Anime Rebirth

Review - .hack//Tasogare no Udewa Densetsu

Review by Roriconfan

Prologue
Let’s start our prologue with a warning. Don’t DARE to watch this before SIGN and LIMINALITY (made reviews about those as well, by the way). Not only you will miss the (slight) story continuity but you will also consider it a mediocre series, a thing that is not true.

Let’s proceed with some production info. In the original planning of the .hack project, there was supposed to be a different chapter of the story made for a different form of media: SIGN would be a tv series, LIMINALITY an OVA mini series, the PS2 games a RPG quatralogy and DUSK a manga. The decision to make an anime adaptation of DUSK not only ruined the originality of the project (one chapter per media) but also produced an inferior version of the original story that only damaged the reputation of the series.

And now, let’s end with a little advice… READ THE MANGA! It has a lot more fan service and far better story and characters. The ending is totally different and a lot more satisfactory than in the anime. And not to fail to mention that it has… (SPOILER COMING UP! SKIP THESE LINES IF YOU WANT TO AVOID IT!)

…Aura’s child in it! How could they replace the Dark AI programs with a bunch of sissy hackers and expect us to like it? “It’s a hype trick to make us bitch about it and keep the mythos of .hack to keep going” is most likely the reason. After all “Bad publicity, is also publicity” as they say.

(OK, SPOILER’S OVER. YOU CAN STOP ADMIRING THE SHAPE OF YOUR SCREEN NOW.)

Enjoyment: 6 (8 in the manga)
While the atmosphere of SIGN, LIMINALITY and the games was very serious and psychological, DUSK is totally different. It’s a light-hearted comical adventure, without endless philosophical discussions and total absence of action scenes (ok, the games had plenty of action). And THIS is the reason I enjoyed it more than the others; plain and simple. While the others had a boooooring plot and a slooooow development, DUSK featured fast pace, comedy, action scenes and light ecchi scenes that simply made it more interesting to watch. Not that it was great, though. Half of the jokes were mediocre and the action was quite simple and predictable (DATA DRAIN is a panacea!). But it STILL beats the aforementioned ones.

Story & Value: 5 (7 in the manga)
Four years after the events in the games, two twins, a boy named Shugo and a girl named Rena, (living mostly apart because of their parents’ marriage problems) win the character figure packs of Kite and Black Rose, the characters from the games that stopped the virus from spreading. They decide to play THE WORLD (the game) as a way to be together, even when they are apart (the game is MMORPG). In the game, Shugo is quickly killed by a virus monster but escapes the coma by Aura (the AI from SIGN) who gives him the Kite’s Twilight Bracelet (and a kiss!) and asks him to come and find her. The rest of the story is about learning to play the game, leveling up, making friends and enemies, participating in game events and facing viruses, game administrators and hackers.

The story has continuity with the previous titles mostly through cameo appearances of characters and settings. It is nothing much if seen alone and doesn’t move the story any further than the others did (GRRR!). The ending gets more dark and serious but it feels only as a poor attempt to leave us with a better last opinion about it. Overall, it’s just a superficial retelling/repeating of SIGN and the games. So, its value also drops a lot because of the lack of story originality.

Animation & Sound: 6
Although the setting is THE WORLD, the graphics and sound themes are far inferior to SIGN. That is a bad thing, although they wouldn’t fit the series’ cheery atmosphere, anyway. The artwork is mostly childish and the characters look and talk silly. They are cute and that makes them a bit likeable but that is all.

Characters: 5
No character gets to have a strong personality amongst all this silliness. And as far as character development goes, Shugo, Rena and Balmung (of the games) get more serious and strong-willed in the end, but that is all. Generally, all characters are there just for fun and eventually share the twins’ or Balmung’s opinions (which doesn’t really count as maturity).

Verdict
The accused is found … NOT GUILTY! … His animated adaptation leaves a bad impression but he avoided the penalty by an inch.