According to the author’s notes, No Game No Life volume 11 came three years after volume 10 in Japan.
And I guess to reward fans who have waited so long, Kamiya delivered not only a lot of yuri scenes but a lot of loli-ness as well.
Games in No Game No Life have often stretched believability that anyone could have planned such complicated strategies in an already-complicated game. Fortunately, volume 11 has perhaps the most straightforward, easy-to-understand plots in the series. Sora, Shiro, Stephanie, Jibril, and Emir-Eins have somehow ended up a Fairy’s version of a YouTube stream where they are forced to be reality show contestants. Only couples can leave the space, but Fairy viewers donating 5 billion points (roughly 1 point = 1 yen = 1 US penny) can save the lonesome loser from being trapped.
But in the midst of things, two things become clear: they must be playing this game because Blank actually lost a game, and Shiro is not about to let anyone else take the title of Sora’s girlfriend even temporarily.
Now, No Game No Life has referenced Shiro’s crush on her stepbrother before as well as Sora’s fondness for little sister characters in media, and over the course of the series, there have been some very risqué imagery and actual images. I wouldn’t say volume 11 has the most explicit content of the series, but it does push the Sora x Shiro angle harder than any of its predecessors.
At times, it seems perhaps any romantic notions are perhaps misunderstandings due to Shiro’s young age and antisocial nature. Even Shiro herself is confused by her feelings and is a rather all-over-the-place here as she tries to identify how she views Sora and Sora views her. But this culminates in the debut of “Black Shiro”: basically, if host Foeniculum wasn’t forced to keep the stream PG-13, Shiro probably would have become a dominatrix.
Again, volume 11 is arguably not the most ecchi of No Game No Life releases, but for readers like myself who like to try to put those elements — specifically, the fact that an 11-year-old wants her 18-year-old brother (by marriage) to make a pass at her — in a mental box and away from the rest of the story, well, it’s nay impossible here. Sora, meanwhile, squawks as he realizes he’s likely to be the odd-man-out among the five, but even as he’s bewildered by the turn of events, all it comes down to is that Shiro is #1 for him.
The other girls try to find ways to get together with Sora themselves, but the various daily events tend to force them to flirt with each other instead. Stephanie has always been the type to easily get swallowed up in the moment and a secret pervert, and since this dimensional space heightens emotions, both of those are on full display in volume 11. I do like how we get to see her not just be the fool at the very end and gets to turn the tables a bit on Sora and Shiro who tend to harass her.
Sora and Shiro’s goal has been to unite the sixteen races and challenge the One True God, but from the way it’s going, the author may be deciding to speed things up. At the very least, the arc that starts here involving Blank’s loss is probably going to be the least similar to the ones before it, and I am intrigued about the situation behind Blank’s loss and the situation regarding Elkia. Foeniculum the Fairy will also gain a lot of fans, as she’s basically an old, jaded version of Izuna.
But this setup comes after even more fanservice in a book that’s already about getting the characters in romantic situations to please Fairy donors. And this very relatable, new normal “donate to my stream” setup for a game just highlights the very not-normal situation of the almost-guaranteed-now coupling of stepsibilings with a significant age gap. And unfortunately, the main plot of Sora and Shiro getting closer to Tet isn’t developed as much as you would think with Blank having lost. For readers who waited a long time for this and perhaps will wait a while for volume 12, I wish volume 11 had a little more story and served less as soup for loli/yuri lovers’ souls and as a hook for the next entry of the series.