No Game, No Life: Zero

"If you are not going to let me win, why did you give me a heart so I could feel all this pain?". I have to say, creating such an intensely powerful backstory with the movie for the cheerful and colorful anime series, which is full of thrilling games is just genius. It reminded me of Adventure Time and the feeling I got when I started to delve into the history of the world it is set in and fully understood the meaning of the screenwriter's line about sweet candy with a bitter secret. In other words, the movie's narrative is well thought out. It contrasts wonderfully with the anime series, even though it still makes some reasonable assumptions about the main protagonists and a lot of the other characters. There is a lot of interesting subject matter regarding human nature, the power of determination, the nature of the human heart, plenty of strategies, plus some very thrilling and emotional moments. The movie's soundtrack is excellent, as is the animation, and the setting is breathtaking. It is all good apart from a few pretentious fight scenes where the CGI feels a bit too much at times. Sure, a few things could be faulted; the dramatic and emotional elements feel too forced at times. However, I have actually gotten quite used to this sort of thing with anime series. There was an initial surprise that this was No Game No Life, except it was fascinating, intense, thoughtful, and highly satisfying, which left me with a really good impression overall. 9/10. (25.02.2018)