New Game

Summary: >

Aoba is finally realizing her dream by becoming a game character designer. Just out of high-school, the shift to a work environment is intimidating. It also takes a while to adjust to the other unusual employees at the company. It's not the kind of work environment Aoba expected.

Thoughts: >

New Game is a combination of many "anime things" which would have been interesting two decades ago. However at this point it's been done many times over the years, making most features unremarkable. If you're okay with that, it's not a bad watch... just not a very awesome one either.

Aoba is a new employee at a game company which is staffed exclusively by cute anime girls. That could happen... sure. *cough* This anime often succumbs to doing "anime girl stuff", combining with it's diabolical sidekick "the work environment" to become something I'd rather not see in anime.

New Game is a little too slice of life for me, especially when in office flavor. Work stuff is more the focus than info on the game industry. Sometimes it's okay, often it's "just there", and sometimes .. not for me. Women fighting over the thermostat is the last thing I'll find amusing, having lived through that shit over and over. I will never find that topic funny. Ever. What salvages this anime are are the characters, which keep it upbeat and generally non-annoying, even if most are just tropes.

I wasn't sure if I liked Aoba, although I could certainly sympathize with her transition to work life at her new job (she totally won me over when spending her first paycheck though). It was Ko however who kept me watching. She's in a grey area between responsible adult and carefree slacker. She's matured a little, but hasn't sunk into the drudgery of life where you can't experience the freedom of no-pants. The rest of the employees didn't add much, but Ko injected vitality into a fairly mundane show. The character which annoyed the hell out of me was Aoba's childish friend, although she's neutralized by a woman in the programming department (who is total awesomeness). Acting as a duo, they are great comedy.

As for the story, there isn't much of one aside from working towards a game release. There are slivers of game related development stuff, but not much. In fact it spends more time showing the girls feelings about something they worked to create, than them working on it. Which is fine, just don't expect this anime to have depth on the topic.

The character designs look simplistic and cutesy, but are clean and well done. With with vibrant colors, this anime is far more cheerful than an anime about an office job should be. But it's still about an office job. New Game fairs well enough to justify watching if a slice of life fan, but lacks much else in the way of features.

Screen Caps: >