No Game No Life 11 read:

It's been so long since the previous No Game No Life book that I'd pretty much forgotten everything that had previously happened and all the main characters.  So when they threw me into an abnormal situation that didn't follow from the previous book on top of that, I was completely bewildered.  It may as well have been the start of a new series.

But there was one important core to the story that remained the same -- Sora's relationship with Shiro.  I've always rooted for the Sora x Shiro ship (they're step-siblings so it isn't even illegal.)  This book finally shipped the two, which means it's the best book in the series.  Of course there are all sorts of caveats like Shiro has to wait until she's older and there might be other girls involved blah blah blah but I don't care -- we went from a world where Sora refused to acknowledge Shiro to a world where he promised to acknowledge her.  It's an infinite progress from 0 to something above zero.  Anything larger than zero is infinitely larger than zero, the book itself points this out.

As for what happened in the book, romantic shenanigans, political shenanigans, a pretty picture of lots of girls from different races in a public bath.  All of it felt like filler compared to this one meaningful point that Sora sees Shiro as an actual girl.  It's a brave step I thought the author would never take, because he'd never taken it so far after all the opportunities given.  But I guess with the series nearing its end the author feels it's finally useful to progress the plot.  He could have done this at any point and thus resolved the central question of the story -- will Sora get with Shiro?  But he chose until the 12th book to get it done.  This is why I feel like authors should finish their stories sooner.  It isn't that the situation required the story to be this long, it's always and only that the author refuses to progress the plot via the main characters making irreversible decisions about their lives.  Once all such decisions have been made the story ends naturally -- until they've been made the story hasn't really even begun.  You can tell if a story is good by how quickly characters come to important decisions in their lives.  If they don't ever the story sucks and should be dropped.  If they do in the first few pages the story is a masterpiece.

Kimetsu no Yaiba features a decisive protagonist who, in the first couple episodes, decides to avenge his family by becoming a demon slayer, save his sister from her demonic curse, and if he can't do that kill her himself when she crosses the line.  Everything in the series follows from those few decisions he made at the very start.  This is why the series ends naturally, quite quickly, compared to other manga.  It's a perfect story with no wasted time dithering.  It gets to the point.  For that matter, while No Game No Life is still trudging on, Kimetsu was born and already died.  And yet Kimetsu has made an infinitely larger impact on the world than No Game.  Length isn't longevity.  Purpose gives something longevity.

The best segment of No Game No Life was a short story, one volume in length, about completely separate characters, Riku and Shvi, who make all of their important decisions quickly and have their story end naturally within the same volume.  That was the actually good segment of No Game No Life.  The entire drawn out Sora-Shiro timeline is a boring afterthought.