New Game manga full series review

The cast of part 1 of New Game

Ah, New Game.. a series I once absolutely loved, and now have fallen out of love with. I loved the anime as it was airing, and loved season 2. I loved watching them make games, and loved the cute art. I also loved the characters.

I cannot say I absolutely love the manga. And I’ll tell you why though this review.

New Game (both versions) is about an all female game development team, Eagle Jump, who make a variety of games, mostly RPGs. Our main character is Aoba Suzukaze, who is a new hire (as of the beginning of the manga) straight out of high school. The first few books focus on her learning how to design characters, make models, and introduces us to the rest of the cast, most notably Kou Yagami, who is the inspiration for Aoba’s career choice. We are also introduced to character designers Hifumi Takimono and Yun Iijima, art director Rin Toyama, and motion designer Hajime Shinoda

I loved these first few books. I loved getting to know the characters, I loved seeing Aoba learn how to make a game, and loved seeing it succeed in the end.

The next few books are OK. These deal with the Eagle Jump staff making a new game that Aoba comes up with, Peco, and we are introduced to two new characters, art intern Momiji Mochizuki and programming intern Tsubame Narumi. Aoba’s high school friend, Nene Sakura, also starts working at Eagle Jump, as a beta tester. Although these new characters become decent in later parts of the manga, they are absolutely awful in these books. Tsubame mostly just bullies Nene, and Momiji just treats Aoba like dirt for this whole arc, looking down on her. I couldn’t stand them for most of the series, as they gave me no reason to.

Unfortunately, Tsubame takes awhile to become likable, and Momiji is almost completely unlikable until the last few volumes. Additionally, and this is unfortunate, Momiji is also used as a means of adding fanservice to the series, and is often drawn in exploitative poses. She was given an extremely large bust size, something the artist/author shows off time and time again. She is unfortunately drawn from below angles that show underneath her top (something that randomly happens in a later volume), from above so the reader gets to stare at her boobs even when it isn’t called for (it isn’t a bathing scene), and focus is often placed on her breasts. I am used to fanservice by now (I’ve read countless manga over the years, and watched a lot of anime), and the series isn’t a stranger to it (there are instances of characters sleeping in their underwear), but this amount in a series that wasn’t really heavy on it was odd. There started to be more random trips to hot springs after Momiji appeared as well. Although this isn’t the character’s fault, I started to like the series less at this point. I don’t want to constantly stare at a character’s boobs even when she’s just talking. It’s gross, and totally unnecessary. The worst part is, a lot of the mid to later books feature her constantly. And unfortunately, she isn’t much better at this point, so we’re treated to a huge amount of fanservice and a character who’s just plain awful.

I did enjoy seeing the crew work on Peco, but I hated having to deal with these awful characters. The end of this arc has Kou leaving for France, to better her art skills.

The third arc has Hajime in charge of their next title, a sports game called Destruction Dodgeball, and we also get to see Kou’s life in France, and are introduced to even MORE new characters, who I won’t bother with, as they actually don’t appear all that much (though some have major roles at the end, most just appear here, aside from Sophie, the sister of Christina and Catherine, who are staff on Eagle Jump and Blue Rose, respectively). We’re also introduced to another friend of Aoba’s, Hotaru, who is also working for the French company, Blue Rose. Once again, I liked reading about the development of the game. This arc is sadly where the series goes downhill, though. Although the parts with the game are interesting, I wasn’t that invested in the other team (the characters are forgettable) or their subplot, and I hated that there was a lot of emphasis placed on Rin verbally attacking anything that moved that related to Kou. She automatically hated Hotaru because they lived in the same room while in France, platonically. She hated the idea of Kou talking to any other woman, as well. For someone who is not attached to Kou aside from a one sided crush, this behavior is ridiculous. This arc made me hate Rin, as she went from just being this friend/co-worker with a one sided crush on Kou to being a possessive troll. They aren’t even dating, and she had no right to be that damn possessive. It’s one of the reasons I hate the epilogue. But I’ll talk about that later on.

Although the game parts of this arc are at least somewhat interesting, this arc is also full of unnecessary fanservice. There is a beach chapter that involves their boss creeping on them, and Aoba losing her top. This is really not needed, and I wish it wasn’t there. I believe this section also had the most hot spring parts, and has the grossly exploitative section where the whole set of panels is devoted to looking up Momiji’s top. This extra fanservice took a lot away from the series for me (and I’ve watched Cross Ange, so I’m used to it. But I almost dropped that too for the same reason. Fanservice is OK in small doses, but I hate it when it is so freaking exploitative), and I almost dropped it as a result.

Moving on, the last arc has Eagle Jump work on Fairies Story 4, and Aoba finally gets to design the characters for the game. This arc was actually a lot more like the first one, with most of the plot relating to game development. Things start to go downhill at the end for Eagle Jump when the game is halted due to their main developer wanting to shelve it, but they get the funding through Blue Rose, and the game becomes a joint venture, and is successful.

The epilogue shows Sophie coming to join Eagle Jump, who is moving offices at the end. This shows the series coming to full cycle, as Sophie is joining for the same reason as Aoba, except it’s Aoba who Sophie idolizes.

This is a pretty good ending for the series, and I did think it was fitting. The next part is what I don’t like.

In an afterword, the author mentions Rin and Kou get married. If Rin wasn’t possessive and crazy obsessed, and if Kou actually returned her feelings, this would actually be sweet and a great ending for them. But the series showed Rin got jealous easily, was possessive, and it mostly seems to be a one sided crush. Additionally, there are multiple times Kou states that their relationship is not like that, and she seems to view Rin as just a friend. Kou also gets aggravated when Aoba states she doesn’t seem to be interested in men towards the end of the series, insinuating she is indeed interested in men. So having them get married to me is the worst possible thing that could happen, as it’s pairing a crazy jealous person with someone who seemed to have no interest, for the sole purpose of having yuri content.

The rest of the epilogue is perfect, though, and the ending for everyone else is fitting.

My overall rating is a 7/10. I loved this series for the first two arcs, but the series got fanservice-y/yuri baiting towards the end, and having to deal with Momiji being a troll for so long was very difficult, especially when the series put so much emphasis on her. The extra fanservice/yuri baiting made me enjoy the series less in the third arc, and I nearly dropped it. The fourth arc makes up for the shortcomings of the second and third, though, and at least allowed me to give this a somewhat high rating. I loved the art, and the main cast of characters are great.

Unfortunately, due to the third arc and troll characters in the second arc, I can only somewhat recommend it. If you can deal with fanservice/exploitation and troll characters with a lot of screen time, and are interested in learning about game development through a series with good characters and art, I would recommend it. Anyone else interested in the premise should get it from a library or for cheap.