Miu Kawasaki – The Creative Life of Liz

Title: Volume 2: Infection

Author: Miu Kawasaki

Series: .hack//Another Birth

Publish Date: October 10, 2006

Publisher: TokyoPop

Format: Paperback

Goodreads Summary:

Akira – also known as Black Rose – keeps fighting to save her younger brother’s consciousness from The World. But as she becomes immersed in the online game, Black Rose is beset by even further problems in the real world.

Review: For the second book in the series, this one always felt a little… slow. I remember reading it the first time on an Amtrak from Orlando, Florida to Newark, New Jersey, and just not really enjoying it nearly as much as the first book, Infection.

Akira continues to live this double life, both active in her school sport of tennis and taking more responsibility with her family, while also continuing her journey through The World with Kite and their slowly growing friend group. The trials and tribulations they go through mostly follow the games (the source material), but having certain actions through Akira’s eyes makes some of the prose feel lost or chunky.

One thing I will give this volume credit over the previous is that the author seemed to have a better grasp on the characters and source material. Things are somewhat more explained, and the main character’s personalities seem to be closer aligned to the games. Some of Kite and Black Rose’s dialogue remains flipped, but it is much less jarring in this volume compared to the original.

As a nostalgia read, coming back nearly fifteen years later still makes me wish I had played through the entire series on PS2. (I only owned the first game due to being a late adopter of the Playstation, and by that time the series was basically over and the newer games were being released, and re-released, and remade, and I’m not bitter that the originals are ignored. No. Not at all.)

Rating: 3.5/5 (Rounded up for Goodreads)

Goodreads Goal 12/52

[Edit note:] This book was originally reread in June 2020. The review of this one (as well as the final two in the series, were delayed due to some personal life things. I’m playing catchup right now! This review had been started (in a slightly different format) when I had to step away, so please forgive the shortness. My notes just weren’t that good for this one (or the sequels, lol).

Title: Volume 1: Infection

Author: Miu Kawasaki

Series: .hack//Another Birth

Publish Date: June 13, 2006

Publisher: TokyoPop

Format: Paperback

Goodreads Summary:

In order for Akira to save her younger brother, who suddenly loses consciousness in the middle of playing The World, she enters the online fantasy game as the Heavy Blade-wielding BlackRose. While heading toward the area where her brother’s consciousness was stolen, BlackRose meets the Twin Blade fighter Kite. Written from BlackRose’s perspective, this adaptation of the popular .hack series of games is the first installment of yet another hit .hack novel series!

Review: I was in the mood for a bit of a nostalgia trip going into the weekend, and so I picked up my old copy of Infection. It’s been a long time since I read through this light novel, about five years according to Goodreads. For a bit of backstory, I only ever played the first game (I was late getting a PS2 and none of my friends played RPGs beyond Kingdom Hearts and some Final Fantasy. But I liked the associated anime and read the books to understand the world a bit. Since then, I have also watched some Let’s Plays of the games, and I have a passing knowledge of the storyline of this side of the series.

As for Infection, I still think it holds up. Akira is a young teenager dealing with the trauma of discovering her brother’s comatose body, on top of the normal issues with school life. She has to deal with bullying, her intense sense of pride in her favorite sport, helping out her family more than ever, and also working to discover exactly what happened to Fumikazu while inside The World.

There are flaws in the story being told. Some of the writing doesn’t land right, some of the dialogue shared between BlackRose and Kite are flipped (as the story is told from BlackRose’s POV and she comes off pretty harsh in the game), and some scenes feel rushed. A passing knowledge of the series helps, though you can probably figure out what’s going on without much extra googling (though it is fun to do so).

For a nostalgia read, this was a fun little read down memory lane. I’ll probably finish the other three volumes over the next few days.

Rating: 3.5/5 (Rounded up for Goodreads)

Goodreads Goal 11/52

[Edit note:] For the sake of length (and posts), I’ll be combining the reviews for the other three volumes of this series into one post on Sunday. But right now I’m pretty sure I’m on a reading spree, so don’t be surprised to see a lot more book reviews in the coming weeks. <3