Let me preface this by saying so far, it's not bad. I like it, it reminds me of .hack and much of it has great art. However, this review is based off the first episode, and the first episode alone. I'm not reading the light novels, the manga, or anyone's fanfiction. I don't have the time at the moment to engross myself in a world that hasn't impressed me enough based on the actual episode content
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Let me preface this by saying so far, it's not bad. I like it, it reminds me of .hack and much of it has great art. However, this review is based off the first episode, and the first episode alone. I'm not reading the light novels, the manga, or anyone's fanfiction. I don't have the time at the moment to engross myself in a world that hasn't impressed me enough based on the actual episode content yet.
The episode itself is decent. The plot is standard .hack, lots of characters, big mmo, characters get trapped in mmo, and the line between reality and virtual blurs with consequences for each bleeding through. They take the time to make it look like more of a video game than .hack. That's pretty awesome. The scenery is breathtaking, and the weapons are pretty cool looking, even though I'm going to knock off a point because you have be trying to not make a sword look cool.
Where it sags a bunch is in the content: None of the time is spent giving the villain a back story(maybe they expect me to know from all the other material, but that's inexcusable if you're going to make a series, YOU NEED TO SPELL IT OUT. They didn't expect you to know who Piccolo was in DBZ or even to have watch DB. That's what made it successful). None of the time is spent giving the main character much of a back story, and to be honest I can't remember his name. Heck, he doesn't even do anything to stand out among anime protagonists. He's not really courageous, he's not kind, he's just kind of there. He's a blank personality besides being really socially awkward. How am I supposed to believe he's going to save over 9,700 people? Because he's a gamer? Cool story bro. I just plain don't, and 3 second flashes of his real body and home aren't going to build him up. Likewise, I don't understand why I need to care about the thousands of people trapped in here. There's a government out there, and the United Nations monitoring parts of the internet at least. You think for a second this would work in real life with all the patents and safety issues? No. It's a bit too absurd for my suspension of disbelief. And I'm a guy who's seen guitars and robots come out of a teenager's head.
The biggest problem is the pacing. There's these big, sprawling environments that are epic-ly gorgeous, and yet not a thing happens. Even when the big bad appeared, all he did was show some after effects and make the sky red. He didn't sit down and make anything exciting happen at all. I mean, for the first episode, not a lot was done to hook me, as little information has been given to engross me in the world, and yet very little action is there to draw me back with excitement. I'll give the next episode a try, but I'm not going to call this episode as a stand alone experience a home run, more of a bunt. If it goes somewhere really cool, I'll look back over it.
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