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NEW GAME! #13
New Game! Vol. 13
Thank you very much! Suzukaze Aoba may look like a middle schooler, but she's actually fresh out of high school and starting a new job on the character team of a game company. Not only is she working for the company that put out one of her favorite games, she also gets to spend her days modeling and creating characters. Follow her adorable shenanigans in this 4-panel slice of life as she learns the ropes of the industry and gets to know her co-workers.
- GenresMangaSlice Of Life
128 pages, Paperback
Published June 7, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 2, 2022
Aoba and the cripplingly large staff of the various companies in the series are hard at work on their latest game. When Aoba’s failings are pointed out and she crumbles under the pressure, will somebody come to her rescue? Or has this story finally Eagle Jumped the shark in its last volume?*
Some series end and you are immediately filled with a wistful melancholy that the ride is finally over. Others, if you’ve been masochistically following along because you’re built that way, you just heave a sigh of relief. New Game is sadly in the latter for me.
The story wisely focuses in hard on Aoba and the fact that the key visual design for the new game is about to be taken from her, the rather hard-ass corporate honcho pointing out that every time she’s entered a contest for this opportunity she’s whiffed it.
When it seems like even Kou, her mentor, has lost faith in her… Aoba has a meltdown more befitting a teenager that takes her sometimes rival to break her out of. Which is pretty good, except these people are working women and this is a bit much.
But that’s one of the problems with New Game in a nutshell. It wants to tell a story about women (and only women) at work in the gaming industry, but it wants them to all look like moe teenagers at the same time. There’s infantilizing the cast and then there’s doing it and exploiting it.
And, yes, I’m perfectly aware that that’s the entire point, but there needs to be something interesting besides the pictures, otherwise why bother trying to structure any sort of narrative to begin with?
As for the other problem, well, nothing new here, it’s the sprawling cast. One volume is not nearly enough to give all these characters a moment to shine, so naturally they add a batch of new ones into the mix as well. I will say, the French goth does have a fun storyline, but so much continuity gets tossed aside and never followed up on.
It’s not hard to realize that the whole point of adding in new cast is that, hey, the mangaka gets to draw more cute girls, but lord, it’s so excessive and counter-productive to any effective storytelling.
Oh, and don’t bother thinking that any of the implicit or explicit yuri in this series is going to pay off at all. Minus one sentence that gives closure to Rin and Kou stuffed at the back with some half-hearted epilogues, there’s nothing here.
Am I being super harsh? Yes, I am. Because this series started off decent and had some really good and really funny volumes before it turned into a giant girl exhibit that made games. There have been far too many who looked far too much alike and nobody was getting enough character development, especially the last several books.
Some of this is certainly good, Aoba and her rival have a good conversation where the former has some sense smacked into her. There are a couple jokes and the competition does carry a strong sense of closure for one particular storyline.
I feel for the mangaka, I truly do. They make mention of mental health issues and the waxing and waning popularity of the manga in the afterword, so I get it - making a manga isn’t easy. But it’s not hard to think that this continued production squandered a lot of its potential.
It comes at the problem of having nothing for its characters to do from an entirely different direction than the similarly ‘ran too long’ Horimiya. In that one the mangaka had characters sit around endlessly, whereas here the characters are frequently shoved in the background to introduce new characters.
If this had been pared back to a strong half-dozen leads and focused on developing them, it would have been a lot stronger. And the epilogue really bugged me, as it’s set a few years later and brings in a character who has finally grown up, but everybody else looks exactly the same. Argh.
2.5 stars - I’ll let this have three stars even if I’m very iffy on whether it truly deserves it. There’s every chance that a re-read will have me reflect more favourably on this, but that ending still won’t work any better for me. And, hey, if I spent the last several reviews for this series saying the same damn thing over and over, well, I’m in good company.
*I probably made that joke before, but I am not wasting my precious creativity on this.
Some series end and you are immediately filled with a wistful melancholy that the ride is finally over. Others, if you’ve been masochistically following along because you’re built that way, you just heave a sigh of relief. New Game is sadly in the latter for me.
The story wisely focuses in hard on Aoba and the fact that the key visual design for the new game is about to be taken from her, the rather hard-ass corporate honcho pointing out that every time she’s entered a contest for this opportunity she’s whiffed it.
When it seems like even Kou, her mentor, has lost faith in her… Aoba has a meltdown more befitting a teenager that takes her sometimes rival to break her out of. Which is pretty good, except these people are working women and this is a bit much.
But that’s one of the problems with New Game in a nutshell. It wants to tell a story about women (and only women) at work in the gaming industry, but it wants them to all look like moe teenagers at the same time. There’s infantilizing the cast and then there’s doing it and exploiting it.
And, yes, I’m perfectly aware that that’s the entire point, but there needs to be something interesting besides the pictures, otherwise why bother trying to structure any sort of narrative to begin with?
As for the other problem, well, nothing new here, it’s the sprawling cast. One volume is not nearly enough to give all these characters a moment to shine, so naturally they add a batch of new ones into the mix as well. I will say, the French goth does have a fun storyline, but so much continuity gets tossed aside and never followed up on.
It’s not hard to realize that the whole point of adding in new cast is that, hey, the mangaka gets to draw more cute girls, but lord, it’s so excessive and counter-productive to any effective storytelling.
Oh, and don’t bother thinking that any of the implicit or explicit yuri in this series is going to pay off at all. Minus one sentence that gives closure to Rin and Kou stuffed at the back with some half-hearted epilogues, there’s nothing here.
Am I being super harsh? Yes, I am. Because this series started off decent and had some really good and really funny volumes before it turned into a giant girl exhibit that made games. There have been far too many who looked far too much alike and nobody was getting enough character development, especially the last several books.
Some of this is certainly good, Aoba and her rival have a good conversation where the former has some sense smacked into her. There are a couple jokes and the competition does carry a strong sense of closure for one particular storyline.
I feel for the mangaka, I truly do. They make mention of mental health issues and the waxing and waning popularity of the manga in the afterword, so I get it - making a manga isn’t easy. But it’s not hard to think that this continued production squandered a lot of its potential.
It comes at the problem of having nothing for its characters to do from an entirely different direction than the similarly ‘ran too long’ Horimiya. In that one the mangaka had characters sit around endlessly, whereas here the characters are frequently shoved in the background to introduce new characters.
If this had been pared back to a strong half-dozen leads and focused on developing them, it would have been a lot stronger. And the epilogue really bugged me, as it’s set a few years later and brings in a character who has finally grown up, but everybody else looks exactly the same. Argh.
2.5 stars - I’ll let this have three stars even if I’m very iffy on whether it truly deserves it. There’s every chance that a re-read will have me reflect more favourably on this, but that ending still won’t work any better for me. And, hey, if I spent the last several reviews for this series saying the same damn thing over and over, well, I’m in good company.
*I probably made that joke before, but I am not wasting my precious creativity on this.
January 25, 2023
把兩期動畫之後的原作故事給補完了。
雖然是超級浪漫化後的作品，但在一堆萌萌女孩子們的歡樂日常後，本作也同時表現出真實世界中的職場話題、以及商場資本方面的嚴苛現象。
只可惜本作最後並未論及2010之後在市場大爆發的「手機遊戲」年代（即使法國少女都已經長大到日本找女主角了……），仍將公司的開發放在 PC單機版遊戲上，連網路遊戲也沒個影子。對今天的遊戲開發者而言，《New Game!》算是對上一世代從業人員的緬懷作品吧。
雖然是超級浪漫化後的作品，但在一堆萌萌女孩子們的歡樂日常後，本作也同時表現出真實世界中的職場話題、以及商場資本方面的嚴苛現象。
只可惜本作最後並未論及2010之後在市場大爆發的「手機遊戲」年代（即使法國少女都已經長大到日本找女主角了……），仍將公司的開發放在 PC單機版遊戲上，連網路遊戲也沒個影子。對今天的遊戲開發者而言，《New Game!》算是對上一世代從業人員的緬懷作品吧。
July 17, 2023
between the friendly rivalries, growth, and the cute art...new game is a near-perfect series and ended where it needed to. shotaro tokuno had personal experience in game development and i'm glad they created this to showcase to the world AND made it sapphic. even though it was written and not a comic, the epilogue made me squeal! i'm gonna miss everything these sapphic girls went through in the workplace. hopefully, it'll get picked up for a 3rd season.
January 21, 2024
I love the progression of the characters and the new generation of video games that is about the emerge. They are a family no matter how dysfunctional they can be and it is beautiful to see how everyone comes together. Aoba and Momo got to work with their idol. Kou learned more about herself and art. Sophie joins the team after being inspired. Kou and Rin end up married. Just a very nice story with different life lessons.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 26, 2026
Dam yet another series read and completed, always the worst part once they finish because then I need to find something else to read again, I swear one day ill run out of new things to read. Anyway onto tmr where I gotta find something new (or finally go back to something that I never finished)
August 13, 2022
Parece que viene el inicio de una nueva historia.
Me esperaba un poco más de drama en la batalla de dibujos, creo pasó muy rápido, pero fuera de eso todo bien.
Me esperaba un poco más de drama en la batalla de dibujos, creo pasó muy rápido, pero fuera de eso todo bien.
July 1, 2022
Lempparimangastani vielä (toistaiseksi) viimeistä kertaa! En tiedä voiko mulla olla enää tässä kohtaa kovin uusia ajatuksia, olenhan postannut sarjan erinäisistä osista jo noin miljoona kertaa. Joka tapauksessa, sarja päättyi osaan kolmetoista, eli kiitettävän mittainen tekele. Mielestäni lopetuskohta oli sopiva, sarja meinasi jo vähän jäädä junnaamaan paikalleen. Ihana piirrostyyli (erityisesti upeat värikuvat), ihanimmat hahmot ikinä ja slice of life -sarjaksi jopa kiinnostava juoni (siis minuahan juuri tällaiset juonet(tomuudet) kiinnostavat, mutta tätä oli välillä jopa jännittävää seurata, vaikka muuten kuvailisin sarjaa lähinnä rentouttavaksi ja parantavaksi. Lopetus oli myös hyvin shippiystävällinen :D Summa summarum, ehdottomasti suosikkisarjojani, pitää lukea joskus uudestaan!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews