Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Good Night World’ on Netflix, a Thrilling Exploration of What Happens When Found Families Transcend Fiction

Good Night World is one of the more interesting cases when it comes to isekai, or “lost in another world” anime series. In this Netflix original series, instead of a character dying and being reborn in a fantasy world or being whisked away to live their life elsewhere, it follows a family of four who “live” inside a virtual reality online game called Planet. It explores some intriguing themes, as the players form their own “family” unit — but what happens when the game world and reality start to cross over into each other? That’s the question this daring anime series attempts to answer, and in doing so creates a thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat. It’s much more than just your everyday trip to another world. It’s an examination of the players who live there and how you can get to know others without knowing anything about them in the real world.

GOOD NIGHT WORLD: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Crows are pecking at a cardboard box in the snow before the screen dissolves to a login screen on what looks like a video game. The words “Hello, World” are typed in before the scene switches to zeppelins locked in combat, seemingly against pirates, as one character points out.

The Gist: The in-game world of PLANET finds a group of gamers who love together called the Akabane family. The vicious Ichi (Nicolas Roye) is a bit hotheaded and infamous for killing other players. When he slays a red dragon a couple of players had been after for a few days, he invites them into the Akabane home to settle a loot dispute with the family’s boss.

There, the players meet the other members of the Akabane group, including healer May (Erin Yvette) and AAAAA (Kieran Regan), who admitted he couldn’t think of a different name. Shiro eventually enters, and after Ichi explains the situation about the dragon loot, the players get the Red Dragon’s goodies. Eventually, it’s revealed that these players own most of the territory in PLANET, or at least a large chunk of it. When all the mirth has faded away from the fun of the in-game “family,” however, we return to the real world for a moment.

It’s then we discover that these very same in-game players are all part of a real-life family, and they have no idea. All of them are actually related, but are none the wiser, making for a very interesting family dynamic. They all dive back into the game as a means of escaping what they see as a rather depressing situation. In the end, they work together to stave off a pirate attack, but in the real world, they struggle with the idea that they still don’t know anything about each other — nor their true identities — not even when their father is hospitalized.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The scent of shows like Sword Art Online and Log Horizon are all over Good Night World in just about every corner. Of course it’s a show that explores the lives of those caught within a game world, or at least preferring to be in the game world, but there’s so much similar subject matter that if you end up enjoying this show, you should certainly head over to see those shows, too – and maybe some .hack//SIGN for good measure.

Our Take: Sometimes it can be so simple to deduce what’s going to happen next in a show that follows a fictional virtual reality game that it doesn’t feel worth watching. That doesn’t happen with Good Night World. In fact, this show turns all those banal cliches on their head in a big way, and makes it so that you’re not even sure what the big twist is until the very end of the episode.

Instead of watching random players from the real world be thrown into a game they can’t escape, each of the members of this close-knit in-game family actually know each other. It’s genius, especially since they all retreat into their own real-world “shells” when they’re outside of the game. Believe it or not, this kind of thing probably actually happens in real life.

You’re always waiting for the other shoe to drop, to find out how and when the family will realize they could have the very same dynamic IRL that they do in-game, and it adds this delicious tension to the story. With that in mind, you also wonder how no one ever speaks in-game and doesn’t hear the other players in their shared home, but you’ve got to suspend your belief a bit, of course.

Sex and Skin: None here in this episode, and there likely won’t be going forward from what we can deduce.

Parting Shot: The Akabane family all logs into their respective computers to play PLANET, as none of them are the wiser that they’re family members inside and out of the game. It becomes apparent that each player is part of the same real family.

Sleeper Star: Christopher Swindle is fantastic as Shiro Akabane, with a bit of quiet elegance where needed and stoicism in the real world. He doesn’t have as many lines as he likely will in subsequent episodes, but Swindle gives a great performance that fits the character perfectly in this introductory sequence.

Most Pilot-y Line: “That’s Ichi of the Akabane family!” two terrified pirates exclaim after Ichi turns his attention on them following a massive dragon takedown. “That guy’s a famous player killer!” Ichi is a central player in the game, and a vicious member of the iconic Akabanes, the “found family” of Good Night World.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Good Night World is a unique take on what can typically be a tired trope. It goes to great lengths to serve up something much different, and in a fun and raucous way that doesn’t give up the ghost until the last minute. It’ll be exciting to see how this family develops, both in-game and out.

Brittany Vincent (@MolotovCupcake) has been covering video games and tech for over a decade for publications like G4, Popular Science, Playboy, Variety, IGN, GamesRadar, Polygon, Kotaku, Maxim, GameSpot, and more. When she’s not writing or gaming, she’s collecting retro consoles and tech.