Every otaku has that first series that they look back on fondly, silently thanking the creator for making such a wonderful show that turned them onto the world of anime. If you haven't figured it out by now, mine's Yuugiou, created by Kazuki Takahashi. Why, then, do I bring the subject up at all for a review of .hack? It's a interesting situation I have with .hack//sign. (pronounced "dot hack sign") If personal anecdotes aren't your style, skip ahead to the review below.
BORING STORY
About 5, maybe 6 years ago, I turned 12 or 13. For my birthday I got this awesome necklace with a stone bear. (hence my thing for polar bears now) I wore this thing all the time, including to a Duquesne basketball game that my father dragged me to. Somewhere along the way, the necklace fell off, and I lost it forever. That fateful necklace-losing day, before the game started, we decided to roam the Student Union. (more like my dad decided and I blindly followed and possibly complained) There was a TV on somewhere in the union, and being a bored tween and an American, I of course paused to watch it. There was a guy with white hair, red markings on his face, and eyes that bespoke of horrors and pain. This guy, whoever he was, had some sort of horrible angsty backstory, and I had no idea what it was. I also remember him smiling despite the eyes-of-angst, but I think that's imagined. We left and came through the same place again, and there were a group of oddly dressed people, including said white-hair-red-marked-angsty man, and the best I recall it was dark, and rocky.
White-hair-red-marked-angsty man was on my mind for the rest of the day. Who was he? What show was that? Why was he so angsty? It nagged at me for a while, and then I forgot about it.
For some reason, about a year later, I decided to go back and look up just what it was I had seen. After searching old tv schedules online, I narrowed it to a few titles, among them .hack//sign.
After 6 years of buildup, I have finally seen .hack//sign. I realize now that if I had gone on any anime forum anywhere and asked about "really angst-filled white-haired red-markings-under-eyes guy?" I would've gotten an answer of ".hack//sign".
REVIEW
It's an interesting experience to know and be somewhat in awe of an anime for this long, and yet at the same time, not know a thing about it. I've never seen much discussion about .hack//sign, nor have I read reviews. I had absolutely no idea how good it was, or what it was about.
.hack//sign is part of the extremely complicated .hack franchise. If you want the entire story you have to watch the anime, play all the video games, and read the light novels. Or, you could just watch this anime, because you certainly don't need any prior knowledge to watch it.
.hack//sign is almost entirely set in an MMORPG (massive multiplayer online role playing game) called "The World". Our main character is an angsty-looking tween-to-teen male Wavemaster (magic user, spellcaster, magician--take your pick) named Tsukasa. The first episode starts with Tsukasa waking up in a dungeon, not knowing how he got there or what happened to him before. Mimiru, a female teenage Heavy Blade comes across him, introduces herself, and asks him if he's okay because he looks SO angsty. Everything about Tsukasa screams emo backstory, right down the oh-so-subtle marks on his cheeks. ANGST, ANGST, ANGST. And yet, while the main character is screaming angst, it's in a very tolerable and somewhat likable way. It's not like, say, Lelouch and his "my mother is dead, my sister is blind, RAWR" kind of way, it's a "everyone hated me so I hate them but I'm really a scared little boy (girl?) deep down". Tsukasa's backstory is actually not something I've ever seen before, and I have to say a little creepy.
Back to the story. Mimiru wonders about the angsty Wavemaster, and happens to run across him again. She tries to be friends, but Tsukasa in his anti-social-yet-likableness, leaves. We eventually meet Mimiru's friend, Bear, a middle-aged male heavy blade; Bear's friend BT, a 20-30something female Wavemaster; Subaru, a I-swear-she-was-an-elementary-schooler-but-is-apparently-the-same-age-as-Tsukasa female... uh... Axe; Also, Silver Knight, her 23-year old sword-wielding protector; Crim, a 20-30something Long Arm (spear); and Sora, a male Twin Blade whose age isn't revealed until the last episode.
For a 25-28 episode series (depending on how you count the OVAs) the pacing is incredibly slow. All the plot revelations could easily be made in 13 episodes. But they take their time to flesh out the characters and give various red herrings and misleading relationships. For example, Tsukasa/Mimiru, the pairing you would most naturally expect... that gets very complicated, indeed, and by episode 10, you think it's not how you thought it would go down in episode 1, and by 25, you're wondering how you ever thought that in the first place. I give the series due credit for not falling into any stereotypical relationship traps, especially with BT, (BT and Bear, BT and Sora, BT and Crim) and with Bear.
If you don't like watching a slow-moving character-driven series, run away. Run far, far away. If you're willing to put up with complicated relationships and NOT KNOWING WHAT IS GOING ON even at the end of the series, sit down and grab some popcorn. There's almost 12 hours of character-y goodness in store for you. (and some nice ideas for cosplayers) It's not your typical anime, that's for sure. Where Code Geass could fit every mold in the book, .hack fits almost none of them. Surprisingly, it was Mimiru who won the battle for my favorite character, not Crim, Bear, Sora, or BT, like I'd expect. There was just something about the very complicated relationship that she had with Tsukasa that I liked. BT would've been my first guess for likable, but even that character type can't always do it for me. Maybe I needed some I-never-had-friends-before-I-met-you-guys kind of thing.
Tsukasa, while not my overall favorite, certainly has his moments. Oh, also, Macha! How can I forget everyone's favorite mysterious cat? There's a cat-player that's around when the trouble starts and is somehow connected. How, you will have to wait until the third-to-last-episode or soemthing ridiculous like that to find out.
In summary, good series, strays off the well-beaten paths of "high school drama", "believe in yourself", "friendship conquers all", "willpower and inner talent beat all competition" and just about anything that would stick it in a genre. There is also a significant lack of inappropriate violence, language, sexual themes, or anything at all. Save for... erm... that one relationship, but I can't really say it's inappropriate, just... mature. I will never recommend this anime series for anyone below 13, and I'd really say 14 or 15 to make sure you'll get everything, but it's not going to scar you for life if you DO watch it.
Rating: A
-Breaks new ground, excellent character development, good story, good animation
-Pacing can be a little slow at times, and confusion about storyline--what just happened? How do things END? Enough gets explained that you can watch it without going totally crazy, but the rest of the loose ends will nag at you for a while.
No comments:
Post a Comment