No Game No Life Anime Movie Slated for 2017

The official website of the anime adaptation of Yuu Kamiya’s No Game No Life light novel has revealed that the upcoming anime film will be titled No Game No Life: Zero and is scheduled to open in Japan sometime this year.

The text on the new visual reads,”Well, let’s start playing.”

The movie will be adapting volume 6 from the light novel which follows Riku and Shuvi. The 6th volume is set before the events of the main light novels and anime series. The anime itself adapted volumes 1 through 3.

It has also been revealed that the production staff from the 2014 anime will return. However a new staff member will be doing the film’s character designs, taking over Koji Odate. The film’s staff, so far, include:

Director: Atsuko Ishizuka (Sakurasou no Pet na Kanojo)
Series Composer: Jukki Hanada (Love Live! School Idol Project, Steins;Gate)
Anime Character Designer: Satoshi Tasaki (Rideback, Hunter x Hunter: Phantom Rouge)
Animation Studio: Madhouse (One-Punch Man, Hunter x Hunter)

The film will have a stage event at the AnimeJapan 2017 event on March 26.

In addition, a 30-second commercial was revealed:

No Game No Life is a light novel series by Yū Kamiya. It is published under the MF Bunko J imprint with nine novels released between April 25, 2012 and August 25, 2016. The author and his wife, Mashiro Hiiragi, adapted the novels into a manga series for Monthly Comic Alive in 2013. Later that year, an anime adaptation of No Game No Life by Madhouse (Death Note, Hunter x Hunter) was announced. It premiered on AT-X between April and July 2014, and was simulcast outside Japan by Crunchyroll. An anime film adaptation of the sixth volume is scheduled to premiere in 2017. The No Game No Life franchise was localized in North America by several companies: Seven Seas Entertainment licensed the manga, Sentai Filmworks the anime, and Yen Press the light novel series.

The series follows Sora and his younger stepsister Shiro, two hikikomori who make up the identity of Blank, an undefeated group of gamers. One day, they are challenged by the god of games to chess and are victorious. As a result, the god summons them to Disboard, a reality which revolves around games. Intent on maintaining their reputation as the undefeated gamers, Sora and Shiro plan to conquer the sixteen ruling species and to usurp the god of games.

The series began receiving recognition in 2014 where it appeared in Kono Light Novel ga Sugoi! and had its volumes placed as one of the top thirty selling novels in Japan. It was reported in April 2014 that 1.1 million copies are in circulation. The English localization of the manga and anime were also well received: the manga adaption appeared on The New York Times Manga Best Sellers; meanwhile, English reviewers were generally turned away by the first episode of the anime, though reviewers who have completed the series generally praised the character dynamics, game strategies, and animation, while disliking the fan service featuring the underage Shiro.

Here is a synopsis of the series:

The story of No Game, No Life centers around Sora and Shiro, a brother and sister whose reputations as brilliant NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) hikikomori (shut-in) gamers have spawned urban legends all over the Internet. These two gamers even consider the real world as just another “crappy game.” One day, they are summoned by a boy named “God” to an alternate world. There, God has prohibited war and declared this to be a world where “everything is decided by games”—even national borders. Humanity has been driven back into one remaining city by the other races. Will Sora and Shiro, the good-for-nothing brother and sister, become the “Saviors of Humanity” on this alternate world? “Well, let’s start playing.”