I'm thankful for anime, take 4!
Top 3 territory! I'm sure everyone is completely on the edge of their seats, wondering which three episodes receive Herongale's coveted TOP ANIME EPISODES OF ALL TIME status.
I'm sure. I'm totally sure.
3. .hack//Sign, episode 19, Recollection
now you are watchin' us outside the circle
wanna be in the company
boy, but you are lonely
dance with nobody
run away child, to your hiding place
The cold, distant opening refrain of "in the land of twilight, under the moon" overlays the very first scene, and it is a peculiar little piece of music that is woven through this entire episode. Yuki Kajiura is one of the most celebrated composers of anime music, and this is one of her most powerful works. It perfectly captures the weird, idiosyncratic appeal of .hack//sign. Forget about the .hack franchise; you don't need to have any interest in console games OR online games to find this series engaging, heartbreaking, moving: whatever superlative adjectives I have not yet beaten into submission by my increasingly effusive praise.
.hack//sign is the story of a player of an online game, The World, who is unable to log out. In fact, the player-- Tsukasa-- has lost all connection to his physical body back in the real world, which has been left in a coma while he wanders the online game, experiencing things that seem impossible and are quite frightening; everything that happens to him is something that he can actually feel. The mystery of how this happened, including the story of the players who all came together to help solve the mystery and give Tsukasa the ability and strength to leave the game, is the central driving force behind the series.
This episode gives us the backstory of Subaru, the player character who is the leader of the in-game organization known as the Crimson Knights. It is the purpose of the Crimson Knights to promote peaceful gameplay, which they do by logging public in-game interactions between characters and reporting any ToS violations to CC Corp, the real world business which runs the game. The World is a future perfect version of World of Warcraft; a MMORPG in which people fight monsters and perform quests with other online players, and the organization of the Crimson Knights has no true regulatory power: basically, they are characters who roleplay as law enforcement, but who have no actual administrative access.
In the previous episodes we have seen the power struggle between Subaru and her second-in-command, the Silver Knight, evolve. Subaru had founded the organization under very idealistic principles, but also with a realistic understanding of what she could and could not do. She had no desire to expand the in-game power of the Crimson Knights, but the Silver Knight clearly did. Tsukasa was seen as illegal player, and many irregular things were happening in the game; the Silver Knight himself had been briefly put into a coma because of an attack by one of these irregular events. Among other things, the Silver Knight wished for access to player's real world information, and he went behind Subaru's back in order to petition for it.
Everything comes to a head in episode 18, just prior to this one, when Subaru and the Silver Knight have their final confrontation. He thinks he has triumphed, but CC Corp had written back to her, denying the Silver Knight's request. And when he continued to press for more power, she took the only option left to her: she disbanded the Crimson Knights.
Episode 19 tells the story of Subaru's relationship to the world. Her first interaction with Krim is revealed, when he tells her that there is gossip about her on the BBS (the off-game online forum for OOC discussion of The World), talk of a player who logs on for vast amounts of time but who spends almost no time trying to level, and who instead just wanders around, hardly interacting with anyone, or anything. Because Krim is a valiant kind of person who plays the game by helping out players in need, he sought her out to see if she needed any assistance. Krim is another player we have gotten to know through previous episodes, and from them we saw that he and Subaru had been friends but had subsequently had a falling out; in this episode we finally receive the details of how that friendship evolved, and it all started here, when Krim seeks her out. Because as he is talking to her, asking her what she wants to do in The World, they are overtaken by a group of PKs (Player Killers), who intend to take Krim and Subaru on in a fight.
Krim is willing to fight, but before that happens Subaru steps forward and asks the PK players to let them be, telling them that she doesn't want to fight and would like just to be left alone. She obviously is unskilled and has no ability to defend herself; the logical thing would be to run away if she could not fight. But, see, this is really the only thing she wants out of The World... the ability to wander around, without being molested. Krim immediately sees this, and so when the PKs make as if to ignore her, he holds out his staff and tells them that if they will not heed the request of a lady, he will not be so gentle as to ask.
This is the basic foundation of the Crimson Knights; others hear of this event, and because there are players who agree with Subaru's point of view, they come to her requesting to join her in her fight to help counter the influence of the PKs, using legal means to protect the game for people who want to play without having to worry about fighting other players. The episode shows us Silver Knight's original joining of the group, and the eventual split in philosophy between her and Krim, because for him, it never stopped being a game, and he did not want to take on any responsibilities which would ruin the fun. So he left, but... in one of the most lovely scenes in this series, he offers her a "magic spell."
Cut in between these flashbacks, we see Subaru in current time, now just a regular player, wandering aimlessly through the world. She hears people gossiping around her, wondering if she is "the" Subaru or just a pretender, speculating that the "real" Subaru had become tired of the game and had just quit. Eventually she wanders into an empty field in the game's wilderness, and there she encounters another player with a similar avatar style to her one. This player strikes up a conversation with Subaru, and soon it becomes clear that she knows that she is speaking to the real Subaru. It also becomes clear that she is a PK, and she insinuates that Subaru had finally stopped being so uptight, and wondered if she and Subaru could be friends. Although she phrased it as an invitation, in reality she was trying to bully Subaru into a friendship, with the threat that she would PK Subaru if Subaru didn't comply.
It is at this point that we get the back end of her flashback regarding Krim's "magic spell," which turns out to be his real life phone number. He offers it to her as an expression of real friendship, telling her that he is willing for her to call him at any time if she ever needs him.
See, Subaru is the kind of person who never asks for help. in real life she is a young girl with a serious (but unspecified) illness, one which leaves her crippled and wheelchair bound much of the time, and which occasionally sends her to the hospital because of exacerbations of her problems. I can't say for sure, but my guess is that she has a less benign version of multiple sclerosis, the relapsing remitting type, but in any case one which causes her variable levels of difficulty moving. She comes to The World because it is the one place where she can walk, and even run, free. Where she can feel "normal," and ignore for a while her problems. And she is also the kind of person who refuses to burden others with these problems; it is only when she becomes very close to Krim that she even begins to hint that she has problems.
Writing it all out, without the eerie musical backup, without the careful intercutting style of storytelling used to build suspense, this episode sounds a lot less affecting than it really is. But throughout, we get to see how strong Subaru is, both as a character and as a human being. And thus it is a measure of her strength when, in the end, she confronts the PK who is trying to forcibly befriend her, telling her that she can kill her as she wishes, but then she won't be able to post triumphantly about her encounter on the BBS, where apparently it is not allowed for people to openly brag about PK encounters. And then, after she is PKed, she wanders to the place where Tsukasa has been waiting for her, her player costume all frayed and her hair mussed, and when he sees her dishevelled state he runs up to her, alarmed, and she asks for him to hold her, telling him that the one who has been waiting all this time is her.
Her bond with Tsukasa... her willingness to be open with him about everything, including her weaknesses... this shows the new direction she has taken in her life, and how she has grown as a human being. Subaru is not real, but my admiration for her strength of character as well as my admiration for her ability to open her heart at last, make her not only one of my favourite characters, but also a personal inspiration.
I'm sure. I'm totally sure.
3. .hack//Sign, episode 19, Recollection
now you are watchin' us outside the circle
wanna be in the company
boy, but you are lonely
dance with nobody
run away child, to your hiding place
The cold, distant opening refrain of "in the land of twilight, under the moon" overlays the very first scene, and it is a peculiar little piece of music that is woven through this entire episode. Yuki Kajiura is one of the most celebrated composers of anime music, and this is one of her most powerful works. It perfectly captures the weird, idiosyncratic appeal of .hack//sign. Forget about the .hack franchise; you don't need to have any interest in console games OR online games to find this series engaging, heartbreaking, moving: whatever superlative adjectives I have not yet beaten into submission by my increasingly effusive praise.
.hack//sign is the story of a player of an online game, The World, who is unable to log out. In fact, the player-- Tsukasa-- has lost all connection to his physical body back in the real world, which has been left in a coma while he wanders the online game, experiencing things that seem impossible and are quite frightening; everything that happens to him is something that he can actually feel. The mystery of how this happened, including the story of the players who all came together to help solve the mystery and give Tsukasa the ability and strength to leave the game, is the central driving force behind the series.
This episode gives us the backstory of Subaru, the player character who is the leader of the in-game organization known as the Crimson Knights. It is the purpose of the Crimson Knights to promote peaceful gameplay, which they do by logging public in-game interactions between characters and reporting any ToS violations to CC Corp, the real world business which runs the game. The World is a future perfect version of World of Warcraft; a MMORPG in which people fight monsters and perform quests with other online players, and the organization of the Crimson Knights has no true regulatory power: basically, they are characters who roleplay as law enforcement, but who have no actual administrative access.
In the previous episodes we have seen the power struggle between Subaru and her second-in-command, the Silver Knight, evolve. Subaru had founded the organization under very idealistic principles, but also with a realistic understanding of what she could and could not do. She had no desire to expand the in-game power of the Crimson Knights, but the Silver Knight clearly did. Tsukasa was seen as illegal player, and many irregular things were happening in the game; the Silver Knight himself had been briefly put into a coma because of an attack by one of these irregular events. Among other things, the Silver Knight wished for access to player's real world information, and he went behind Subaru's back in order to petition for it.
Everything comes to a head in episode 18, just prior to this one, when Subaru and the Silver Knight have their final confrontation. He thinks he has triumphed, but CC Corp had written back to her, denying the Silver Knight's request. And when he continued to press for more power, she took the only option left to her: she disbanded the Crimson Knights.
Episode 19 tells the story of Subaru's relationship to the world. Her first interaction with Krim is revealed, when he tells her that there is gossip about her on the BBS (the off-game online forum for OOC discussion of The World), talk of a player who logs on for vast amounts of time but who spends almost no time trying to level, and who instead just wanders around, hardly interacting with anyone, or anything. Because Krim is a valiant kind of person who plays the game by helping out players in need, he sought her out to see if she needed any assistance. Krim is another player we have gotten to know through previous episodes, and from them we saw that he and Subaru had been friends but had subsequently had a falling out; in this episode we finally receive the details of how that friendship evolved, and it all started here, when Krim seeks her out. Because as he is talking to her, asking her what she wants to do in The World, they are overtaken by a group of PKs (Player Killers), who intend to take Krim and Subaru on in a fight.
Krim is willing to fight, but before that happens Subaru steps forward and asks the PK players to let them be, telling them that she doesn't want to fight and would like just to be left alone. She obviously is unskilled and has no ability to defend herself; the logical thing would be to run away if she could not fight. But, see, this is really the only thing she wants out of The World... the ability to wander around, without being molested. Krim immediately sees this, and so when the PKs make as if to ignore her, he holds out his staff and tells them that if they will not heed the request of a lady, he will not be so gentle as to ask.
This is the basic foundation of the Crimson Knights; others hear of this event, and because there are players who agree with Subaru's point of view, they come to her requesting to join her in her fight to help counter the influence of the PKs, using legal means to protect the game for people who want to play without having to worry about fighting other players. The episode shows us Silver Knight's original joining of the group, and the eventual split in philosophy between her and Krim, because for him, it never stopped being a game, and he did not want to take on any responsibilities which would ruin the fun. So he left, but... in one of the most lovely scenes in this series, he offers her a "magic spell."
Cut in between these flashbacks, we see Subaru in current time, now just a regular player, wandering aimlessly through the world. She hears people gossiping around her, wondering if she is "the" Subaru or just a pretender, speculating that the "real" Subaru had become tired of the game and had just quit. Eventually she wanders into an empty field in the game's wilderness, and there she encounters another player with a similar avatar style to her one. This player strikes up a conversation with Subaru, and soon it becomes clear that she knows that she is speaking to the real Subaru. It also becomes clear that she is a PK, and she insinuates that Subaru had finally stopped being so uptight, and wondered if she and Subaru could be friends. Although she phrased it as an invitation, in reality she was trying to bully Subaru into a friendship, with the threat that she would PK Subaru if Subaru didn't comply.
It is at this point that we get the back end of her flashback regarding Krim's "magic spell," which turns out to be his real life phone number. He offers it to her as an expression of real friendship, telling her that he is willing for her to call him at any time if she ever needs him.
See, Subaru is the kind of person who never asks for help. in real life she is a young girl with a serious (but unspecified) illness, one which leaves her crippled and wheelchair bound much of the time, and which occasionally sends her to the hospital because of exacerbations of her problems. I can't say for sure, but my guess is that she has a less benign version of multiple sclerosis, the relapsing remitting type, but in any case one which causes her variable levels of difficulty moving. She comes to The World because it is the one place where she can walk, and even run, free. Where she can feel "normal," and ignore for a while her problems. And she is also the kind of person who refuses to burden others with these problems; it is only when she becomes very close to Krim that she even begins to hint that she has problems.
Writing it all out, without the eerie musical backup, without the careful intercutting style of storytelling used to build suspense, this episode sounds a lot less affecting than it really is. But throughout, we get to see how strong Subaru is, both as a character and as a human being. And thus it is a measure of her strength when, in the end, she confronts the PK who is trying to forcibly befriend her, telling her that she can kill her as she wishes, but then she won't be able to post triumphantly about her encounter on the BBS, where apparently it is not allowed for people to openly brag about PK encounters. And then, after she is PKed, she wanders to the place where Tsukasa has been waiting for her, her player costume all frayed and her hair mussed, and when he sees her dishevelled state he runs up to her, alarmed, and she asks for him to hold her, telling him that the one who has been waiting all this time is her.
Her bond with Tsukasa... her willingness to be open with him about everything, including her weaknesses... this shows the new direction she has taken in her life, and how she has grown as a human being. Subaru is not real, but my admiration for her strength of character as well as my admiration for her ability to open her heart at last, make her not only one of my favourite characters, but also a personal inspiration.