, and Couron is Steph’s distant ancestor and the founder of their kingdom. This allows readers to get a good visualization of them, even if the personalities don’t quite intersect – Schwi is pretty dead on for Shiro, but Riku is basically Sora if he’d been broken by reality even more. As for Couron, she’s Steph without the abuse, and therefore perfect. Indeed, a lot of the “ha ha the writer thinks this is funny” fanservice is absent from this book, as the war setting means that it’s hard to trot out the sexual perversions and humiliation of Steph. Yes, Riku is teased about being a lolicon, and there’s a few “dying a virgin” remarks that Sora would be proud of, but that’s about it. This book knows now is not the time.

We also, by the way, see Jibril, and in many ways she’s the villain of the book. We knew that her past life before the Games became the rule was filled with a lust for blood and carnage, and her fight with Schwi here shows off her impatience and tendency towards overreacting, even if it ends up doing her harm in the end. That said, we also see that she’s definitely different from the other Flugel, even if it will take Sora and Shiro to really drag her potential forward. Much of the book is Riku doing what Sora normally does, which is to say plan an elaborate series of moves that end up winning the game for humanity. Tet says Riku and Schwi are stronger than [ ], as their world didn’t have the “game rules”. Sadly, this also means that they’re not granted protagonist immunity, so be prepared for some tragedy as well.

This was an excellent book, and the big downside to it is that it shows off that the author can be really good when he wants to be, but frequently lets it get buried under a need for fanservicey jokes and stupid anime tropes. Book 7 (which is in December, NGNL has settled into twice a year now) returns us to Sora and Shiro, and it will be nice to see them again, but I hope we can keep some of the added depth and gravitas we saw here and not just have a series of jokes about Steph’s tits. If you want to test out the series, though, 6 is the way to start, oddly enough.

By Yuu Kamiya. Released in Japan by Media Factory. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Daniel Komen.

I was not quite as grumpy with this volume of No Game No Life as I was the previous one, despite the fact that it has many of the same problems. It could be that it had more interesting things happen – one fight takes up well over a third of the book – or that the denouement of the Siren thing was slightly amusing, which it was – emphasis on slightly. I suspect, however, that the main reason is that this volume was delayed and delayed and then delayed again, to the point where it now hits nine months after the last. Does absence make the heart grow fonder? More likely I was able to settle in after having forgotten literally everything about the last book, and it took a while to recall. The publisher may have figured this out as well – Vol. 6 has already been delayed a month or two as well.

I’ll start my mentioning what I didn’t care for, and then move on to what I enjoyed. As I observed in the previous volume, Sora and Shiro’s development continues to annoy me, mostly as the author has seemingly forgotten that the dichotomy between “invincible gamers” and “social incompetents” was what made them so fascinating. Here, as in Book 4, they almost never have a breakdown or completely lose it. Part of that is the nature of the game they’re playing in the first half – it requires them to be touching, basically, as they have to function as a pair of wings. But I suspect it’s more that the author just enjoys writing them as smug winners. We do get a little bit more time in their heads this volume, which is both good (Sora) and bad (Shiro’s incestuous feelings).

There’s also the resolution of the Dhampir/Siren plot, which was all right, but I wish more had been done to overcome the “Sirens are bimbos” stereotype. As it turns out the way to solve the riddle and wake the princess is simply not to do what she asks for – if you’re an unattainable love that she can never have, you win. Naturally, this is done with a lot of mental and emotional abuse, supposedly justified because she was so annoying, really. And then there’s Plum, whose surprise reveal wasn’t much of one, but whose other revelation – being a secret mastermind manipulating things – worked much better.

And then there’s Steph, who remains the main reason that I’m reading these books. I sympathize with her over the top suffering, of course, but more to the point, she’s developing more and more into a leader and keen observer every book, and people are starting to take notice – particularly Izuna, who is able to get past her verbal tic to realize that Stephanie is not as dumb as she thinks she is, or Sora and Shiro make her out to be. Of course, in the long run, I suspect this is shaping up for Stephanie to rule over everyone once Sora and Shiro win the game. I also liked the backstory with the Flugel race, and how imagination, curiosity, and the desire to create are what they desperately needed – but only Jibril had. There’s hints of some intriguing backstory, which I’d like to see more of.

So overall a mixed bag, and I think those who have been grumpy about this release won’t stop being so. But it’s still worth a read if you can tolerate twinked-out protagonists and their slangey dialogue.