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I wish my coworkers were like this, instead of, you know. 3D. |
NEW GAME! is another entrant in the cute-girls-doing-industry-things genre, so while it’s not groundbreaking, it is cute, funny, and fun. I’ll take that any day of the week.
This post doesn’t need to be long. I lede—this is another cute-girls-doing-industry-things anime, and I enjoyed it. Before I proceed further, let’s place it on that continuum. Is this more Sore ga Seiyuu!, Shirobako, Bakuman, or something else?
Well, Soresei, if I was forced to choose from those, though that’s not quite right. It certainly has the focus on the cute and a main cast full of females, but where Soresei dripped in industry knowledge since it was written by a professional seiyuu, NEW GAME! is more along the lines of, I don’t know, maybe Mangirl, though it’s not a short. There’s some knowledge of the industry on display, this is true, but you never get the feeling you’re learning something new, nor do you get the extra layers that made Shirobako so good (up to the episode I’ve watched . . . I really ought to finish that one day #backlogwoes #cantfindthetime #canhearsamucrying).
To me it almost felt more like a job about working, like Servant x Service, only with the shipping replaced with yuri shipping. It doesn’t matter what kind of job they’re doing, it would work with anything—though making games is more fun, so why not? I do know that watching an episode about working overnight while I was working my overnight job, followed by one titled “Full-time Employment is a Loophole in the Law to Make Wages Lower,” was almost Dilbert-levels of on the nose. It’s the kind of humor that’ll make you cry.
Those were the exceptions, though. Mostly NEW GAME! is cute, light, and funny. You’ll need to be up for a CGDCT anime to enjoy it, because it’s got professional grown-ass women acting like embarrassed maidens, and several of the ostensibly college-aged adults have squeaky, childlike voices (and appearances, and personalities). It does that infantilizing thing that moe anime so love to do, but come on—look at that art. You know what you’re getting with a show like this. Steer clear if that’s not your bag, baby.
But if it is, good news! NEW GAME! is cute and funny and I enjoyed most every episode. In a season where I’m behind on damn near everything I’m not blogging (except for you, Souma . . . by which I mean Megumi <3), this was my cute & relaxing de-stressing comedy. It’s a breath of moe air to enjoy after a long day. Check it out if that’s something you might enjoy.
P.S. Hifumin best girl, Hazuki best woman, Ahagon best soldier, Kou-chan best boss, Rin best yuri boss, Mozuku most wagamama body, and Hifumin best girl. What? It bears repeating!
My SECOND novel, Freelance Heroics, is available now! (Now in print!) (Also available: Firesign #1 Wage Slave Rebellion.) Sign up for my email list for a FREE prequel short story. At stephenwgee.com, the last four posts: Re Zero: The hero who strives, I have four jobs right now, Radical transparency. I’ll try, and Freelance Heroics in print, and other matters.
A few things:
1) I agree, this show was a bundle of fun and cute and moe blobbiness. Rarely a dull moment.
2) I agree again, Hifumi best girl all day every day and Kou x Rin forever.
3) Stilts… finish Shirobako! Don’t make Samu cry. We like Samu.
I’ll get to it soon! Once I have fewer jobs =X
Cannot believe I did not post to this article so soon. This was a fun anime about working in a video game studio. All the girls are so wonderful and they all have their own lovable personalities. Of course, lots and lots of delicious fanservice. I think Kou has the best butt of the year. And finally, it is very yuritastic. I would put this and Love Live Sunshine as contenders for the “Yuri Anime of the Year” award. Aoba x Kou is my OTP.
It would be a blasphemy if there is no S2, which will happen inevitably. In the meantime, there is another upcoming that is just like New Game called Magic of Stella. The difference is that it takes place in a high school and it is more on making doujin games. Let us start getting hyped for that show and let us pray that there will be NGS2 announcement coming soon.
My anime of the season, narrowly beating out Amaama and Konobi. The characters were all very likable and I couldn’t think of one whom I felt was annoying (*coughTarocough*). The comedy was lighthearted and everything was just so relaxing. Comparisons to Shirobako will be inevitable, but New Game! stands strong on its own as an easy to digest slice-of-life.
damn stilts… you also love hifumin-chan? woah… finally found a comrade. 😀
There are people that don’t accept the glory of Hifumin? Blasphemy. That adorable hesitance, that try-hard and want-to-be-friends attitude, that laid-back drinking, DAT MOLE!! XD
What really sold me on Hifumi was her…moment later on in the manga (vol 4 I think). I don’t want to spoil it, but it was glorious and probably launched a thousand Hifumin x Yun ships in Japan.
I wasn’t too keen on her in the manga, but after going through the anime I just want to make her smile
well there are nenechi factions and aoba factions who doesn’t accept hifumin-
chansama’s glory. so yeah…No love for Aoba? No love for that little devil Aoba? How could you?!?
Little devil Aoba is the best version of Aoba, hands down.
If you buy all 6 Blurays/DVDs of the New Game anime, you get a public bath OVA episode!!
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2016-09-14/new-game-tv-anime-blu-rays-dvds-to-offer-public-bath-ova/.106448
You have to redeem the proof of purchase stubs to get the OVA though.
Aoba, Hifumin, Kou, Rin, and Shizuku were my favorites, lol.
This is my anime of the season (I’ve actually been covering it over on a different blog), and… well… what else do I need to say? I’ve enjoyed it thoroughly. The
girlswomen are lovely/adorable, likeable, and all have differing personalities that can play off each other well.Best girl… I admit I’ve really liked Hifumin in this adaptation. I’m also a big fan of Aoba and Hajime, though. Voice-actor-chan, from the final episode, really caught my attention, too. 😀
Dogakobo knows how to make a moe slice of life. This was a pretty good one.
It was a really fun time. I only found it ever missed the mark during the last three episodes whenever it transitioned to conflicts or dramatic scenes. Like in episode 10, Nene and Aoba are kind of making an argument about working too hard, and Aoba is all “I have big goals, what about you” and it suddenly becomes this conflict where they disagree, but then later agree. I don’t know if it was the weak lead-up to those scenes, or they don’t do anything new or interesting with the conflict, or it didn’t seem like the kind of thing two close friends would be that adamant about, but I didn’t get quite into those parts after episode 10.
But the fun parts were still pretty strong, the character interactions made for good times, it’s a very pleasant and innocent show.
I know Aoba and Hifumi are adorable as hell, but…no love at all for Umiko?
I’ll bet she’ll look absolutely cute once she gets all flustered with a matching luminescent blush… Also, it’s usually the serious girls that sometimes hide a wilder side…if you know what I mean… 😉
Definitely had no regrets in picking this show up.
Well, she’s clearly not keeping her wilder side hidden…but I get the feeling that that’s not the kind of wild you’re looking for.
Discovering a girl’s wild side is every hot-blooded man’s fantasy!
Oh well…fingers crossed that I’ll eventually see good doujins that feature Umiko. (Though I remember one doujin of Aoba that apparently got shown in a Ukrainian mall… *snickers*)
Too bad real life doesnt work this way…. a lot of guys in the computer games development industry and no cute loli girls T.T
and no one pick this show to blog
This is a hard show to blog. You’ll notice even in this post I barely went into the substance. “This was cute!” “This was funny!” Repeat that ad nauseum. That would have been the blogging experience.
Well, there might have been discussions on how certain branches of a video game studio actually work in real life, like the Beta Tester. Other video game fans might also point out that Eagle Jump’s Fairies Story series may be an expy of a real-world video game. (Just like how Legendary Age is one to Ragnarok Online.)
I’m also sure there would be another bunch of people who would love to discuss (or can relate to) Umiko’s airsoft hobby, or Hajime’s collection of otaku merchandise, or Hifumi and Yun’s outfits, etc. And then there are those who would go meta and question some hilariously improbable scenarios, like, “How can tripping over one wire send you flying?”, as well as those working folks who can attest to the reality of working an overnight shift.
What I’m saying is, it was quite nice that New Game! managed to cover a pretty broad range of topics related to what the characters do (albeit the show being lighter and softer than the usual work-coms). And that broad range of topics is the ideal blogging/discussion fodder.
A few other blogs have covered it. I covered it over on Anime Evo. Skylion covered it on METANORN. But we also acknowledged even as we were getting into it that Cute Girls Doing Cute Things, and slice of life in general, are hard genres to blog about.
My favorite part of this show was Dogakobo kind of just going silly with the animation. Lots of bits where characters are moving way more than need be or going cartoony. It has a lot of “bounce” to it, not counting Hazime. It does the “blob” part of moeblob kind of nice Ithink.
The Dilbertness of it is also something I really liked. It stays just funny/silly/yuri enough not to get as dark or stressful as Shirobako can, but still is fun. Quite liked.
And stuff.
Yes, definitely Hifumi best girl 😛 She was so adorable in the last episode when she was asking for an autograph and her excited, shy face when she got to talk to the voice actor~ All the girls really grown on me in their own way though, even Nene who I first thought was a bit irritating but she’s just a nice, awkward friend to Aoba. Nothing ground breaking, but it was super cute and very fun to watch, which is all this type of anime needs to be. Would be cool if there is a season 2, I think it’s quite popular in Japan, but I’m not sure how much source material New Game has.
This was near the end of Vol.2, and there’s 5 out I think. Doubt it will happen, but we did get “Is the Order a Rabbit” S2, so anything’s possible.
*cries*
The haircuts, the clothes, the expressions, the voices, the gags, the locations, everything about New Game! was cute-overload. The opening was so catchy too. A lovely show which I hope will get a season 2 okayed somewhere down the line.
Most of the characters are lovable, except for Umiko, who I personally can not stand. She always seems to act like a total bitch, especially towards Nene.