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One day, the students of a high school class all recieve the same text message and suddenly get caught up in a dangerous game. Everyday, an order is issued, and if it is not obeyed within 24 hours, the student who was given said order will die.

Ousama Game could have been an average, but somewhat enjoyable, 'deadly game' manga among many others. It is, however, not the case, and shows perfectly how a story that starts in a mediocre way can end up being a catastrophe.

Story:

Ousama Game doesn't have a particularly impressive start. The first orders given by the Ousama mostly revolve around kissing or ... touching people of the opposite sex, which makes it hard to take the story seriously, even though people are actually dying because of it.

But as silly as the story may seem, it still manages to catch the interest. Almost as soon as the manga starts, we are confronted to the mysteries of the Ousama Game. Who is behind it? Why is it happening? How? Considering the fact that the story is not really interesting at that point, it is probably the desire to see those questions answered that keeps us reading.

However, as the story starts becoming more serious, it feels like we are only getting farther from the answers to the mystery. And this is where a scenario that was already unsteady completely falls apart. The revelations, as well as the final plot twist, make absolutely no sense, especially when taking into consideration all the things that happened previously in the story. In conclusion, after finishing reading Ousama Game, you are left with a feeling of incomprehension, as you wonder whether the author actually thought about his story before writing it.

Characters:

This manga does have a large cast of characters if we include all the students of the class. Of course, some of them are never really developped, but those who are are mostly uninteresting or annoying.

This seond category of characters seems to be divided into two sub-categories: the 'nice' characters and the 'bad' characters. There isn't really much room for normal people, in fact, the characters being either selfless people who are ready to die for their friends anytime, or selfish and cruel people who would probably let everyone die if it could allow them to survive.

In other words, no one is really likable, and most characters have motivations that are either not explained or simply not understandable.

Art:

The art is mostly average, with some inconsistency in its quality. While it is sometimes quite good, it often seems to become a bit messy in certain parts, especially when the characters have more intense facial expressions.

Enjoyment:

The story wasn't particularly enjoyable from the start, and if it tried to become more interesting towards the middle, it was to eventually end up falling into the abyss of stupidity and nonsense. As short as this manga may be, I would not recommend it, even if you enjoy this genre.

Following the adventures of two genius gamers in a fantasy world where everything is decided by games? That sounds interesting, but unfortunately, it's not as good as it could seem.

Story:

The main focus of the story is obviously the games played by Sora and Shiro, our main characters, to come closer to their objective. And while it seems interesting at first, it quickly becomes clear that they will all be solved in a similar way, which is without much logic at all. As the protagonists will state several times, they win as soon as the game starts, because they are that good. So, what happens during ... the game doesn't really matter. There is no real tension, because even if it seems like Sora and Shiro could lose, you know they won't. You know that after some time, they will pull out of nowhere an explanation of why they had won since the beggining and why their opponent is stupid.

The time between the different games is spent on discussing the politics of the world and the tactics that should be used to conquer it, which is in fact not bad. It would be even better, though, if it wasn't punctuated by awfully long and frequent bath scenes.

Characters:

We officially have two protagonists, but it's not long before we figure out that one of them is a main character in name only.

Sora, our first main character, is extremely arrogant and always trying to show how much better he is than any other character. Indeed, he is very smart and good at bluffing, and his attitude could probably be understood if those two qualities weren't the only one he possessed. Instead, this permanent tendency to show off for no good reason makes Sora a very unlikable character. But we haven't talked yet about what could be Sora's most important trait: his inability to make a mistake. Everything Sora says is true and if someone thinks otherwise, they'll be proven wrong sooner or later. If Sora seems to be loosing, it's only an illusion, because he always wins. Convenient, right?

The other main character is Shiro, Sora's younger sister, who handles the more mathematical sides of their games. Or at least, once in a while, to remember the audience she's supposed to be the main character alongside her brother. Most of the time, Shiro is actullay just there for the loli fanservice and to show her unbreakable love towards Sora, without doing anything of much importance.

Gravitating around our two protagonists, are various female characters who are either forgettable or annoying. Indeed, my favourite character is actually Stephanie, which is saying something since the poor girl's only purpose is to look stupid in comparison to Sora and Shiro and, of course, to be used for fanservice.

Visuals:

When it comes to the visual aspect of the show, the first thing that catches the attention is the colour palette that has been used. Primarly composed of blue, pink and purple, it really brings out the feeling of being in an other world and creates a dream-like atmosphere. The are times, however, when I felt like it was just too bright to still be pretty, so while I think using those colours was a very good idea, slightly toning them down might have made everything a bit more agreeable to the eye.

As for the rest, some sceneries were really pretty, and the animation and art were generally fine.

Sound:

Both the opening and ending were very good, as was the voice acting. The ost was fine, but not particularly memorable.

Enjoyment:

I enjoyed No Game No Life, to a certain extent. If you try to forget about the lack of logic in the winning of the games and simply focus on the immediate action, trying to immerse yourself in it, you will probably find this anime extremely entertaining, like it seem many people do. But as soon as you stop caring about what happens, and just sit there contemplating Sora's arrogance and Shiro's lack of emotion, waiting for the explanation of how they won their game to come out of nowhere, you will get bored.

We can all agree on the fact that horror anime often fail to actually be scary. Yet, it seems that Yami Shibai does a good job at it.

Story:

Each episode consists in a 4-minute short story, always following the same pattern and starting with the narration of a storyteller who briefly introduces us to the characters. We are then rapidly thrown into a seemingly ordinary situation, which progressively proves itself to not really be quite ordinary. The tension builds up until the climax is reached, signaling the end of the episode. Some people seem to consider short anime to be inherently bad, but I think ... this duration works well with the horror genre. The fact that the story ends really quickly prevents us from getting distracted, which would nullify all the tension-building.

The stories are very open to interpretation, as the reason why the events of the episode happened is never really explained. This can be unnerving, and even seem like a cheap way to write a story without having to think too much about it. It's probably true, but I think it also helps strenghtening the fear. The episodes start with an everyday situation that becomes abnormal because a supernatural being made its way into it, leaving the protagonist to wonder what exactly is happening and why. The fact that the threat's nature is unknown increases the sens of danger and the feeling of not knowing what to do. There are a few stories in which the side characters seem to understand the situation, but they never explain it to the protagonist, leaving them – and us – to face something we cannot comprehend.

Characters:

Each story has its own characters, the narrator being the only one who appears in every episode. As you can guess, we do not have much time to get to know them before the episode ends, but this is not really a problem because there simply is not much to learn about them. Those characters are not complex or remarkable in any way, acting like most people probably would if they were in their place. A lot of them are not even given a name and are simply introduced by the narrator as your average man, woman, little boy, ...

Is that a bad thing? Not really. Each story shows you how some people can suddenly find themselves in a terrible and horrifying situation, and the fact that those people are awfully normal only increases the feeling that those stories could be real. They are happening in our world, to people who are just like us, so how can we be sure that they really are just stories?

Visuals:

Let's directly get to the main point: the animation. It can be a major turn-on or turn-off depending on how you see it for the simple reason that... well, there is actually nothing that could really be called "animation" in Yami Shibai. The visuals are made to mimic the style of the kamishibai, which is a style of storytelling that uses paper characters moving in front of a background. The movements are therefore very limited – for example, when someone talks, their lips don't move – and illusory, as the characters simply jump from one pose to another. But when the time comes for real movement, you'll definitely feel uneasy.

The characters have a design that's quite realistic compared to most anime on the market which clearly helps setting a more serious mood. Most of the colours used are either dark and dull or reddish, contributing to the establishment of a eerie atmosphere.
However, the art style varies from one episode to another, some being much prettier than others.

Sound:

The voice-acting is quite good, but also different from what you're probably used to. You won't hear your typical anime voice that no real japanese person has, but something closer to reality in the way the characters speak.

The musics are fine, but rather discreet. The sinister atmosphere is mainly set using sound effects or a sudden silence.

The ending is sung by Hatsune Miku, which is... very surprising. But – and it is maybe even more surprising – it actually fits the mood of the anime quite well, the robotic vocaloid voice giving the song some kind of strange tone.

Enjoyment:

So, did Yami Shibai find the miracle recipe to make a scary anime? Not completely.
I found all the episodes – minus one – to be creepy, but the quality wasn't quite constant. While some stories were really nice and managed to frighten me, others were extremely weird, leaving me with a "What did I just watch?" feeling. Obviously, we are all very different when it comes to what we consider to be scary, and if some people will shiver in fear while watching this anime, others will just probably wait for the episode to end without batting an eye.

On a side note, I'd like to point out that most episodes contain a jumpscare. I admit that, well, I'm not a fan of those, as I don't consider that making me jump is making me afraid. However, jumpscares are something that's rarely used in anime and, for this reason, I think it is quite remarkable.

As a whole, I really liked Yami Shibai. It is different and, even though it isn't perfect, it is very interesting and entertaining. It will certainly not appeal to everyone, but I'd recommend it to anyone who likes horror stories.