YMMV / SINoALICE

A - F

• Accidental Innuendo: Alice's concept was translated to 'Bondage' in the Global server instead of the fan-preferred 'Restriction'. Cue the BDSM jokes from the English-speaking fanbase.
  • Hamelin's concept of 'Aesthetics' also received sniggers from the Chinese-speaking internet community since the kanji used to write it^note 耽美 is slang for Boys' Love works.
• Aluminium Christmas Trees:
  • Players reading Snow White's Act of Authors story would probably be wondering who Henrietta is. In life, Henrietta Dorothea "Dortchen" Wild was Wilheim Grimm's wife and contributed to most of The Brothers Grimm's tales, most notably Hansel and Gretel's verse answer to the witch's call. However, not much is known about her contribution to Snow White's tale.
  • Dorothy's nickname of "Dot" in My Fair Beau caused a bit of confusion in the Global server as majority are already used to the Fan Nickname of "Doro". In truth, "Dot" is a dimunitive of "Dorothy" that was popular in the 1930s. That being said, we're not sure how Dorothy herself might take to being called "Dottie" in turn.
• Awesome Art: There's no denying that the art in SINoALICE is beautiful, fitting in well with the fairy tale thematic.
• Best Boss Ever: The final battle against Desire-Noya in the Act of Desire. For this battle it's the boss against you and your guild for one last stand while Battle≠Salvation, a remix of "Banquet of Massacre" and "Battle Anthem", the very first Colosseum themes, plays. Despite the strict unlock conditions and the massive amount of logistics required by the guildmaster to get there, breaking the cycle of Desire with your guildmates is most definitely Worth It. Sadly this is the only time the player can attempt this boss as once the stage is cleared this marks the end of the game as a whole.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The Fragment of a Nightmare event proved to be just as horrifying as the original series, Parrah and Noya summoning Red Riding Hood to 'save the story' was pretty funny, but Chapter 11 of Normal Mode suddenly has Pinocchio, Aladdin and Red Riding Hood having a party with Rena, Mion, Satoko, Rika and Hanyuu as though nothing happened with plenty of fourth-wall breaking. What?
• Breather Level: In the Act of Elimination, verse 9 of Chapter 2 will be this in comparison to the others, especially if playing as either Cinderella, Alice and Little Mermaid.
• Broken Base:
  • Lore-wise, where SINoALICE fits in the Drakengard and Nier timelines, or if the game is even part of the collective universe. While there are hints and references to them such as the Harmonic Interference event and certain Act of Reality articles found in cafe merchandise, Yoko Taro views the game as independent like the Voice of Cards series. Unfortunately, this has sparked several debates on its canoncity, with some fans saying it's not while others think it does.
  • The World GranColosseum. Some people do view it as a positive thing since it's the closest thing SINoALICE has to e-sports, but majority of the Global players don't like it due to how it heavily influenced the schedule of otherwise-anticipated features such as character trees, and the fact that they're going to have all their butts kicked by the more-experienced Japanese players. For the Japanese players themselves, they either see it as a way to learn how international players play the same game as them, or they don't like it due to how long their preliminaries take^NoteUnlike the Global server whose qualifiers consist of simply 2 rounds of GranColosseums and taking the top 8 from the Colosseum Sin's Ultimate 32, Japan has an additional final preliminaries consisting of their Ultimate 32's top 16, with the top 8 from there going on to the main event. Both sides do agree that it could be better managed, but even the most vocal of naysayers can't stop Pokelabo from holding a second edition in 2022.
• Catharsis Factor: The Of Foxes And Flowers armor event ends with the usual Downer Ending, as Rikone is tricked into killing her best friend Lelai and then tortured to death herself... but then the story continues into Verse 11-B, where they return to life as nightmares. The Hard Mode verses then continue the story, with Rikone and Lelai using their newfound powers to extract a brutal, bloody vengeance on the villagers for everything they'd been put through. The fact that they're pretty much the only nightmares to get anything resembling a happy ending makes it all the more satisfying.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
  • Expect to see a lot of Brutal Intents (Red Riding Hood's Alternative Class weapon) used by vanguards specialising in physical stats due to its colosseum skill giving a x1.5 damage boost if the guild is losing, despite the fact that it doesn't have the coveted Dauntless Courage passive.
  • Weapons from the 'specialised' banners usually have very good skills. However, the 'Calamity', 'Catastrophe' and 'Cataclysm' weapons in particular can be very powerful, making them very desired among players, especially competitive ones. But, they can be very hard to get and they cannot be 'sparked' later with desire medals.
  • Husk Weapons and Infinite Weapons are also highly recommended in players' grids due to being capable of being very powerful without the need to roll the Grimoires. On the other hand, getting them takes quite a long time; Husk Weapons require grinding in raids for both the weapons and cores dropped by raid bosses, and even after evolving them players have to roll for skills. Meanwhile, Infinite Weapons require Gran Medals from the Gran Colosseum. Lots and lots of medals.
  • In terms of Nightmares, there's a reason why every guild has at least some players with Nightmares whose skills have "bell" in the name. These Nightmares give higher buffs than normal element-boosters such as Ugallu, Lindwyrm and Freeze Golem but at the expense of being slightly more vulnerable to the element they're weak against. By using them in the last few minutes of a colosseum match, they have a high probability of turning the tides of a difficult match. They also happen to be only available via paying with real money (with some exceptions as of the 5th Anniversary in JP).
  • The higher an armour's stats, the better it is to be equipped to boost the player's overall defense. In particular, the Santa set from Funeral of the Holy Night and the Suigintou set from Mirrored Rozen Maidens has the highest stats in the game, causing many players to grab as many as they can, especially for Clerics who heavily rely on defense stats to boost their healing power.
  • With the changes to the class skills of the Dorothy's Workshop series, Minstrels and Sorcerers playing mixed grids have paid a visit en masse due to their associated classes from said series boosting their base weapon type (tomes and instruments respectively) by 10% followed by a 5% boost to their secondary types, which happens to be each other's specialty.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Snow White, to the point where she won every single popularity poll to date regardless of server. In fact, she was so popular, the 2021 Popularity Poll had her in the Hall of Fame where votes going towards her don't count since if she were eligible like the other Characters she'd end up winning again.
  • Sleeping Beauty is also a fan-favourite as she's not just cute, but she's also relatable towards the playerbase where sleep (or a lack thereof) is concerned. She also has one of, if not the saddest Act of Reality story. This allowed her to win the aforementioned 2021 Popularity Poll with Snow White in the Hall of Fame.
  • Among the newer characters, Rapunzel seems to be the most well-received as during the 3rd Character Popularity Poll (which is her 1st), she managed to get into the top 8 despite debuting in the middle of the 2nd anniversary celebrations. It helps that her Hatred Arc does not have any Cross Stories and she has plenty of events to shape her character.
  • Lammy/Sary from the An End to Summer Dreams event is this due to being The Cutie, innocently calling Sleeping Beauty and Little Mermaid 'Sissy' and 'Mama' respectively and having cute interactions. A lot of players also refer to Lammy/Sary as Too Good for This Sinful Earth after reading one of the bad endings for the event. Luckily, on the 3rd round after reading both endings, Sleeping Beauty manages to convince Parrah and Noya to spare Lammy/Sary and its family.
    • Lammy's popularity is even bigger in the Global server, for they have an exclusive Lammy variant that shares the same skills as Barbarian and Mau Archelon where the adorable little clam is decked out in gold and in a bow tie. Too bad it's locked behind a paywall...
  • Among the paid Nightmares, Rikone is adored for being a cute Little Bit Beastly fox girl with one of the best skills in the game. She eventually received her own event, Of Foxes and Flowers, which explores her backstory and fleshes out her character more than her contemporaries Juno and Dryas.
• Epileptic Trees: A lot of theories started flying about what the story is about. To note.
  • The characters we play as are actually patients in a mental institution due to some of the writings looking like they are written for a medical report.
  • Library is a purgatory. A theory that grows to be more likely what the world of Library really is due to the Reality Arc where the characters all meet tragic ends.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception:
  • Dare to ask about character tier lists? Most of the playerbase would correct you by saying that no, SINoALICE does not have those.
  • Pinocchio fans will also come after your head if you say that Pinocchio's a girl. While some of his Class outfits do make him resemble one, his Act of Reality puts it in Harsher in Hindsight territory when players find out why his Alternative class has him crossdress.
  • Even if SINoALICE's place in the Drakengard timeline is debatable, a sure-fire way to royally piss off the side of the fandom that cares for the lore is to declare the game non-canon 'because it's a mobile game'. Chances are, NieR Re[in]carnation is going to be used to counter that statement.
• Fandom Rivalry: Exclusive to the Global server is the one-sided rivalry with Symphogear's mobile game XDU as both games were Pokelabo titles, with some fans of the latter very unhappy that the global server of their game was canned after a few months to make way for the former. The SINoALICE fans on the other hand aren't very bothered by it, regarding the Symphogear fandom as a mere nuisance or outright ignoring them.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • The universe created for the Sanctuary of Nursery Rhymes event spawned many a fanwork of Cinderella taking care of her kids. Sometimes, other characters are brought into the picture, such as Snow White as a fellow Struggling Single Mother to kidified Characters of her own. The event itself was popular enough to get a direct sequel, causing many more fanworks to be made.
  • Because the Act of Desire makes the player its central Character, it's easy to make either an OC or another Character from another series as a stand-in.
• Fan Nickname:
  • 'Snow' for Snow White. Even other Characters refer to her as such. Western fans do on occasion call her Weiss as well due to a very canny resemblance, with bonus points to Weiss for being a Snow White reference herself.
  • Meanwhile, Pinocchio is usually shortened to 'Pino', Cinderella to 'Cindy', Little Mermaid to 'Mermy', Dorothy to 'Doro', among others.
  • In Japan, Red Riding Hood's Japanese name (Akazukin) is usually shortened to 'Zukin', and Sleeping Beauty is also known as 'Ibara'.
  • For specific classes, Rapunzel's Mystery class gets nicknamed Amelia Watson by the global playerbase due to a resemblance.
  • In the International community, due to how the Classes are named, the Spirit and Divine class series are nicknamed the 'Sin' series and the 'Virtue' series respectively.
  • Because 'Half-Nightmares' sound like a mouthful, they're usually shortened to 'halfmares' or 'HNM'.
  • The trio of Rikone, Yuno and Dryas are known as the Big Three of paid Nightmares due to their skills being elemental-related, making them a staple for players. There's also one for the Grimoire Nightmares, namely Freeze Golem, Ugallu and Lindwurm/Lindwyrm.
  • Some fans refer to the Japanese server in particular as "SINoTinder" after the dating website due to the sheer amount of JP players who met their significant others in the game and then got married.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • Naturally as Yoko Taro is SINoALICE's creative director, fans of his other works would end up playing this game as well. In particular, fans of the NieR series, especially NieR: Automata started playing SINoALICE as Automata is the first series to get a collaboration event in SINoALICE and NieR Re[in]carnation for being a fellow Yoko Taro mobile game.
  • At least for the international playerbase, most players of SINoALICE are also players of either Granblue Fantasy, Fate/Grand Order, Arknights or a combination of the three.
  • SINoALICE also has allies with Twisted Wonderland due to both games being different (and sometimes darker) takes on well-known media, to the point where there's demand on both sides to have a crossover event with each other. On the fans' side, there's fanart of some SINoALICE characters interacting with the Twisted Wonderland characters, especially if Alice, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Little Mermaid and Aladdin are with the dorms twisted from their respective stories. On the other hand, Yoshinari Fujimoto (the game's producer from Square Enix) once joked about introducing Hameln in the Japanese server on the same date as Twisted Wonderland's launch date, but got too impatient.
  • Thanks to sharing the same developers, the SINoALICE fandom made fast friends with the Assault Lily: Last Bullet fandom, with many SINoALICE players picking up the game. The similarities between both, right down to the Legion Matches, caused the latter's Fan Nickname of SINoLily to become a meme in the beginning. Then, of course, there was the light-hearted banter between Shogo Maeda and Yoko Taro when the former promoted the game on Twitter.
  • A recent alliance/Fandom Rivalry has sprung up with Grimlight, with the shared Fairytale Motifs being both a point of connection and conflict. When it comes to story, however, SINoALICE is noticeably a lot darker and mixes fantasy and reality, while Grimlight is firmly fantasy.
  • A lot of SINoALICE players also play MementoMori: AFKRPG, primarily due to similar aesthetics and features such as guild battles. In fact, a lot of people have compared both games to each other before the latter came out mainly for the art and the dark fantasy setting.
  • A grimdark series such as SINoALICE and Sanrio coming together doesn't make much sense, but the fanbase (especially the Japanese side) absolutely adores Sanrio, to the point where A Fluffy Encounter was the most popular collab event of 2022 and got the fastest time gap between its debut and rerun. It helps that the SINoALICE cast also agrees that Hello Kitty and Friends are meant to be loved and cuddled, not slaughtered to death, and that the class outfits range from super cute to hilarious Goofy Suits.
  • Square Enix has attempted to meld the SINoALICE fandom with that of Towa Tsugai due to both games having beautiful art, similar gameplay, sharing the same composers and having its mascot character talk in a similar fashion as Parrah and Noya. However, in recent times it has become a Friendly Rivalry instead, with the rivalry part coming from Towa Tsugai announcing their 2nd collaboration event with SINoALICE... 1 day after the Japanese server announced its end of service. Talk about bad timing.
  • Due to similar premises, many SINoALICE players enjoy both Rozen Maiden and Puella Magi Madoka Magica, to the point where both series topped the "Most Requested Series for Collaboration Events" questions on surveys. However, while Rozen Maiden eventually had one in 2020, Puella Magi Madoka Magica didn't... which caused quite a racket among former SINoALICE players when Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Magia Exedra was announced 3 months after SINoALICE's termination with Pokelabo being the primary development company alongside f4samurai.
• Funny Moments:
  • The entirety of the A Fluffy Encounter in the first variant and it's follow-up is this; ranging from the overly-cutesy effects in battle, everyone developing Cuteness Proximity towards the Sanrio characters, to how the main villain is defeated - The Power of Friendship, which powers the super-cute 'Fancy Barrier'.
  • Prior to the Global server's release, fans could send questions to the official twitter account which would then be answered by the operations team. Among other things...
    @yokotaro: Why humankind can't stop hate each other?
    • Which was even answered.
    Human nature.
  • The premise for the Japanese 5th Anniversary's theme of 'poverty'. Because Pokelabo had spent too much on the over-the-top 4th Anniversary, they not only couldn't find a way to one-up the madness that is the Death Metal-themed anniversary about the game's death, their budget was heavily slashed. This did not stop them from offering a Tesla and a trip to Hawaii as the grand prizes for its in-game lucky draw though...
  • The Butlers' Feast Halloween Episode ends with Hamelin taking notice of Gretel's shapely legs and asks her to step on him. Gretel's response is to simply walk away, calling Hamelin a pervert for it. This carries on to Ode to Sakura where Hamelin tries again, much to her horror.
    • In the same event, Gretel decides to fight the villagers after the girl the male characters were looking after was revealed to be a sacrifice for an annual ritual to a forest spirit, with Aladdin encouraging her to do so. While in Japan he tells her to just go for it, in Global we get this gem:
    Aladdin: Get his ass, Gretel!
  • During the My Fair Beau event, Dorothy flirts with Snow while both are preparing for a Phantom Tale concert. Poor Snow ends up very flustered.
  • A good majority of the trailers for the Dorothy's Workshop classes are these due to the sheer ridiculousness of the inventions that Dorothy made for everyone. Highlights include drugging Cinderella and putting her in a Disney Princess-esque ballgown, creating a machine that allows Little Match Girl to fire off lighted matches at rapid-fire and turning Hamelin into an absolutely fabulous drag queen after seeing him admire himself in the mirror yet again.
  • Almost all of Mafia Kajita's shenanigans during the Japanese livestreams, with highlights including the "Merry Fucking Christmas" intro during the Christmas 2019 livestream, someone having the nerve to ask him for a Valentine line during the Valentine's Day 2020 livestream and almost everything during the Re:Zero collab livestream when Rie Takahashi temporarily usurped his host position for the "Introduction to Re-Zero" quiz because she voiced Emilia there. In fact, poor Yoshinari Fujimoto, and later Shogo Maeda, has to act as a minder for him as a result.
  • The trailer for the Act of Desire definitely made people emotional, but there's something oddly amusing about the guild ship piloted by Dorothy with a evil-looking Cheshire Cat Grin on the blimp and her Lifeforce mark at the side.

G - N

• Good Bad Bugs: In the Japanese server, the Solo Events for the Rozen Maiden collaboration had a bug where players were able to deal more damage if they equipped the Suigintou armour on the last gear set used. Unfortunately, this bug was removed, but when it was around it made the events much easier to clear.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Quite a fair bit in regards to the Four Is Death theme for the 4th Anniversary:
  • Common jokes between players (the Global server in particular) were those related to service termination for SINoALICE and was also the gag theme for the aforementioned 4th Anniversary in JP... which made things pretty awkward for the Taiwanese server players since September 2022 saw them announced as the first to go, which means that they wouldn't be able to enjoy even the over-the-top death-related antics during said anniversary. This happened again with the Global server which will meet their demise on 15 November 2023, but since service termination has been a joke there, Be Careful What You Wish For seems to have been in full effect.
  • Just as Global was entering its sunset period, the Japanese server also announced service termination, which meant that the death aspect of the 4th Anniversary was 2 years late. Though it's implied that this was the reason why the 6th Anniversary gave everyone anniversary jobs and the plot of "Transcendent Trajectory" was about going back in time in the history of the game instead of the usual Proud Lion Spirit-related event.
  • Related to the demise of the Taiwanese and Global servers, the It All Starts with the Stars event has become this for them since the Reality Characters bar Alice would not be saved in their timelines while they were saved in the JP server as the event never made it to them.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • In the Act of SINoALICE, Alice, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Little Match Girl bear witness to ordinary humans being turned into Nightmares, and decide to try and save as many as possible. Alice and Snow even talk about how the victims must have had family who are probably worried sick about them.
  • The same act has Cinderella, Rapunzel, Red Riding Hood and Gretel spending the 1st half of Chapter 4 having a peaceful camp with a couple who took in the latter 2 while escaping the Nightmare-infested city despite having scared the crap out of them before.
  • The ending to It All Starts with the Stars reveals that the Reality that Alice, Little Match Girl, Aladdin and Nutcracker crash-landed in was a dream made by Reality!Alice's unborn child to save its mother from committing suicide, which itself took the form of a cat named Noa. Eventually, it wasn't just Reality!Alice that was saved; Match Girl and Aladdin also averted the fates of their Reality counterparts and by doing so saved all the Reality versions of the other Characters from their fates, preventing the events of the Acts of Fusion and Elimination from taking place. The event's side story even goes to show the other Reality Characters alive and well as they read the Library-abridged version of Night on the Galactic Railroad.
  • Crossing over with Awesome Moments, Alice managing to defeat the Final Boss of the Act of SINoALICE, a massive Nightmare that's the fusion of every surviving Nightmare on Earth on her own with the posthumous help of the other Characters after they died in the arc. Even though it looked like a solo work, in spirit it was a team effort. And unlike the others, Alice managed to exit the story as herself and content with the results of her effort.
  • Meta example: a group of SINoALICE fans from different countries got together to translate the Taiwanese ending into English and Japanese. As the Taiwanese server was the most secluded out of the then three servers, it's nice to see that at least something from there managed to be shared with others, and most people agreed that the ending touched them. They even returned to translate the Act of Desire in English!
  • Said ending for the Taiwanese server more than qualifies itself, given that with the player's help Alice is able to escape the mental hell that is The Library (actually a figment of her imagination) and move on with her life with a renewed sense of hope and at least one friend by her side.
  • Chapter 6 of the Act of Desire has the Character you picked at the end of Chapter 5 talking to you, as in, the Player playing the account. Said Character will thank you for rescuing them, and during the downtime in between fights they'll mention about wanting to get to know you better, ask about your guildmates and daily life outside of the game and for some, what they want to do when the battle is over and they can come to your world. Granted, given that this is the final chapter, they probably won't be able to fulfill that promise, but it's still a sweet moment.
    • Among other things, Alice wants to hold a tea party, Snow wants to cook your favourite food, Sleeping Beauty wants to have a slumber party and the Pigs want to bring you on a world food tour. Aww.
  • The Finale for the Act of Desire has ALL the Characters thanking you for the time spent in the game and for the memories, as well as encouraging you that they had a great time with you despite having to say goodbye. And then it ends with these words from Alice before the credits roll by:
    If there's a wish I had that could come true... please keep us in your hearts forever. We will never forget you. So... you too...
  • If you come back after completing the Act of Desire and tap on the tab where the Grimoire used to be, since the SINoALICE System is destroyed, you can pull for a random Character in which they'll ask how your day is going since the end and how happy they'd be if you remember them in your day to day life.
  • On Twitter, Shogo Maeda and Yoko Taro reassured players that even if circumstances caused them to lose their data, majority of the The Story That Was Once SINoALICE app would still be there. Additionally:
    Maeda: The 31858 players who fought till the end are eternal.
    Taro: The first and last concept of SINoALICE is for it to remain in your memory forever.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • During the "Make Way for the Space Invaders" Live SINoALICE livestream for the Global server, Assistant Producer Katsushi 'Kat' Iida joked about having a collaboration with a western IP such as Batman. Come 6 September 2021, SINoALICE is indeed getting a collaboration event with DC Comics, with one of the confirmed characters being Batman himself. And yes, the playerbase on both sides are all confused.
  • Back in Halloween 2019, Yoshinari Fujimoto joked about timing the release of the then-new Hamelin to coincide with the launch of Twisted Wonderland, a mobile game whose character designer is Yana Taboso of Black Butler fame, with Yana replying that SINoALICE is more than welcome to collaborate with Black Butler. Looks like they made good on their promise, since SINoALICE will be getting a collab event with Black Butler: Book of the Atlantic on 28 December 2021.
  • For a while, SINoALICE's connections to the Drakengard and NieR franchises were a point of contention to the point where some players disagree to the point where it has become a Fandom-Enraging Misconception. As of the latest story chapter in NieR: Reincarnation, SINoALICE players who believed that the game has a place in the NieR timeline have earned the right to gloat as Parrah and Noya make cameo appearances there and several other parts of the franchise such as Harmonic Interference and the Episode 11 Sponsor Card of the NieR Automata anime have hinted at the puppets' connection to Accord.
  • It may also double as Harsher in Hindsight, but Puella Magi Madoka Magica being the most requested series for a collab event became this when not only did it not happen, Pokelabo announced on April 22, 2024, more than 3 months after the end of the Japanese server, that they will be teaming up with f4samurai and Aniplex to develop a new Madoka Magica mobile game titled Magia Exedra. Cue numerous former SINoALICE players requesting for Magia Exedra to have the Puella Magi Madoka Magica x SINoALICE collaboration that they never got.
• Ho Yay: Yes. There are some moments. Especially between Aladdin and Hamelin during The Butlers' Feast and Sacred Treasures of Dusk, both of which are Halloween Episode events. As if to further tease the Aladdin/Hamelin ship, Pokelabo also released their second Dorothy's Workshop classes in the same banner with many people getting a few... ideas due to Aladdin wearing an apron and Hamelin being Dragged into Drag. Act of SINoALICE cranks it up to ten with them, to the point many players have gotten into... passionate discussions on Twitter on how one could interpret their relationship. Unfortunately for fans of the pairing, they received a rather downer ending in chapter four.
• I Knew It!:
  • On 9 August 2020, the official SINoALICE twitter account posted a teaser for a new character. Most players guessed that the new character would be the very highly-requested Little Match Girl, and she would be a Pyromaniac. 10 days later, they were proven correct.
  • Many people have also predicted that Alice would win the Act of Elimination, but didn't see the fact that there would be a Part 2 coming.
• It Was His Sled:
  • By the time additional Act of Reality chapters came out, everyone pretty much knows that the Character in question is going to die at the end. Question is, how?
  • The Global server's ending, by virtue of being similar if not identical to that of the Taiwanese server, is this for those who read the fan translations made a year before Global's end.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: A few years ago, Yoko Taro said that he hoped for each server to get a unique ending. Because of this, when the ending to the Global server was eventually revealed to be similar, if not identical, to the Taiwanese server's, many players from both servers were unhappy with Pokelabo, especially since when Taiwan's closed the players were promised an "exclusive ending". The fact that both Global and Taiwan ended on the exact same point in the story (Act of Elimination (Part 1)) was absolutely not helping whatsoever, and the more cynical and pessimistic side of the Global playerbase have started to believe that the Japanese ending would be the same as well, though ultimately proven otherwise when the Act of Desire was eventually released and played out nothing like Taiwan and Global.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Yoko Taro's involvement is a reason why fans of his other works noticed this game.
• Les Yay:
  • Snow White and Rapunzel in spades during the 2020 Valentine's Day event, especially while making chocolates together. In fact, Rapunzel says that Snow White is the only woman she's unafraid of. Even their voice actresses (and Red Riding Hood's) get in on the fun during the corresponding Live SINoALICE. It would happen again in SINoZOMBIE, where the weapon story for Rapunzel has her recalling all the times Little Red Riding Hood protected her during the zombie invasion, and has her possibly falling for her. Act of SINoALICE has her fall for Cinderella of all people, with the latter being shocked and reminding her she hates women. Rapunzel replies that Cinderella is just "so cool" and calls their escaping a runaway of love.
  • Rikone and Lelai's relationship in Of Foxes and Flowers is filled with these; referring to each other as their star/flower, and they spend the entirety of the event's Hard Mode celebrating their village's festival by slaughtering everyone and watching fireworks together. How sweet.
  • Alice and Snow White will be featured in a one-way collab in Towa Tsugai, a yuri mobile game developed by Square Enix. A promotional image has Alice embracing a glass coffin which has Snow White inside.
• Low-Tier Letdown: While there is no such thing such as character tiers in SINoALICE, the Mage class is considered extremely subpar compared to the other classes. It is a Squishy Wizard that is meant to allow Support classes to deal damage, however due to how the lineup mechanics work it will suffer from a massive damage penalty (damage gets nerfed by 90% when players fight from the rearguard) if placed among the back-row alongside the other Support classes. And due to how fragile it is, will not survive in the vanguard either.
• Memetic Loser: Hamelin and Nutcracker, with both of them constantly placing last during popularity poll events. Their personalities aren't helping either.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "SINoSNOW"^ExplainationDue to Snow White's overwhelming popularity as a character (read: voted as the most popular character for all but the latest popularity polls the game has held), players have jokingly used that name to refer to the game. Even the fan-made Discord server is named after her instead of Alice.
  • "Very cute! I believe she'll sell well!"/"I think it's cute! I think it'll make lots of money!"^ExplainationIn the character designs for the first few characters, while Character Designer jino would make comments about the design, this was all Yoko Taro said for everyone. This eventually became a Running Gag.
  • Emil Heads ^ExplainationDuring the Global server's Memory of Dolls event, the gacha got somewhat infamous for just how many of the rares had a habit of being Emil's Head. To a lesser extent, some guilds would go as far as to jokingly make the entire roster be nothing but Emil Clones/Minstrel from the Dreams Under Missing Pages event equipped with both weapon and Nightmare versions of the Emil Heads.
    • Slime Snow ^ExplainationIn the same vein as the Emil Clones, some guilds would show up with everyone playing as Snow White/Slime from Lullaby of Reincarnation as a joke due to the sheer absurdity of the class's existence.
  • Hoax of the Cosmos^ExplainationDuring the Lullaby of Reincarnation event, the collab's second Grimoire banner had a weapon called 'Coax of the Cosmos' which somehow was a very common SR in players' pulls, particularly in the Global server. The instrument ended up with the nickname due to this and the... less than stellar skills there compared to its JP counterpart.
  • Hamelin chocolates^ExplainationThe Valentines' Day 2021 event in the Japanese server had Parrah and Noya forcing Sleeping Beauty and Kaguya to make chocolates for Hamelin since they empathize with him for not receiving any Valentine chocolates. In-game, the 'Hamelin Chocolates' become a huge hit, spawning lots of merchandise and other products. The fandom has also taken the concept and ran with it since the Hamelin chocolates are also the voting tickets for the 4th Popularity Poll in Japan.
  • "Get his ass, Gretel!"^ExplainationThe Global version of The Butlers' Feast story has the normally-polite Aladdin say this line to Gretel when the boys end up fighting the villagers when their protectorate's true purpose is revealed. In the original Japanese line, Aladdin simply encourages Gretel to fight, so it seems like the translator had a bit too much fun with said line when the event came to Global. The fact that the line sounded out-of-character for Aladdin is what makes it hilarious.
  • GUDAGUDA SINoALICE^ExplainationThe fact that the Autumn Feast of Abundance event, which had Pinocchio, Alice and Sleeping Beauty getting involved in a rice harvest, took place at the same time Fate/Grand Order had their GUDAGUDA 2020 rerun and getting ready for GUDAGUDA 2021 was not lost on the Japanese fandom, with fanart depicting the Characters finding items from the latter game in their rice fields such as QP and Haniwa Nobbus and wondering what they're doing there.
  • P.M. Omiya's rapping.^ExplainationIn the Global version's SINoALICE Times livestream, Project Manager Hirotaka Omiya revealed his secret talent for rapping. Since then, whenever he shows up, expect him to perform at least 1 rap Once per Episode. Many players were either amused or embarrassed by this. This was even the April Fools' Day prank for 2023 as the devs suddenly announced a rap concert by him, but then later revealed it to be a gag and gave everyone a chat stamp featuring Aladdin.
• Narm Charm: A number of them from the Global server's social media, ranging from the memes posted every now and then on Twitter and Instagram to the Pokelabo skits such as the Project Fusion mini-series and the SINoALICE Rap by Project Manager Hirotaka Omiya. For the latter, at least he gave the players 300 Twilight Crystals at the end.
• Never Live It Down: The 'maintenance hell' that took place in the 1st week of the JP server's launch. Server problems caused the game to be virtually unplayable, resulting in a 1-week maintenance to ensure that everyone would be able to play the game with no major problems. Nowadays, expect the incident to be referenced at least once every anniversary event by the developers.
• Nightmare Fuel: Given that it IS Yoko Taro we're talking about...

O - W

• Only the Author Can Save Them Now: With how much of a roller-coaster ride the main story, especially the Act of Elimination, has turned into, the fandom's only hope of a satisfactory conclusion (and to some, the end of the game itself) rests on the writers.
• Realism-Induced Horror: The Reality chapters tend to hit much closer to home for players due to what the characters go through and how they meet their respective ends. This in contrast with the other chapters that tend to be more exaggerated and as a result brings forth a different kind of horror.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • Hamelin isn't exactly a scrappy, but 2023 seems to be shaping up to his year; namely a more positive portrayal in SINoZombie ~Feast of the Dead~ where he's a lot more nicer to Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty and Red Riding Hood, and his Act of Reality story compared to Little Match Girl was the better-received tale due to the tragedy and subsequently the most graphic (and one of the saddest) ending of the Act.
  • Most people do not like the Nutcracker due to his attitude and him being The Load during certain events. If the events of the Act of Elimination (Part 2) didn't help to convince people, the Act of Desire had many players apologizing to him after he was essentially the MVP in the first half for helping the player rescue the Characters and later on made an opening for them and the Characters to defeat Desire-Noya at the cost of his life. This even gets lampshaded in the Act's 1st Chapter:
    With a shout, the Nutcracker took off, and for the first time actually felt quite dependable.
• Retroactive Recognition: Before Damian Desmond, Natsumi Fujiwara can be heard here as young!Aladdin from the Sanctuary of Children's Songs events.
• Sailor Earth: With so many fairytales around the world, creating a SINoALICE OC only requires taking a fairytale character not covered by the game, browsing the dictionary for a word that best describes their new messed-up personality, assign them a default Class and voila! This also applies to their Reality selves by giving them an occupation and a messed-up backstory of choice, then watch the tragedy write itself.
• The Scrappy:
  • Pinocchio and The Three Little Pigs' mothers in the Act of Reality are almost, if not universally hated by the fanbase due to their treatment of their children. Even when the kids are revived and want to earn their mothers' love through various means, the players know that their moms are very likely to not care any less.
  • Rapunzel's original prince. Her stories imply that he was responsible for the loss of purity that caused her to be kicked out, but when he does appear in her Act of Elimination (Part 2) story in Hard Mode, the fanbase pretty much views him with utter scorn due to him seeing her as a mere object.
• Scrappy Mechanic: When taking the characters of players you follow into Solo-player battles. Instead of their proper point level, they're nerfed down to about 10k-20K higher then you if there's a huge power gap, meaning players have to grind to remove those nerfs.
• Scrappy Weapon: The Mage class's associated weapon type (Artifacts) is the only weapon type to not have a demon support in the colosseum, and even after getting its own Half-Nightmare class in the form of The Three Little Pigs, very few players would choose to play as a Mage in the Colosseum unless they have the resources to create a grid just for their Artifacts.
• Shocking Elimination: Quite a number during the World GranColosseum:
  • Pretty much everyone in the international fanbase agreed that the Global guilds in the 1st World GranColosseum wouldn't survive long against the Japanese side, with the exception of the current champion Taxic and LadyCrime. What stunned everyone was that every single one of them, including the aforementioned Taxic and LadyCrime, were on the receiving end of a Curb-Stomp Battle in round 1 and got eliminated.
  • まんちかん have had a very good streak in the Qualifying Preliminaries, making them a possible candidate for World Champion. Unfortunately for everyone who made their bets on them, LiLLion! had other ideas...
  • During WGC 2, the Global playerbase had accepted their fate of being punching bags for the Japanese server again... until MilkVoid and Brotherhood took everyone by surprise by beating fan-favourites LieN and NonSuch to advance to the quarterfinals. The developers were so shocked and pleased with this turn of events, the Global server received 50 Twilight Crystals to commemorate the victories!
• Shocking Moments:
  • The fact that the Act of Elimination is a 2-parter sent the fandom into a frenzy and became a hot discussion topic due to how unpredictable the situation is at present.
  • Meta example: everyone knew that the Act of Desire would be the final chapter of SINoALICE's main story, but there were still many people taken aback when the JP server announced its server termination on 26 October 2023, making the aforementioned chapter the absolute Grand Finale, and that the final chapter released on Boxing Day will require full guild participation, something that didn't happen in TW and GL.
• Tearjerker: Has its own page here. Little Mermaid would be proud.
• That One Boss: Shield Wisps start appearing in Act of Hatred Chapter 2 and are major pain no matter what. They constantly buff their defenses, take only 1 point of damage from anything other than their weakness, and when they do attack, they hit hard enough to wipe out several party members at once. Even trying to cheese it by following high level players/whales won't do you any good as they can still one-shot said players/whales, especially due to the Scrappy Mechanic above. These bosses end up becoming a major roadblock for players who want to play the story and don't want to spend Twilight Crystals. And it only gets worse in the Act of Reality.
• That One Level:
  • The last chapter of the Act of Reality is this as the Reality versions of the Characters wake up in Library, gaining the powers they would use in the Act of Fusion and are slowly overtaken by the concepts that define them. In particular, the last stage has you in a Marathon Level as you fight off the Nightmare versions of the Characters (with the exception of Dorothy as her Nightmare had not been planned yet then) as well as the Final Boss of Hatred Arc consecutively. Better get some friends to join you or pray for powerful players to enter your stages...
  • Beginners are encouraged to avoid Snow White's Book of Impulse Chapter 2 until they've increased their Combat Points significantly due to how bulky the chapter's final boss in verse 10 is. Bear in mind that only after completing Chapter 2 Verse 10 of any character's Book of Impulse will players be able to access guilds and the Colosseum.
  • The Act of Elimination ups the difficulty where bringing the wrong class and weapons will result in a harder time taking down the enemy. Chapter 2, where Cinderella and Red Riding Hood fight against each other, stands out for being tough as nails by having heavy-hitting opponents, even if players pack a mono-water grid and summons Nightmares such as Freeze Golem and Juno the Dark Loner.
    • From the same arc, using a character against Alice will cause Alice/Breaker Ext. as a boss to render the screen Deliberately Monochrome and glitch, while the chains coming off her prevents the usage of Nightmares. Chapter 3 doesn't make it much easier as Cinderella/Gunner Ext. will deal a lot of damage consecutively if playing as Alice.
    • For a (former) Extreme Doormat, Pinocchio/Alt.Pre.Half is one tough cookie - if playing as Snow White, your only strategy is to take him out as quickly as possible or he'll increase his stats and be immune to damage and debuffs for a while.
    • If playing the 3rd batch of the Act of Elimination, never bring Kaguya or Nutcracker in chapters 2 and 3 respectively. Dorothy/Alternative Ext. loves Confusion Fu and will alternate between changing her element with each phase to putting up a shield that renders her immune to elemental weaknesses. No wonder she made it to Chapter 4.
    • Chapter 5. Just, Chapter 5. You're up against a skeletal creature that's Lewis Carroll Came Back Wrong. It's so heavy-hitting and bulky, your only hope of defeating it is to bring in your friends alongside your own specialized grid. Oh, and there's just 1 stage, meaning you're on your own for this one and cannot call for backup. Good luck.
  • The Solo Events in the Rozen Maiden collaboration in the Japanese server. Players would play as either Suiseiseki, Shinku or Suigintou depending on the event banner and were given a preset grid with select weapons and Nightmares. And true to the event type, the stages have to be cleared alone, similar to Prison of the Abyss. While it was a good opportunity for players to use weapons and Nightmares they otherwise don't have (especially the paid Nightmares), certain stages heavily rely on luck to be able to pass. Unless you're using a guide, good luck.
    • In particular, playing as Suiseiseki and Shinku would have them accompanied by the other Doll and Hinaichigo's CPUs... but Hinaichigo may screw you over by healing when all 3 characters are at full HP, leaving none for when it's needed the most.
    • Playing as Suiseiseki in stage 2 will require a stroke of luck because Suigintou will focus on defeating Shinku first. If Shinku goes down, Suigintou will go for the Total Party Kill on her next move.
    • In stage 2 of Shinku's solo event, if at least one of Kanaria's stats isn't in the blue, she will buff herself high enough to go for the kill.
    • Stage 3 of Suigintou's event will have her face off against Shinku and Hinaichigo, where the battle is a test of endurance as Hinaichigo will constantly heal both herself and Shinku to full health while Suigintou tries to take both of them down.
• Unexpected Character:
  • In the run up to the 3rd Anniversary event, most players expected the Anniversary character to be a Proud Lion Half-Nightmare version of Cinderella, as the two characters before her were Alice and Snow White who appeared according to debut. Very few people saw Three Little Pigs coming as they do not have a Spirit Job to their name yet.
    • This character pulled off this trope again by being the first to have 2 different Spirit Half-Nightmare jobs; Proud Lion and Sloth Bear.
  • When new chapters for the Act of Elimination were announced, everyone expected the usual formula of Chapter 1 being Library vs Reality. On 26 November 2020, it was announced that Aladdin and Rapunzel were among the characters appearing in the December batch despite neither of them having an Alternative class and Act of Reality story yet. Cue heated discussion on why there was such a matchup, even more so when new Act of Reality chapters were promised.
  • While Eastern mobile games collaborating with Western IPs is rare but not unheard of, literally no one expected SINoALICE to have a collaboration with, of all things, Batman. Although, it does open up possibilities of other Western comic series such as other entries in The DCU or even those by Marvel Comics entering the Library someday.
  • 31 January 2022 saw SINoALICE announcing a collaboration with... Sanrio?! Much confusion ensues as Sanrio's brand is saccharine-inducing and Sweet Dreams Fuel incarnate, which is very unlike SINoALICE, which has a Darker and Edgier reputation. Even taking into account that there have been stranger combinations Sanrio has done such as with Danganronpa.
• The Woobie: The Reality versions of Sleeping Beauty, Pinocchio and the Three Little Pigs have such sad stories to them along with heart-wrenching ends, one would find the urge to hug them all.
  • The Act(s) of Elimination adds Reality!Red Riding Hood where after she meets Library!Red Riding Hood, the two become fast friends, but ends up alone again after she kills the latter and is genuinely upset about it.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: The minimalist writing style means both the main story and collaboration events tend to bring up ideas, then never expand on them meaningfully.
• Woolseyism: Gishin's and Anki's names put together form the Japanese word for paranoia^note Gishin's name on merchandise is written as 疑心 while Anki's is written as 暗鬼. Putting them together forms 疑心暗鬼, gishinanki. To make sure the pun worked in English, their names were changed to 'Parrah' and 'Noyah' respectively.
• Unconventional Learning Experience: The game's usage of particularly flowery language has caused a number of people to look certain words up on dictionaries, particularly Sleeping Beauty's concept in the Global server^DefinitionLangour means "a state of tiredness or inactivity, especially when pleasurable". However, this did not stop Japanese players from using the game to learn English, which does help in bridging the Japanese and International fandoms together.
• WTH, Costuming Department?: Dorothy ends up on the receiving end the most due to some of her more bizarre outfits for her Jobs, in particular her Cleric job, which has her in a Steampunk Diving Suit and her Sloth Bear Minstrel job which is her regular Minstrel job with a bear fursuit added. Her Divine Humility Paladin job continues the trend with it being her in a swimsuit but with some odd objects added, including a weird headpiece that covers her whole head that looks like it was designed by some Neo Futurist designer, with some people comparing it to Alpha 5.
  • This is the general reaction among Snow White's fans when her Grand Prix (H31) job was revealed, due to it being yet another non-summer job in a swimsuit, and that the art on the logo made to commemorate her win would never be made into an in-game job despite being better received. Lampshaded by Snow herself during the 3rd Popularity Poll where she asks for a more dignified outfit for when she wins again. Fortunately for her (and the fans), she got her wish.
  • The Japanese playerbase may be ok with Three Little Pigs' Lustful Scorpion Cleric class design and think it's cute, but some of the western fanbase in the Japanese server think the designers went a bit too far since the trio are in considerably age-inappropriate sleepwear. Not to mention their expressions and what the cake frosting can also be interpreted as...
  • Pretty much anytime Pinocchio is forced into an outfit that leans more towards the feminine side. For more information, see his Act of Reality story.
  • Reception from the international players in the Japanese server was particularly negative for Pinocchio and Red Riding Hood's Wedding Swimsuit classes from the Brides and Bullets event due to the... issues surrounding child marriage. And that's all we can say about it.