Month: July 2021

Posted on in anime, Reviews

(REVIEW) The Web That Was and .hack//SIGN

This review was commissioned. That means I was paid to watch and review the series in question. You can learn about my commission policies and how to buy commissions of your own here. This review was commissioned by Rahkshi. Many thanks, as always.

This review contains spoilers for the reviewed material. This is your only warning.

“I am not in front of a terminal.”

.hack//SIGN is what one might call a bit of a difficult anime. It actively demands your patience, and it’s a slow-burner in a way that’s rare nowadays. Hazy and dreamlike, .hack//SIGN asks a lot of questions but is never too quick to provide answers. It engages in meaningful repetition and circuitous, questioning conversations, and is generally light on action. To compare it with most other anime that use the VRMMO plot device is nonsensical, it is more of a piece with Serial Experiments Lain than with Sword Art Online.

It is also very, very of its time. Not in a good way, not in a bad way, but down to its bones, .hack//SIGN would make no sense in the present moment. The Internet as it was in 2002 and the internet now, nearly twenty years later, are incomparable. .hack‘s very premise involves a group of friends in an MMO–itself not really much like any that’s currently popular, not even World of Warcraft, which postdates it by a few years–who know little to nothing about each other’s offline lives. A standard experience at the time, but unthinkable nowadays where ones gender, sexual orientation, race, abledness, mental health, political stances, and so on are generally shared with little illusion of privacy. .hack is, thus, a time capsule.

Asking whether .hack//SIGN is “good or not” then feels irrelevant, it’s like asking whether the ruins of Babylon are “good”. They have a lot to tell us, that’s the important part.

That sense of lost history bleeds into the feel of the anime itself. .hack is a jumble of cryptic conversations, hacker lore, GeoCities pseudo-mysticism, and genuine mystery. It gives the anime a distinct feel. The excellent soundtrack, a unique combination of early aughts dance and world music, helps a lot to sell all this. As does the fact that the rare occasion where “real world” information is revealed is always treated as a major moment, and with only one exception, the few scenes that take place there are bathed in a sepia-tone static filter. Indeed, in terms of reacting to the increasing impact the internet would have on our lives, .hack is as prescient as it is of its time.

Speaking literally, .hack//SIGN is about someone who is trapped in a video game. But this plot device alone is its sole link to the VRMMO genre that it largely predates. The existential wringer that protagonist Tsukasa is put through seems unlikely to prompt the kind of “wouldn’t it be cool if-” hypothesizing that later such stories would eventually inspire. Tsukasa’s exact situation is ambiguous for most of the series; it’s clear he’s stuck in the game but not how or what exactly the ramifications are. Nor is it clear how exactly the mysterious cat-like figure and equally mysterious woman floating above a bed that the series repeatedly returns to factor in.

It does give him one hell of a penchant for (quite justified) angst, but on the whole, the series’ actual plot is very cryptic. This applies even to the end-episode previews, which employ the unique tactic of playing multiple few-second clips simultaneously to an audio background of random noise.

If this all sounds like a little much, that’s because it kind of is. I stand by my statement that the question of whether .hack is “good or bad” is mostly irrelevant, but it’s certainly not a casual watch. I’d go so far as calling it hard to follow in spots, with the show-long quest for the artifact known as the Key of The Twilight being a particular source of head-scratchers. It is all eventually explained, but that it takes so long to get there means that it’s very easy to spend much of the show wondering where this is all going. Being part of a very large franchise, only some of which has ever been available in English, does not help.

Thankfully it’s easier to pick up on less fantastical plot threads. Mimiru and Bear, who make up the other two members of Tsukasa’s “party” of a sort, provide lifelines for those seeking more straightforward character arcs. Mimuru gets Tsukasa to open up (and opens up to him in turn) throughout the series’ first half, while Bear’s strained relationship with his real-world son provides interesting, implied motive for his attempts to mentor Tsukasa. Meanwhile, the semi-antagonistic characters of B.T. and Sora spend much of the show locked in a relationship of trying to intellectually one-up each other that is, at least for me personally, maybe a little too on-point as a reflection of online social dynamics.

And on that note, while .hack’s aesthetics and subject matter remain firmly rooted in its date of origin, it’s eerily prescient in one respect. Throughout much of the series a plot thread about in-game group The Crimson Knights bubbles under, only coming to a head in its final third. The Knights, especially their collective mouthpiece Silver Knight, are a spot-on reflection of the attitudes of online authoritarians, down to Silver Knight’s angry insistence that Tsukasa is a law-breaking “illegal” rather than a victim. Toward the end of the show he eventually mellows out, but the point remains.

Subaru, the Knights’ ostensible leader, is another character who benefits from a fairly grounded relationship with Tsukasa, and her sympathy for him puts her at odds with the rest of the Knights. The two eventually grow close, and a scene in the nineteenth episode where Tsukasa comforts a crying Subaru (who, as we see in a rare cut to the real world, is crying there too), sticks in my mind as one of the show’s most genuine and emotional moments.

There’s also a dash of Gender in here, something that wasn’t super common at the time and remains rarer than it ought to be today. It’s a nice touch.

Moments like this allow .hack//SIGN to bundle together a solid core by its end. If you’re the sort that likes found family stories, .hack‘s concludes with (among many other things) one character literally offering to adopt another. You can’t get much more literally “found family” than that.

So, while parts of it are confusing and while the series is overall slow, it’s really hard to dislike this show. .hack‘s aesthetic and story beats anchor it firmly in the year of its release, but tales about groups of misfits who help each other through hard times over the internet are arguably even more relevant now than they were in 2002. What is The World but a souped-up Discord server, after all?

If you like my work, consider following me here on WordPress or on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work on Anilist or for The Geek Girl Authority.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

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Posted on in anime, Weekly Writing Roundups

The Frontline Report [7/25/21]

The Frontline Report is a weekly column where I briefly summarize the past week of my personal journey through anime, manga, and the related spheres of pop culture.

I’ll be straight with ya, folks. It’s my second week of battling what I’m like 99% sure is mono, so I haven’t had the most energy for anime-think-about-‘ing. Still, I hope the three brief paragraphs below on some airing seasonals will give you something to contemplate. Let me know what you think in the comments!

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Blue Reflection Ray – Call it the little show that could, the most unsung anime of 2021, or whatever you will. Fifteen episodes into its two-cour run, Blue Reflection Ray decided to drop one of the most delicate episodes about depression I’ve ever seen. Sadly, I think it will probably go mostly-unwatched, like the rest of the anime has been. Is there any hope that this thing might find the audience that would appreciate it, this late in the game? It’s hard to say. I’m not optimistic, but it doesn’t diminish the quality of BRR itself. Shine on, girls.

Kageki Shojo!! – Is it fair to call Kageki Shojo!! “complicated”? It feels fair. There’s a distinction between wanting to tackle difficult, complex subject matter and actually doing so, and I’ve kinda been worried up to this point that Kageki Shojo!! would fall on the wrong side of that divide. The series has a really unfortunate tendency to have male characters support its primary, almost entirely female, cast in a way that feels somewhat detrimental to both. Consequently, it can feel contrived at times. But on the other hand, if you’re willing to reckon with this flaw the point remains that Kageki Shojo!! is dealing with some really heavy stuff and it’s not holding back in doing so, and I think that’s commendable. This week’s episode, the fourth, is probably the best of the series so far, and is the first to markedly develop the leads’ relationship. I’m hoping it’s a sign of things to come.

Sonny Boy – Sonny Boy is the rare anime I feel underqualified to discuss. It draws on an obvious, long lineage (one I’m mostly unfamiliar with) of “society in a jar” stories that dates back at least as far as Lord of The Flies. (And in anime and manga, at least as far as The Drifting Classroom.) I’m not really super familiar with this stuff, so it’s hard to gauge how “original” Sonny Boy truly is in this regard. But what it’s not hard to gauge is how interesting the show is, in addition to the central mystery I’ve been really impressed with the brilliant little loops the show’s character writing keeps creating. The way it’s edited is doing a lot of the heavy lifting here, but that’s not a bad thing, and it keeps everything coherent even with such a huge cast.

If you like my work, consider following me on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work on Anilist or for The Geek Girl Authority.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Weekly Writing Roundups

The Frontline Report [7/18/21]

The Frontline Report is a weekly column where I briefly summarize the past week of my personal journey through anime, manga, and the related spheres of pop culture.

It’s been a while! Yes, this is the spiritual successor (or whatever you’d care to call it) if my old Weekly Round-up posts. I want these to be more casual in tone, and they’ll often be on the brief side, but I do want to keep everyone up to date on where I’m at lately, anime-wise. First though, the seasonals that’ve been on my mind this week.

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The aquatope on white sand – I wrote a column earlier this week detailing how I found myself unexpectedly relating to aquatope’s main character, Fuuka. I have to say I’m pleased that I’m vibing with the show a bit more now than I was when it first premiered. I wasn’t quite as blown away as most folks seemed to be, but I do think this will be a good anime, and its two-cour length gives it time to stretch its legs. No rush, y’know?

Girlfriend Girlfriend – I kind of still don’t entirely know who this show is for. I have seen it praised as a crucial step for bringing polyamory into the public conversation and also disparaged as a completely empty male power fantasy. Personally, while I don’t dislike the show, it is definitely in the lower half as far as my early personal seasonal rankings. Less because of any moral qualms I have and more just because the comedy really likes to skirt right up to the edge of “obnoxious”, and sometimes goes over it.

Sonny Boy – This just debuted this past week, and it’s easily the strongest opening episode of the season. The premise is a fairly direct riff on The Drifting Classroom, but it’s stark, abstract visual style is what’s really going to win people over here. Seriously consider checking this out, a half hour isn’t much to ask for something this intriguing.

The Detective is Already Dead – A recipe for a hospital visit: take a shot any time this show drops its own title or someone is referred to as a “legendary detective”. Detective probably qualifies as the season’s oddball. If you’re more cynical than I am you can go ahead and upgrade that to “trainwreck in progress”. As a character-driven mystery, Detective is pretty pat. As a series with no clear endgoal in sight and no method of achieving anything it might want to, it’s borderline mesmerizing. As the second episode in a row that consists mostly of characters talking circles around each other and very little actually happening, it’s probably safe to say this is a series that’s fallen off most peoples’ radars. I intend to stubbornly stick with it even as the only reference points I can reach for turn into Blast of Tempest and In/Spectre. I will never claim I know what’s good for me.

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Elsewhere, I finished Fate/Zero this week after watching it a few episodes at a time over the last several. (I did a little live-tweeting of it if that’s your thing. Obviously spoiler-laden, though.) I haven’t seen enough of the Fate franchise to know if its reputation as the best-written iteration of it is entirely earned, but the show is definitely very, very good. A common thread among Fate media is characters having their worldviews challenged, and that’s ramped up here to having them just straight-up destroyed. With one exception, everyone goes through the wringer here and for that reason I wouldn’t exactly call it an easy watch, even if I do think it’s a worthwhile one.

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And as far as actual anime, that’s about all for this week. It’s been a rough one personally speaking with troubles around the apartment and such, so I haven’t had quite as much energy as I’d like. Still, I hope this return of the weekly roundup posts (under a slightly different name!) excites you. My hope is that there’ll be many more to come.

If you like my work, consider following me on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work on Anilist or for The Geek Girl Authority.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.

Posted on in anime, Other Posts, Seasonal Impression Roundups

The Dream is Over – Brief Personal Reflections on THE AQUATOPE ON WHITE SAND

The two girls met in the ruins of damaged dream

When I was eighteen, I wanted to be a rap producer. In hindsight, with the self-awareness I now have nearly ten years later, it was a stupid idea. Like a lot of people whose ambition far outstrips their capability, I went to school for this doomed little fantasy. Perhaps predictably, I barely lasted six months, and a decade on the only thing I have to show for this part of myself that I mostly keep buried from public view is a lengthy bandcamp page of music no one listens to and a cloud of student debt that will loom over me for the rest of my life.

I bring this personal anecdote up not to needlessly self-deprecate, but to explain something about The aquatope on white sand, and how I find myself unexpectedly relating to it. Fundamentally, most popular fiction that deals with aspiration deals with fulfillment of that aspiration. It makes for an easy-to-plan story arc and it concludes in a satisfying ending. Your protagonist(s) want to become a dancer, or a singer, or an actor, or whatever. Across some amount of story-units, they struggle and fight, that distant mountain still in reach, and they eventually achieve their dream. In anime a common manifestation of this particular story-type is that of the idol anime genre (of which there is one airing right now), relevant here because aquatope‘s protagonist, Fuuka Miyazawa, is a former idol.

And that “former” is very important here. Fuuka begins aquatope with her brief career as an idol already in the past tense, her departure from the industry uneventful but bitter. (Its depiction in the first episode reminded me no small amount of one-off character Mana in Oshi No Ko.) She is adrift for much of the first two episodes, eventually settling in with the other lead, Kukuru Misatino, simply because the latter is willing to take her in. She’s hired by Kukuru’s aquarium, which is in financial tatters, and threatens to close at the end of the summer season.

At the tail end of the second episode, Fuuka realizes that even if she cannot fulfill her dream, she can help Kukuru with her aspiration of keeping the aquarium open. Where all of this will eventually go is not yet clear–aquatope is planned for a nowadays-rare two cours, so it has plenty of time to stretch its legs–but it’s clear that the series fundamentally understands that Fuuka’s renewed sense of purpose here is just as valid as her original goal to become an idol. That’s important, because the easy thing to do here would be to try to route her back into the industry, and treat that as the only valid form of “fulfillment”. That aquatope doesn’t do that is an excellent sign. (And gives me a lot more faith that its supernatural elements, which I haven’t mentioned up ’til now, will have some greater point, as opposed to merely being window dressing.)

Also, I suppose, naive as it may be, that I just see a commonality between myself and Fuuka. Criticism, or at least the mode of criticism I prefer to write in, is nothing if not the promotion of someone else’s dream. Uncountable hours go into any even remotely professional anime production, it is not a stretch to say that one making it to screen is the culmination of not just one dream but many. My approach makes for decidedly less interesting television, of course.

In its attitude toward Fuuka we find the first traces of what I suspect aquatope will eventually forge into its core thesis; the idea that in selfless lifting up of others’ passions one can find a way to rekindle, or reshape, their own. I am quite confident that by the series’ end, Fuuka will have found something new that fulfills her and brings her life meaning. And, yeah, I do relate to that, as someone who has turned this strange hobby that I picked up on a whim into a kind-of career without ever consciously planning to, I empathize with Fuuka quite a lot.

Beyond my own personal emotional mire; character writing this delicate is a rare thing, and while plenty of anime are good natured, not nearly as many can work in shades of compassion that are this subtle. aquatope is one to keep your eye on.

If you like my work, consider following me on Twitter, supporting me on Ko-Fi, or checking out my other anime-related work on Anilist or for The Geek Girl Authority.

All views expressed on Magic Planet Anime are solely my own opinions and conclusions and should not be taken to reflect the opinions of any other persons, groups, or organizations. All text is owned by Magic Planet Anime. Do not duplicate without permission. All images are owned by their original copyright holders.