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Tuesday afternoon, my work day was disrupted by news from Adam that the anime season has begun in Japan this week. A quick trot over to AnimeSuki confirmed this, as well as the news he told me of the new .hack//ROOTS release that I had been anticipating and of a new Disgaea anime that I had absolutely not been expecting. It’s just a month full of surprises.

Now, I am a very loyal member of the NIS camp. I absolutely adore Disgaea. I am largely pleased with the anime so far. It sounds like they got the same voice actors as for the game and it’s quite obvious that they’re using a lot of the same music. That said, I’m a trifle disapointed in a few places – which, I suspect is the fate of any fan when something crosses media platforms.

My two problems with the show are pretty minor, really. I still have every intention of watching the show and buying it when it comes out in the US (especially if they can get the same English voice actors… making it the first show ever I’ll actually purchase for the sake of the dub).

1. The story is different – I can deal with this. The game’s plot doesn’t translate very well into the sort of format suitable for linear viewing in a television series. Lots of early events are very much gameplay-specific, and there are overt references to leveling up and such. So it makes perfect sense to rip that whole bit out… but they’re doing more than condensing the story, they’re shuffling it.

   Episode one of the anime introduces us to the humans. These characters don’t show up until about halfway through the game… The anime also doesn’t actually introduce Etna (one of the 3 main chars in the game) until the last few frames, and even then, it just shows her in shadows before fading to credits. I don’t appreciate that sort of abuse. Etna’s my favorite. She’s probably the most interesting character in the game. I don’t like the humans. So, a bit upset over that, but she still shows up above the humans in the closing credits, so there is hope…

2. The art is different – Now this one kind of breaks my little heart. One of the biggest draws of Disgaea is the art. It’s incredible. Of the last 6 desktop wallpapers on my laptop here, three have been from the Disgaea universe. While the art in the anime is obviously recognizable… it’s also kind of dumbed down. The characters are (what’s a good word?) fluffier, softer, rounder. They’re poofy. The original art was crisp, with cool shading and sharp lines and angular faces. The anime looks like fan art.

So, after watching Disgaea, I decided to check out the other shows I’d downloaded (had started 8 or 9 torrents of new releases in addition to Disgaea). I’m not really surprised with what I wound up with. We’ve got your basic selection of young girls in short skirts and pointless combat shows. So far, I’m not really impressed with any of the new shows. Except .hack.

Now, I will admit it, I am also a .hack fanboy. I have the ps2 games, anime, the manga, and the novels (and I’ve read them). I own the “dothax0r.com” domain name and was originally developing a database and community site for players of the games (but that project is currently on hold).

I think I liked the new anime. I’m not quite sure yet. But it’s good. It’s much more like SIGN than DUSK (and I liked the former over the latter). That is to say that there are a lot of characters introduced, lots of pretty pictures, lots of dialogue, and not a lot of action. Perspective switches between different factions halfway through conversations and we don’t have the entire story of things.

As is required by law, they say the word 黄昏 (tasogare – twilight) about 50 times during the 22 minute episode. There is a “twilight brigade” guild who is searching for some undefined something. Yup, it’s .hack all right

The story of the first episode revolves around a newbie who’s not really sure why he started playing the game. He keeps getting into PK encounters and refuses to read the manual (which of course only adds to his ignorance and such). He appparently didn’t even choose a character class at creation time – he’s a “multi-weapon”, tho he is dual wielding daggers (which would make him a “twin blade” in .hack parlance) during the brief combat scene at the end of the episode.

In between all of this, there are numerous high level players who are expressing an interest in him. I described one of these encounters to Adam:

(13:51:45) Ammon: people being friendly to newbie are some twilight brigade guild or something
(13:51:50) Ammon: they’re trying to recruit him
(13:51:58) Ammon: and build up enough people to reform guild or something
(13:52:19) Ammon: oh, and the kid’s class is “multi-weapon”
(13:52:21) Adam: Newbie: You are … the chosen one!
(13:52:29) Ammon: “you have a characteristic”
(13:52:34) Ammon: “i have a what?”
(13:52:43) Ammon: “a special characteristic”
(13:52:46) Ammon: “what’s that?”
(13:52:50) Ammon: “i can’t tell you, neener”
(13:52:55) Ammon: “join me”
(13:52:57) Ammon: “what?”
(13:53:06) Ammon: “join me! and together, we will rule the universe as father and son!”
(13:53:09) Ammon: “you’re not my father!”
(13:53:19) Ammon: *bsshhkow*
(13:53:24) Ammon: “aaaargh! why’d you slice off my hand!”
(13:53:26) Ammon: “?”
(13:53:32) Ammon: something like that
(13:53:34) Ammon: only not really
(13:53:44) Adam: Yay!

So, I embelished things a bit, but not by much. I’m hopeful for next week. Maybe I’ll even build up the courage to try a few of these other shows… but my eyes are still recovering from some of the other garbage I’ve already sampled. We shall see.