No Game No Life - Episode 10

Having somehow managed to pull of his latest dangerous game, Sora now has Zell and - perhaps more importantly - her elven colleague Fil on-board in his forthcoming game against the Eastern Federation.  First, however, it's about time these new additions to the crew get to know their comrades.

As it turns out, Zell is actually Fil's slave strictly speaking, with Imanity families looked down upon and used as servants by the Elf race. This particular elf, however, struck up a friendship with Zell as children, making a promise to never leave her alone which she continues to live by to this day in spite of her high position within her kingdom. With this information out of the way and some recriminations between Fil and Jibril but to bed, it's time for this plan on getting to know one another better... by sharing a bath.

Of course, thoughts eventually have to turn to attending the Eastern Federation's game - a high profile affair given the stakes, with Imanity's populace angry at their entire race being put up as collateral, while Fil and Zell are on-hand to bear witness to the electronic game the Eastern Federation have in store to ensure that nothing underhand is involved.  It seems as if there's no need to cheat to defeat Blank on this occasion however, as the location of the game just happens to involve the pair's worst nightmare...

After another bout of silliness (which I'm finding myself increasingly forgiving of), we're now getting down to the serious business of No Game No Life again for what I assume will be its final story arc via an episode which showed some more brief flashes of the elements of the series which I love most - unexpected twists and little flashes of genius from Sora. Hopefully we'll see a whole lot more of both next week to deliver a strong finale to a show that has genuinely surprised me the most this spring.