New Game! is a 12 episode anime based upon the four panel manga series. It follows Suzukaze Aoba, who is fresh out of high school and landed her first job as a character designer in a game company. Upon her first day of work, she encounters the many weird and unusual people that are her colleagues. Despite everyone being adults and the anime taking place somewhere other than a high school setting, the aesthetics has everyone looking like a kid or teenager anyway.
It’s not that Aoba struggles through her work, it’s just that anyone would have trouble adjusting to the colorful characters that are her colleagues. Starting from her boss Yagami who often sleeps in the office in various states of undress, to Hajime the motion designer that randomly jumps up and starts posing for inspiration, to Hifumi who is overly shy and doesn’t speak at all. This leads to various scenes of humor, but it also shows off the tougher working conditions of the Japanese workplace.
The anime is actually a nice insight to the joys of working, albeit exaggerated and softened to a more idealistic view. Nevertheless, it manages to make even the most mundane of things, like coming to work late, getting constructive feedback and even just adjusting the AC temperature interesting. However, there’s always either a positive message coming from it like everyone is helpful, or they play around with it in a lighthearted way.
One thing’s for sure though, is that Japanese workplaces have long hours. Aoba is constantly shown to work late into the night before she can head off to go home. When you consider she arrives a bit later in the morning, but doesn’t leave until 9pm or 10pm at night, that’s a solid ten to twelve hours of work… for an entry position. This is played off as normal so it’s definitely tough and tiring.
With all that, this is still a slice-of-life that’s focused on the cute aspect of the characters. Everyone is a stereotype, from the shy one to the energetic one to the airheaded one to the motherly figure. That’s not a bad thing since it makes the relatively bland plot engaging to watch. Since Aoba is in the character design team, it focuses on that aspect of game making, and it’s more involved than you would have expected. Even NPCs take a while to model, despite them usually being throwaway characters that you don’t notice, it definitely shines a new light on things.
As the season nears its end, so to do the company reach their goal of completing their game. While it still doesn’t get too much in-depth into the process, it touches upon several key aspects like meeting milestones, deadlines, announcing and promoting the game at events, and the dreaded crunch right before they have to finalise the code to be ready for shipping. It can feel at odds with the cheery and colorful aesthetics with these darker aspects, and it’s no wonder that the Japanese workplace is famous for overworking its staff. What makes it worse is that it feels like that Aoba has to work all the time, she gets told off for even just casually socializing with her colleagues.
There’s also plenty of things where it’s nothing to do with work. From a situation where everyone buys the team the exact same thing, to staying overnight and then heading to a public bath, it can feel kind of random at what it will cover next. When Aoba’s best friend, Nene, comes to join, it gets even better. By the end of it, you do feel like the characters within the company has become one big family, with all the good and bad that comes with it.
The ending is sweet, since we see nearly the whole journey with Aoba and her role in the game. There is definitely a sense of accomplishment, as well as relief and disbelief that it is finally over. The pride that the team feels when the game is released and they see people lining up to buy it is indescribable. This means that this season does well as a standalone and doesn’t leave anything hanging. The OVA is also a nice bonus event that takes place after the season and is a nice bit of fun.
Overall, New Game! is surprisingly enjoyable, despite the overly cute characters and colorful tone. Wrapping game development (even if it is just the character design section) with slice-of-life, that’s not set in high school, makes it fairly unique. Although the depiction of the workplace as constant overtime can be depressing at times. Nevertheless, all the characters are charming and will grow on you.
-------------------------------------------------
For other anime reviews, have a look at this page.