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MUSHY_ROOTS

                                             May    26, 2009
                                             August 27, 2013

  There is a depth of badness out there that goes far
  beyond any hope of redemption even as kitsch --

  No alternate point of view is plausible by which
  someone, anyone, might find it acceptable.             Though if I remember
                                                         right, some people
  One example: the $3 anime DVD:                         do defend this anime.

    ".hack//Roots"                                       There are mysteries.

  a collection of five episodes from 2006/7
  (notably, well post-matrix).

  It's set entirely inside a virtual reality game
  called "The World", which immediately creates a
  problem: games, almost by definition are things
  that don't matter: getting someone interested in
  a story about playing a game is a difficult (though
  by no means impossible) trick -- there's an extra
  barrier there that the authors needed to think their
  way through.

     Now, by episode 3 or 4 they do get around
     to mentioning that there's something peculiar
     about this "game", it's somewhat non-deterministic,
     "autonomous", or somesuch -- there are "lost" places
     that appear occasionally that seem to be dead space
     as far as the game goes (monster-free), and there
     are these features of an earlier version of the game
     that are popping up here and there.

     The odds are pretty good that where they're going is
     (a) the players take over the game -- ala Neo of
     the Matrix, and (b) the game isn't just a game, it
     has some higher significance than that.

        The trouble is that before you get to those
        developments, you need to do something to keep
        the viewer engaged, and it just isn't there.


  The main character, appropriately enough, seems fairly
  dubious about why he's playing the game.  The various
  answers you might suppose -- he's heard something
  interesting about the game, and is exploring it out of
  curiosty; he's capricious, and does absurd things on a whim --
  aren't played up.  He seems like a stoned, confused
  teenager throughout.

  I submit that the problem is that the author's themselves
  weren't sure, and hadn't made up their minds.

  Evidence for this can be found in the
  dialog which goes looping around the       And the Fight scenes are
  same questions over-and-over.              all completely prefunctory,
                                             despite the fact that
     Character A asks a question,            they're supposed to be
     Character B says "I don't know".        central to the game.
     Character A responds:
     "What, how can you not know?"
     Character B shrugs helplessly.

     And so on.

     Repeat over and over again.

     "But why did Ovon do that?"  "I don't
     know. He's very *mysterious*", "Do you           I can remember having
     think he really believes in that?",              this kind of "fear of
     "It's hard to say", "Do you believe in           commitment" in writing
     it?", "I don't know."                            back when I was a
                                                      young teenager.

                                                         It's remarkable
                                                         when something
                                                         like this makes
                                                         it as far as it






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