No Game No Life - Episode 7

Now that Blank have Jibril of the Flugel race in their thrall, it seems that the time is right for them to plan their first move and prepare to take on the Warbeasts of the Eastern Federation.

At least, that's the plan, but the reality of this looks set to be rather difficult - for starters, even Jibril herself has been defeated by them in the past, and what's more their terms of the challenge she put forward was that her memories of the game they played would be wiped were she to lose.  Along with this, Sora is baffled that the Eastern Federation have taken so much land - surely nobody would challenge them given their strengths?

This thought turns to outright confusion once it's revealed who repeatedly challenged and lost to this rival race - none other than Steph's grandfather.  Sora can only assume that he must have been some kind of monumental idiot, much to Steph's disgust and upset - however, upon further examination of the land given up in these challenges, it seems that there was some method to his madness; a method to which Steph quite literally holds the key.

Even without the real draw of the twists and turns of an on-going challenge in this week's episode, I'm still really enjoying No Game No Life - the random and lazy nature of its references to Evangelion and Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei don't stop them from being funny, it leans into its fan service in some amusing ways ("I can't see anything because of all the steam", complains Jibril") and the entire endeavour has a rather infectious sense of fun but still knows when to cut to the chase and get (somewhat) serious.  It's colourful, feisty, fresh and funny, all of which is starting to suggest that No Game No Life may be one of my surprise favourite shows of the spring.