No Game No Life

For easy reference:
1. All murder, war, and robbery is 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 go against number three, what they bet and the rules of the game will not be questioned.
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!


6 can force people to disobey 1, you do the same thing Sora does in ep 2 to Steph and tell them to kill someone for you instead of falling in love with you, from the way steph was acting it seems like to rules force you to comply even when you dont want to, its possible this doesnt work in the case of using it to disobey rule 1, but then rule 6 isnt being followed so they end up conflicting in this case and theres nothing in the rules to resolve a conflict of rules

8 seems to require you to be able to explain how the other person is cheating which means that humans can never really accuse any of the magic using races of cheating since humans dont understand how magic works, all they could say is "youre using magic you cheater" which isnt really explaining it, so those races that are ranked highly cant lose to humans

10 and 9 arent included by rule 9s rule of not being able to change the rules since it says "the previous rules" and doesnt say anything about including rule 9 or 10, so 9 and 10 should be able to be changed and once you change 9 you can change any of the others
All youd have to do is use rule 6 to make a bet with Tet that rule 9 will be *insert new rule 9 here* and everything falls apart if you win (you might be able to make a bet with anyone, it doesnt have to be god, to change rule 9 depending on how powerful rule 6 is, id give it a shot just to see what would happen)

1 doesnt include other terrible things like rape or torture (not that i think those will come up in this show, but im just saying)

2 is too vague, it says "through games" but there is no definition of games given, and since rule 1 doesnt include rape or torture you could use 5 to make "games" like "whoever rapes the most girls by sunrise wins"

And the vagueness of 2 also makes 5 mean that the challenged party can set insane rules so that the challenger backs down, all youd have to do is say "ok the rules to this game are, we chop our hands off and the first person to pass out loses" or something even more ridiculous and the challenger wouldnt want to challenge you anymore (3 only covers what is bet, not the rules of the game and the hand chopping thing in this example is part of the rules of the game and not part of the bet so it doesnt apply, and theres no rule about not making the game rules insane like that, and the part in 4 that says "as long as it doesnt go against 3" only applies to 4 and not 5 so it should work), effectively preventing you from ever having to even try to win
I guess this would invoke rule 7, since it would cause a conflict between people if a king did this to prevent his territory from being taken or w/e but then rule 7 conflicts with rule 5 and we have another issue of conflicting rules since "representatives with absolute authority" would still be bound by rule 9 and wouldnt be able to stop the challenged party from abusing rule 5 (depending on how rule 7 works, id have to see it in action before i can say this for sure, but rule 9 should apply to them to)

And if 10 is an actual rule, and it has to be because its the only thing stopping you from making a bet with yourself, having fun is forced on the people playing, and since rule 6 makes you do things you dont want to do rule 10 should make you have fun during every game
Meaning that if my hand chopping game was played they would have fun while doing it, which isnt a broken rule, i just thought it was funny to think about

have severe mental issues and need each other so much to the point where they are way too close

pat wrote:

8 seems to require you to be able to explain how the other person is cheating which means that humans can never really accuse any of the magic using races of cheating since humans dont understand how magic works, all they could say is "youre using magic you cheater" which isnt really explaining it, so those races that are ranked highly cant lose to humans

yeah this is the reason that humans have lost all their territory. my guess is that the rules were different enough with the old god that humans used to have a fair shot... there's not really evidence that the world was always a game world, but Tet kinda sorta implied that's how he won it.

still doesn't explain why the brother was seemingly able to see the hooded girl using magic. maybe he was able to guess, that'd be kinda cool. id much rather he's able to guess magic by leveraging his intellect Vs. he's an exception bc he has a different birth place

pat wrote:

1 doesnt include other terrible things like rape or torture (not that i think those will come up in this show, but im just saying)

it seems very in line with my perception of Tet. ignores what he doesn't like. but it could just be that it wouldn't do to even acknowledge stuff that does permanent emotional damage in a world that's all about temporary simple games.

pat wrote:

2 is too vague, it says "through games" but there is no definition of games given, and since rule 1 doesnt include rape or torture you could use 5 to make "games" like "whoever rapes the most girls by sunrise wins"

yeah true. but hey it's still anime, and most of the time we're both sorta okay with anime making little to no sense. we're just looking at this so closely because a 10 commandments style list of absolute rules is kinda meant to be analyzed
i do think that even anime should try a bit harder with consistency when it flat out defines rules
but its only ep 2, maybe develop into it

pat wrote:

And if 10 is an actual rule, and it has to be because its the only thing stopping you from making a bet with yourself, having fun is forced on the people playing, and since rule 6 makes you do things you dont want to do rule 10 should make you have fun during every game
Meaning that if my hand chopping game was played they would have fun while doing it, which isnt a broken rule, i just thought it was funny to think about

maybe, that's definitely 1 way to interpret it. it's so loosely worded that it pretty much means / enforces what Tet wants it too
another way is that it defines everyone as loving games and wanting to have fun games. if that were the case then you probably wouldnt have to worry about hand mutual self harm games or whatever. you could argue that some people would think that kinda thing is fun but that's not how the rule works: "let's all have fun and play together" means that it has to fit into Tet's idea of fun (since he was the one who get's to define what "fun" is)

they were falling through the atmosphere and thought they were going to die. i feel like they may have been distracted. smart is different than nit-picky. they mighta thought of it after the fact when they had time to be nit-picky, its only ep 2

Serenity09 wrote:

still doesn't explain why the brother was seemingly able to see the hooded girl using magic. maybe he was able to guess, that'd be kinda cool. id much rather he's able to guess magic by leveraging his intellect Vs. he's an exception bc he has a different birth place

I got the sense that he didnt know how she was cheating, just that she was, when he told steph he would tell her how she cheated it seemed like a bluff to me (although he might know now since he read those books about it, but at the time i dont think he did)
I would be disappointed if he could use magic due to being from the normal world, the ability to understand how it works is fine

Serenity09 wrote:

it seems very in line with my perception of Tet. ignores what he doesn't like. but it could just be that it wouldn't do to even acknowledge stuff that does permanent emotional damage in a world that's all about temporary simple games.

Yeah it is something Tet would do, but still, its a flaw in the rules

Serenity09 wrote:

maybe, that's definitely 1 way to interpret it. it's so loosely worded that it pretty much means / enforces what Tet wants it too
another way is that it defines everyone as loving games and wanting to have fun games. if that were the case then you probably wouldnt have to worry about hand mutual self harm games or whatever. you could argue that some people would think that kinda thing is fun but that's not how the rule works: "let's all have fun and play together" means that it has to fit into Tet's idea of fun (since he was the one who get's to define what "fun" is)

I considered this but if it did work this way it conflicts with rule 5 since its the challenged party's right to decide the rules and 10 would take that right away in many circumstances when it goes against Tet's idea of fun, so i thought about the way rule 6 works and that made me think of the way i said which seemed more likely to me than the other way
Also the same could be said about rule 2, where "game" is defined by what Tet considers a game, but more rule conflicts occur
Although considering the other issues of the rules it wouldnt surprise me if 10 did conflict with some of the other rules, my interpretation was an attempt to fix such a conflict when i shouldnt have

In fact the more i think about it im almost certain rule 10 works the way you said, and "game" in rule 2 is defined by Tets idea of a game, because it solves many of the conflicts i was talking about, even if it causes a bunch more, but the conflicts rule 10 causes by working this way arent as bad, it also makes rule 10 relevant to rule 9s error of not including 10 and 9
The main problem with it is that it really restricts what people can do

as soon as they typed the rules into their cell phones, the act of writing it down shouldve triggered him to be like "hmm, this rule doesnt include itself" but he didnt mention anything about it
I guess its possible he noticed it already and just hasnt said anything yet, but his goal at the end of ep 2 was to become king rather than to become god (which you could potentially do by changing rule 9)
Maybe hes taking small steps toward that but it seemed more like he didnt consider it

pat wrote:

I considered this but if it did work this way it conflicts with rule 5 since its the challenged party's right to decide the rules and 10 would take that right away in many circumstances when it goes against Tet's idea of fun, so i thought about the way rule 6 works and that made me think of the way i said which seemed more likely to me than the other way
Also the same could be said about rule 2, where "game" is defined by what Tet considers a game, but more rule conflicts occur
Although considering the other issues of the rules it wouldnt surprise me if 10 did conflict with some of the other rules, my interpretation was an attempt to fix such a conflict when i shouldnt have

In fact the more i think about it im almost certain rule 10 works the way you said, and "game" in rule 2 is defined by Tets idea of a game, because it solves many of the conflicts i was talking about, even if it causes a bunch more, but the conflicts rule 10 causes by working this way arent as bad, it also makes rule 10 relevant to rule 9s error of not including 10 and 9
The main problem with it is that it really restricts what people can do

i'm not totally sure what to make of free will in this world. hell, i dont even know what i make of free will in general. but the idea that you can give away your free will (moreover that it can be quantified) as a bet does not imply good things for the concept. at best, though, the inhabitants have fake free will (bc of Tet not bc they're characters of someone's imagination) -- part's of their will is bound by Tet's will. bc of that, the rules are all kinda a sham -- they never really had the option to break the rules to start with. the only real option they have is to overthrow Tet using his own rules, like you said, and then unleash everyone's will. "i can do as i will but i cannot will as i will" --> "i can't really do as i will and fuck if i can will as i will"
it'd be really cool if the show got all philosophical in it's motivations

Serenity09 wrote:

i'm not totally sure what to make of free will in this world. hell, i dont even know what i make of free will in general. but the idea that you can give away your free will (moreover that it can be quantified) as a bet does not imply good things for the concept. at best, though, the inhabitants have fake free will (bc of Tet not bc they're characters of someone's imagination) -- part's of their will is bound by Tet's will. bc of that, the rules are all kinda a sham -- they never really had the option to break the rules to start with. the only real option they have is to overthrow Tet using his own rules, like you said, and then unleash everyone's will. "i can do as i will but i cannot will as i will" --> "i can't really do as i will and fuck if i can will as i will"
it'd be really cool if the show got all philosophical in it's motivations

I think Steph's reaction to being made to love Sora was a good demonstration of how free will works in this world
They have free will but the rules can manipulate it, they are aware of what they are doing and can object to it, but they still do what the rules make them do, so i would call it at worst restricted will and at best selective free will
But yeah they would have to and should be able to use the flaws in the rules to their advantage

they logic out magic's role rather than observe it. i was kinda hoping for them to go with their strengths for a solution but i guess they did in a way

im not sure what they're using their cell phones for. maybe communicating secretly (but no signal = ?), purely to throw off their opposition, or maybe it's part of their magic sniffing plan
or if they lost they'd have photo evidence of a scene and maybe a magical race could identify magic within it. i can't even imagine this working but maybe

i don't like that the show spoilers in the intro/outro

Sora def went with his strength for a solution, shiro is more procedural/mechanical so it makes sense she would rigidly stick to the standard rules of chess

I think the cell phones are to be intimidating, since they dont exist in that world it could be perceived as some sort of magical device
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic
It could also be used for secret communication via bluetooth with an app like this: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bluetooth-text/id368194731?mt=8
Picture evidence is possible, i didnt consider that one since identifying magic through a picture didnt seem likely to me, especially since they dont know anyone with the ability to identify magic
It might be all of these things, but the most likely one to me is intimidation

The fanservice was a result of the main focus of the episode, where as in 5 the fanservice was really all their was, and it made more sense here than it did in 5 since here sora set it up for his own pleasure where as in 5 shiro got stephs panties for no reason

I really like how he tested everything with that nuclear bomb word at the start, not only did it test his ability to use words that she didnt know like they said, it also tested the existence of coulomb's law in this world (since the bomb worked it proved that fusion and basic atomic theory exists and coulomb's barrier is what stops nuclear fusion so if fusion works coulomb's law is almost guaranteed to exist)

The only problem with it is that they both shouldve died at the same time as everything wouldve exploded at roughly the same time, in theroy (it wouldnt have been an expanding explosion like they showed unless the game removed the law in a way that expanded, but it didnt seem like thats how it worked), but im willing to overlook it since we dont really know what would happen if we removed coulomb's force

The ed was nice, i love little details like that, it even took out every instance of sora
Since they made it a point to show the date on soras phone i rewatched the bit after the credits to see if you could see the date there and you can
Before the credits its the 19th on soras phone, and after the credits its the 21st on shiros phone

So theres a missing day
I dont know what relevance that has, but it must be important

Im thinking that in order to beat system admins at their game he played a game with someone (i dont know who) and the bet was to turn sora into an AI thats in the warbeasts system or something and erase his existence from this world so that the warbeasts dont remember him
That way when shiro plays the warbeasts game later he can do stuff to help her and the warbeasts wont understand whats happening so they cant accuse her of cheating

Since he made that speech to shiro at the end he definitely intended to disappear so this is the only thing that makes sense to me
Shiro remembers him because shes not from this world and if the bet was "everyone from this world forgets sora" or something with the key words of "this world" shiro would still remember

That missing day will probably be when ep 9 takes place, maybe, although that would end up breaking the 3 episode story arc pattern that theyve had going, unless they fit everything into ep 9
But i cant even guess at why it took a day or why its so significant, or who it is he is interacting with at the end of the ep

I also dont know what his plan is to get back to normal or what repercussions not existing will have, i dont know if the pledges will still work on him, like if his status is still imanity
If the pledges still work i guess he could just bet his way out, but thats kindve anti climatic


Also if you lose your race piece and you no longer need to abide by the pledges, couldnt you just lose your piece on purpose and do a full scale military invasion on your enemy, i assume since the side that lost their piece are treated like wild animals that their enemy would be able to respond with military force and kill them (since theres no rule about not being able to kill animals), but if you prepare everything before you lose the piece, then do a full scale attack immediately after, you could win fairly easily since the enemy wouldnt be prepared for war since there hasnt been a real war in so long

In fact, it wouldnt surprise me if thats what the warbeasts do if they lose, and thats why they've been taking so long (they are preping their army in case they lose)
Imanity wouldnt stand a chance against a full scale military assault from warbeasts with significantly advanced tech
Though i dont think the show will go in that direction, im just thinking theres no reason it couldnt happen (unless Tet pulls a dues ex machina and intervenes)

im not gonna go into the specifics of yours, especially since the new ep comes out tomorrow so why look stupid
the one big thing that you didnt really cover is why shiro lost her memory of what happened on the 20th. and also you dont explain how his phone continues to receive live datetime pushes from Earth's servers. or why the new world has an identical day/night schedule with japan
why does she remember sora but not that the 20th already happened -- whats the need to hide the plan from shiro

i dont think theres any really good reason to say sora's plan = get admin permissions, but that definitely seems plausible. i would definitely prefer it being something like this, smart self-sufficiency without being cheap is why i love the show

ive tried really hard to not let the phone bother me, but the show doesnt make it easy -- especially not with how much time establishing that there aren't any accidental loopholes. cloud storage, "just-in-time" web functions, etc are all out. everytime i see something like this (where they have to handle technology in a non-contradictory way) i take a deep breath and brace myself, but so far it hasn't been bad at all

Serenity09 wrote:

the one big thing that you didnt really cover is why shiro lost her memory of what happened on the 20th
why does she remember sora but not that the 20th already happened

I assume the memory changes didnt happen until after soras game was over, and it ended at the end of the missing day (thats 1 of the reasons i thought part of ep 9 might take place during the missing day, to show soras game and how everyone reacted to sora vanishing (before their memories were altered)
Shiro only just realizes hes gone on the 21st because the game sora played on the 20th includes that everyone forgets the 20th (shiro would count in that)

Serenity09 wrote:

whats the need to hide the plan from shiro

The beastmen can tell if someone is lying, so its better for shiro to just be confused rather than having to lie
They wont be able to get anything from her by just reading her confusion

Serenity09 wrote:

and also you dont explain how his phone continues to receive live datetime pushes from Earth's servers. or why the new world has an identical day/night schedule with japan

Phones can keep time without requiring an update from the time servers, just turn off the automatic/network date/time feature and you can set it to anything you want

I dont know how you want me to explain why the new world has the same 24 hour cycle as earth, but since it seems to have that cycle its just a fact that it does theres nothing to explain, the creator figured a 24 hour cycle made the most sense and stuck with it in this world
Its possible that its not 24 hours, it could be anywhere from like 20-28 hour day/night cycle and shiro and sora just correct/sync their phones every other day, a maximum of a 4 hour difference from earths cycle would let a 24 hour cycle clock kind of work with the time of day

Serenity.09 wrote:

i dont think theres any really good reason to say sora's plan = get admin permissions, but that definitely seems plausible. i would definitely prefer it being something like this, smart self-sufficiency without being cheap is why i love the show

I dont see how else you can win, you need admin powers to fight admin powers
I used to run a counter strike server (before TMMM), it had various plugins installed on it, one of those was a plugin that let admins grab people and move them just by looking at them while holding a button (its like picking up an object but you can do it from any distance and through walls if you knew they were there)
So rather than give myself no clip or make myself invulnerable i would just throw people out of cover to cheat and they wouldnt understand what was happening because no one thought something like that was possible no one suspected me of abusing admin power (people eventually figured it out and i turned that ability into a game mode of sorts where everyone could throw people around, more often than not we ended up with fights where 2 people locked onto eachother which caused them to fly all over the place uncontrollably trying to shoot each other, 80% of the time the result was both of them dying to fall damage, it was amazing to see 8 pairs of 16 people flying around in this way)

Anyway, my point is, with admin powers and the right settings, you can be untouchable without seeming to be doing anything
A better example would probably be the mind control plugin, where you can control other people directly, you can have a friend take control of your enemy and at a key moment cause them to do something they dont want, from their perspective its like their controls messed up and in some cases, if your subtle enough, they think they just missed the shot

Serenity09 wrote:

ive tried really hard to not let the phone bother me, but the show doesnt make it easy -- especially not with how much time establishing that there aren't any accidental loopholes. cloud storage, "just-in-time" web functions, etc are all out. everytime i see something like this (where they have to handle technology in a non-contradictory way) i take a deep breath and brace myself, but so far it hasn't been bad at all

The solar charger thing is what bothers me most about it, everything else i can explain but why would they have solar chargers, they arent the type to go outside, so why would they even get that, it seemed like their place had no windows so where would they put the solar charger
When would they ever need or even use a solar charger in their normal life is what im trying to say

I was wrong about the system admin thing, i guess they are going to just try to prevent them from cheating rather than just cheating better

I really hope it doesnt end with the warbeasts cheating and them catching it and automatically winning
It seems like that will be what happens though

Also how did the warbeasts make a virtual Tokyo, they cant read minds, so how could they possibly know what Tokyo from earth looks like, or that Sora/Shiro wouldnt be able to function there
I guess its possible to have used magic to see Tokyo, and they may not have known shiro/sora wouldnt function there and that part is just a coincidence
But still