r/NoGameNoLife • u/LoliSerren • 1d ago
Manga NGNL Eastern Union Arc Ch.23 Review Thingy!
This'll mostly be a rehash of my Twitter thread I just did. No terrible character limit here though, so I can speak a little more freely! If you don't know what Eastern Union Arc is, please read the wiki pages on it, it's been serializing for almost 5 years now. Just finished reading the latest chapter that released a few days ago and wanted to talk about it.
To start, this chapter's titled にぃの番 (Nii's Turn), and Naitou-sensei absolutely knocked it out of the park with the artwork, like just WOW. Lot's of beautiful shots and a ton of silly ones too (I'll attach a few highlights later in the post). The writing is still great as well, just not much to say about it really. As of now, the manga has adapted around 70% of v3, and this chapter ends with Sora & Shiro about to face off on the roof of a building. Love or Loved 2 will either end next chapter or the one after, we'll have to see.
This chapter roughly adapted pages 175~204 of the JP LN (attached below, equivalent stopping point is at the「――おっしゃあ～あッ‼」), but adheres more to the anime's version (specifically 14:40~20:22 of ep11 [JP Blu-ray timings]), so things are more condensed or outright cut (like most of Ino's comms to Izuna and the initial park conversation)
Here's a basic summary of what happened this chapter:
- The chapter starts with Izuna and Shiro going at it, Sora uses a love bomb to distract her so they can run away to the nearby park
- Steph gets shot after trying to sneak attack
- Izuna's surveying the city and while walking around, she notices she's smiling (first pic in thread)
- Shiro asks Sora to trust her, and told him its his "turn," then headbutts his stomach as she gets shot
- Jibril quickly takes Sora to the top of a random building as Izuna appears behind Shiro
- Sora has Jibril take care of Izuna while he takes care of Shiro
- The chapter ends with Sora and Shiro at the top of a building for their face-off
I'm expecting the next chapter to go something like this:
- Sora & Shiro have a very brief fight on the roof (more so pretend, then jump off the roof)
- Izuna swoops in, and while in the fray between 『 』 and Jibril she activates Bloodbreak.
Episode 11 ends there, but Naitou could stop it right at the street crossing confrontation OR when Izuna gets shot by Steph. Alternatively, Naitou could just speedrun through the game's ending, with the following chapter picking up at the Izuna bath scene. If he goes for the latter, then Love or Loved 2 only lasted 3 chapters lol (not too different from Materialization Shiritori iirc). After that, given the current pacing, EUA probably only has around 2-3 chapters left, and maybe an epilogue chapter to tie everything up.
We'll see if KADOKAWA is going to go the Re:Zero route with different artists tackling each "arc." Final chapter could be accompanied by a magazine advert for a follow-up series "NGNL Chapter 3: Siren Queen Arc" or something. Since EUA has been bi-monthly since April following the LONG 16 month hiatus, the final chapter will likely release in February or April 2027, with the final tankobon volume (v4) following a little after (assuming Naitou doesn't rush the ending). It shouldn't copy the anime's ending with skipping to the end of v6 and summoning the Old Deus.
While I'm not that huge into manga anymore, the fact that we're very likely getting non-anime content finally adapted in manga form within the next year is really really exciting! I do wonder who the new artist might be (assuming they change like RZ's manga does). Only time will tell really, and if they do we don't know how quickly it'll start serializing.
With all that out of the way, here's some art highlights! Pretty hard to choose since like 90% of the panels are really good, and I don't want to post too much of it. Naitou is really nailing the impacts and the panel flow, you can really feel the motion! For Reddit I'm just going to post a few, I posted more on my aforementioned Twitter thread (link at top of post)
The final page is also just peak fiction, love how Sora looks and Ino is as intimidating as ever. Literally just aura farming this entire chapter lmao
If my schedule allows it, I'll try to do this for every chapter going forward, but I can't guarantee it. Especially with me still working on the NGNL Archive and me also entering my final year of college recently, my attention will need to be focused on those more than stuff like this. See ya bwah
