Anime: .hack//Roots

Intro
.Hack Roots is similar to .Hack Sign, but you don’t need to watch .Hack Sign in order to understand .Hack Roots. The only thing that needs to be known is that .Hack Roots takes place one year after the events of .Hack Sign.

When I watched the first episode, the closest thing I could compare it to was World of Warcraft (WoW), because there are guilds, leveling up characters, quests, forums, dungeons, etc.

Animation
Animation is the 2nd best category in .Hack Roots. You could tell a lot of effort was put into showing locations and landscapes. There were times when I thought I was playing a game and not watching an anime series. The scenery allowed me to get a better feel for the MMORPG that was trying to be portrayed. The animators did an awesome job with the waterfall, it looked really real for an anime, and probably the best I have seen in an anime series.

The basic animation of the characters is nothing to comment about, because it was fluid and neat.

Sound
Sound is the best category in .Hack Roots. The music is really what brought the average score of this series up, because I really enjoyed the music. In my opinion, the music really flowed and meshed with whatever was happening at the time or even when nothing was happening (aka just talking)

Story
This category was probably the weakest element of this series. .Hack Roots is about Haseo who picked up a game because his friends recommended it to him. A MMORPG, “The World R2”. At first, Haseo is just checking out the game and two of the major guilds in the game start to scout him. He eventually joins one of them which their objective is to find the “Key of the Twilight” (similar to .Hack Sign).

In my reviews I tend to break a series into 2 halves and once again I will break this anime series into 2 halves, because to me it really was broken down into 2 sections.

First Half – This part is when Haseo barely starts playing the game and gets recruited by the “Twilight Brigade”. These episodes were fresh, enjoyable, interesting, and honestly… brought me back to my WOW days, I was thinking “cool, this is so much like the enjoyable days of WOW”.

Second Half – Is when “Twilight Brigade” accomplishes their goal (or think they did) and when Shino gets attacked. From this point, the plot gets really dull, boring, and stagnant. The unpredictability of the 1st half is gone in the 2nd half to very predictable. Haseo which I thought was cool in the 1st half became annoying and irritating in the 2nd half because he just thinks about himself and getting more powerful. You might think, “well, isn’t that the point of all games, to get more powerful”. Normally I would agree, but the way he does it is why I don’t like Haseo in the 2nd half, because he becomes unbearably anti-social and has an ego big enough for 3 people.

Character
Nothing really stood out with the characters in my opinion. The main character Haseo became truly annoying as the series progressed which shouldn’t happen in a good series.

Haseo – Is the person this anime series is focused around. The reason everyone is so interested in Haseo the moment he starts playing the game is because he has the “gift”. Haseo is pretty cool in the 1st half of this series, but then gets annoying in the 2nd half.

Tabby – Is truly annoying because she has this extremely cheerful personality, but then is learned that she is faking it. It’s as if she had a personality of an elementary kid. She always wanted to know what you were doing, and couldn’t take a hint when she was being a bother. For the most part, Tabby is a very useless character but a lot of this series is focused on this character and I really don’t know why.

Shino/Ovan – Are the people that recruited Haseo into their guild in the very beginning of this series. Ovan is a very mysterious person but he is eagerly looking for the “Key of the Twilight” which is said to not exist. Shino is somewhat mysterious because she has a bond with Ovan which is not explained, she just does.

Phillo – I thought was the best character in this series. He was the badger always sitting on top of the bridge. But his point in this series was to give advice, and he gave some great advice and at times fought when needed.

Of course there are other characters, but really not worth mentioning.

Value
At first I enjoyed this series, but as I kept watching this series, I started to dislike or lose interest in it. However, I prefer this to .Hack Sign, I did not like that series from episode 1 to the last episode, but with .Hack Roots, at least I enjoyed the 1st half of this anime series. Overall, I would not recommend this series nor should you buy this series. If you have time and can get this series for free, then you might like it, but I doubt it.

Enjoyment
I heard that there is a game that goes along with this anime and that if you played the game, I might have enjoyed or understood this anime better. But I still think that if I played the game, I still think the same outcome would be the same for this review. It’s funny, because the further I progressed into the anime series the more I lost interested in this series and usually it’s when you’re supposed to be the most into a series.

Conclusion
This is a pass in my book, unless you want to hear great music and sweet animation when it comes to background scenery. But the essence of an anime series, characters and story are what weakened this series or hurt it

The majority of the time when I watched this series, I was thinking of WOW. A lot of people too invested into a game and need to take a chill pill. It’s funny how people kept saying “I need to quit the game”, yet never did.

Anyways, back to .Hack Roots, I would recommend that you pass on this series. But if you enjoyed .Hack Sign or the games, then maybe you might like this series, but I did not.

I don’t like repeating myself, so it would be wise to first read my SIGN review before starting with this one. It is part of the same world and should normally be watched after the main series.

ENJOYMENT SECTION: 4/10 [/u]
Analysis: Art 1/1, Sound 0/2, Story 1/3, Characters 2/4

The plot is still all talking but there is a bit of fighting this time. Nothing major to look at though, I still watched most of it at X8 speed, without missing anything. In all, the dialogues were less interesting but there was some action at times to balance it and maintain my enjoyment in the same levels.

ART SECTION: 7/10 [/u]
Analysis: General Artwork 2/2, Character Figures 1/2, Backgrounds 2/2, Animation 1/2, Visual Effects 1/2

Same quality as in SIGN. They added more cool tattoos and more variety in clothes but all that were not enough to make me consider the result as superior.

SOUND SECTION: 7/10 [/u]
Analysis: Voice Acting 3/3, Music Themes 2/4, Sound Effects 2/3

The music themes are nothing compared to the awesome ones in SIGN but are overall still good pieces. I only found Going Merry to be memorable; all the rest kinda fade away fast. Voice acting and sound effects are still great as before.

CHARACTER SECTION: 3/10 [/u]
Analysis: Presence 1/2, Personality 1/2, Backdrop 1/2, Development 0/2, Catharsis 0/2

- Haseo is the protagonist. He is an antisocial in real life and is quickly targeted by Player Killers in the game, which makes him feel uncomfortable even in the virtual reality. But as the story goes on (in a very slow pace as ever), other Players treat him as special and gets overconfident as his virus/Key Of Twilight powers turn him into a cocky power player. He, like everyone else in the series, is looking for the Key, which presumably is in possession of another Player Killer. When that PK throws a friend of his into coma, his mission gets personal and an entertaining game turns into a violent vendetta.
- The main character is not even close as interesting as Tsukasa. He, like the previous one, is a bit interesting because he has trouble trusting others. But beyond that there are no secrets in his past, has no real importance in the world of the setting and doesn’t change at all throughout the series… No wait, actually he does change. He slowly gets insane with power and revenge. But regrets it in the end (just because someone defeated him) and goes back to square 1… as if nothing happened. Great development there you guys; everything resets like nothing happened.
- This guy turns in one of those shallow heavy-dudes in American action movies. He gets cocky, powerful, revenge is his purpose in life, and everything has to be solved through violence. Jesus, the only thing that was missing was him, kissing a gorgeous girl in the last scene, as the police vehicles arrive to find all the bad guys dead. When not acting like an American action hero, he had some depth. But if you ask me, I say “Bring Tsukasa back you bastards! This one is an ass.” No really, Tsukasa was a likable wimp; this one is a jerk.
- Besides Haseo, all others are there for flavor, as they were in SIGN. Only here they are far less interesting, mostly because they were acting like greedy thieves after the Key and cocky murderers towards weaker players. I found them bad mannered and boring, besides already being cardboards and boring. That small beaver on the bridge was annoying, even after the event of his player’s “departure”. And not to forget to mention that cat girl. I want to strangle all that silly and childish acting of hers! So, she is naïve, has inferiority complex and loves Haseo. WHO CARES?! What does such a ridiculous character doing in a serious series like this? Man, going darker on the cast without making them sympathetic to the viewer is such a drag!

STORY SECTION: 4/10 [/u]
Analysis: Premise 2/2, Pacing 0/2, Complexity 1/2, Plausibility 1/2, Conclusion 0/2

- A few years after the events of SIGN, a fire destroys the mainframe of THE WORLD and the game ends there. The producers simply create THE WORLD 2 and the game continues, like nothing happened. But still, the same events are repeating in here as well, as many are still falling into coma. The Key of the Twilight, the forbidden artifact of SIGN that can alter the very programming of the game and effectively make anything possible, is present here as well and still causes people to permanently lose consciousness. The producers of the game still manage to keep this secret and still order programmers and moderators to secretly “fix” any problems this game has as well. Also, players that use characters possessing bits of the virus codes of SIGN are looking for The Key.
- But the story is more about Haseo’s obsession to get the PK that hurt his friend, rather than finding it for himself. Once again, the series focuses on the main character and leaves aside the whole plot of world threat. Enter Haseo, a character whose player is antisocial, becoming more confident (not social) with every new level he gets and turning against players that hunt / mock / exploit him in order to find a vicious PC. In the end, this bad guy defeats him (thus deviating from those awful American action movies), drops him back to level 1 and his guild master makes him understand his mistake.
- The ending is open again, as you are supposed to play the .hack Playstation 2 game trilogy and watch .hack//G.U. Returner and .hack//G. U. Trilogy to get the full picture. But those are just more marketing tricks to rob you of your money, as they were in SIGN.
- The story suffers, big time. First of all, they killed of all previous settings and characters and left only cameo appearances of them. With the first game destroyed, it’s as if all the characters, AI and struggles done there were for naught! Tsukasa, Mimiru, Aura, Morgana and the rest are as good as dead. I am furious! Then, the scriptwriters add the same fuss of the first series to this one as well. How can The Key and the viruses still exist if the game was made anew? No originality or reasoning here, whatsoever. Perhaps there will be more to it after further games and specials have been made (there goes our wallet!). But until then, I will be considering the story to be as interesting as watching grass grow.

VALUE SECTION: 1/10 [/u]
Analysis: Historical Value 0/3, Rewatchability 0/3, Memorability 1/4

The story of SIGN was awesome; but in ROOTS there is nothing to look at. It feels as nothing but a cheap rehash of SIGN with far less context and interest.

VERDICT: 4.5/10

SUGGESTION LIST
There is no place like. hack//SIGN, there is no place like .hack//SIGN, there is no place like .hack//SIGN (clap the heels).

.hack//Roots does a fairly good job of doing what it sets out to do. However, it primarily set out to show a bunch of dysfunctional characters quietly angsting, so if you don't like that sort of thing I suggest you steer clear.

Animation:
Animation is solid thoughout, with some impressive CG. Has a attractive art style that does a good job of showing that it's an MMORPG, despite not looking anything like any MMORPG I've ever seen. My only real complaint here is that the fight scenes aren't that interesting.

Sounds:
The sound is great. Some of the best music you'll hear in any anime, as expected of Bee Train.

Story]:
The story is liable to be a polarizing aspect. As it's a prequel to .hack//G.U. which is itself a sequel to the original .hack games, certain things don't get explained very well, or, in some cases, at all. Not to mention that the story isn't really resolved.

Despite this, it's an intriguing story with plenty of conflicts that do get tied up.

Characters:

The characters are where it truly shines. Every character of any note has a complete personality. That they managed this without making any of them overly boring or annoying is a testament to the writer's skills.

First of all, the opening and the ending were both interesting. The ending especially, since in many anime's it's calm song unlike in this one.

Mainly the animation was great. Special effects of the game-like experience were left there to give an appropriate atmosphere.
Characters could've been a little more developed, as in the end the plot somehow seems to disappear after the main character is reversed back to level one.

Otherwise the story was fun to follow and to watch. Many different types of characters and players were introduced to the storyline. Yet, they were left partially unused.

I know this one is a short review but I just wished to write it as that short with most of the thoughts that came by during the series.

.Hack//ROOTS. Probly the most lowly thought of the hack animes and imho, the most unappreciated. I rather enjoyed this series and it opened up the gateway to utter impatience for G.U.

ANIMATION
Animation was mediocre and at the same time impressive. The cgi for the gates and a few backgrounds I felt were done rather well, giving W:2 a more mmorpg feeling. The characters, on the other hand, I feel could've been done better. Some looked excellant like Shino and Ovan. Others could've seriously been tuned up such as Sakisaka and Tabby. Also, I found the styles for Haseo to be rather vague and even made him look girlish. And his final Flicker(Flick Reaper) form to be chopped up a lot animation wise. The background, however like stated earlier, was done beautifully in many places. Grima Lowe as well as some other of the Lost Grounds looked gorgeous. The cities were touched up just enough to not annoy the audiences. Overall, it was okay. Nothing too bad. Nothing absolutely amazing.

SOUND/MUSIC
I personally loved the bgm and music for roots. The intro was a veyr nice mellow yet upbeat song done by Fiction Junction Yuuka and she hasn't lost any of her talent with Silly-Go-Round. It does a good job opening up into the series. Nice sounds, good vocals, fits the series, I'd give it a 9/10.
The bgm was both absolutely amazing and annoying. Some pieces were very good and those tended to played more often thank god. The rest just annoyed me but they did their purpose well enough. Many of the vocals of odd bits of songs here and there were all done by Ali Project, a favorite singer of mind so I may giving them more credit than I should, but I rather enjoyed listening to each of the vocals. 7/10 here.
Ending. My personal favorite contrary to most. This is a song you'll either love or hate, end of story. Ali Project fans will fall to it fast (if you liked Rozen Maiden intros, then here's your treat). It's very quick and enigmatic portraying Haseo's insanity very well. It personofies Haseo's later personality and mindset so has a much darker outset. Personally, 10/10. But if I add in other people's opinions, it would probly hover between 5/10 and 7/10.

STORY
This is very hard to rate. The story was impeccable but poorly executed. Probably because it's only a prologue to G.U and didn't at all mind leaving oh so many empty spots just to annoy the audience. The ending is a pure cliffhanger so if you don't plan to play the game, I advise you not to watch this series just because of that. One major flaw was the fact that some scenes were drawn out just to take up time. Such as when Haseo and Sakisaka were charging Ender. It does not take 14 seconds to yell a battle cry and show the woman running up to them. Another was the sorely misplaced...I wouldn't say humor...more like STUPIDITY with Tabby's later antics. It just made me want to kill the producers for putting such an immature Pokemon ripoff like thing in this series, especially in such a dark and cruciel part of the series. However, the characters (and their dilemnas) saved the story and was basically what kept you interested. What is he going to do next? What is he hiding? Why didn't she say so earlier? Who is he? Who is she? What just happened between them? Questions that probably will be the only reason why you're kept on to watch, and they do a good job at it.

CHARACTER
This is where the series shines. The diversity of character and their realisticness. The most amusing and interesting would be Haseo and Tabby. The complete character transformation with these two brings crazy flips and twists into the plot and will make you want to either strangle them, comfort them, or just plain scared of em(in both good and bad ways...) However, the characters are pulled in and pulled out so often without giving good explanation behind them that it gets a bit frustrating, annoying, and even a bit nerve grinding. But once again, only at the price of an element called suspense. Plus most of this was meant to be explained in the game so they apparently didn't mind leaving a lot of gaps. Still, the 3Dness of the characters and how realistic their emotions and dilemnas was really the main reason why I watched this series (that and i'm a hack fan)

VALUE
Little to say. The value I'd say would be pretty good. It did a good job in doing what it was supposed to do: make you want to slaughter the producers for leaving you want to see what happens so much that you have to shell out some green paper to find out. oh fun. But it's still worth watching for hack fans, especially if you plan to play G.U, I'd say it's a must.

ENJOYMENT
Face it. I loved it. The characters were awsome. The music was awsome. Animation amusing enough. But it did have a knack of having a lot of senseless boring episodes smacked in there just to drag things out not to mention it just wouldn't stick to the main reason why people would watch it which was Haseo. Even though he was officially the main, I'd say that he was one of the least shown later on. And considering that he was the big hit, I was very very annoyed with that and I'm sure I won't be the last. These senseless episodes bored the hell outta me which chopped down the enjoyment. After like ep 6, expect the roller coaster to start slowing down and only take a few short loops and have an anticlimatic stop. Personally, this series would've gotten MUCH higher rating if they cut it to 13 eps. Which my ratings are VERY generous. Just watch it yourself and find out and don't judge until AFTER you play the game peoples :P

.hack//Roots was one of the anime I highly anticipated back in April, but to be frank right off the start: It couldn't come up to my hopes. It's mediocre, if not worse.

Story

Haseo has just started playing the MMORPG "The World" and meets the guild leader of the "Twilight Brigade", Ovan, who shows interest in Haseo. Impressed by Ovan's appearance Haseo decides to join his guild in search for the "Key of the Twilight" - a rumoured item, which is supposed to unlock special powers in "The World".
The first half of the story flows in a (still) acceptable speed and is quite variable, fresh, and for some people perhaps even surprising. After that it falls for one of the traps Dragonball Z has left behind. While in DBZ you had characters preparing for the hopefully final strike over the course of 5 or more episodes, in Roots you have a 13 episode standstill of a beaver on a bridge with a whining furry next to it - this is not a joke.
The ending is not satisfying at all. It's like there is a clean sheet to start over from for Haseo.

Rating: 4/10

Character

As far as it seems one of the most important points of the story the creators wanted to convey is the character development. The characters - especially Haseo - live through a rollercoaster ride-like development: It's extreme, but in the end you are there where you started from.
For example: It takes Tabby (the already mentioned furry) more than 13 episodes to realize, that she is in fact useless and then again about 10 episodes to realize, what she can do to not be useless. It's really a pain, because at least a third of the story focuses on her.

Rating: 5/10

Animation

This is where .hack//Roots shines a bit. The art is clean, the characters move smoothly and it only becomes sloppy on rare occasions. Nevertheless you can see they have put more attention to some episodes than others, but that's to be expected in a 26 episode anime.
The funniest thing was when in a later episode a group of more than 100 players attacks Haseo and the camera shows the bystanders, who are describing what is happening.

Rating: 9/10

Sound

The sound sometimes misses the (un)importance of a scene and hence sounds exaggerated, but overall it fits nicely. The soundtrack largely relies on classic music maintaining impressive differences between the single tracks. There are even variations of arias from "The Magic Flute".

Rating: 8/10

Value

This is an anime you should only watch for free. The drawings are nice and the sound is nice too, but the most important parts - story and characters - are as bad as things can get. If you ever consider to buy the DVDs - DON'T.

Rating: 3/10

Enjoyment

From what I've heard you need to have played .hack//GU to fully enjoy this anime. I haven't enjoyed it at all. I thought there would be a major story twist around episode 26 to make it interesting again, but to my surprise the anime ended - great.

Rating: 3/10

.hack//Roots is the most disappointing anime of Spring/Summer season 2006. Avoid it at any cost and don't be deceived by its outer appearance.