In the real world, siblings Shiro and Sora are NEET shut-ins. However, in the virtual world, they are a legendary gaming duo. One day, after a strange email, they find their reality taken away as they are transported to the realm of Tet, God of Games. Here, Shiro and Sora must play games to defeat the sixteen races of this world as well as Tet in order to become the new gods.
Visually stunning and occasionally clever, No Game No Life and its games draw you in, if you are looking for good anime recommendations like No Game No Life, then look no further.
Anime Like No Game No Life
For Fans of Games
Kakegurui
Hyakkaou Private Academy is an institution for the elite of society with a very special curriculum. These students are the children of the wealthiest people in the world, but they won’t need athletic prowess or book smarts for a successful life, they will need to know the art of the deal and how to read people. So instead of traditional classes, this school features a curriculum of rigorous gambling where the winners live like kings and the losers suffer. However, they haven’t seen anything yet until they meet new student Yumeko Jabami.
Do you like intense high stakes games with sometimes ridiculous set ups? Yes? Because that is what you get with both shows. Both feature intense and clever main characters who only know how to win. The only thing that differs really is the setting.
Kaiji
Kaiji Itou is a thug in the truest sense. With his days spent drinking and stealing hubcaps, his world is turned upside down when a co-worker tricks him into taking on a huge debt. In order to pay it off, Kaiji takes up a shady offer to participate in illegal gambling on a cruise ship that is filled with even worse scumbags than him.
In many ways, No Game No Life and Kaiji are very different. One is bright and beautiful; the other is dark and dirty. However, they are tied together through the use of games. With one’s life on the line for a gamble, it makes things pretty interesting.
Death Parade
After death, there is no heaven or hell, but there is a bar that decides whether you reincarnate or disappear into oblivion. Pairs of the recently deceased must play a random game which decides their fate.
Both series take place in worlds where a game is used to decide your fate. The big separator here is that the “world” of Death Parade is really just that one room while No Game No Life has a whole country to explore. Regardless, in both series, everything is decided by a game.
For Fans of Bored, But Talented Main Characters
These Problem Children are Coming From Another World, Aren’t They?
Three extraordinary teenagers are blessed with psychic abilities, but are bored with their mundane lives. Unexpectedly, they are invited to go to a mysterious new place to participate in a high-stakes game using their abilities.
In many of their core concepts, these anime series are very much alike. Kids go to another world where they participate in high stakes games. In No Game No Life, they play games to settle various disputes rather than just for fun. The two main characters also only use just their brains and not any special abilities.
Btooom!
Unemployed and living with his mother, Ryouta Sakamoto’s only real achievement is being the top player in Japan of a video game called Btooom! However, one day he wakes up on an island with nothing but a small green crystal embedded in his hand. He soon finds out that someone wants him and others players to play Btooom! for real if they want to live.
Btooom has a much more action oriented story, but it features a similar protagonist that was very good at what they did, only to be forced to do things at much higher stakes. However, make no mistake, No Game No Life is a bit of a happier show. Btooom is often a lot of suffering and little else.
The World God Only Knows
Keima Katsuragi is known as the “God of Conquest,” a man that can conquer any girl’s heart, at least in his dating sim games. However, when Keima arrogantly accepts an offer to prove his dating sim supremacy, he finds himself at the mercy of a demon that forces him to woo over real life girl.
There is no denying how similar the main characters are in both their arrogance and their general attitude. They are both so good at what they do that nothing else seems to matter. However, while the subject matter of their games do differ, both series are about watching them play.
For Fans of Isekai Domination
Re:Zero
When Subaru Natsuki goes out for a midnight snack run, he suddenly finds himself transported to another world. As a bewildered teen in a land of swords and magic, he wanders around and ends up attacked by thugs. After being saved by a mysterious woman, he agrees to help her get back something that was stolen. Unfortunately, it ends in both their deaths. With his dying breath, he finds that he possesses the power of revival, escaping his death by the repeating the last few hours.
What do you do when you get sent to a new world? Well, that is the question that gets answered in these series. To be fair, the characters in No Game No Life make progress quicker than in Re:Zero, but you watch the people thrive eventually.
Overlord
As the final hour approaches the life cycle of the MMO Yggdrasil, Momonga, a powerful wizard and leader of the dark guild Ainz Ooal Gown, is there to see it off. However, to his surprise, the servers don’t go down and even stranger is that all the NPC characters have come alive with their own unique personalities.
Why just survive a new world when you can be the ruler of it? If you liked watching Sora and Shiro dominate through games, but wished there was more fighting, then Overlord will satisfy you. However, in Overlord, you also watch them use strategy as well, so it is not all metal and muscle either.
Sword Art Online
With the aid of NerveGear technology, video game players can now experience their playable worlds like never before – in virtual reality. For Kazuto Kirigaya, his game of choice is Sword Art Online. After beta testing the game, he logs into the launch and finds himself, as well as ten thousand other players, trapped in the game world.
While Kirito and his crew aren’t even a fraction as clever as Shiro and Sora, they make the best of their new reality in order to thrive in it. Instead of playing games, Kirito is inside of a game, but a game is a game, as they say.
Do you have more anime recommendations like No Game No Life, then let fans know in the comments section below.
