Anime Discussion Thread - Page 2201

On July 16 2012 10:08 Southlight wrote:
If Horizon taught me anything, it would be that you can enjoy historical fiction (hue) by just ignoring the historical references.

On July 16 2012 10:08 Zergneedsfood wrote:
[18:02] <wreakhvc> <3 utah
[18:02] <@Seki> :<
[18:03] <KazeHydra> <3 uta
[18:03] <Zergneedsfood> <3 uta
[18:04] <Elem> why are we <3'ing uta
[18:04] <wreakhvc> cause utah rant
[18:04] <wreakhvc> best rant
[18:05] <Zergneedsfood> uta always writes long rants
[18:05] <Zergneedsfood> that are interesting to read
[18:06] <KazeHydra> i wonder if that "sao best anime of year" guy will respond :x
[18:06] <Elem> so
[18:06] <Elem> tl;dr "why cant sao be hack"?
[18:07] <@Seki> no
[18:07] <KazeHydra> no
[18:07] <wreakhvc> no
[18:07] <Zergneedsfood> no

On July 16 2012 09:54 Southlight wrote:
Kay so my head hurts today so I'm completely unproductive but this topic has been bothering me for like two weeks now because people are being all WOOH SO GOOD about it.

I'm a big, big fan of the .hack// series. Not necessarily the individual works, but as a whole the world and premise set forth is comparable to some of the best in terms of contemporary fiction. The premise of .hack// is that an ingenious programmer constructs a world ("The World") which is a giant MMORPG... but behind the scenes a lot of stuff is administered by AI. The crux of the series is the "battle" of sorts between normal people who just want to play the game, normal people who are fascinated by the game, hackers, virii, benevolent AI, indifferent AI, and ultimately, malevolent AI. Through it all you see what is now considered typical (although often forgotten/overlooked) mixture of people of all sorts of backgrounds. It's this setting that .hack//sign attempted to explore and present, and it's the setting and the mixture of all sorts of seemingly random people banding together that makes that anime series what it was. Bear in mind that .hack//sign ran in 2002, a whole ten years ago. MMORPGs in the day were stuff like Asheron's Call, Everquest, and Ultimate Online. The concept of an MMO world being present in ordinary life, even considered mainstream, was absurd. Combine that with the fantasy of augmented reality and you can understand how almost prophetic the .hack// series was.

On the other hand, Sword Art Online intrigued me with its premise. It is a similar one: an ingenious programmer constructs an augmented reality MMORPG. It then locks people into the game, forcing them into a giant social experiment of having to face life or death within the MMORPG. Fascinating. A very interesting thought and social experiment, and it's something that is touched on quite heavily throughout the first volume. The will and minds of people against the brink, having to beat a game amid the conundrum of whether it's even worth leaving. The slow degeneration of certain sects of people into fanaticism as the number of people (players) dwindles. The discrimination against "beaters" (beta + cheaters), or beta-testers who were perceived to have advantages over the ordinary people. It was, in one word, interesting. I loved the first AND second volumes, the latter of which provided the "filler backstory short stories" to the doings of Kirito and what made him charismatic to certain sects of people (while being feared by others, allowing him to remain solo and generally unbothered). Had they swapped the order of the volumes, it would have been even better. Get to know the world, the character, then end it.

That's the problem though, and where the comparisons stop. SPOILER ALERT! Sword Art Online + Show Spoiler + They abandon the entire premise of the world, they abandon the premise, and devolve into a typical MMORPG harem. Eca sarcastically remarked that "her fiance locked her in a game to have her be a dutchwife," or whatnot. It's a pitiful abandonment of what the story had built up to that point, and at that point everything else becomes a plot device.

But Uta, .hack// spans several games, too!

Touche, but the difference is that .hack// doesn't use the different worlds as a plot device. Rather, the different worlds are a logical progression of the consequences of the bloodbath that ensues during the course of each part of the story. "The World" ends soon after .hack//sign because of all the comatose people: the government and such do not react kindly to a dangerous game. This makes sense! It is later that "The World: R2" is created - IIRC like ten years later - thanks to a revamped engine and what programmers hoped was the fixing of bugs - an assumption they would (spoiler alert!) realize was false because the battle between the AI had not actually been ended by simply shutting down The World. This sets the stage for .hack//G.U. in which Aura and Morganna Mode Gone basically go to war. And a fascinating story did G.U. present, as all sorts of random people get sucked into or willingly walk into the AI/virus war out of luck or interest or whatnot. All the motivations, the IRL vs in-game emotions and concerns, they were interesting, and fleshed out the world to be what it was. You can argue that the game was not very good, the presentation was so-so, but the effort was there, and what resulted was a collective beauty.

But SAO? The subsequent worlds become stereotypical shit. That's fine, given that it draws a lot of its material from the stereotypical garbage MMORPGs that have flooded the market. That's probably why people try to compare it to .hack//, as it's a "more contemporary" take at the MMORPG genre, without the marketing drivel that accompanies horrible stuff like Tower of Druaga (although that ultimately decided to fuck it all and run the parody comedy route) and all sorts of anime series titled after MMORPGs. The problem is that you get a cast that is basically all middle school kids (how realistic! oh wait, not) who appear to be ga-ga over the same character (what're the odds, right? must be a Small Multiplayer Online RPG) and seem to live in the same neighborhood (what're the o- oh wait it's just Japan). There's like no consistent plotline, it's just a typical shoujo/shounen-esque pattern where you get one MOB OF THE WEEK(volume) after another. Which, I guess I shouldn't be too critical of given that it's a light novel (wrong set of standards maybe) but all it becomes is just a quirky version of Naruto/Bleach. Whatever floats your boat.

Oh, and Eca, the yuri couple certain was <3 for .hack//sign, but I like all the other stuff too, and I can't recall too many other lesbian couples in the series. I enjoyed the relationship of such as Haseo (especially when you know his background, teehee) and Ovan though, as well as Bear and the rest of the cast in .hack//sign.

On July 16 2012 10:44 Southlight wrote:
His reason for hating Japan is a bit lame. Don't get your hopes too high for that. It's borderline unreasonable.

On July 16 2012 10:11 Tabbris wrote:


So in other words Just watch first season of SAO or read first 2 novels and then stop. Gotcha. To bad i dont have a ps2 to play dot/hack

On July 16 2012 11:16 Southlight wrote:
.hack//sign takes place ~10 years before roots which is a prologue to //gu, which is unfortunately ps2-only.
I believe Twilight takes place shortly after //sign but was not an enjoyable watch, and Liminality was fluff (not good watch, just for info purposes). I forget the rest.