In their attempt to infect every form of Japanese media, the creators of .hack// decided to do a manga. While it wasn’t a bad idea, the final product kinda makes me want to kill the entire .hack// series with a butter knife.
A quick summary: Shugo and his sister Rena are newbie gamers in ‘The World’, an MMORPG played with cool headsets. Rena won a set of legendary character designs for them to play with, but those designs don’t help them in a battle against a giant monster- Shugo gets killed trying to protect Rena.
And THEN he gets brought back to life by a mysterious young girl who kisses him and gives him a magical bracelet. Pure lolibait. When he wakes up, Rena has been rescued by a hot swordsman, who’s actually an administrator (but the kids don’t know that, of course.) So Shugo and Rena set out to investigate the weird things that have been happening in ‘The World.’
Though the above scenario is mildly cliched, it sounds interesting… but then nothing happens the entire first volume. Other characters (mostly female) are introduced, but we get almost NOWHERE in Shugo and Rena’s quest to solve the final mysteries of ‘The World. The first volume is basic harem crap, with a Tanabata festival chapter and an item-hunting chapter. Tiny bits of information are sprinkled in the chapters, but things don’t really pick up until volume 2.
And the characters themselves don’t help matters, either. Shugo’s pretty much your standard harem victim hero, with his ‘I wanna be strong and protect Rena!’ attitude, and Rena herself is pretty boring when she’s not scolding Shugo for being a perv. Mireille is a hyperactive treasure hunter (though we get to see a different side of her in volume 3), Hotaru is a cutsy, kind-hearted player from the United States, and Ouka is your standard buxom warrior chick. The only character that I have some liking for is Komiyama, a nerd from Shugo’s math class who plays as ‘Komiyan the Third’ and has a crush on Rena.
In volume 2, we meet the odd, clingy and somewhat dangerous daughter of Aura (the chick who Shugo kissed in volume 1) and Shugo has to help her find her mom. Then some administrators start chasing Shugo because they think his bracelet (that Aura gave him) is a cheat item. Komiyama turns Shugo into the authorities and accidentally gets Rena involved. Then volume 3 turns the standard RPG-type fare on its head… and I won’t really say what happens for fear of spoilers. I will say, though, that volume 3 almost makes up for volume 1.
Nothing, however, can make up for the occasionally sloppy art that infects all 3 volumes. Eyes get lopsided, lineart gets warped, and there’s a ton of SD and chibis. At its best, the art can make a scene’s mood more intense, and really bring the characters to life, but that happens pretty rarely.
I often get the feeling that the .hack// manga was made to cater to gamers. Average manga fans won’t get too much out of this cliched, half-baked series. If you just read the third volume, you might end up liking it. Maybe.
CJ’s rating: 4.5 out of 10 California rolls
Possibly objectionable content: Crazy amounts of fanservice and anything else you’d normally find in a harem series. Of course, there’s also blood (it’s an RPG, heh-llooooo) but ther’s no cursing that I can remember. 13+ is Tokyopop’s rating, but I wouldn’t let anyone under 14 read it.
It was an okay manga set but the games are better, both the first 4 games, and now the GU Trilogy. The GU manga is set to come out early 2008, will you buy or just review those?
I’ve heard that GU was the best .hack// game series yet; perhaps I’ll buy that if I can… Thanks for commenting! :)