Office life has its pros and cons. Positive things like earning a wage, doing work you (hopefully) enjoy, getting experience for your career…are often rifled with long hours, irksome coworkers, unreasonable requests, overtime — the list is endless. But despite the vicissitude of full-time work, New Game! gives a lighthearted and optimistic look into an office in the gaming industry.
Just like the New Game! anime, this manga follows Aoba Suzukaze, an eighteen-year-old girl right out of high school. Aoba gets her dream job at a fictional gaming company called Eagle Jump that created one of her favorite games. While she enjoys working there, the job is different from how Aoba imagined it, and the story depicts her everyday adventures as she learns the ropes of her new position.
I really enjoyed the anime adaption of New Game! when it first came out in 2016, so it was really nice to revisit this series and all of its characters after a couple years. Overall, the two adaptions are very similar, with the first manga volume spanning the first six episodes of the anime. Everything is pretty much the same; the only big difference I noticed was Episode 5 of the anime. They added in some stuff, such as everyone fighting over the air conditioning, that wasn’t in the manga (at least so far).
The only other big difference is, obviously, the manga uses a print medium to tell the story. Even so, it still has all the same charm. The art is light and bubbly with extra cuteness thrown in. I also liked that it has a 4-koma format, which, in my experience, is still kind of rare among Western releases. The only other one I can think of at the moment is Kiniro Mosaic. Anyway, the 4-koma style helps add to the slice-of-life narrative because the panels don’t flow together; they’re more disconnected than traditional panels. They also help differentiate situational interactions between the characters.
Speaking of the characters, they’re all great. Aoba is a blessing; she’s adorable. I actually find her very relatable too. I’m petite and young-looking, so I often get mistaken for a high schooler. Other times, I’m not taken seriously. I can also relate to Aoba’s experience adjusting to a new workplace setting since this happened to me fairly recently. However, Hifumi takes the Best Girl crown. She is so similar to me as a person that it hurts. She’s shy, awkward, expresses herself better in writing than in person, and owns a hedgehog. (I own guinea pigs, not a hedgehog, but it’s still a funny coincidence, right?)
They may appear as moe blobs on the surface, but each character in New Game! has a defined personality and represents various working styles (lax, serious, and so on). While they’re not perfect, the one thing that’s a little unrealistic is how everyone is so nice. In real life, there’s always that one person who you don’t get along with. It’s also unrealistic that there are no men at the company, but this is a cute girls series after all.
Although the manga’s main focus is on Aoba, we also get to see the thoughts of some of her coworkers or higher ups, such as Ko. Not only do we learn about Aoba’s role as a newbie, we also learn about how things work at the company. In general, it’s really nice to see a series with a workplace setting. We all know that anime is overrun with stories about high schoolers. It’s not a bad thing, but unfortunately, I adult on a daily basis, so I like seeing characters in similar circumstances.
While reading New Game! Volume 1, I found myself relating to so many different things – having no energy to do things after work, having to create content to satisfy someone else’s standards instead of my own. I could go on and on. I did greatly enjoy Season 1 and 2 of the anime, but I was teaching/tutoring and freelancing at the time. I didn’t get my first traditional office job until 2018. Therefore, reading the manga after experiencing these things for myself was even more enjoyable.
My only complaint? Unless I’m misremembering, the anime’s yuri undertones were a little stronger. They’re still there in the manga, but not as noticeable. Ahem, but that small nitpicky thing aside, the first volume is wonderful. It combines some of my favorite elements – slice of life, cute girls, a little bit of yuri, and video games – and blends them all into a funny and relatable workplace comedy. Even if you’re not stuck in an office all day, this series is a must for cute-girls-doing-cute-things and slice of life fans.