.hack//Root

[Railith]

Anyone been checking this show out? Basically this is a prequel for .hack//GU which is coming out later this year for the PS2.

I've always liked the idea of the .hack shows, but they are usually boring. This seems like a faster paced show from what I've seen, and it's worth checking out.

Here is the Wiki.
Hers is the Japanese site.

 

[Chris]

People usually find them boring because they expect them to be nothing but fighting and such. Today's youth doesn't seem to enjoy an intellectual anime. >_>;

I've seen some episodes of ROOTS, and I love it. Heard Bandai recently licensed the series, so we can expect it to be dubbed quite soon. :x Hopefully they do a much better job, the dubbing of Legend of the Twilight was horrendous (albeit Sanjuro's voice being improved).

And GU looks absolutely amazing, from the clips I've seen. :x

 

[MagicBox]

How was Legend of the Twilight's dubbing "horrendous?" I'm not arguing with you; I just really don't know.

Can't seem to find an episode comparison site...

 

[Chris]

The voice acting was just really badly done. Mainly with Shugo and Rena (who they constantly called "Rayna," even though it was still spelled as Rena). They had some top-notch voices for SIGN and the games (excluding Sanjuro and Mia), but it fell apart with the dub for LotT.

Didn't help Cartoon Network aired it in fullscreen, causing the screen to be squashed since it was originally in widescreen.

 

[Nylf]

Who says anything about not liking intelligent animes?

I watched the whol SIGN series in about three days and loved the 28 episode longs series fom Episode 1 to Episode 28. The character development and plot twists were superb. Though I'd already played Infection, so it was kinda weird, what with Bear lookig like Orca, Tsukasa Elk and Mimiru Black Rose. Though it made the last episode [spoil]where all the .hackers and Signseers got together[/spoil] really funny.

Plus Subaru and Tsukasa's relationship was...well I can't think of a description that won't kill my dignity. I just really liked their relationship.

[spoil]Though with Tsukasa being a girl it was confusing. Since in some later stuff they were revealed to be dating in real life I guess it was technically a lesbian relationsip, but, well that twist blew my mind, I tell you. Blew it clean out my ears.[/spoil]

I saw the first episode of .hack//ROOTS. Looks to be pretty good as well. I've read all about GU and await it's release in the UK. It was a good start, and I want to see the full extent of The Rebirth's power. And his character. That guy's peaked my interest. Just, what are his true motives I wonder?

Oh, and the two cat people characters are so differant it kinda makes me laugh. Ones some serious old guy, the others a hyperactive girl. Though the old guys answer was what caught me most off guard. 'Just killin' time'.

I should watch the later episodes. .hack is brilliant at creting questions in the viewers mind.

 

[Chris]

Uh, Tsukasa and Subaru were just really good friends. They connected really well with eachother because they both had their own problems in real life and had quite a bit in common. Some people just tend to see girly friendships as "ZOMG LESBIANS!" Just the same dolts who assumed the first Pokemon movie trailer of an older Kasumi holding hands with a child automatically made her a lesbian. e_e;

I wouldn't say he's exactly a cat. o_o Looks more like a raccoon, primarily because of the tail. That or a tanooki. Though the catgirl isn't suprising as by that time they would probably have set up characters to be half-animal, similar to Ouka being a Werewolf character.

 

[Nylf]

Actually I'm sure I read somewhere that there was some novelisation which did confirm that Subaru and Tsukasa's operator's were dating in the real world. I'm not saying that they are lesbians because they were just really close, but I'm sure I read it somewhere. Give us a sec...

Yeah, got it. There was a novellization called .hack//ZERO which filled in some gaps about what happened following SIGN. It was mostly about a Long Arm called Curl and it reveals what happened to Sora following the end of SIGN. It also covers briefly what happened to Morganna, Tsukasa and Subaru.

When I first saw it, I wasn't all ZOMG lesbians. Though when I still thought Tsukasa was a guy, well yeah, I would have put something as there. I have to admit I liked the way they saw each other as someone to lean on, so to speak.

I know that girls can have deeper relationships than guys without being homosexual. To be blunt I'm confronted with it every school day. And I'm about the only one in my class who doesn't make jokes about that sort of thing.

And yeah, I'm not surprised either on the animals. It's confirmed that the World:R2 gave the option for characters with animal characteristics. The leader of TaN was clearly another one. He looked like a lion or baboon to me.

I need to rewatch ROOTS. I might've assumed he was a cat when he mentioned his cat pulled out the cable, which made his character disappear briefly. I was more focused on the subtitles at the time.

Plus you see a lot of characters like Tabby and Phyllo in the backgrounds during ROOTS.

I have my suspicions on Tri-Edge. Anyone seen his braclet? Very suspicious in terms of a few details if you ask me.

[spoil]He's missing a bit where BlackRose broke Kite's in .hack//Quarantine[/spoil]

 

[MegaRob]

Uh, Tsukasa and Subaru were just really good friends. They connected really well with eachother because they both had their own problems in real life and had quite a bit in common. Some people just tend to see girly friendships as "ZOMG LESBIANS!"

THANK YOU, you are my hero! My dork of a friend needs to hear this quote, as it's what I've been trying to drill into his brain ever since .hack//SIGN ended.

If this truly is a prequel and NOT an anime version of the upcoming games, then I'm in. The only other bit of info I've heard is that this new series will NEVER be on Toonami due to content reasons? Wonder what it could be.

Also, I pray to God that the terrible William Shatner-esque speech from the dub of .hack//SIGN and the LIMINALITY episodes does NOT return when Bandai releases this in 2007. What can I say, I've been spoiled by the voice direction of the Studio Ghibli films and Funimation's FullMetal Alchemist.

 

[Chris]

Let's just say..it's a little too violent for Toonami. Especially considering the fact that Haseo is a Player Killer Killer (PKK) in the games and has a little fun taking out people. >_>;; I dunno. I haven't seen that many ROOTS episodes, so I can't really say for sure.

SIGN and Liminality had good dubs. Legend of Twilight had quite a nasty one, so I hope it's rather more like SIGN and Liminality. The voices in LoT were rather hideous.

Allow me to also say that Tri-Edge is the creepiest thing I've seen in quite a while.
[SPOIL]The way he even blocks all of Haseo's attacks, even with every weapon he uses, is downright awesome but freaky considering Haseo's fate after the fight.[/SPOIL]

 

[MegaRob]

At least Legend Of The Twilight's voice acting had life; but I still think it had some bad voice actor decisions as well. SIGN and LIMINALITY featured the ever stiff/boring/monotone acting of BT, Crimson Knight, Bear, Crim, Subaru, Tsukasa, etc.
I wanted to love SIGN, badly. The acting didn't do it for me; and with a show that so heavily relies on conversation, the stiffness of the speech left me feeling awkward watching this in front of others. Let's not forget LIMINALITY and it's Oscar winning pause-lines like "What's. Going on Mai? The. World?".

I do agree that these are some pretty intelligent and well-made shows, but the english versions suffer from bad performances I think. And I'm not a "dub hater" at all; I'll watch the english versions of anything as long as it's not a Cardcaptors-type hack job.

Anyway, Edward Elric, you've got me even more excited for .hack//ROOTS. I loved Sora from SIGN, so I'm glad there are going to be more Player Killers.

Which reminds me, I should've picked up the second .hack novel while I was working at TokyoPop. Heard it was good, and features three gentle stories, lol. XD

 

[Chris]

Uh to be fair, SIGN was pretty monotone to begin with even in the Japanese version. The only character that seemed to have any life in 'em was Sora and his crazy *** expressions he'd use when moving around.

ROOTS is definately worth checking out, as is the upcoming GU game. Because of The World being rebuilt from scratch, Player Killers have pretty much returned. Granted that there are PK Killers now, they're also frowned upon for PKing, even if it is done to those who deserve it.

And yes, the second A.I. Buster novel is worth checking out. I'd also give a look at the Another Birth novel series as it follows the games through the eyes of BlackRose and her user.

 

[MegaRob]

Rebuilt, eh? Did something happen to CC Corporation? Why in the blazes would they start over with "The World"? o_o;
More importantly, are they still corrupt?

 

[Chris]

From my understandings, the building that the servers were on caught fire and everything was destroyed except for some data saved in a black box that Herald kept intact. Because of this, they had to rebuild everything. Unfortunately, exiting players had lost their character data and everything since it was all hosted on the servers.

[SPOIL]In said black box, the Phases' data had been in there as well though they now take the form of avatars that are used by several players. Skeith is later on used by Haseo.[/SPOIL]

While the game isn't necessarily corrupt, Tri-Edge is going around and marking areas with "his" signs and Data Draining players that come in contact with "him." And as mentioned earlier, because The World had to be rebuilt, they did not disable the ability to PK players although now they are allowed to do so in coliseum's of sorts which is seen as a sort of sporting event or something. :s

 

[Tri-Edge]

iv learned alot about Roots and G.U., and from what i can tell, Tri-Edge is looking for Ovan(The Rebirth) for some reason. And Tri-Edge dosen't exsactly DD anyone he see's, he did stop attacking Phyllo.

 

[Psy kick]

I don't like .Hack anymore, really.

 

[Satoshi]

I don't like .Hack anymore, really.

And you bumped this up just so you can say that, why? o___O

Anyway, I watched a few episodes of .hack//ROOTS and I'm loving it so far. I can't wait until Bandai dubs and releases the official DVDs (I predict a TV airing first, though), I hope the voice cast is good unlike LoTT and Mimiru in the .hack//SIGN dub (I'd kill myself if they casted Shino with Amanda Winn Lee :x).