Ranked #2379

.hack//Legend of the Twilight

I’d like to start off by saying that I am an avid fan of the .hack series, but have only ever seen all of .hack//SIGN and read/watched .hack//Legend of the Twilight. I am currently collecting all the games and will start playing them soon. Since I have not played the games yet, I am fairly unfamiliar with Kite and BlackRose’s characters, so I may not have been able to appreciate .hack//Legend of the Twilight (which I will call .hack//LOFT for short) to its fullest as the two main characters are based off Kite and BlackRose.

Story- .hack//LOFT’s story follows Rena and Shugo, who have just won character models of the famous .hackers, Kite and BlackRose. Once a high level monster defeats Shugo, he comes into contact with Aura, who gives him Kite’s bracelet. This bracelet allows him to “data drain” essentially any monster to defeat it with ease. The storyline then goes into Shugo and Rena investigating the mysteries behind the bracelet and how they meet other characters during their adventure. The storyline gets a lot more complex when people start falling into comas, as in previous .hack anime/games. I will not go into detail on this point to avoid spoilers, but I can say that I really enjoyed the story line as I got further and further into the series. The anime does an excellent job of luring the viewer into a false sense of security by portraying characters in chibi form, suggesting a simple, childish storyline. I was impressed as the story became more through and multifaceted.

Art- In my opinion, the chibi-style art that .hack//LOFT was animated in did not suit its storyline or many of its characters. This made for some awkward juxtaposition between a serious storyline and light-hearted, childlike characters. Besides this point, I thought the animation and artwork was really well done. The animation was clean and had a polished feel to it. Another pleasant surprise was the fact that the few fight scenes that came up in the series were also well animated. Each character’s movements were clean and fast-paced- a rare occurrence in some anime today where fight scenes are drawn out over the course of several entire episodes and contain extensive dialogue in between attacks. Backgrounds were also well done and had a polished look to them. Their vibrant colours and attention to detail provided visual eye-candy throughout every scene in the anime.

Sound- Overall, the sound in .hack//LOFT left much to be desired. The opening and ending songs were more boring and irritating than anything. All I can remember from them was a typical Japanese female voice droning on far longer than I care to listen to them. The background music was no better; a soundtrack that contains primarily music written in a major key with occasional vocal overdubs is destined to fail. Sound effects weren’t very memorable at all, but one noise I can never get sick off is the noise that sounds whenever a character logs in or out of an area. That particular noise is quite yummy and I am glad that they didn’t change it since the days of .hack//SIGN.

Character- The characters in .hack//LOFT did not feel nearly as developed as they should have been. Perhaps I was spoiled from the ample character development present in .hack//SIGN, but nonetheless, the characters felt fairly two dimensional on the whole. This is especially true for many of the secondary characters who have extremely stereotypical personalities (e.g. Mireille is the peppy and upbeat type, Ouka is strong and distant, Hotaru is caring and king-hearted, etc.) These characters barely, if ever, break their predictable personality traits and do not grow in any way during the series. Even the main characters, Shugo and Rena, show little to no growth during the series. The most growth that Shugo undergoes during the course of the anime is learning to enjoy and like videogames, when he used to think they were boring and for children. Not a very significant realization, if you ask me.

Enjoyment- First of all, a lot of the jokes in the series were very predictable, overdone, and generally not funny. While the chibi-ness of the characters worked as an effective basis for an element of surprise (as I mentioned earlier in the review), it also prevented me from being able to take the anime seriously. While the storyline did get interesting and fairly complex, the chibi-ness of the characters distracted me from much of its intellectual or artistic value. Also, since I read the manga before watching the anime, I was expecting the same storyline as the manga (for those that don’t know, the anime and manga storylines are VERY different). Once the story started to stray from the manga, I lost some interest in the series because it began to feel like one long filler. While the storyline did deserve some merit for its originality, I unfortunately couldn’t shake the feeling that I was watching an extremely long filler- sad, but true.

Overall- .hack//LOFT will be a major disappointment if you are hoping to see an animated version of the manga. However, if you can get over the chibi characters and are looking for an original storyline taking place within the infamous “The World” then be sure to check out .hack//Legend of the Twilight.
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Story

Legend of the Twilight is the next anime following on from .Hack/Sign. I had expected that this series would fill in some of the plot holes from .Hack/Sign but they were only half fulfilled. As someone who has not played the game I have no idea why Kite and Blackrose are famous ... However, Twilight is a tolerable standalone.

Characters

In contrast to .Hack/Sign, the plot moves along at a much swifter pace while the characters develop quickly. There are Shugo and Rena, twin brother/sister who win characters based on Kite and Blackrose. As they're around 14 in real life they act like teenagers. Twilight isn't full of too much philosophical talking since both protagonists are young. This could be a good or bad thing depending on each viewer.

Shugo is brash and caring. I disliked Rena, because of the fact that she spends (I swear!) 80% of the series crying out "Onii-Channnnn!". After 5 episodes of being tortured by her crying out pretty much nothing but that "Onii-Channnnn!" I was about to beat someone with a hammer.

The secondary characters are fun. Ouka (the Werewolf), Sanjuro (the teacher), Mirielle (the rare hunter) - now that, I could understand. Greed and MMORG, they seem to go hand in hand :) Best of all we got to see a lot of Balmumg of the Azure Sky, what a stud! My absolute favorite character from .Hack/Sign gets some serious airtime and ends up even cooler than before. The only one I found annoying was Mr. "Tres Bien".

Art/Animation and sound

The animation was great. If possible, EVEN CUTER than in .Hack/Sign. Cuteness overload. Kawaiiiii! Some frames I had to stop and look again just to appreciate how adorable everything was, even the little widdle Grunty. A lot of the sound/music was copied from the first series so this was nothing remarkable, just average compared to how this anime looked.

Enjoyment

Twilight was short and satisfying. There didn't seem to be much time wasting and the plot moved along at a brisk pace leaving the viewer engaged instead of bored. For this reason alone it deserves a solid 6, enough to prompt me to look for the Offline Meeting Special.
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