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.
