Literature / No Game No Life

"This blank space represents infinite potential. One day, it may become anything."

"Have you two siblings ever felt that you were born into the wrong world?"

Among hardcore MMORPGs players, there exists a Living Legend known only as "『　　』" (literally a blank space), a video game account infamous for dominating nearly every game they touched upon. In Real Life, however, "『　　』" is actually a pair of NEET gamers: Sora, aged eighteen, and his stepsister Shiro, aged eleven. Bored of their daily existence, one day they receive a mysterious email—one that knows that "『　　』" are two people—questioning their life.

Determined to protect their identity, the step-siblings play (and win) an online chess game (hotlinked onto the email) with this mysterious sender, culminating in the latter offering them a chance to be "reborn" into their "ideal" world. Before they can react, however, Shiro and Sora are summarily transported to the world of Disboard, ruled by an entity who identifies as "Tet", where violence is outlawed and where all disputes, trivial or serious, are settled with games.

But just as they decided that they prefer their new lives at Disboard, Shiro and Sora discover a startling truth: Disboard is divided between sixteen Exceeds (sentient races), of which Imanity, the most humanoid of the lot, are ranked dead-last—and without powers of magic, they have become a dying race now reduced to the city-state of Elchea. And before they know it, this brother-and-sister gamer team, together with Stephanie Dora, granddaughter of the last king of Elchea, and Jibril, the angelic custodian of the National Library of Elchea, would have to push their gaming skills to the limit (and beyond) if they want humans to still have a future... even as they build their power to one day challenge Tet anew.

No Game No Life is an ongoing 2012 light novel series written and illustrated by Yuu Kamiya (a pseudonym for Brazilian-Japanese Thiago Furukawa Lucas), published under Media Factory's MF Bunko J imprint. It has also received a 2013 manga adaptation illustrated by Mashiro Hiiragi and published under Media Factory's Monthly Comic Alive magazine, as well as an anime adaptation directed by Atsuko Ishizuka and produced by Madhouse as part of the Spring 2014 Anime season.

A Big Damn Movie was released for the series, which adapts the 6th book of the Light Novel. Titled No Game No Life Zero, the movie, like the 6th book, is a prequel set 6000 years before the main series.

Crunchyroll is streaming the anime, which can be viewed here for people in the following areas: USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Latin America. This series is picked up by Sentai Filmworks for North American home video release.

Compare with Problem Children are Coming from Another World, aren't they?, another Trapped in Another World light-novel/anime about a world that runs on games.

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This work provides examples of:

• Accidental Pervert: In Episode 2, Sora accidentally gropes Stephanie after Shiro kicks him towards her.
• Added Alliterative Appeal: The three main characters are called Sora, Shiro and Stephanie.
• Angry Cheek Puff: In episode 6, Stephanie puffs her cheeks in displeasure due to Sora using her as a decoy and getting her killed in a game.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Sora asks Izuna one right before their game. While it doesn't affect her performance, it does cause Izuna to think about during the game.
  "When was the last time you had fun playing games?"
• Armor-Piercing Response: Early in Volume 2/Episode 5, Steph confronts Sora and Shiro about doing nothing for a month after taking the throne of Elkia, thus leaving her to do all the work, but it turns out that they were looking for information before making their next move. Steph protests that if they don't do something, nothing will change, whereupon Sora sternly tells her that their situation is so precarious that they'll be finished if they make a wrong move. Not only does this drive home the gravity of Imanity's plight to Steph, but it also helps her realize that Sora and Shiro are taking their responsibilities as Imanity's rulers seriously.
• Art Shift:
  • In Episode 2, after she "falls" for Sora, Stephanie always sees him in a very Shojo style including Bishie Sparkle. This stops at the end of the episode, showing the audience that she really is falling for him.
  • Also happens in Episode 3, in a blatant Shout-Out to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure.
  • The Big Damn Movie No Game No Life Zero features a subtly different art style. While the main series had edges being colored red/magenta, Zero went for the standard black, interestingly this doesn't not apply to the Framing Device set in the present day which uses the red outlines, and if one pays attention the cutoff point for the shift is when Tet becomes the One True God.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: The deceased Old Dei still exist somehow, and they often argue with Tet about his/her involvement (or, rather, the lack thereof) with Disboard.
• Awesome by Analysis: Sora and Shiro do this on a regular basis, and they often explain their strategy to Stephanie about why things usually happen the way they do.
  • Used brilliantly in Episode 9, when Shiro figures out the game Sora was playing against Chlammy, due to the fact that they know each other very well. She also figures out how to use the last three pieces Sora left for her to defeat Chlammy.
  • Done again during the game in Episode 11, when Sora explains to Izuna (and the audience) at how Shiro is such an expert at first-person shooters that Izuna's shots seem to fly through her, while her own shots seem to home in on the latter.
• Badass Boast: Sora does this to the Warbeasts in Episode 8, basically calling their bluff on how they use "mind reading" to win against their opponents. He then bets Imanity's Exceed piece in whatever game they plan on playing. He even tells them about how he figured a lot of those things out based simply on cold reading and what Stephanie's grandfather, the previous King of Elchea, wrote about his games against them.
• Badass Creed: Sora and Shiro work under one principle, fueled by their complete faith in each other and the plays they make:
  "『　　』 never loses!"
• Balanced Harem: Sora is surrounded by several pretty girls who become interested in him one way or another and get their share of Fanservice, but there are no serious romantic plots with any of them.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: Invoked during "Materialization Shiritori" in Episode 6, a game in which anything the players can name is either called into (if not yet present) or removed from existence (if already present). Sora mentions the word "girls' clothing", thereby completely stripping Shiro, Stephanie and Jibril naked. However, one of his earlier words was "naughty bits", making the scenario a little bit more "family-friendly".
• Batman Gambit:
  • Sora pulled two during Jibril's game. When he was first testing the limits of the game, he summoned a Hydrogen Bomb, figuring that Jibril would protect them since ending the game in one turn would be rather boring. Then, on the last turn, he correctly assumed that Jibril would use his earlier insult to finish him off, both out of her pride from being insulted and to insult his pride by having him lose to the word he taught her. This allows him to chain Coloumb's Force to it and win the game.
  • By betting away Imanity's Exceed piece to the Warbeasts in his bid to reclaim lost lands, Sora causes an uproar. Which he doesn't mind, knowing Chlammy (and, by extension, Feel) will exploit the chaos to resurface and challenge him again. True to his words, they do. He also did this to force Imanity to watch the game intently, making it harder for the Warbeasts to blatantly cheat. He then engages Chlammy and Feel in a game of reversi (Othello) with their existences at stake, where Sora deliberately played poorly so Chlammy would receive his memories (just enough to convince her that he is trustworthy), counting on nothing but Shiro intuiting his intentions to continue the game for him after he is erased from existence, winning the game and bringing him back to life. He then proceeds to strike a deal with Feel, convincing her to help him deal with the Warbeasts, as well as change her kin's policy of slavery, and the power to alter Feel's memory. Since Sora obtained the power to alter Feel's memories, when she went to report to Elven Garde about how to beat the Warbeasts' game, she gave them faulty intel that would result in a loss.
• Battle Harem: Played with. The inhabitants of Disboard don't physically fight and instead use games as a substitute. However, all of Sora's Balanced Harem of girls are top gamers who are all capable of holding their own in a game.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: Used 'against' Imanity in this instance. Imanity used to be much, much more powerful during the days of the war before the rules, as the other races relied on their natural-born strength and magic to overpower their enemies, while Imanity who had neither used strategy and intellect to outmaneuver them and come out on top over them. When Tet came to power, his rules forced the other races to adopt Imanity's tricks for their own. Now without any advantage over the other races, Imanity was knocked down to the bottom rank.
• Being Human Sucks:
  • Of the sixteen races, only Imanity and Warbeasts have no magic powers, and even then, the latter have heightened strength and senses to get by, truly leaving the former at their mercy.
  • Sora's speech in Episode 4 plays with this trope. It can be summarized as "Being human is awesome because we suck but have infinite potential!"
• Beyond the Impossible: A more mundane example — in the beginning, Sora and Shiro were each controlling two characters at the same time by using their feet to operate the second controller. Sora later demonstrates the ability to control all four. For those who know about the Real Life Impossible Task "pat your stomach while rubbing your head" (or vice versa), such a thing is superhuman.
• Big Brother Attraction: It's this or just very playful teasing, but when Sora said to Stephanie that they were siblings, Shiro said that her brother has rejected her. Also, she was really heartbroken and angry when Sora ordered Stephanie to fall in love with him, when before he said that he only needed Shiro in his life.
• Big Fancy Castle: Elchea's former palace had been won by the Warbeasts. In Episode 8, Sora and Shiro are told about how the Stephanie's grandfather built a replacement, causing the Warbeasts to build theirs up, which then caused Imanity to make theirs bigger. Then the Warbeasts really go overboard with it and supersize it even more.
• Bishie Sparkle: Due to Sora's win and demand that she fall in love with him, Stephanie starts seeing him this way a couple of times in Episode 2. She immediately tries to beat it out of her head by banging it on the wall or floor.
• Black Blood: The anime follows a bizarre system similar to Danganronpa for showing blood, with fresh blood being depicted as a glowing white, but dried blood (like the aftermath of Steph smashing her head against something resulting in her face coated in it) being rendered a normal dark red.
• Blatant Lies: When Chlammy insists that she won't be a Puppet King to the Elves should she reign over Elchea, Sora accuses her of lying through her teeth. Chlammy responds by asking him (and Shiro) to withdraw from the game, but he refuses. He later tells Stephanie that there's no guarantee she meant what she said, and that he simply hates to lose, especially with the way Stephanie and Chlammy are bringing Imanity down with their pessimism. She also insists that she's not a crybaby, after bawling in front of them twice.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Both Sora and Shiro are very intelligent, but they don't know what to make of their lives. Seeing them lie around while she does the work of running the country drives Stephanie crazy (they were actually researching the world but it looked like lying around).
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: When Shiro says that an study of all erogenous zones of Jibril and Sora would be 18+.
• Breather Episode: Usually happens in the aftermath of major matches, though the Episodes almost always end with a Mood Whiplash to foreshadow the next game.
  • Episode 5 (Chlammy to Jibril) has Sora and Shiro literally turning Stephanie into their bitch (as in female dog) for a day as they apparently ignore their duties for Elchea, only to surprise her by the fact that all this time they have been doing their research and are just hesitant to act with too little information on hand.
  • Episode 7 (Jibril and Chlammy) features a Furo Scene starring Jibril, Stephanie and Shiro, before later treating the audience to Sora's research efforts on the Warbeasts, in preparation for challenging them to a game.
  • Episode 10 (Chlammy to Izuna) features another Furo Scene, this time including Chlammy and Feel, while shedding light on their background and focusing on their decision to join Sora in his match against the Warbeasts.
• Brother–Sister Team: Both Shiro and Sora cover each others' weaknesses when playing games. Sora is skilled at manipulating his opponents and predicting their moves, while Shiro is a genius who can analyze and predict all possible outcomes of a game. That's why they always insist on playing together as a single person. However, the drawback is that Sora and Shiro are so dependent on each other, that they will both suffer a serious nervous breakdown if either of them were to be separated.
• Brought Down to Normal: In Volume 5 of the light novels, Azrael's power levels were reduced to that of an Imanity's after being struck by the last Word Spirits cast by Sora and Shiro in the game between 『　　』 and the Flügel on Avantheim, making her realize how powerless she is and thus finding the most sought-after answer for her and her kind on her own.
• Brutal Honesty: Sora gives it to Stephanie harshly that due to her lack of poker face and a defeatist attitude, she's lost any bet she enters before she even started. She doesn't take it well at first, lashing out at him. Then, after defeating her for position of King/Queen of Elchea, Sora bluntly chews Chlammy out on her lack of faith in human potential.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": Many of the Exceeds have fancier names (ex. Dragonia instead of dragons), but the most blatant is Imanity, which is humanity. Volume 6 reveals that Tet derived the name from "immunity" and humanity.
• Calvinball: Pledge 5 explicitly states that a challenged party has the right to set the rules of the game. This pledge lays at the core of every game seen so far:
  • Sora/Shiro vs. Chlammy: Living Chess, where each piece has a will of its own.
  • Sora/Shiro vs. Jibril: Materialization Shiritori, played in an alternate dimension, where yet-nonexistent objects indicated by words manifest, and likewise existent objects disappear when mentioned.
  • Chlammy vs. Sora: Existence Reversi, where each piece has two sides and represents an aspect of both players' existence.
  • Sora/Shiro/Stephanie/Jibril vs. Izuna: Love or Loved 2, a virtual reality FPS where gunned down players join the opposing side. Kemonomimi are constantly try to love-hug you like zombies.
  • "Miko" vs. Sora: A coin toss.
  • Sora/Shiro/Jibril/Plum vs. Azrael: A game of tag where players can use syllable-blocks (Word Spirits) from the 46 katakana characters that can be realized into anything whenever they form a word or phrase.
• Camera Fiend: Both siblings mostly use their phones to take pictures. Justified as they're recording everything new they learn about Disboard, or just taking photos of new people they meet. Some pictures they've managed to take have caught cheaters on the way.
• Casting Gag:
  • Atsuko Ishizuka, the director of the anime adaptation, has previous experience on The Pet Girl of Sakurasou. Perhaps it's no coincidence that Yoshitsugu Matsuoka and Ai Kayano, who voiced the lead pair of lovers in the aforementioned anime, would be once again cast to play, this time, a pair of gamer-siblings.
  • This isn't the first time Yoshitsugu Matsuoka voiced a legendary MMORPG player.
  • Also, this isn't the first time Ai Kayano voiced a highly-talented but socially-stunted prodigy.
  • Yōko Hikasa seems to, once again, channeling the spirit of a sexy teenage girl who happens to be the butt of many jokes.
  • No Game No Life Zero depicts Jibril as a cutesy but murderous sociopath who wields a scythe, not unlike some of Yukari Tamura's prior roles as Bernkastel and Nui Harime.
• Censor Box: An interesting variation is used at the beginning of Episode 6. A circle with Stephanie's passed out face is used to cover her crossed legs.
• Cheaters Never Prosper: Played with. Tet has stated anyone caught cheating automatically loses. Therefore, savvy players like Sora can get around this rule by being discreet.
• Chekhov's Classroom: Stephanie has a flashback during Episode 4 about her grandfather believing that someone would arrive that would save Imanity. He said this was specifically because humans are so weak they can use it to get the upper hand against the other races. She starts to see it happen in front of her eyes with Sora and Shiro during the chess game.
• Cliffhanger: Episode 8 ends on one. Sora mentions a game starting against "someone with a backbone", and says some words of encouragement to Shiro. Then has he turns and walks away, the images and sound begin to distort somewhat and he begins to disappear. The ending song is also missing Sora and has occasional errors and sound distortions in it but otherwise plays normally. And afterwards, Shiro wakes up alone, and Stephanie doesn't know who Sora is when asked.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Shiro shows these tendencies for her beloved stepbrother yet she still congratulates him on getting a girlfriend after he explains his "sexual tension". In Episode 4, she objects to him being the king, because then he could make a harem of women, and therefore wouldn't need her anymore.
• Clothing Damage: Sora tests this out in Episode 11, first by shooting at Stephanie, who loses her clothes when hit, and later at a random NPC girl's clothing. This turns out to be relevant since clothing can be used as shields. This allows Sora and Shiro to pull off their gambit in the endgame of pretending Shiro was hit in order to lure out Izuna.
• Color Failure: After Stephanie kicks Sora off of her in Episode 2, he goes flying outside the room. Both Sora and Shiro then turn white and immediately start spouting nonsense, showing Stephanie why they can't be more than a certain distance away from each other without freaking out.
• The Commandments: All sixteen Exceeds are bound by ten inviolable pledges set up by Tet upon his/her ascent to ruling godhood following the brutal war that destroyed most of the Old Dei (themselves one of the Exceeds, by virtue of Tet surviving). They were actually created by Riku Dora and his wife Schvi 6,000 years ago, with Tet as their own Old Deus created to help fulfill their wish of creating a peaceful world for the war-weary Exceeds.
  1. All bloodshed, war and pillaging is forbidden. (This includes any kind of violence or violation of rights, like physical injuries, rape or a slap.)
  2. All conflicts will be resolved through games. (And this is Not Hyperbole. Anything from large scale political conflicts to simple arguments require a game to settle it.)
  3. Each party involved in a game must bet something that both sides agree is of equal value. (The key being both sides agree, so the wagers could be non-material, horribly skewed in terms of actual value, or even non-existent, all that matters is that both sides agree to the bet beforehand, and nothing precludes a potential player from manipulating another into agreeing to an unfair bet.)
  4. As long as it doesn't go against Pledge 3, the things that are wagered and the rules of the game will not be questioned. (Which can backfire on whoever set the rules if the other party figures them out and plays the game better.)
  5. The challenged party has the right to decide the rules of the game. (This also includes the right to refrain from the game.)
  6. Any bets made in accordance with the Pledges must be upheld. (The laws of the universe will actively see to it.)
  7. Conflicts between groups will be conducted by designated representatives with absolute authority. (But that doesn't mean that two people can't compete as one, as Sora and Shiro shows.)
  8. Being caught cheating during a game is grounds for an instant loss. (Which Sora interprets as a deliberate loophole meant for smarter players to exploit.)
  9. In the name of God, the previous rules may never be changed. (Meaning that while each pledge can be subject to Loophole Abuse, they are otherwise intergrated into Disboard's reality and must be followed to the letter.)
  10. Everyone must have fun playing together! (Note that this rule comes after the previous rule, meaning it cannot be enforced. Sora notes that this means the rule is meant to be optional and placed among the other, more iron-clad rules in hopes that the Exceed will use the games to come together as a community and challenge Tet.)
• Competence Porn: The series follows "Blank", a brother-sister team of hardcore gamers who are unbeatable as long as they work together. The appeal of the series is watching the various ways they deduce how the rules of their opponents' games work, figuring out if and how said opponent is cheating, and then outwit their opponent to win the game. As a bonus, they ALSO outwit their opponents AFTER the game is over, such as using Exact Words to reinterpret the rewards for winning.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: Sora and Shiro, by controlling two characters each at the same time, can beat 1,200 players.
• Consummate Liar: Sora can lie to your face and you won't know it until he tells you. It's all about the poker face, you know?
• Cornered Rattlesnake: At the end of her match with Sora, Chlammy goes nuts once the latter deduces that she's been using mind-control magic (courtesy of Feel), ordering her remaining troops to defeat Sora and Shiro's pieces even if they die. They saw through it, and notice she is now fighting on with nothing but fear, and exploits that to checkmate her.
• Crapsaccharine World: The world of Disboard in the present time is peaceful because crime and war etc. are forbidden by God, and all bets are enforced by Magically-Binding Contract, and so such agreements must be honored. However, this means that skilled cheaters are the most dangerous people in the world, capable of dooming even countries in a single game.
  • Also, the sentient races are ranked by magical ability, which means humans are at the bottom of the barrel and dying out as a result.
  • Also, finding out that a world where violence is completely forbidden kind of screwed over certain races that effectively rely on it to live, like the Dhampir. They wind up effectively enslaved by another race because it's the only way they can continue getting blood reliably.
• Crapsack World:
  • During the war of the Old Deus 6,000 years ago, Disboard was in complete chaos as each Old Deus and their Exceeds attempted to kill one another so that one Old Deus may become the one true god of Disboard. Imanity, the only non-Exceed, only survived by hiding and staying out of the conflict while being extremely careful not to present themselves as a threat to the other Exceeds or they will be immediately wiped out.
  • Sora and Shiro feel that Earth is "a crappy" game. Since everybody makes whatever moves they want. There are no rules and penalties regardless of whether you lose or win too much. No structure or way to make sense of how you're supposed to succeed at life. Though this is more from their personal experiences of trying and failing to thrive in the world despite their natural gifts.
• Crazy-Prepared: When Sora and Shiro were transported to Disboard, they had on them the following: their cell phones, two hand consoles, solar chargers and a tablet PC. There's also a lot of information from their world stored on there, which comes in handy. Also while at times it looks like they're deliberately slacking off, in actuality they're learning more about their opponents and devising various plans to ensure they win any game they play.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • In the first episode, Shiro and Sora take on 1,200 other players in an online game, and win.
  • Once they're teleported to Disboard, Sora and Shiro win against several people who play against them, from bandits to nobles to a common card shark. The latter is effortless and the former are so one-sided that they are skipped over.
  • Stephanie suffers one from Chlammy in the first episode due to Feel's magic and later to Sora come the next episode because she was so easily misled.
• Dare to Be Badass: Sora's speech to Imanity in Episode 4. Paraphrased it is, "Imanity is so weak we could take over the entire world if we tried."
• Dark Reprise: The credits for episode 8 is mostly the same, but distorted with visual and audio glitches and with Sora completely absent.
• Daydream Surprise: Stephanie has several in Episode 2, because of her brain being bent into falling in love with Sora. To snap herself out of them, she smashes her head at walls and even the floor.
• Department of Redundancy Department:
  Sora: "I'm a healthy young man, you know? I've got sexual needs, and sexual needs, and sexual needs! And even sexual needs!"
  Shiro: "He said it four times."
• Death Is Cheap: In Episode 6, Sora and Shiro play a game of "materialization shiritori" against Jibril, where the word used removes an object in existence, and adds it if it's not there. In the end, Sora uses physics against Jibril, and they all "die" (with Jibril being done in a few milliseconds ahead, thus losing the game), but there was also a rule that everything would return to normal once the game ended. So then the library they were in returns to normal, and everyone there is no worse for the wear aside from Stephanie's complaint about "dying".
• Defeat Means Friendship: Every one of the major characters that Sora and Shiro have challenged and defeated so far have ended up befriending them afterwards, largely because they don't care about anything other than having fun playing games with them.
• Desperately Seeking A Purpose In Life: Sora and Shiro are both incredibly smart, but due to a lack of direction and malaise they felt back on Earth, they didn't do much besides play video games. It starts changing once Sora learns about Stephanie and the humans in the new world, although Shiro calls him out on it, saying that he's still using personal amusement as an excuse. Nevertheless, at least he feels he has something meaningful to start working towards.
• Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: After Sora and Shiro become Rulers of Elchea, Tet personally congratulates them and encourages them to conquer the world to earn the right to challenge him.
• Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?:
  • Sora and Shiro take great pride in the fact that they beat Tet in a game of chess. After they win over Elchea, Tet promises that he won't deliberately lose next time.
  • Episode 6 sees the siblings duel something referred to as a "god killing weapon". They win with a hypernova.
• "Dinner, Bath, or Sex" Offer: When Fil returns to the exiled Kurami with a bag of ISO-Standard Urban Groceries while the latter is taking a bath:
  Fil: Do you want information? Food? Or... [removes her hood] ...me?
  Kurami: [smiling] Clothes first, I think.
• Disproportionate Retribution: During the introductions in Episode 10, Feel says she isn't too fond of Jibril. When Sora inquires about it, she reveals the latter caused massive destruction and wiped out many of her kin centuries ago. In her defense, Jibril says the Elves placed some anti-flight magic near their areas, causing her to fall from the sky and bump her head. So she wiped them out in response. Because Sora doesn't want racial rivalries to get in the way of bringing down the Warbeasts, he (and Chlammy) force the two to bury the hatchet — with Feel adding the condition that Jibril must lick her boots.
• The Dividual: Sora and Shiro start out functioning as a powerful team, nearly inseparable, and are most efficient when working together. The downside of this is that they're pretty pathetic and useless if they get separated.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Sora playing on his phone when Shiro is being bathed by Stephanie.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune:
  • Ai Kayano (Shiro) sings the ending theme, "Oracion", both as Shiro and under her real singing voice.
  • In Episode 11, Miyuki Sawashiro (Izuna) sings the opening credits for the in-series game "Love or Loved 2", while Mugihito (Inu) does the (hammy) narration.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: The inhabitants of Disboard responded to the Pledges by treating games as Serious Business and otherwise carrying on as they always had. Sora and Shiro are apparently the first people to notice that the intended point of the Pledges was to replace hostility and conflict with friendly competition.
• Driven to Suicide: In the light novel, while in the living chess match, it's highly implied that Chlammy's king self-destructed because he couldn't bear knowing that one of own pieces has turned on him.
• Dub-Induced Plot Hole: In the localization of the first volume of light novel, Kurami's elven helper (who later turns out to be Feel, a woman) is described using male pronouns.
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • Jibril was first shown watching Sora and Shiro's speech from the library she won from Stephanie's grandfather.
  • In Episode 1, as Tet is explaining the pledges, the camera flashes over Jibril, Feel, Miko, Izuna and Inu.
  • In Episode 3, Feel has a brief scene with Kurami discussing their plans- in the light novel, Kurami's elven helper was dismissed without saying a word after being exposed.
• Episode Zero: The Beginning: The movie No Game No Life Zero is set 6000 years before the main series, like the light novel's sixth volume it is based on.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Sora may be a pervert but he's not a paedophile. In Episode 2, he wanted to see Stephanie naked, but doesn't want to get Shiro in the picture because that's child porn. Also in after Shiro puts up a Clingy Jealous Girl act when he demanded Stephanie to be his girlfriend, he also says he doesn't see Shiro in a sexual manner, since they're siblings. He also won't allow anything erotic happen in front of her.
  • As perverted and clingy she is, Shiro has no qualms chewing her brother out for making girls cry.
• Evolving Credits: In Episode 8, the ending largely starts out like normal, except that Sora is mysteriously missing from every scene. The ending also distorts occasionally, as if things are being edited or erased out of it.
• Exact Words: If a person or a party wins a game, the conditions the winning party declared would be enforced to the letter. However, savvy players can find loopholes in the conditions, thus allowing them to act in ways that technically do not violate the conditions they have agreed upon. Even when a game is being played, if there's no explicit rule about forbidding or limiting an action, then it can be done. Notable examples are
  • Sora throwing a rock to drive a bird away to win a bet. The bet was to guess how long would it take before the said bird would fly away from its perch. Sora bet 3 seconds, counted to three, then threw the rock.
  • Sora using scientific terms in the shiritori game, since the rules state any word can be used, which Jibril notes in the end, even included words non-native to Disboard.
  • Steph's grandfather recording the mechanics of the Warbeasts' game in a notebook. Since the Warbeasts didn't erase his memories, he was instead sworn to not tell anybody about the game for as long as he lived. This was a double whammy against the warbeasts since, while not allowed to tell anybody about it, he was able to write it. And as Sora pointed out, the condition of the king's silence became void when he died because he was only forbidden for as long as he lived.
  • Miko moving the warbeasts' assets out of the Elkian continent before the game between Imanity and the Warbeasts since the conditions only state that Imanity would get everything the warbeasts own within the continent.
• Family Honor: Stephanie wants to be the Queen in order to prove to the rest of humanity that her grandfather wasn't foolish.
• Fanservice: Unlike most other shows, here it's entirely Played for Laughs. Most of it being courtesy of Stephanie.
  • At the end of Episode 1, she arrives at the siblings' room wearing nothing but a bedsheet. In the light novels, she still has her dress.
  • In Episode 2, Sora attempted to get a picture of her without Shiro in it by knocking his smartphone near her and asking her to pick it up, but Shiro was Genre Savvy enough to realize it. So the "boobs" he sees in the picture was actually just Shiro flexing her arm and pinching it to make it look like she was groping Stephanie. Since he didn't see it happen, he believes they were a real shot of Stephanie.
  • In Episode 4, Sora forces Stephanie to wear a maid outfit that exposes her midriff... without underwear, as Shiro tells him.
  • In Episode 5, Stephanie challenges Sora, then Shiro to a series of games throughout the episode to try to get him to do some actual work. After her first loss, he has her dress up like a dog-girl, complete with a collar, ears and tail. Afterwards, Shiro takes over and starts taking away an article of clothing for every loss, until Steph is down to a Naked Apron, a very tiny top, and the previously mentioned ears and tail, and no underwear beneath it all. Then she starts adding accessories like glasses.
  • In Epsiode 6 Sora strips Shiro, Stephanie and Jibril in a game of "materialization shiritori", though he also made a few words beforehand that cause them to get Barbie Doll Anatomy.
  • Episode 7 presents a Furo Scene starring Shiro, Stephanie, Jibril, and her... shampoo bottle-tentacle.
  • Episode 10 is a repeat of the aforementioned scene, this time with Chlammy and Feel... and Jibril's shampoo bottle-tentacle.
  • Played straight during one scene in episode 11, when Sora shoots Stephanie a couple of times and she loses her clothing. Later subverted when he spends some time shooting at the NPC girl's clothing. At one point he shoots her panties, and it begins to dissolve. Then the entire girl disappears before the panties can reveal what he was hoping to catch a glimpse of, and he rants about being teased like that. Chlammy calls him an idiot when she watches him during that scene.
• Fantastic Racism: Just about every Exceed hate one another, both as a result of the Great War and the current one being waged via games. Even after the Elchean Federation is formed, merging multiple Exceeds under an alliance, the fear and hate still lingers. However, after watching a group of Imanity and Warbeast children becoming friends, Stephanie has hope that the hatred will end with their generation. Lampshaded in Volume 5.
  Sora: This world doesn't have any races that get along, does it?
• Flipping the Bird:
  • Sora does this to Steph (though it's censored) in Episode 5 after he finds out her grandfather lost their library to a Flugel, wondering why he bet their knowledge away like that.
  • Inu flips this to Sora and Shiro in Episode 8 for getting too frisky with his granddaughter Izuna.
• Flirty Stepsiblings: Shiro could be seem as this, see Big Brother Attraction above for more. Sora, while a pervert (he says it's because he's already in "that age"), he doesn't see her in a sexual way.
• Forever War: Thanks to the Old Dei creating and using the Exceeds as pawns in their battle to become the One True God of Disboard, the Great War that laid waste to Disboard lasted tens of thousands of years. Even after Tet's ascension prohibiting violence, the Exceeds still warred one another through games. It's gotten to the point that few even knew the reason why they started fighting in the first place.
• Fun T-Shirt: Sora wears a yellow shirt with the words "I ♥ Humanity". While this sounds ironic, considering his misanthropic nature, it actually represents his faith in human potential, which he believes is embodied by Shiro.
• Gender Bender: After making an alliance with Chlammy and Feel, Sora asks if the elf's magic can turn him into a girl, so that way he'll be able to join the girls currently bathing together. Feel says it's possible but she won't be able to change him back after that. In the light novels, it's described as changing the XY chromosomes to XX chromosomes, and Sora is utterly dissapointed.
  Sora: "I beg of you......this is a world of fantasy with Pledges and magic; why is something like sex reversal impossible! Stop being such a slack world, put some effort into it!!"
• Genius Loci: Avantheim, the only known Phantasma (Exceed rank number two) so far, is a being that resembles a gigantic rock that floats in the sky, and has the "right to infringe on others' sunlight and view" as noted by Sora. It is also the abode of the Flügel who reside on its back. It is revealed in Volume 5 that Avantheim maintains a mental connection to Azrael, the representative of the Flügel, and considers her its avatar.
• Genre Savvy: Shiro and Sora, of course, being game otaku.
  • They're savvy about the Trapped in Another World plot and wonder why the characters in such plots always want to go home.
  • They know all about cheating and cheaters.
  • From Dating Sim to history, they know what to do.
• Giving Up the Ghost: After three days and 500 nonstop rounds (158 wins, 158 losses, 184 ties) of games between Sora and Shiro in order to determine who will be the sole ruler of Elchea, they pushed themselves to the brink of exhaustion and passed out after doing this. Even bystander Stephanie Dola started having delusions after being tired of waiting for them for so long, and eventually gave up hers at the same time too. They then realize that both of them can rule.
• God Is Good: Once Tet became the only god, he outlawed violence and robbery and stated any dispute would be resolved by games, where cheating is not allowed (or at least blatant ones).
• Godlike Gamer: This is 『　　』's entire shtick. They're a prestigious Sibling Team made up of Sora and Shiro, who are so legendary as gamers that they become an urban legend in the gaming continuity, purportedly possessing the top score for every game to exist and in all regards unbeatable. Their gaming abilities are so phenomenal that they're brought over to an alternate RPG Verse world where gaming skills govern everything, where of course the two of them absolutely dominate. Sora excels at manipulating and reading people, while Shiro's specialty is analytical thinking of the core game mechanics. It's established that 『　　』 never loses unless it's intentionally or against each other. If their opponents try to cheat, then they will use the cheating against the cheater. The first episode alone has the two of them beating 12,000 players using 4 avatars, even when the opposition was cheating, and then shortly afterwards Sora ends up controlling four individual controllers with his hands and feet and still manages to win! Shiro is also revealed to have won 20 times against a chess simulator designed to beat grandmasters.
• Gone Horribly Right: In a desperate effort to get her race's help to complete her mission, Schwi uplinks with the other Ex Machina and shares the "heart" she's found with them. Come to find out, this doesn't actually share the general ability to love, but her exact feelings, meaning absolute love and devotion to only one person. This bites both the surviving Ex Machina and Sora in the ass, the Ex Machina because they now refuse to procreate with anyone but Riku, and Sora because they've identified him as being Riku's reincarnation.
• Gratuitous English:
  • In Episode 1, after Shiro and Sora win the chess game, the game says "Checkmate! You are winner!"
  • In Episode 6, Jibril peppers her sentences with random English words. As pointed out by Sora, this is a reference to a real-life Japanese comedian named Lou Oshiba, who speaks a made-up language called "Choiglish" (basically, nonstandard English - as opposed to commonly-used loanwords - randomly inserted into Japanese sentences). After Sora calls her out on this, Jibril stops doing it and starts talking normally.
  • The "Love or Loved 2" game title in Episode 11.
  • The anime episodes are all titled in English.
• Guile Hero:
  • Sora with Shiro's help is the epitome of this trope in this world, by virtue of managing to outsmart a very skilled cheater in a game that only remotely resembles what he initially expected, another cheater in a game whose concepts and rules are otherwise utter alien to a fantasy world like this one, an angel who has lived for thousands of years and was never before beaten in her favourite game, and even the God of Games himself (in regular Chess, but they intend a rematch). All via analysis, cunning, planning, tons of skill, and his unwavering trust in Shiro.
  • Plum is actually a very skilled manipulator, capable of making a plan that Sora even praised. Even in the worst case scenario, he would have at least saved his own skin since he had "『　　』" and co play instead of him, which meant that Imanity and the Warbeasts would be the Seirens' new mates. And if "『　　』" did win on their own accounts, then they would have won everything the Seirens had, which included the responsibility of feeding the Dhampirs. The only reason he doesn't come out on top in the end is because Sora is an even bigger Guile and managed to piece together the whole scheme and plan accordingly.
• Harem Genre: Downplayed. Given the protagonist Sora is surrounded by a cast of cute girls, there are some harem elements, but for the most the romance takes a back seat as they aren't trying to win his affection, aside from Stephanie.
• Harsh Word Impact: When Jibril says she thought Sora and Shiro were "feeble Imanity" as opposed to being from another world, Steph gets stabbed with a speech bubble with "feeble Imanity" on it.
• Hate at First Sight: Fi and Jibril instantly do not like each other upon being formally introduced in episode 10. Fi mentions something about an elven city being destroyed by a certain Flugel. Jibril then states it was because the elves placed an anti-flying ward above their city, causing her to fall and bump her head. Shiro forces her to apologize to Fi, since they need help from both of them in their match against the warbeasts.
• Heads, Tails, Edge: Sora invokes this during "the world's most brutal coin toss" between him and Miko of the Warbeasts.
• Heroic BSoD: Played for Laughs in episode 10. Upon arriving for the Warbeasts' game and seeing the setting resembles modern Tokyo. Sora and Shiro go into shock for a few minutes until they're told it's only a virtual world.
• Hero's Slave Harem: Downplayed Trope. Early in the series, it is revealed that any stipulations or agreements made before a game are magically-binding. This comes back to bite Stephanie, who wagers that she will do anything Sora says he can defeat her in a game of rock-paper-scissors. His command is "Fall in love with me", which results in a very conflicted Stephanie desperately trying to fight her newfound feelings of affection for Sora. Later, Sora also defeats the Fluegel Jibril, who becomes Sora's servant; while Jibril is an amoral being with no true feelings one way or another, she is quite The Tease and has stated numerous times that she would not hesitate to sleep with Sora if he ordered her to, or simply to sate her own curiosity. Another downplayed example is Laira, a Siren who is in love with Sora simply because he doesn't reciprocate it; her obsession with being in a one-sided love means that she even desires to be mistreated by him — the more cruelly he treats her, the more she loves him.
• Hidden Villain: In the Big Damn Movie, the Exceed could considered this especially the Dwarves who remain faceless until the very end when one takes his mask off.
• High-Heel–Face Turn: Sora convinces Chlammy's Queen to join his (and Shiro's) white pieces by smooth-talking her and appealing to her sense of duty and love. He also claims that Dating Sims were one of the few genres where he was better than Shiro.
• Hoist by Her Own Petard: In Episode 5, Stephanie attempts to play blackjack against Sora, only to lose when he tells her the game isn't as random as she tried to make it sound like, and called her out on her attempted cheating. Later that episode, she tries to make a bet with him, to be a "fulfilled" human, but Shiro elbows him, and plays the second game in which they try to determine whether the next ten people to pass by in an alley they're watching is a man or woman. Steph loses badly (9 to 1), and is forced to give her panties to the latter, who then wears it on her head as they walk down a busy street. Sora wonders if Shiro is upset at Steph for this, but the latter denies it. The next few games she gradually loses more of her clothing, and has to wear a pair of glasses.
• Hollywood Board Games: Child Prodigy Shiro boasts that, for her, playing chess is as easy as Tic-Tac-Toe. After all, in both of them, you've got to memorize board setups. The only thing that changes is the number of possible combinations.
• Hopeless War: The war between the Old Dei was this until they were all gone. Tet survived because he wasn't involved.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Sora and Shiro, due to their 7-year age gap. It's great enough that Shiro can sleep in Sora's lap.
• Humans Are Special:
  • Stephanie strongly believes in her grandfathers words that, despite humanity's massive disadvantages compared to other races, one day they could triumph over them all. Then came Sora and Shiro, who prevent a potential takeover by the elves (courtesy of Chlammy), then inspired their fellow humans that they can turn their weakness into a source of infinite potential.
  • In Episode 7, Jibril asks Sora about humanity a little. He essentially says that they all suck, himself included. Then he confides that Shiro changed his life and proved that people with great potential such as her still exist, thus he made it his duty to keep that potential, embodied by Shiro, alive. After reading the former king's hidden journal regarding playing against the Warbeasts, he gives a lot more respect to Stephanie's grandfather, who sacrificed his reputation by losing consecutively to the Warbeasts until he has gathered enough information for his potential successor.
• Humiliating Wager: In Episode 1, Sora wins the clothes off the back of some thieves, who were also giving him an Info Dump on their world. They ask to at least have their pants, but he takes it all with him, leaving them in their underwear. Then at the end of the same episode, Stephanie shows up at his (and Shiro's) doorstep half-naked, covered only by a blanket, having lost her game with Chlammy.
• I Always Wanted to Say That: "One of the things 『　　』 loves best is saying 'no' to people who think they've got an absolute advantage" is the 4th one of Sora and Shiro's "things we always wanted to say" list and they were very excited over finally being able to use the JoJo's quote.
• I Know Mortal Kombat: The real reason why Sora knows how to govern over an entire country? He plays lots of Civilization.
• I'm a Man; I Can't Help It: After losing to Sora, Stephanie is ordered to fall in love with him. Shiro recalls that Sora could have asked her to be his slave or something, freaking him out. As he claims, he's a guy having sexual needs (and sexual needs, and sexual needs, and even sexual needs) and that he always wanted a girlfriend.
• Impossible Task: In Volume 5 of the light novels, the Seirene Empress Leila's "real life romance game" took over 800 years and many, many men's lives until it was successfully beaten by Sora and Shiro. She wanted to find a man who was not in love or infatuated with her. Considering her seductive magic was abnormally strong, it was practically an impossible thing for any Disboard man. It just happened that Sora is able to No-Sell her magic and see her as the dumb, whiny, selfish little bitch she truly is.
• Improbably Female Cast: Sora is the only male character with significant screen time. In the anime's first season at least, every important plot match he and Shiro have played has always been against a female character, such as Kurami, Jibril, Izuna, and Miko.
• Incapable of Disobeying:
  • The supreme god Tet decreed that all violence was forbidden in the world of Disboard and that any and all conflicts are to be resolved through games. Sora and Shiro get a taste of this immediately upon landing in Disboard, when they are attacked by bandits who challenge the siblings to games to rob them rather than assault them.
  • Stephanie involuntarily fell in love with Sora after losing a contest to him, and so would reflexively agree to anything he said in a love-sick daze. According to Jibril, this is a temporary condition because "fall in love" is different from "stay in love".
• Insane Troll Logic: Sora's "cute makes right" speech sounds like silly otaku logic but it makes sense if you think about it in terms of morale. The ability to inspire others to fight on your behalf is a hallmark of the Charismatic Leader.
• Instant Expert: Shiro learns Imanity's language simply from reading a book of it in Episode 2. She says it was easy because the spoken language is identical to Japanese, even if the written form isn't.
• Intelligence Equals Isolation: Sora and Shiro. The first episode shows how people didn't approach them for being smarter while Sora was musing about how life was a "bad game". Ironically, this makes them inseparatable.
  Sora: "There's punishments for winning or losing too much, you can't skip turns, and if you talk too much, they don't like you."
• iPhony: Sora's tablet pad, which contains thousands of e-books, which he bet against Jibril (in exchange for her pledge of allegiance to him and Shiro) is an iPad with a cherry logo (may also serve as a Visual Pun, seeing that Sora is an 18-year-old virgin who really wants to get laid).
• It Amused Me:
  • A lot of the early games Sora plays against others are largely due to this, since he finds the new world and it's rules interesting.
  • The reason why Tet brought Sora and Shiro into the new world in the first place. Episode 4 makes it clear that he doesn't care about Imanity any more than any other race — he just wants a Worthy Opponent.
• Last of His Kind:
  • Tet is the last of the Old Deus, because the others died in the Great War.
  • Plum for the Dhampirs (last male, to be exact, forced to dress as a girl to avoid the Seirenes).
• Like Cannot Cut Like: Sora and Shiro spend three days straight trapped in a constant draw because they can't beat each other. "『　　』" is fighting "『　　』" and so naturally "『　　』" wins.
• Little Bit Beastly: The Warbeasts look like humans aside from their ears and tails. Sora was really happy to hear that.
• Living Emotional Crutch: Sora and Shiro are this to each other. They have to be near each other in order to keep each other sane and functional.
• Lonely Rich Kid: It implies that Shiro, based on her clothing, comes from a wealthy family and she was alone until Sora came into her life.
• Logging onto the Fourth Wall: The web address given by Tet to Sora and Shiro, http://www.disboard-the-boardtop-world.info/, led to Tet presenting some sort of quiz. It was timed, in Japanese, ran on Adobe Flash, and couldn't be autotranslated. In 2017, after the anime finished, the address became a redirect to the Kadokawa site.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • Being caught cheating is grounds for losing but if you're good enough to not get caught, then technically you weren't cheating, as Sora points out to Shiro in the first episode after she says he cheated to win at that poker game.
  • While Sora and Shiro are technically two people, they often play games together and consider themselves one person for the purposes of playing. As a result, they are allowed to compete together, which is a good thing since their opponents are almost always cheating anyway.
  • Just because both parties in the game have to agree that their bets are of equal value doesn't mean the bets actually have to be of equal value, so it's possible for one party to bet something that isn't very valuable but the other thinks is. By this principle, Steph's grandfather was able to bet land that was almost worthless to Imanity but had resources that the Warbeasts could use, in order to entice them to play against him and reveal the secrets of their game.
  • In Episode 4, Sora and Shiro, after winning against Chlammy, are told that only one person can become the monarch. Both of them end up engaging in 500 games. Shiro then points out that there's no specific rule stating they couldn't co-rule together.
  • In Episode 5, Steph makes a bet with Sora to determine when some birds perched nearby would take off. Sora lets her bet first, and she guesses thirty seconds. He then says three seconds, and throws a rock at them to have them fly away. When she tries to argue that he cheated, he claims she never put a rule against throwing rocks in this game.
  • During the game in episode 11, being hit by your opponent's bullets causes you to turn to their side. While it seems Izuna is outgunned 4 to 1 due to Stephanie, Jibril, Sora, and Shiro teaming up against her, she has a few tricks up her sleeve as well. One of which Shiro and Sora discover that shooting at articles of clothing doesn't cause you to turn, and instead it just dissolves said clothing away.
  • In episode 12, Miko challenge Elchea to a rematch/revenge game. Sora simply picks a coin toss, as he doesn't want to dawdle further. Both sides offer seemingly generous concessions, such as Warbeasts keeping their resources, while Imanity reclaims all their lost lands. The coin ends up sideways due to Sora shifting one of the stepping stones slightly, causing it to fall on the gap and stop on its side. He then says they can either both win, or both lose. Miko obviously decides that both would win.
  • Additionally, Sora and Shiro wonder about Pledge 10, which encourages the Exceeds to simply have fun playing games. They claim it would contradict the other ones, so all of their meticulous and sometimes on-the-fly planning was designed partly so they would always have the upper-hand, and partly to let the other player enjoy the game instead of just suffering through a Curb-Stomp Battle. They speculate that was really why Tet made that pledge, so that the races could have games both sides could enjoy. Prior to the two showing up, said games were usually in the interests of whoever won the game, such as the previous king of Elchea losing a lot of land to the Warbeasts, who then exploited the resources on said lands for their own people.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: The Seirene Exceed. They live their lives without a care (probably for being so stupid) and all they have in their minds is eat, sleep and mate, but especially mate.
• Magically-Binding Contract: Pledge 6 — All bets made according with the Pledges must be fulfilled. Once you close a game's bet, you swear for the 10 Pledges with the word "Aschente". Then you're magically bound into following the bet, no matter how much it pains you.
• Magic Missile Storm: In Volume 5 of the light novels, the Binding Light cast by the Flügel in their game against 『　　』 and Plum homes in on their targets and can be cast multiple times, similar to the famous 'Itano Circus' as noted by Shiro, although only used for capturing purposes.
• Make Games, Not War: Life in the world of Disboard revolves around playing games and any form of conflict is solved through one. Tet even specifies it as one of his commandments.
• Male Gaze: In the anime, the camera often pans down to look up Shiro's skirt and show her striped panties.
• Marilyn Maneuver: During Materialization Shiritori, Jibril creates a gust of wind that blows up Steph's skirt.
• Mars Needs Women: The Seirenes are an all-female race who can only reproduce with other Exceeds, but Tet's laws forbade them from launching raiding parties to hunt for males, thus forcing them into an alliance with Dhampirs. Unfortunately, their mating rituals have a high male mortality rate, nearly driving both races into extinction (and forcing Plum, the last male Dhampir, to disguise himself as a girl to get past their attention).
• Meaningful Name: Sora and Shiro's name uses the Kanji 空 (sky) and 白 (white), but can also read as Kuu (Empty) and Haku (white), creating their nickname Kuuhaku /『　　』(Blank)
• Medieval Morons: Most of Elkia can't read or write, preventing them from easily copying the information in their library.
• Medieval Stasis: Due to the establishment of the Pledges and all focus by the sixteen races at discovering new ways of cheating, technology remained stagnant and Disboard had been stuck in the equivalent of a 15th-century Earth for millennia. This changes for Elchea when Sora and Shiro become King/Queen, where they implement modern knowledge to improve human conditions, though they're quite wary of also introducing technology.
  • Also averted by the Eastern Union, made up of the united Werebeast tribes. While this trope had been in effect for them up until relatively recently (sixty years or so), once the Shrine Maiden united them all together they very rapidly advanced to technology at or exceeding Earth's current, including "full dive" VR games. In fact the light novels indicate that most races other than Immanity make use of futuristic levels of technology, albeit powered by magic.
• Memory Gambit: Imposed by Sora upon Fil Nilvalen as part of his request after winning the Existence Othello game, in order to provide the council of the Elves in Elven Garde with fake information regarding the Warbeasts' game, essentially gaining the Elchean Federation the upper hand once the Elves challenge them in the future.
• Might Makes Right: Sora declares that cute makes right, and for that reason (among others) Shiro is a more deserving king than Chlammy.
• Modest Royalty:
  • Sora wears his crown on his arm rather than on his head. He also wears his regular street clothing instead of regal attire such as a cape. Shiro, likewise, wears her navy blue Sailor Fuku.
  • Stephanie, based on a flashback, was like this as well. The dress from her grandfather is not at all pimped out or jewel encrusted.
• Moe: Invoked by Sora in his game of living chess against Chlammy. He gave the pieces the courage to fight and move, despite putting themself at risk, by encouraging them with Shiro's cute face, saying that if they can't give their best for her, who loves them and cries for them, they were no men.
  People will only truly fight for what is right [and] the one true, unchanging rightness in the world is cuteness! Cute makes right! All our needs, desires and instincts look to cuteness, and it's for cuteness we give everything we have! That's just the way men are!
• Mood Whiplash:
  • In Episode 4, Chlammy goes up to Sora and Shiro after losing, convinced they were cheating. Sora basically tells her she lost because she limited herself rather than relying on her own wits. She then immediately starts crying a stream, complaining about how her efforts with Feel went to waste. Shiro then pokes fun at him for being a virgin and making a girl cry.
  • In Episode 7, Stephanie gives Sora a key she kept as a memento from her grandfather, the old king. When he inspects it, he mistakenly believes it to be a key to the old king's supposed porn stash. Cue Stephanie's disappointed look in the corner.
  • Volume 6 consists mostly of Tet reminiscing about the past prior to his/her ascension. The tone shifts completely to a grim-dark setting showing just how bad things were during the Great War.
• Motif Merger: Tet, Physical God of Games, merges various game icons into his design, among them symbols of poker and chess. He also has a die as an earring.
• Mundane Made Awesome:
  • Even something like cheating at poker is made extremely intense in the anime depiction.
  • The chess game in Episode 3, which turns out to be a lot different than a regular chess game. Especially after Sora takes over for Shiro.
• NEET: Prior to their arrival at Disboard, Sora and Shiro play games inside their house all day. Shiro outright stated the the time of day or day of the week doesn't matter to someone who stays inside all day. Sora responded that it does matter for special game events. In Episode 5, even when they become rulers of Elchea, they apparently reverted to this state by sleeping in late and delegating all their royal duties ("Blank will never do work!"). Stephanie calls them out on it only to be stunned later that episode when she realizes that all this time they have been doing their research on Imanity's state, only refusing to act due to lack of sufficient information on hand.
• New Life in Another World Bonus: Sora and Shiro are NEETs who are summoned to Disboard, a world where all conflict is resolved through games. Thankfully for them, the duo are experts at all sorts of games, allowing them to quickly rise in the world. They view chess as easy as Tic-Tac-Toe, having memorized 10^120 chess states.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: Flügels are able to take a nuke to the face and be fine with it. A hypernova, on the other hand, is too much.
• Not in This for Your Revolution: Sora and Shiro's motivation is not being Elchea's saviors nor taking over the world; those are just stepping stones for their real goal: challenging (and defeating) Tet again.
• Not Blood Siblings: Shiro and Sora are siblings by remarriage (i.e., Sora's father to Shiro's mother), but they're so close to each other one can be forgiven for mistaking them as true siblings.
• Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught: This is a pledge that the players abide by. They are all free to cheat, but if they are found out, it is an instant loss. Sora believes that cheating is allowed and the punishment is for being caught rather than cheating in the first place.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • Stephanie notes extreme parallels between her and Sora and Shiro — they're both socially awkward, arrogant and also extremely intelligent.
  • Sora can see many parallels between Izuna and Shiro: two young girls who never enjoyed the games they played until finding someone who was impossible to beat, felt remorseful over their first loss but could finally feel the excitement of having a great game with a great opponent and have her resolution ignited.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse:
  • On top of winning the chess game in the beginning, Tet asks some very specific things about Sora and Shiro, such as their relationship and boredom with real life. The deity then yanks them into Disboard, and tells them they were meant to live there due to their skill at games. They are initially distraught by it, but eventually come to like it.
  • At the end of the games between Sora and Miko, the former declares the coin toss a win-all, because the coin got stuck between a pair of rocks and landed on its side. Miko realized he cheated, but found the implications of his declaration — Imanity will take back all their lands, but the resource-needy Warbeasts will be allowed to remain there — too tempting to pass up (that, and also because she realized she's fighting an ultimately losing battle to Sora), so she simply accepts his more charitable alternative.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • During the chess match against Chlammy, when the latter reveals she can brainwash Sora's pieces like she did her own. Later Sora turns the favor by personally convincing her Queen to do a Heel–Face Turn by appealing to her emotions.
  • Jibril has a few when she realizes that Sora and Shiro are actually quite crafty during her game, and has the biggest one when Sora removes Coulomb's force, triggering a hypernova against which even she has no defense.
  • Sora and Shiro have one when they realize the setting for the Warbeasts' game is based off of modern Tokyo.
  • Jibril in episode 11 while chasing after a falling Izuna after the latter jumped out of a window on a high rise to avoid Shiro's attacks. The former then realizes she can't use her flying in the game, and starts to panic as she starts freefalling.
  • Izuna gets one after seeing Shiro dodge her shots.
• Ominous Visual Glitch: Towards the end of episode 8, appropriately called "Fake End", the screen and sound occasionally glitch out as if an old TV has a wonky reception. It's especially heavy when Sora is supposed to show up during the Ending Theme, which he doesn't. And just before he had been shown to simply cease to exist.
• Omniglot: Sora can speak 6 languages; Shiro can speak 18; Jibril can speak over 700.
• One Cast Member per Cover: The light novel's covers feature a different character, usually a girl, on each volume.
• Our Mermaids Are Different: See Out with a Bang. Unfortuantely, this poses a huge problem when war becomes games: since they can't rape people anymore, their race is dying out. Not to mention they're constantly horny from their biological clocks. This becomes a plot point when the queen of the mermaids wants to "marry" the prince of the vampires.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Dhampir are vampires in name only. Because of the 1st Pledges, Dhampirs are unable to bite anyone for blood (or more specific, 'soul essence', found in body fluids) as they're assaulting someone without mutual consent. Because of this, they had to find other 'body fluid' to suck in order to avoid dying from starvation... essentially becoming Succubi.
• Out with a Bang: The Seirenes's mating drains off all the energy and life of the mate.
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Played for Laughs with both Stephanie and Sora/Shiro:
  • In Stephanie's case, she is overwhelmed by how good Sora and Shiro are at games. In contrast she is terrible and even lost her dress in a match against Kurami. Then she wonders how they're so good when Sora is also incredibly perverted.
  • When Stephanie complains about everything she's had to do behind the scenes to keep the kingdom together, such as meeting with nobles and trying to keep the peace amongst various factions, both Sora and Shiro suffer Color Failure at hearing how good of a politician she is. Her graduating top of her class and having friends doesn't help either considering the lonesome nature of the duo.
• Pals with Jesus: Stephanie freaks out when she sees Sora and Shiro talking with Tet, the One True God, like they were old friends.
• Parental Abandonment: Sora and Shiro's parents don't take care of them, hence why they're NEET's. In the light novel, their parents are actually dead.
• Patrick Stewart Speech: After becoming King of Elchea, Sora claims that while humans are lowly, stupid creatures, they have an untapped potential and intelligence that would improve their lot in life, as evidenced by him meeting Shiro.
  Sora: "I don't believe in humanity...But I believe in the potential of humanity."
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Sora and Shiro have a variation. If they find out someone is cheating, instead of telling which would result in their victory, they just cheat better and beat them anyway.
• Performance Anxiety: Sora gets stage fright trying to address a huge crowd in Episode 4. Only Shiro's presence grounds him enough to go through with it.
• Person as Verb:
  • Whenever Stephanie screws up or she can't keep up with the conversation together with the siblings, that would prompt them to scold her for being such a "Steph", much to her chagrin.
  • The Sirens are notorious for being stupid, such as with their poorly-thought-out arrangement with the Dhampirs.
    Jibril: The foolishness of Siren reaches the status of legend. Siren has become a synonym for fool in the idioms of every race’s language, and in fact, it is even used as a verb in some.
• Personal Space Invader: In "Love or Loved 2", if you're touched by the infatuated NPC for too long, they not only lose interest in you (meaning you have to start all over again) but they also drain all the love energy from your gun. If you're playing solo, it means an automatic Game Over; if you have an ally, you have to suffer the humilliation of getting shot and get temporally infatuated with your partner.
• Pet the Dog: Whenever Sora is nice to Stephanie. In one example, during Episode 5, he compliments the way she's kept Imanity from rebelling due to all the new rules he and Shiro put into place, after she yells at them for seemingly not doing anything besides play games all day long.
• Pinky Swear: Sora made one with Shiro to stay together no matter what as seen in a Flash Back in Episode 2.
• The Plan:
  • Sora declares war on every other race in Episode 4. When Stephanie tried to call him out on this, He tells her it's unlikely the other races would simply attack, because chances are they'll think some other race is backing him (and Shiro) up when they defeated the Elf-backed Chlammy. So until they find out the truth, they'd be too suspicious of each other, while Imanity shores up their defenses and morale.
  • At the end of their match in Episode 6, Jibril realizes that Sora planned the game of Materialization Shiritori to end the way it did, and that she already lost after the first move.
  • During Episodes 8-9, Sora bet Imanity's Exceed piece against the Warbeasts, causing a massive uproar. This causes Chlammy and Feel to take advantage of the chaos to challenge him to another game. Sora establishes a game of Reversi where the stakes are the players' existences. Sora deliberately plays badly so Chlammy receives his memories, all to convince her that he and Shiro are nobody's pawn, and leaves Shiro to play his three remaining pieces to win the game when he gets (temporarily) erased from existence. Then, due to the rules he established before the game, he returns Chlammy's soul, in addition to the ones she earned from him during game, and requests the right to alter Feel's memories. This gains him their support for his upcoming game with the Warbeasts, and to help him later with sabotaging the Eastern Union.
• Playful Cat Smile: Sora and Shiro both share this trait — the former, because he's a devious con artist, and the latter, whenever she's being mischievous.
• Please, Don't Leave Me:
  • Sora gives Shiro some encouraging words at the end of Episode 8. Then in the post-credits, he's nowhere to be seen, causing Shiro to curl up in the corner of the bed crying for him, particularly after Stephanie doesn't seem to know who he is.
  • Also happens in the Movie, where Riku wants Schvi to hold his remaining hand while resting. Schvi does until he falls asleep, then leaves to complete the job of setting up the devices to redirect all the power the other Races planned to use in destroying each other. She never comes back.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: Jibril would make for a very lousy ambassador for 『　　』, as evident when everytime she opens her mouth during their meeting with the Warbeasts she would utter vulgar words that could potentially make them hate Imanity ten times over.
• Poor Communication Kills: Steph gets frustrated with Sora and Shiro for seemingly wasting a month reading when, in fact, they're researching their next move, because they never told her about what they were up to and she didn't ask.
• P.O.V. Boy, Poster Girl: Sora is the most prominent narrator (and pretty much the only relevant male character) while Shiro is the most prominent girl in merchandise.
• Power Levels: Each Exceed are ranked according to their relative magical power. Note that despite the Elves only being one rank below the Flügel, the difference in power is like heaven and earth. The reason being is that Ranks 7-16 are classified as Living Beings, whereas Ranks 1-6 are classified as Life itself.
  • Rank 1: Old Deus
  • Rank 2: Phantasma
  • Rank 3: Elemental
  • Rank 4: Dragonia
  • Rank 5: Gigant
  • Rank 6: Flügel
  • Rank 7: Elf
  • Rank 8: Dwarf
  • Rank 9: Fairy
  • Rank 10: Ex-Machina
  • Rank 11: Demonia
  • Rank 12: Dhampir
  • Rank 13: Lunamana
  • Rank 14: Warbeast
  • Rank 15: Seirene
  • Rank 16: Imanity
• The Power of Love: Parodied and weaponized with the "Love or Loved 2" videogame. You shoot at NPC to recharge your weapon with their love energy, your opponent can get your allies to their side via making them fall in love with them with a shot and viceversa.
• The Power of Trust: Episode 9 is like a crazy trust exercise. Sora literally trusted to Shiro his existence, knowing that she's the only person able to understand his train of thoughts, not only about what happened to him but also his strategy in his game of "existence Reversi" against Chlammy.
• Prayer Is a Last Resort: How Tet actually got to be God of Disboard. Riku prayed for the little spirit of play who used to constantly beat him at chess as a kid to take the Star Grail and become the one true God, which throws a bit of a wrench in the We Win Because You Didn't version of events we've heard up till now.
• Rage Against the Heavens: Sora and Shiro have basically declared war against the One True God of Disboard. They're actually pretty amicable with Tet, and he was the one who brought them into the world in the first place. They seem to treat it as a mutual case of Worthy Opponents more than anything truly antagonistic.
• Rags to Riches: In about two days since Shiro and Sora came to Disboard, they went from renting an inn room to becoming the Sovereigns of Imanity.
• Reincarnation: Sora and Shiro are implied to the reincarnations of Riku and Shuvi. The fact that they were married has some interesting implications.
• Reincarnation-Identifying Trait: Riku and Shuvi, the predecessors of Sora and Shiro, are also implied to be their past lives. On top of having huge physical resemblance and same voices, albeit with some minor differences like hair color and species difference, they notably share their successors immense talent at games. In fact it's implied Tet seeked out Sora and Shiro because he suspected they were the reincarnations of these two legendary gamers.
• Relax-o-Vision: In Episode 10, Jibril is ordered by Shiro to lick Fi's boot and apologize for destroying an elven city a long time ago. Though the apology is heard, the screen shows a field of flowers and relaxing music during the actual licking.
• Reluctant Fanservice Girl: Stephanie, who's seen nearly naked a lot in Episode 2, because she lost her dress in a bet. Sora tries to take as advantage of this as much as possible. For instance, her maid outfit in Episode 4 is revealing and lacks underwear. and then her Shameful Strip in Episode 5 until being left with only a sash around her breasts and a short apron.
• Rousing Speech:
  • Sora delivers one to his chess pieces in Episode 3, telling them to be the badasses they are, and offering a lot of incentives for them to win. It works, until Chlammy uses another trick up her sleeve.
  • Sora delivers another speech at his and Shiro's coronation, promising to the take over the entire world and put Imanity on top of the food chain.
• Running Gag: Stephanie losing any game to the siblings and being stripped of her clothing. It happens often.
• Secret Test of Character: Sora and Shiro believe that the 10th Pledge is actually a hint from Tet on how to successfully challenge him. They're not supposed to force the other Exceeds to contribute their Race Pieces, but instead convince them to willingly assist them in battling Tet.
• Serial Escalation: Almost every episode has Sora/Shiro/『　　』 pulling off some increasingly amazing stunt.
• Sequel Hook: Episode 12 of the anime has already shown prominent characters from later novels, such as Plum from twelfth-ranking Dhampirs, Amira from fifteenth-ranking Seirenes, and Azrael, avatar of Avantheim (home of the Flügels), from second-ranking Phantasma). Additionally, Sora and Shiro state that they still have a lot of races to conquer before they can challenge Tet to a game again, which of course means plenty of stories for another season of the show as the duo challenge the other races in games.
• Serious Business:
  • Sora and Shiro take every game to be serious, having promised to never lose. It helps when they transport to Disboard.
  • On a more disturbing note, almost all sixteen Exceeds take the games far too seriously, to the point where Imanity and Warbeasts genuinely feared for their existence as a race should the opposing side win their big game. Sora rips into such a belief, noting that in their self-interest and paranoia they have been technically in violation of Pledge 10 — to simply enjoy the games as Tet has wanted them to.
• Shameful Strip: It seems that, whenever Stephanie is involved, she bets and loses her clothes slowly until barely having something to cover herself (if any, as in Episode 1).
• Sheathe Your Sword: If the white pieces touch the black ones, they get brainwashed into black pieces so the only option to win is convince the black pieces to stop fighting. Sora got the idea after the Black Knight refused to attack the Black-turned-White Queen, who was ready for the blow, and then the Knight turned white.
• She Is the King: Chlammy was about to be crowned "King" when Sora interrupted. When he and Shiro became co-rulers, Shiro called herself "Queen".
• Ship Tease:
  • A lot of these beween Sora and Stephanie. While it started on a one-sided note (Sora forcing Stephanie to fall in love with him after losing a game), as time passed Stephanie's feelings for him became genuine, if Jibril's comment that the command was only supposed to work for a short period is true. In turn, Sora also began to feel the same way for her, to the point of regretting having made her run off crying after insulting her grandfather one too many times.
  • Over time in the light novels this falls off, with it only very rarely mentioned that Stephanie's still infatuated with Sora. It's instead replaced by a lot of ship teasing for Sora and Shiro (who's much more forward about announcing her intentions of keeping him for herself, including romantically, than in the anime).
• Shipper on Deck: Jibril ships Sora and Stephanie.
• Shout-Out: Has its own page.
• Showy Invincible Hero: 『　　』's motto is that they never lose and they sure live up to that statement, but seeing all of the awesome ways they win is where the enjoyment in the series lies.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Shiro and Sora are opposites at everything even down to their hair colors. It also goes to their playing style forte; Shiro is more logical and "going by the book", so she is great at looking the better way to victory, while Sora is more guile and better at reading people, making him the best commander ever, able to predict the opponent's next move.
• Single-Gender Species: Sora thinks the Warbeasts are all cute girls because of his Little Bit Beastly fetish. This is despite Stephanie telling him otherwise. The Seirenes are a straight example, being an all-female race that only breeds females.
• Slave Race: The Dhampirs are practically the Seirenes' slaves. The women provide them of magic and even built their underwater city, while the men are their Sex Slaves. Everything was once fine between them but with only Plum as the last male Dhampir, both races are in danger of extinction.
• Special Edition Title: The ending credits of episode 8 are almost normal, except that Sora is missing and there are some playback errors like sound scratches and discolourations. After, he's still missing, and only Shiro realises he's even existed.
• Spell My Name With An S: Is her name "Kurami", "Clammy" or the really outlandish "Chlammy"? Also, is her elven girlfriend's name "Feel", "Fiel" or "Fil"? And in Volume 5, "Azrael" or "Azriel"?
  • Warbeast or Werebeast? Both make sense and both would be pronounced the same way in Japanese.
  • The spellings "Asciente" and "Aschente" have both been seen for the magic word.
  • Elkia or Elchea?
  • And in the Big Damn Movie: Shu-Vi or Schwi?
• Spit Take: Jibril does this in Episode 6 when Sora bets 40,000 books as his bet in his game against her. He then shows her a tablet to prove it.
• Stealth Pun:
  • In Episode 5 when Steph loses to Sora in Blackjack and explains why he won, Steph cries scales. Meaning the scales have fallen from her eyes.
  • Also in Episode 5, Shiro and Sora try to bring down the Floating Continent Avantheim by shouting the spell from Castle in the Sky to bring down Laputa. After finding out it didn't work, Sora says "It didn't crash." to which Shiro answers "The servers here are better than in our world..."
  • In Episode 11, Sora shoots Shiro's panties off, in other words, a literal Panty Shot.
• The Stinger:
  • At a post-credits scene in Episode 1, Sora and Shiro hear knocks at the door of their inn room. Sora opens it to find a half-naked Stephanie asking for lodging.
  • A post-credits scene in Episode 5 introduces Jibril. Jibril starts to dramatically descend from the library's ceiling in front of Sora, Shiro and Stephanie while Sora internally compares her with death itself. Then she ask politely, with a cutesy voice, what brings them to her library, with the last scene is her giggling to the camera.
  • At the end of Episode 8, the credits play normally, except Sora is missing from it, and there is some playback error, as if it were being edited poorly. Then Shiro wakes up alone, and Stephanie doesn't seem to know who Sora is when Shiro asks about him.
  • The very end of the first anime season has "Miko" channeling an Old Deus, to which Sora and Shiro respond by declaring that their real game has just began.
• "Stop Having Fun" Guys: A rare In-Universe case. Tet's commandments may have abolished violence, but as a side effect, games became treated much more seriously. They have now become the principal geopolitical tool of Disboard where even a single defeat can have serious consequences (so serious indeed that after losing to Sora and Shiro, Izuna breaks down crying out of genuine fear for the Warbeasts' existence). As such, absolutely everyone is doing everything they can in order to win - from honing their intelligence and knowledge, to sacrificing a lot in order to succeed, to rampant cheating. In the final episode of the anime, Sora then mulls that in doing so all sixteen Exceeds are technically in violation of the Tenth Pledge - to actually derive fun and pleasure from the games. It may very well be that Sora and Shiro were summoned specifically to restore the spirit, and not just the letter of the laws.
  Sora, to Izuna: "Say, Izuna, since when was the last time you enjoyed a game?"
  • In one of the later novels, when a group of people are complaining about how Tet's Covenants just exchanged a Crapsack World for a Crapsaccharine World, Sora points out that it's not actually Tet's fault that everyone was so focused on the first nine that they chose to completely ignore the tenth (because unlike the others it's not worded to be forcefully binding): "Let's all have fun together!"
• Stylistic Suck: The intro for the game in Episode 11, complete with CG and some strange things happening in it, such as a few girls riding hearts towards a fleet of spaceships firing at them, which then turns into a concert.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • In the game of chess between Kurami and Blank, in which the pieces have wills of their own, Shiro tries to sacrifice a piece, which is a legitimate tactic in chess, only for it to refuse her order. As Sora puts it, virtually no one would willingly obey an order that requires them to die.
  • Being a medieval society, Elkia has a very low literacy rate(roughly 10 percent of the populace), no easy way to mass produce paper, and no printing presses, making copies of books is extraordinarily difficult. In the novels, Sora wonders why the king didn't make copies of the books, but Shiro explains that the low literacy rate is precisely the reason why.
• Take a Third Option:
  • Sora presents Stephanie with one when Chlammy is nearly crowned king in Episode 3, namely, he himself becoming king.
  • Sora manage to win not by fighting the black pieces, but convincing them to rebel against the Black King (and Chlammy by extension) for being a tyrant.
• Take Over the World: Sora and Shiro's goal is conquering the other 15 races because only with all their chess pieces can they challenge Tet. Or at least, everyone assumes that's their goal at first, because they bet their Race Piece and then continue to challenge the Werebeasts. It takes awhile for everyone to notice that despite Sora and Shiro winning over other people that control their race's Race Piece, they don't actually take control of them. Sora eventually says outright that everyone else just assumed the idea was conquest... the actual goal is to unify the races so they can all challenge Tet to a game together.
• Taking the Bullet: Shiro does this for Sora in Episode 11, getting hit by Izuna's bullet to avoid him getting hit by it and falling under her command. However, said bullet only hit a button from her blouse (and a later shot by Sora that seemed to hit her and 'turn her back' only hit her panties) so Shiro was technically never under Izuna's control since her clothing got hit instead of herself. The duo figured out that clothing hit by bullets merely dissolves them, rather than make their wearer switch sides.
• Technician Versus Performer: Shiro and Tet's online chess challenge in a nutshell. Shiro played by a strategy based on memory, which allowed Tet to counter her by playing arbitrarily and confusing her. Tet would have won if Sora (another performer) hadn't stepped in and helped Shiro to know whenever Tet was tricking her or not.
• Technicolor Eyes: All characters have two colored eyes but mostly because of art style. Tet is a egregious example, mixing this with mismatched eyes.
• Telepathy: When Sora hears about how Warbeasts can read minds, he wonders how the heck they can defeat them. Thanks to the former king's journal, he and Shiro were able to realize, and later confirm, that the telepathy thing is a sham. They're actually Phony Psychics, using cold reading and their Super-Senses to know when a person is lying.
• Thanks for the Mammaries: Sora gets quite a handful of Stephanie's ample bust in Episode 2 after Shiro kicks him towards her, and he accidentally falls on top of her. Shiro also immediately starts taking pictures of the situation. In Episode 9, it was Shiro's turn, but she actually did that to confirm Sora's existence via proving that Stephanie wasn't aroused by her feeling her, despite the claim that Shiro commanded her to fall in love.
• There Are No Coincidences: The siblings don't believe that a game of "pure chance" exists. Whether its blackjack or the probability that the next person to walk into a given alley is of a given gender, there are invisible factors that influence the outcome. This is why information is so important.
• There Can Be Only One: In the past, there were many gods fighting to be the only one. Ironically, Tet, the only deity who refused to fight, survived to take the position for himself.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: While technically Nobody Can Die in Disboard's games, during Episode 6, the first word Sora uses is "hydrogen bomb". Jibril helpfully casts a magic barrier around them to protect against the explosion, though he claims he wasn't purposely trying to end the game in one move. However, the trope is still played straight, because Sora was using Earth sciences against Jibril, and in the end uses a hypernova to "kill" her, causing her to lose the match.
• The Watson: As Stephanie can't comprehend 『　　』's outrageous strategies immediately, it gives Sora an excuse to explain and simplify the unspoken strategies in place for her to understand.
• Tower of Babel: In episode 12, Sora and Shiro discusses their plan of conquering the 16 Exceeds to challenge Tet. They theorise that all 16 Exceeds must come up as one to raise a tower (made up with their combined knowledge, resources and hard work) able to reach Tet's Black King tower to prove their wisdom. This calls back to the original Babel, which was a tower built with the goal of reaching God. Unlike the legend however, God in this setting (Tet) actually wants that to happen, rather than punishing humanity for it.
• To Win Without Fighting: Sora states this as his goal for winning the chess game in Episode 4 because it was the pragmatic thing to do. It was then revealed that it was also the opinion of Stephanie's grandfather and so it raises her opinion of Sora.
• Trapped in Another World: Lampshaded, discussed and defied. Sora comments on the many stories about this trope where the protagonist spends all their time looking a way to return home, but they're not interested in returning to Earth and instead are staying. In Episode 4, they thank Tet for allowing them to "be reborn" because they belong in Disboard.
• Turned Against Their Masters: In Episode 4, Sora turns Chlammy's pieces against her one after another, staring with her Queen. He convinces them overthrow their tyrant King, and this causes another side to be born from said pieces, with the newly red pieces teaming up with the white pieces to fight against the black pieces. In the end, one of Chlammy's turned pieces "assassinates" her King, and she loses to Shiro and Sora.
• TV Genius: Shiro can speak 18 languages and remembers all 10^120 possible states of a chess board. She is only 11.
• Tsundere: Stephanie is an odd justified example. She lost a game with Sora where the winner can make the loser listen to and obey any request. Sora told her to fall in love with him, and as such the Pledges actively see to it that she does (hilariously portrayed with her Steph-O-Scope). She fights against her twisted emotions at first, but eventually something genuine starts up, which she denies.
• Underdogs Never Lose: Humanity is ranked 16 out of 16 regarding magical affinity due to not having any. Stephanie explains to Sora and Shiro that humans aren't even aware when magic is being used. Despite that, her grandfather believed humanity could win at the games against the other races, despite losing most while he was ruling.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: Invoked by Sora to gain advantages in the Living Chess Game. When Chlammy's spells make it impossible for Shiro to win conventionally, he switches the turn-based combat into real-time strategy. Then, to prevent a checkmate, he turns it into a dating sim to convince Chlammy's Queen to pull off a Heel–Face Turn (and in turn cause several of her non-Pawn pieces to revolt).
• Urban Legend: Sora and Shiro in their shared "『　　』" persona are renowned in the online gaming community but some don't believe they truly exist.
• Variable Terminal Velocity: Done realistically for a fantasy anime during its first episode when Sora mentioned they skydived from around 10,000 meters. In a belly-to-earth skydiving position like they did, terminal velocity for an average person is around 200km/h, and at that speed it takes you 3 minutes to fall 10,000 meters. They fell for almost 2 minutes as per the video duration, but if you take into account that 1.) he was carrying Shiro close to him, thus adding weight, 2.) he wasn’t spreading his arms, thus lowering resistance, and using the terminal velocity formula, he would have been traveling at 260-270 km/h, which cuts the time close to those 2 minutes; in short the distance and times are roughly correct.
• Victory Is Boring: Zigzagged. On one hand, Sora and Shiro grew tired of winning all the time (especially against easier opponents such as Stephanie), but on the other hand they also deeply appreciate a victory earned by pushing their skills to the limit.
• Violence Is Not an Option: In the alternate world of Disboard, an ancient war devastated the world so badly that the god which survived the war, Tet, declared that violence—especially violence with intent to kill—was now impossible and all disputes had to be settled through games. However, this only applies to the 16 races which are bound by Tet's Pledges, and also only applies if the person didn't wager their life or physical safety in the game. If they do and lose, they're screwed. Therefore, all of these races are terrified of being completely conquered by the others, as they fear this would reduce their status to those of animals that can be enslaved and slaughtered.
• Visual Pun: When Shiro gives Sora a thumbs-up for supposedly losing his virginity in the second episode, a pair of cherries appears on her thumb. "Popping one's cherry" is an euphemism for losing one's virginity.
• We Do Not Know Each Other: When Steph, on Sora and Shiro's orders, outs Feel as Kurami's elven accomplice, Kurami pretends not to know Feel and claims that Sora planted her there to frame her for collaborating with the Elves.
• Weak, but Skilled: Sora claims humanity is this; lack of magic makes them weak but their intelligence makes them skilled.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Inverted. It's heavily implied that Sora and Shiro's parents did not love them, and in turn the duo consider them (Sora's father and Shiro's mother) of little importance and not worth thinking or caring about. It's definitely made very clear that their view of their parents is also their view of society, and thus explains why they are the way they are... because they were never given a reason to try and please their parents, they don't think about pleasing anyone but themselves. They're as incapable of thinking about what society at large would think of what they do as they are of caring what their parents would think.
• Wham Episode: The ending of Episode 8/Volume 2 of the light novel.Sora suddenly disappears, leaving Shiro a tearful wreck, more so when she realizes all of Disboard's memories of him went along with him.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • When Sora insults Stephanie's grandfather in Episode 7 for playing eight straight losing games to the Warbeasts, she gets pretty tearfully upset with him, telling him that she'd take insults towards her better than those to him. Even Shiro calls him out on this, telling him he went too far.
  • Imanity in general seems kind of ticked off at Sora and Shiro after they bet the Imanity race chess piece. They're warned that losing that would make them lose their "Exceed" status as one of the 16 races. Which then means they're essentially the same as animals, and can be killed with impunity without the protection of Tet. A lot of the rioters even go so far as to accuse Sora and Shiro of either working with the Warbeasts, or that their previous victories were just a fluke. So considering how serious of a bet this is, it's understandable why they would be upset, despite Sora and Shiro's insistence that they wouldn't lose. Sora reveals he started the rumors of collusion himself, in order to rile the populace so that they would scrutinize the game much more closely for possible cheats, which would force the Warbeasts to play (relatively) fair and square.
• Whole Episode Flashback: Volume 6, depicted in the Big Damn Movie, is dedicated to the events leading to the end of the Great War 6,000 years ago. Specifically, it tells of the story of Riku Dora, his stepsister Korone, and his wife Schvi, all uncanny lookalikes of Sora, Stephanie and Shiro, respectively, and their actions that helped create both the Ten Pledges and its enforcer, Tet.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?:
  • Warbeasts are known to erase their losing opponents' memories of their game. An exception, however, was given to Stephanie's grandfather, the previous King of Elchea. They assumed correctly that he had no hope of beating them, so they went easy on him to fool him into thinking he'd have a chance of winning next time, which allowed the Warbeasts to win more and more of his lands before he finally gave up in frustration. They also forced him to pledge to never share any details about the games with anyone else for as long as he lived. It ultimately comes back to bite their collective asses, when it turned out he secretly committed his experiences to paper, then left the records for his successor to find — then decreed that his successor would be decided by a contest, so the next ruler would be cunning enough to use this information to finally beat the Warbeasts. Which Sora does.
  • Played for Laughs in episode 11 when the Warbeast leader is explaining how the guns work in the game they're playing. When he tells them that getting hit by the bullet makes you a "love slave" to the person that shot you, Shiro immediately shoots Sora, who then turns lovey-dovey towards her. Jibril then shoots Shiro, causing the latter to fall for her, while Sora is rejected. A moment later they turn back to normal, with Shiro promising to punish Jibril later for that act, which causes the latter to get a little excited at that prospect.
• World-Healing Wave: In the movie Zero, this is the ultimate plan of the heroes, returning the world to a state Imanity and the other races can survive in.
• World of Buxom: It seems that all females born in Disboard are born with large breasts. The only exceptions are of course the little girls like Izuna and Chlammy, who is none too happy about it.
• Worthless Yellow Rocks: Averted. In the first episode, while Sora isn't entirely sure how much a coin he gives the innkeeper is worth, he is savvy enough to realize he was being cheated due to the innkeeper's unconscious actions such as looking away. The innkeeper initially claims the coin is good for one night's stay, but eventually relents to four nights.
• Worthy Opponent: The true reason Tet summoned Sora and Shiro? He was bored and heard they were the best at every game.
• Writers Cannot Do Math: Memorizing 10^120 chess states is impossible, since chess has far fewer possible states than this. The 10^120 figure is known as the Shannon Number, and is an early estimate for the number of possible ways a game of chess could play out, not the number of states. ^note The Shannon number (different ways a game could play out) has been revised to be as low as 1E40 for reasonable play, and as high as 1E123 if all conceivable moves are considered. Regarding the number of chess STATES: Each of the 64 spaces can be in one of 13 possible states: six types of pieces in two colors, or empty. It could also be either player's turn. This gives a hard limit of 2*13^64 possible states, which is about 3.92E71, or 48.5 orders of magnitude fewer than 1E120. Realistically the number of states is far less than even this, since it doesn't account for the maximum of 16 pieces present, nor impossible states such as adjacent kings or both kings in check. Stronger estimates put the number as below 1E46.7.

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"Well, let's start playing."

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