Category: .Hack//Roots

I’m really getting worried about where .Hack//Roots is going to. The previous episode showed Haseo’s new form. Well, I guess that that’s gotta mean that this episode would have featued a lot of plot progression. What do we get? A friggin’ filler!

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing against fillers. But seriously, this was just horribly timed. Because of this, the creators had to find a way to keep Haseo busy for an entire episode. Their plan: don’t make him move for the entire episode. He just stands there, doing nothing. Well, if that isn’t anticlimactic, I don’t know anymore.

The episode basically features Tawaraya who’s come back, two newly introduced characters (a couple of merchants) and the two newbies from episode sixteen having some problems with the merchant-side of The World. It ends with them witnessing a couple of real-money traders being caught by the administrators. Why the heck are the creators only introducing these aspect now, at this stage of the anime? Such trivial aspects would have been better to be explained at the beginning of the anime. Including the fact that TaN was a guild that would buy every single item from other players, and sell them again. It’s nice to see these kinds of information this late in the show.

.Hack//Sign chose to handle subjects like these a bit more subtle. They had just one major crime, and they kept using this as an example. Subaru and her knights were fighting to counter PK-ers throughout the entire anime. .Hack//Roots starts with PK-ing as well, then it moved to hackers and now suddenly real money traders come out of nowhere. A bit more introduction abut this would have been better. The anime had lots of chances for this.

The interesting part of the anime mainly focused around Yata and Pai. Yata displays that he still has influence on the system administrators. Tawaraya also reveals that both Yata and Pai weren’t banned. They just chose to close their Ender and Naobi-accounts along with TaN. That’s why Yata still has his contacts with the administrators. But I wonder. Why do the administrators just let Yata do what he wants, even though he’s a hacker, he kidnapped Ovan, data-drained him and caused him to explode?

Speaking of the devil… what the heck happened to Ovan? There hasn’t been a shot of him for two whole episodes, despite the fact that he’s an important character. I think he also just stood motionless for an entire episode, just like Haseo.

In any case, I don’t think I like the new Tawaraya, or Touta. He’s just your overall, powerful nice-guy. Tawaraya was much more interesting.

Overall, .Hack//Roots is beginning to turn into a horrible mess. That isn’t good at this point of the show. At the next episode, we’ll probably get a bit more clues about what this show will do, in order to create a climax.

Looking back at the beginning of the show, I realize again why I loved it so much. It just featured the Twillight Brigade searching for the Key of the Twilight, in which so much stuff happened during one episode at once. The characters were interesting, it was almost impossible to not have a character you liked. People talked with each other, especially the fact that we had lots of different, interesting characters resulted in many interesting conversations.

And the music! I remember that during the beginning of the show, some amazing tunes were played. The way they were used along with the flow of events really contributed to the series’ awesomeness. Why the heck did the creators decide to put less emphasis on this at the second half of the anime?! The background music has suddenly turned from one of the best ever to just plain mediocre!

I think that the creators chose the theme of this anime wrong. MMORPGs are not about fighting monsters, they’re about interacting. This indeed was what the first nine episodes were about, though starting from number ten, it seems that this theme has become a little lost. For some reason, I just can’t seem to sympathize with Haseo if I know that he’s just paranoid behind his computer, and that the Haseo we’re seeing is just an image, nothing more.

The cliff-hanger also didn’t really work this time. Why? Because the creators somehow found it a good idea to include the same transformed Haseo in the ED. We already knew for seventeen episodes that he’d turn out like this. That doesn’t really contribute to the shock it’s supposed to give, now does it?

Ah well, one advantage is that as the creators are showing all of this right now, it means that the final eight episodes can focus on other, more important things. Haseo finally looks like he’ll be getting interesting again. Tabby will most certainly not do nothing after seeing this, so with a bit of luck, the two major annoyances will be gone after the next episode.

I’m also a bit concerned about Taihaku. It just feels like he hasn’t been introduced properly. Right now, it seems that his only role is to show us what would happen if you behave politely to the red guy. If you act polite, you get a weapon which can do some interesting tricks. If you start yelling, you get zapped. Still, the fact remains that the reason why this event was created, just to give some guys some cool weapons remains very interesting.

In any case, there was one character I loved during this episode: Saburou. During the previous episode, she was sent to track down Haseo, and eventually ended up with Taihaku. Now it seems that she lost him, and everything keeping her from quitting is Pai, who orders her to go after Haseo. And then she finally retaliates, and does the things that she wants to do, instead of the things Pai wants her to do. Indeed the right thing to do in an MMORPG. I really like the objective way she looks at things. Her analogies also were very nice as well.

Saburou also makes a nice point about Pai. Her personality differs so much to Ender’s. This has to say that she’s quite a good actor, but you’d wonder about why she decided to change personalities as well. Is it because she would be too suspicious, or did she see it as a good opportunity to change herself? And which is her real personality? Ender, Pai or none of them? She must have some reason to act the way she does.

The conversation between Taihaku and the red guy also was one of the first times I really was reminded of .Hack//Sign. It looked so much like the conversation Tsukasa, Mimiru and Bear had with the digital version of the original creator of the game. I’m also heavily suspecting these guys to be the same person, with Aura as the daughter. It seems that she’s still alive in The World somewhere. The Key of the Twilight may have been lost, though there are many clues which point towards the fact that Shino and Ovan met Aura at some point.

Overall, I’m glad that the Forest of Despair-arc was finished. The three main characters, Haseo, Tabby and Phyllo, weren’t really exciting to watch. Nevertheless, I’m still curious about how this series will continue. The potential for amazingness still remains.

I’m wondering about Phyllo’s life in the real world, if he’s able to sit on that bridge for 24/7. The feeling that we’re dealing with an MMORPG here still misses.

But seriously, what’s up with Haseo? He’s been fighting monsters in emo-mode for entire episodes now. I could be wrong, but I think that the creators are building up to something. With a bit of luck, that something will be happening at the next episode. But then again, .Hack//Roots always has been deceiving when it comes to matters like this.

In any case, this episode definitely has been building up. A lot. Tabby is still feeling extremely down. This time, she meets another new character: Seisaku. The two then have an interesting discussion, and it seems like Seisaku will be helping Tabby a bit. Seisaku also introduced a nice issue. Not only newbies have problems in the world. Mid-range players probably have it worse. The newbies get beaten because of fun, though the mid-range players have rare items equipped at times. This makes them even more attractive to PK-ers. You wonder why the game doesn’t have the option to turn off the PK-ing, when it’s become this big of a problem.

In any case, you can also doubt Seisaku’s intentions. He’s probably a mid-level player as well, judging by his outfit. He could be wanting protection for himself as well. We’ll have to wait till more episodes to see whether this is true or not. Haseo, meanwhile, keeps walking through the forest of despair, looking to clear an event which might even not exist. He also gets a few flashbacks of Ovan and Shino whenever someone near him mentions something they said.

Saburou has been walking from one place to another during this episode. Even though she saw a lot, she didn’t exactly develop. She only got interested by Haseo for a second, though she abandoned him later. It’s interesting that she tries to talk some sense into both Haseo and Tabby, even though she works for Pai. Her mission is to make contact with the two of them, and discover something strange, but is that all she needs to do? Or is there more? In any case, she’s acting rather careless. Anology of the week: “I think I totally understand the meaning of ‘detour’ now”. This shows that Yata and Pai are moving into very difficult ways in order to get what they want.

Speaking of the devil, Yata and Pai also haven’t had much development either. Pai spent her time ordering Saburou around and on something mysterious which wasn’t shown. Yata spent his time watching Haseo on a screen, looking at some meaningless data and asking Phyllo a few questions. That last thing, however, revealed an interesting fact about the relationship between Ovan and Phyllo. In the past, Phyllo started to sit there on the bridge. Then there came a woman to him, attracted by him. She was the girl who brought Ovan and Phyllo together. It could’ve been Shino, though I thought that her clothing was different. Unless she likes to change clothing once in a while.

Ovan, meanwhile, continues to walk happily around in The World like nothing happened, without contacting Haseo or Tabby, and without looking sad because of the fact that Shinos’s gone. Why exactly did he say to Shino that he’d be gone for a while? I think it’s clear now that he knew that he had to endure Naobi’s treatment if he wanted to get closer to the Key of the Twilight, but why doesn’t he contact anyone? He also runs into Tri-Edge. At the entrance of the Forest of Despair, of all places. Ovan manages to fend him off as well, with a smile on his face. He managed to do this by unleashing the thing on his arm, which gave a couple of black bubbles free. In the end, these didn’t really work and he got beaten up, though Tri-Edge left.

It’s very interesting if you look at the list of people who have been attacked: Shino, Phyllo and Ovan. What is the connection between the three of them and Tri-Edge? Did something happen in the past which they kept silent about?

Then we also have the matter of the old-looking guy (did his name actually get revealed?) He seems quite important, and he seems to have no problem with the strong monsters, which makes him one of the three persons who managed so survive the Forest of Despair so far. Why are the three of them so special? Because they’re main characters? In any case, his purposes are still as foggy as a pile of dry ice. Why did he come to the Forest of Despair, and why is he so confident that he’ll reach the deepest part? And why did Ovan contact him in the previous episode?

Still, now that I think more about the episode while writing this post, I realize something. It’s entirely wrong to say that Haseo didn’t change. In fact, he developed a lot, it just went very subtle. He’s becoming more and more fragile. When, at the end of the episode, he runs into the big monster, the fact remains that he gets a hopeless look, before it changes back towards his battle-hungry self. His mental self is at the verge of breaking down. He tries to be strong right now, in order to save Shino. This has consumed his mind, preventing him from thinking normally. Eventually, his mind and body won’t be able to take this. Still, what’s up with the very high-pitched scream which echoed out of the forest? Was that Haseo actually getting an incredible amount of adrenaline (or however you call it in an MMORPG)? Or was it something else?

Overall, now that I’m thinking about it, I’m beginning to like Haseo’s emo-mode. It may be annoying when you see it at first, though it’s being built up perfectly. Still, the fact remains that a thing like this is never possible inside a MMORPG. No matter what. Haseo isn’t data-drained or anything, so he should still be sitting behind his computer. Ever since episode 13, more and more new characters have been introduced. They’re doing pretty well, so far. Nobody’s been able to replace Tawaraya or Sakisaka, but ah well, maybe someone will.

I’ve got some major issues with .Hack//Roots. It just tries to be more than it actually is. The third episode was awesome. Why? Because Haseo had to think in order to make his decision. A whole episode was spent on it. What do we have when we reach episode sixteen? He goes to attack random monsters with an emo-face.

The fact is that .Hack//Roots seems to be forgetting that it’s an MMORPG. Haseo’s reaction just isn’t possible. Tabby’s reaction isn’t possible either. Everything is just virtual. The PC’s are just PC’s. When they cry, it happens offline. Right here, we have absolutely no clues at all that there are persons who are controlling the PC’s. That was one of the beauties of .Hack//Sign. It really made me feel like we were dealing with an MMORPG. .Hack//Roots feels more like a fantasy adventure.

The fact remains that Haseo’s strong now. How the heck did he manage to do that? The basic laws of the MMORPG’s say that the longer you play the game, the stronger you become. After all, the longer you play, the more experience you get. Still, this is a ridiculous amount of experience. If that’s the case, why can Haseo grow stronger than anyone out here when he just started?

Ah well, in any case, Tri Edge really had an impact on Phyllo, as he loses his cool against Haseo for the first time ever. The two of them fight a bit while Tabby stands on the side-lines, doing nothing. While this may have been interesting, it seemed a bit too direct. It felt like it was missing something.

Overall, I like the shy Haseo more. He’s really getting annoying right now. .Hack//Roots just doesn’t feel like an MMORPG anymore. Still, I wonder what Ovan’s planning to do. He hasn’t returned to Haseo yet. Yata also makes an interesting point: Tabby. Saburou gets sent after her, after she makes another cryptic remark towards Pai. I have no idea what that means. Also, why did Saburou claim that she’s on good terms with Haseo? Could she be the reincarnation of Tawaraya?

This was a very enjoyable episode. Even though it was just a filler, it had some great moments. Almost all of the main characters, Haseo, Ovan, Shino, Tri-Edge, Yata, Naobi, Pai, Ender and Savuro are all cast aside, and stay out of the entire episode, in order to make it focus around Tabby, with Phyllo, a new main character called Kuhn and two newbies as side-characters as support.

Tabby’s still struggling with everything that happened, though she does decide to remain in The World. Unlike others. Then, she runs into a couple of newbies, and decides to help them. It’s a shame, however, that Tabby herself is a complete newbie as well, so the three of them end up dying. Phyllo, meanwhile gets visited by what seems like an old friend. I immediately was reminded of Kurim from .Hack//Sign, though Kuhn (the name of the guy) seems a bit more playful than Kurim.

Still, I like Kuhn. He’s pretty funny. Especially when he tried to beat some sense into one of the newbies. (^^;) The two newbies also have their own story, which was pretty interesting to watch. The two of them are brothers, and the youngest one is currently in the middle of studying for his high-school entrance exam. The older one failed that same exam. This made their mother turn a bit desperate, and she now absolutely wants the younger brother to succeed in the exam, which results in lots of studying. The older brother felt sorry for the younger brother, as he didn’t have any free time at all. That’s why he decided to take the younger brother to The World, while their parents were away. In the beginning, the younger brother doesn’t like this. Though Tabby and Kuhn make him glad in the end.

Another thing which made me glad is that finally some moral issues were introduced. Finally, some issues which forced the viewer to think appeared. I’ve been waiting for that. Now that I’ve seen this episode, I indeed realize that that is what .Hack//Roots has been lacking all this time, and why .Hack//Sign always was the better one. If the show can keep this up, I’ll be very happy.

Tabby also revealed something about herself in real life, inspired by the two brothers. It seems that she has an older sister. While Tabby isn’t really great at studying, her sister is really smart. I think that she can relate to the younger brother in a way.

Overall, this may have been a filler, though it does remain a very enjoyable filler. It also finally made me realize the thing which .Hack//Roots has been lacking. If the creators also realized this, the results can become awesome.

Memorable moment: Kuhn chasing the younger brother.

After what happened the previous episode, Haseo needs some time to be able to process what happened in the previous episode. He’s not very good in this, as he keeps getting gloomier as the episode progresses. His main support is Phyllo. The latter also goes to the place in which Shino and Ovan met for the first time, after which Tri-Edge ambushes him. For some strange reason, Phyllo is spared. You’d wonder why Tri-Edge took the time to visit him in the first place. In any case, when Haseo found out about this, he went berserk. He ran to the church and kept beating up the chains on the table. I think that he really snapped when he found out that each of Tri-Edge’s attacks have got something to do with Shino.

While that may have been too bad for Haseo, that part of the episode was just boring. Haseo was a bit too gloomy in my opinion. The good stuff came from the former TaN. It seems that Ender and Naobi not only swapped PC’s, they also swapped usernames. Naobi now is known as Yata, and Ender is Pai. A thing that really shocked me is that Ovan appears to be perfectly fine. After his arm exploded in episode twelve, he managed to escape, and now roams around The World. Either data-drained or just perfectly fine. Still, there has to be some kind of reason why he hasn’t contacted Haseo or Tabby yet.

In any case, Yata and Pai are up to something else, after their failure. They are probably busy analyzing what caused Ovan to escape. They’ve also run into some problems when they try to analyze the waterfall-field. It appears to be a dump for save-data. Much like the Net-Slum from .Hack//Sign. In any case, something is providing an error when they try to analyze it. It’s good to see that things aren’t going perfectly for Yata and Pai as well. I’m still wondering whether these hackers will be responsible for the greatest threat in the game.

Pai also talks about something called an SF. No idea what that means, though. Later in the episode, Pai makes contact with a new character, a former TaN-member: Savurou. It seems that the two of them knew each other, though it isn’t clear from where they do. In any case, she managed to swap PC’s as well. (On a side-note: I sortof like Pai’s character design. It’s a lot better than her Ender-version, in any case).

Overall, this episode was kindof boring. Haseo needs to accept that Shino’s gone. Still, TaN brought some nice material.

This surely was an interesting episode. But at the same time, I really wonder where this show is going. It’s going to run out of characters if this keeps continuing. Still, if the anime doesn’t fall during the next episode, we could be in for an extremely awesome second half of the show.

This episode featured a perfect buildup once more. It starts out really slow, only to whack the player down with some amazing scenes during the second half.

Ovan’s case keeps getting stranger. Last episode, we see the lock on his arm being broken, and something came out of it. This episode, it appears that he just disappeared into thin air after this, without leaving any trace. Naobi and Ender meanwhile continue to analyze the data he left behind. And their PC’s… I’m sure that I’ve seen those bodies somewhere before. I’m almost certain that they already appeared on the show, but when?

Shino also was just awesome. At the beginning of the episode, she keeps getting closer to Haseo. The two of them exchange phones. These were some very nice scenes. Later, the guy called Tri-Edge gives her a call, and tells her to come to the cathedral, after which she gets data-drained by him. Still, she looked awefully relieved when she got the mesage. Could it be that she thought that Tri-Edge was actually Ovan? But that can’t be, as Tri-Edge already was around before Ovan got captured. The look she also had on her face when she saw Haseo at that time was awesome. And not to mention the fact that we get to see our first scene of the outside world. It took awfully long, but it was worth it.

Also, after the previous episode, I think I knew about Tabby’s feeling a bit, though right now, I realize I was wrong. She actually wanted to be with Shino, though Haseo kept her away from her. She didn’t dare to interfere with the two of them, as she was too afraid to lose them both, so she decided to give them some subtle messages. Well, that plan backfired when Shino got data-drained. The then realized that Haseo went straight after Shino when he heard about where she was going. Something Tabby was not able to.

I’m also wondering what’s up with Tri-Edge. For the first time in the series, he actually does something, which involves travelling through the world, and fixing bugs at certain places. But why did he attack Shino?

So, what’s happened with each of the characters:
Goad: Left, because Ovan was his raison d’être. At least, in the game.
B-Set: Left, because Ovan was the person who made her keep playing.
Tawaraya: Left, account suspended.
Ender: Account suspended, returned in a new PC.
Naobi: Account suspended, returned in a new PC.
Shino: Data-drained.
Ovan: Vanished into thin air.
Tabby: About to leave, because Shino was her raison d’être.
Sakisaka: Left, because the game reminded him too much of the Twillight Brigade.
Phyllo: Stays.
Haseo: Stays.

Overall, .Hack//Roots keeps getting better and better. I’m really curious how the anime will continue after this. The second half will probably be totally awesome.

Only a small amount of events happen each episode. But that gives the anime a great opportunity of building up to these events, and the events that do happen are just awesome. Apart from that, characters change, relationships change and the whole world is just living its life.

This episode was the second episode of the aftermath-of-Ovan-getting-captured-arc. The major purpose of this arc is to get rid of a number of characters, to break up certain relationships, and to create new ones. So far, Goad has quit the game, TaN has been disbanded. B-Set quits at this episode. Naobi and Ender return in some new forms (interesting note: this means that they’ve returned to beginners, or they must’ve had some kind of backup-account). Sakisaka and Tabby have left the Twillight Brigade. Shino changed her clothing and the only one staying the same is Phyllo.

Ovan’s disappearance really broke up the world. It appears that the only reason Goad and B-Set played the game was because of him. B-Set also thought about things a bit, which resulted in her quitting the game as well. It’s very interesting to see characters just being gone, like that. Phyllo makes a nice comment about this. The fact remains that if today is the same as yesterday, and tomorrow is the same as today, this cycle won’t be continuing forever. That means that the world will change. Even the side-characters can make this happen. That’s also the problem with the anime who refuse to kill off their characters. It just limits the change that can be possible in the world. I’m not saying to the creators to let all kinds of persons go berserk and commit genocide, though the right balance has to be found, in order to make for the best development.

Naobi seems to have secured some kind of place, which even the administrators don’t know, most probably a lost ground, in which he’s keeping Ovan. It seems that Naobi finally gets what he wanted, as Ovan’s left arm seems to have been cracked (pun intended, by the way). Now it’s up to the next episode to determine whether Naobi’s plan was a success, or that he won’t be able to control the thing that came out of Ovan’s arm. We also have to take into account that Ovan knew about what was going to happen, so he had a reason to do this. Still, I never even once saw a smile on his face while getting hacked. Either this means good acting, or it means that things aren’t going as he had hoped to, which makes you wonder how much he can predict.

Tabby begins to get more interesting by the minute. Yay for the fact that she’s not a little brat after all! First, when she talks to Haseo, the two get in a bit of a fight. Haseo, as he’s not good in dealing with other people, doesn’t really know what to say, and eventually Tabby walks away angry. The discussion mainly was about Tabby getting jealous that Haseo was around with Shino all of the time. And that Shino was her reason to enjoy the game. She also comfirms that she indeed doesn’t want to be with Sakisaka because she wants to. This actually means three things:
1: Haseo’s incredibly thick-headed.
2: Tabby actually likes Haseo, but she realize that she’ll never be able to reach his heart.
3: She’s using Sakisaka in order to make him jealous. This doesn’t quite work, because of point one.
4: This means that she’s actually quite an actor, able to lock away her true feelings, and pretend to be someone else.
I like this. For some strange reason, I like this conflict, while most love-triangles like this one actually totally bore me. First of all, we only got our first hint only at the previous episode. Only at the end of that episode there was a moment in which Tabby’s feelings lost to her acting. Apart from that, she’s been concealing her feelings all along. Normal anime would feature some kind of suspicious close-up, in which the character looks to the ground, rather unhappy. I find this kind of buildup better, though. It’s way more integrated with the storyline than just that simple, suspicous close-up. These close-ups are like putting a big sign on the character, saying “Hello, I am in love with the main character but I’m too afraid to confess, what should I do?”. Or something in that direction.

Sakisaka indeed is a pityful character. if the above indeed is true, he’s being used from all kinds of sides. He was right about one thing, though: leaving the guild. We finally get told the exact reason why Goad and B-Set left the Twillight Brigade (after all, being used is kindof a vague description, isn’t it?). It seems that when there was no sign of the virus cores yet, they used to skim through every single inch of certain fields. Or they would stay at a lost ground for a whole day and see what happens. I could so understand that you want to leave the guild who only does things like these. Sakisaka had enough beliefs in Ovan to last till the end, though his attitude quite changed when Ovan was gone, which drove him to the wild theories of Ovan who had actually been working together with TaN and they finally managed to get their hands on the Key of the Twillight, so they ran off with it. Eventually, this resulted in him leaving the Twillight Brigade.

Shino also came as a surprise. Not only because of her new clothing, but also because she mentioned Aura. Apprantly, the rumors of her have scattered around the net. It also seems that Aura ran away for some strange reason. Shin doesn’t plan to. She’s been gloomy for two entire episodes, though as expected, she got stronger out of it. She still wants to wait for Ovan, though she definately changed. It was also surprising that she got crazy enough to disband the Twillight Brigade, though Haseo managed to stop her.

Speaking of Haseo, the fact that he’s not good with dealing with people gets another major role in this episode. One reason for Tabby and Sakisaka to leave the Twillight Brigade was because he, as the only one who still wanted to continue the guild, never was able to stop them, or cheer them up. He didn’t know what to say, which only made Sakisaka’s anger greater. On top of that, his attempts at doing this only worked the opposite way, not to mention his thick-headedness. Only with Shino, he’s able to say a few words, and for some reason, these few words are the right words.

Phyllo has a busy day, it seems, as a lot of people stop by at the bridge (I loved Haseo’s joke about Phyllo’s reasons to be in the game. ^^). An interesting fact is that he was the one who brought the two of Shino and Ovan together. I really like his character, at the moment, although I’m getting annoyed by his voice-actor. He seems to know exactly what’s going on. Overall, the big thing still hasn’t happened yet, as the previous episodes decided to focus on character development, and on shifting the relationship with each of the characters. With a bit of luck, the supernatural thing will happen at the next episode, and decide the second half of the anime. Episode 10 showed a bad day of .Hack//Roots, though it managed to recover itself pretty nicely. I still have no idea what the second half of the series will be about, but it promises to be a lot different from the first half. I can’t wait for it. 🙂

I think that people already know that I despise poorly executed romances. Especially between main characters. It’s so easy to just make two characters love each other. Though at the same time, it looks horribly fake. Nevertheless, I have to admit that I absolutely love the better executed romances. Firiel and Roux, for example. Yuu and Haruka. And starting from this episode: Haseo and Shino.

I finally realized .Hack//Roots brilliance: at certain points, it realize that characters don’t need to talk in order to make clear what they want to say. It finally realizes the importance of body language. Unfortunately, this does not happen often. Only the third episode managed so far. And the eleventh one! Haha!

Finally .Hack//Roots understands what an MMORPG is about: interacting with other people and fighting monsters. And that’s exactly what it does. The entire episode is an intermezzo, though I just loved it. Especially the fact that characters are actually disappearing, and quitting the game! Goad and the entire TaN-guild will be history! Talk about development!

At the same time, we get more and more hints about what is going to happen at the second half of the show, and thank god it’ll involve some supernatural stuff, instead of conflicts against players who somehow managed to buff themselves to admin-level. I have no idea what exactly it’ll be, but it will involve the Signs and the weird dude who looks like .Hack//Dusk’s main character.

And I haven’t even started talking about Sakisaka and Tabby! I mean, before, I always thought Tabby was a stupid, obnoxious little brat whose only purpose was to create some conflicts between other characters. But now it seems that she actually has a reason to be acting the way she does! I couldn’t imagine it when I first saw the last part of this episode but still, the creators suddenly removed one of the major flaws of the anime.

Still, the other major flaw remains. Even though it’s great to see TaN disbanded, why the heck did it get disbanded? And what happened to Ovan? I mean, the admins must’ve been the ones to disband TaN. Or did Naobi hide Ovan somewhere? And why did Naobi go through the trouble of contacting Phyllo. It’s probably because he knew how fast rumours would travel, which means that he wanted the Twillight Brigade to know about Ovan. And why did Phyllo get so shocked when he heard it?

I’m also having some problems with Ovan disappearing. Of course, it’s great that he’s gone, and I’m hoping for him not to return for a while, but at least show some subtle shots of him in the real world, collapsing. He has, of course, been data-drained. His mind is now trapped in the game, just like Tsukasa, otherwise he’d just log out. In fact, I just wish for any shots from the outside world to be shown right now. I’m curious about the real lives of all of the characters. I’m hoping that these’ll come later in the series, as they were one of the many things that made //Sign so great.

Tawaraya was also great once more. He also used the power of rumours to give the strange markings the name “Sign” (just like how “pwn” managed to get in existance). He managed to leave a nice signature before his departure. I wonder if any of the guys who left will ever get back.

Overall, .Hack//Roots is a strange series. Last week it had me ranting about the lack of quality on the show, but this week totally made up for it with a brilliant episode. I think that .Hack//Roots kindof loses itself in the large climaxes, which makes me a bit worried. Still, I feel that this episode made some very nice moves in order to prevent this.

Okay, we’ve reached episode 10, and still no big thing. As everything stands now, the anime can just end at the thirteenth episode without too much problems. TaN has executed its plans, Ovan is kidnapped, and our protagonists will probably need three whole episodes to sort everything out. My predictions are that the first thirteen episodes will be focusing at the natural, while the last thirteen episodes will be focusing at the supernatural. After all, the virus cores are explained, though the strange thing who appeared at the previous episode, or the strange A-like markings have yet to be explained. Still, TaN probably has got something to do with the latter, as one of the virus cores found itself inside one of the spaces that the A-like markings teleported Haseo to.

Still, some major things happened during this episode, and I didn’t like it. Ovan just went and got himself kidnapped, even though he knew it. In that case, why has he been collecting the virus cores so furiously? His smile from the previous episode’d better have some kind of meaning, as I’m beginning to dislike Ovan more and more. At least his disappearance made sure of one thing: Shino. For the first time since the third episode, she played a great part again. The creators made use of a nice technique, by not showing her eyes when she talks. This way, the viewers have no idea about her expression, and have to guess a bit, giving a very nice overall effect.

Another thing I really liked about this episode is the fight that the members of the Twillight Brigade have at the beginning of the episode, against Ender and her goons. Okay, the latter were just horrible, just like the previous episode. But the former really showed their best sides at that moment. Especially the sarcastical Sakisaka and the overenthusiastic Goad. Lots of things happened at the same time, you just have to give the choreographers credit for this.

Still, now that we’ve reached the tenth episode, I know. .Hack//Roots will never reach the perfection of .Hack//Sign. The biggest reason is the following: .Hack//Sign was smart. Very smart. It covered themes that really made you think. Why do you play the game? Just do the things that you want to do. These ones really are nowhere to be found in .Hack//Roots. The first example does return a bit, though most of the characters just throw this away because it’s too much efford to think about it, and only Phyllo manages to give a satisfying answer. The second one, however, just remains oblivious.

The fact is that this remains an MMORPG. Okay, there are guilds, I can accept that. What I can’t accept is the fact that TaN seems to be covering hundreds of members, actually WORKING for the big guy, Naobi. I mean the game remains for recreational purposes. What the heck does Naobi think ordering everyone around? It isn’t a company or some sort of thing. The fact remains that .Hack//Sign really gave the feeling of an MMORPG. In .Hack//Roots, Phyllo is the only one who manages this. .Hack//Sign made very subtle use of the real world. They showed little snippets of scenes in the real world, though very cryptic and subtle. Especially Tsukasa’s flashbacks were great. What does .Hack//Roots do? Nothing. The only sign that we ever get from our main characters is that Ovan and Shino seem to know each other.

.Hack//Dusk went way too extreme in it, but it had the right ideas about the following subject: quests. .Hack//Sign made perfect use of it, though. .Hack//Roots? Quests? What’s that? .Hack//Roots indeed seems to be forgetting one of the most important aspects of an MMORPG. Okay, they may seem a bit weak, but they’re actually quite fun to do. Roots just doesn’t see this. It also seems that NPC’s also don’t exist in the world anymore. .Hack//Sign was also brilliant in keeping its distance from the administrators. You have to realize that they’re the only party who gets paid to do their job. They don’t have anything to do with the player. I was hoping for .Hack//Roots to follow the same example as .Hack//Sign did, instead of following the horrible example that .Hack//Dusk set. But unfortunately, I was wrong. TaN seems to have something to do with the administrators after all.

The point remains that everyone inside an MMORPG remains equal. Nobody has special powers. Everyone can just level up to lvl 99 as same as everyone else. What they do have, however, is some people who are incredibly active, and set some examples to the rest. Think of Subaru in .Hack//Sign. She attempted to start some kind of independant police force, which would be able to control malicious players. Soon, more and more people started to hear about her, she got support, and before you knew it, she was the most famous player in The World, with everyone recognizing her. What the heck did Naobi do to get such a status? Well, he’s just friends with the admins. Woo. It’s the same for the Twillight Brigade. We never get to see what made them so known around The World. I hope this gets answered in the later episodes, though I seriously doubt that they’ll be able to beat Subaru in this.

Another thing is: why the heck is Naobi so obsessed about getting Ovan’s player data. Dude: it’s a friggin’ GAME. What the heck do you hope to gain with this. Ovan also reveals that the strange voice from .Hack//Sign and the Twillight Bracelet from .Hack//Dusk were actually the Key of the Twillight. Not only takes this away all the mystery in one giant blow, it also gives us some large hints that the guy who appeared in the previous episode will have to be playing for the Key of the Twillight-part. I also don’t like the fact that Naobi, of all guys, was the one who told Ovan about the Key of the Twillight. Remember Sora? He was the one who introduced the term in .Hack//Sign. Still, he was just a PK-er, a fouteen year-old guy who liked to play the game. That has to say something, doesn’t it?

Okay, that concludes my little rants. .Hack//Roots still remains entertaining, though that mostly comes from the first 8 episodes. You really had no idea what was going on, and that was the good part of it. Just showing a couple of guys executing their plans wasn’t just too worthwile to see. It’s the preparation that counts, along with all of the unforeseen circumstances. Though Ovan getting kidnapped was just everything away from unforeseen. Still, I’m still waiting for the big thing to show up and give us some material for the last thirteen episodes.

On a side-note: I just loved Tabby’s fangirling at Goad. ^^;