"Hack//CELL Volume 1".
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
By R. Nadav
Format:Paperback
.Hack//Cell tells the story of two characters named Midori. The first is a teenager named Midori, who suffers from a mysterious disease which gradually eats away at her life. The second is a player character name Midori, which exist in the MMORPG "The World". The player character Midori is offered the change to an offline meeting with her one and only friend in the game, a meeting which will change the way Midori views The World and herself.
First, let me begin by saying that this book is not meant for kids. As real world Midori's illness worsens we are fully exposed to the grim nature of hospital life and the hardships that befalls those who are terminally ill. This book excels in conveying Midori's disbelieve, and later despair, as her body betrays her.
.Hack//Cell is a part of the .hack conglemorate, which means it is connected to the .hack games/manga/anime. However, surprisingly little of this book's plot actually takes place in the online game The World. This is a nice surprise, and a fresh change considering all the other .hack books (except for the .hack//G.U. novels) take place solely inside the game. The book also has gorgeous cover art, and very nice pictures inside (sadly they are black and white and not in color like the original Japanese version). The English translation is top notch and the amount of translation errors is kept to a minimal (a rare thing for English Light Novels, who usually suffer from mistranslation).
Sadly, the book isn't free of faults either. In the end notes the author confesses that she doesn't know a lot about the .hack universe and didn't bother to check on it because she "wanted the story the be original". This is a major fault that causes strange side-effects. For example, characters in The World will bleed in .hack//Cell (they are not supposed to be able to bleed). Human interactions with their character in the game are also unbelievable: when the characters are hurt they scream in agony and contort their bodies and faces. This, of course, never happens in the original .hack games, or any other MMORPG game. Also, people are afraid to die in the game for no apparent reason, as if they will truly die if their character dies. All of those small, yet highly visible, errors point out to the authors lack of prior knowledge about the subject on which she wrote about.
Another big problem is the very short list of appearing characters in this book. Only 4 characters actually appear for more than one chapter: Midori (real world), Midori (online player), Adamas and Bordeaux. You get the feeling that these 4 characters are forced to meet again and again. Other characters will appear and disappear after a couple of pages, but when Midori only talks to Adamas for a hundred pages you suddenly understand that the author probably just struggled to find a way to keep the plot going.
Overall .hack//Cell is a mediocre book that could have contributed to the .hack canon, but due to the author's lack of knowledge and proper planning turned out to be non-canonic. It is a fresh and interesting experiment, although lacking in both substance and appeal. The story continues on in the second volume.
First, let me begin by saying that this book is not meant for kids. As real world Midori's illness worsens we are fully exposed to the grim nature of hospital life and the hardships that befalls those who are terminally ill. This book excels in conveying Midori's disbelieve, and later despair, as her body betrays her.
.Hack//Cell is a part of the .hack conglemorate, which means it is connected to the .hack games/manga/anime. However, surprisingly little of this book's plot actually takes place in the online game The World. This is a nice surprise, and a fresh change considering all the other .hack books (except for the .hack//G.U. novels) take place solely inside the game. The book also has gorgeous cover art, and very nice pictures inside (sadly they are black and white and not in color like the original Japanese version). The English translation is top notch and the amount of translation errors is kept to a minimal (a rare thing for English Light Novels, who usually suffer from mistranslation).
Sadly, the book isn't free of faults either. In the end notes the author confesses that she doesn't know a lot about the .hack universe and didn't bother to check on it because she "wanted the story the be original". This is a major fault that causes strange side-effects. For example, characters in The World will bleed in .hack//Cell (they are not supposed to be able to bleed). Human interactions with their character in the game are also unbelievable: when the characters are hurt they scream in agony and contort their bodies and faces. This, of course, never happens in the original .hack games, or any other MMORPG game. Also, people are afraid to die in the game for no apparent reason, as if they will truly die if their character dies. All of those small, yet highly visible, errors point out to the authors lack of prior knowledge about the subject on which she wrote about.
Another big problem is the very short list of appearing characters in this book. Only 4 characters actually appear for more than one chapter: Midori (real world), Midori (online player), Adamas and Bordeaux. You get the feeling that these 4 characters are forced to meet again and again. Other characters will appear and disappear after a couple of pages, but when Midori only talks to Adamas for a hundred pages you suddenly understand that the author probably just struggled to find a way to keep the plot going.
Overall .hack//Cell is a mediocre book that could have contributed to the .hack canon, but due to the author's lack of knowledge and proper planning turned out to be non-canonic. It is a fresh and interesting experiment, although lacking in both substance and appeal. The story continues on in the second volume.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
".hack//CELL Volume 1" has been sitting on my "to be read" pile for quite a long time, more than a year. Now that I have finally gotten around to reading it, I realize I should have let it sit awhile longer. Or just never read it at all.
".hack//CELL" takes place at the same time as ".hack//Roots," in The World R:2. The connection to the other .hack series is tenuous, however. Haseo makes a brief appearance in his hunt for Tri-Edge, and Silabus and Gaspard show up as well almost as if to say "See! This really is .hack!" But other than that, ".hack//CELL" is really the story of two Midoris.
One Midori is a PC in The World, a Professional Victim who wanders around with her companion Adamas. Midori carries some sort of secret, which Adamas knows but Midori seems to have forgotten. The other Midori is an average school girl who doesn't even play the game. Her friend, Kaho, tries to lure her into The World, but it isn't until Midori becomes hospitalized with some unknown illness that she sees the appeal of escaping into a fantasy world. The reader is left to guess how much--if at all--the two Minoris are linked, and what is the secret behind them both.
To start off with, this novel had an amateurish translation. The sentence structure and storytelling was clumsy, and the translator had difficulty with the Japanese word for blue/green. Midori would talk about her green eyes in one paragraph, and then her blue eyes in the next. There were several other errors, and the text just didn't flow.
But even with a good translation, I don't think ".hack//CELL" would have been a good read. The author, Suzukaze Ryo, says in his afterword that he didn't know much about the .hack universe, and wasn't given much guidance on what kind of story to tell. He emphasized the real-world Midori, which could have been interesting as most .hack series emphasize the game, but Midori was a lifeless and ultimately boring character whose internal dilemmas and fuzzy philosophizing on the nature of reality didn't make for a compelling read.
I wasn't expecting anything amazing when I picked this up, just some light entertainment. Unfortunately, it was one of those books I had to grind through till the end. Even then, you don't get a complete story. This is followed up by .hack//CELL Volume 2, but I won't be along for that ride.
".hack//CELL" takes place at the same time as ".hack//Roots," in The World R:2. The connection to the other .hack series is tenuous, however. Haseo makes a brief appearance in his hunt for Tri-Edge, and Silabus and Gaspard show up as well almost as if to say "See! This really is .hack!" But other than that, ".hack//CELL" is really the story of two Midoris.
One Midori is a PC in The World, a Professional Victim who wanders around with her companion Adamas. Midori carries some sort of secret, which Adamas knows but Midori seems to have forgotten. The other Midori is an average school girl who doesn't even play the game. Her friend, Kaho, tries to lure her into The World, but it isn't until Midori becomes hospitalized with some unknown illness that she sees the appeal of escaping into a fantasy world. The reader is left to guess how much--if at all--the two Minoris are linked, and what is the secret behind them both.
To start off with, this novel had an amateurish translation. The sentence structure and storytelling was clumsy, and the translator had difficulty with the Japanese word for blue/green. Midori would talk about her green eyes in one paragraph, and then her blue eyes in the next. There were several other errors, and the text just didn't flow.
But even with a good translation, I don't think ".hack//CELL" would have been a good read. The author, Suzukaze Ryo, says in his afterword that he didn't know much about the .hack universe, and wasn't given much guidance on what kind of story to tell. He emphasized the real-world Midori, which could have been interesting as most .hack series emphasize the game, but Midori was a lifeless and ultimately boring character whose internal dilemmas and fuzzy philosophizing on the nature of reality didn't make for a compelling read.
I wasn't expecting anything amazing when I picked this up, just some light entertainment. Unfortunately, it was one of those books I had to grind through till the end. Even then, you don't get a complete story. This is followed up by .hack//CELL Volume 2, but I won't be along for that ride.
By Animelover
Format:Paperback
Dont let the other reviews get you down this is a good read the story is a little complex but really good
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