Okay, the first thing the episode does is show us Tri-Edge "materializing" in a Lost Ground. That looks promising, but then everything's forgotten in favor of the whole Virus Cores + Lost Ground = ZOMG THE KEY OF THE TWILIGHT ordeal. The episode actually makes up for some of the lack of viable substance in earlier episodes with its inclusion of action (gasp!) and the promise of plot advancement.

TaN's really starting to get on my nerves. What the hell is up with Naobi and will Tawaraya stop being so annoying? Don't get me started on Ender. She's just plain annoying.

I'm not quite sure where the rest of the series is heading if they're "so close to the Key of the Twilight." Are we going to see Shino do her color switch soon? Is she going to be attacked by Tri-Edge?

Eh, I wouldn't be too upset if .hack//Roots turns out to be only thirteen episodes long.

-Ender trying to kill/stalking <Twilight Brigade member/Haseo>

People who are not very receptive to lengthy scenes with lots of explanatory dialogue probably won't like this episode very much, but I found it to be especially intriguing. Ovan didn't find the Key of the Twilight after all, but now I'm curious as to TaN's whole little deal with the sys admins.

Ovan's peculiarites shouldn't come as a surprise to those who know about what goes on in the games, but all the same, what happened to the player? Shino said she couldn't get in touch with him, but does she live close enough to him to visit?

If you take out the stupidly long scene of Shino and Haseo staring at each other at the waterfall, then this was, quite surprisingly, a decent episode.

The episode ended with the scene of Naobi and Ender talking and Ovan groaning. The scene before that was of Gord and Haseo talking.

Sakisaka's starting to annoy me with his whole "OVAN GRR EVIL KEY-STEALING BASTARD" act. The Tri-Edge glimpse at the end of 11 seemed forced, almost like they were trying to say, "Hey, folks! Don't forget about this Tri-Edge fellow!"

Episode 12 finally brought some answers to questions that've been on many fans' minds. I'm just really confused about Yata and Pai now, though. I mean, they were so bitchy and mean as Naobi and Ender, and then they team up with Haseo in the games? What?

Shino finally got her color set changed! YES! Her hair's still pink, though.

Well. The shit's hit the fan now.

I thought that Shino wouldn't get PKed by Tri-Edge until the end of the series, but now I'm just completely lost as to where the series is going. Okay, sure, the rest of Roots will probably show Haseo getting stronger and all that stuff, but then where's the light at the end of the tunnel?

Good stuff, episode 13 is. It certainly makes up for the crappiness of the earlier episodes.

So... it turns out Tabby liked Shino? As in, liked liked? Huh. Good twist.. that it was hinted at before, but I thought it was silly subtext.

Tri-Edge! Finally getting some action! YAY. I didn't know Shino got DD/PKed in the show, took me by surprise. Guess now I know what makes Haseo change until the games start. Speaking of Tri-Edge, what was he doing before that scene? Was he fixing the intarweb? Or just using come code to call Shino?

Looks to me like he was fixing whatever minor error there was with The World.

Does that mean that Tri-Edge is just a program that protects The World in some way then? Makes sense considering he has Kite's image. In fact, if this is the case, I think the games will be like the first .Hack games and the Epitaph, but reversed. The "good" guys will play The Wave (all the main characters are named after the phases) while the "bad" guys (Tri-Edge and... company?) will play the Twilight Dragon or whatever was the hero in the Epitaph.

Uh oh, then the player's main objective in the games will be to destroy The World so it doesn't hurt anyone else ever again. :(

Or it could be that Tri-Edge sees PKing as a way to "fix" The World. I think that'd make things very, very interesting.

I wonder why we bother to use Spoiler tags, it's just us talking in here.

Anyway, what you said could work. Maybe he's trying to purge The World of all foreign data.

Okay, so it's only because a friend got me hooked on Lost and I couldn't stop watching that.

Anyway, it's very nice to see things finally happening! It's interesting seeing Pai and Yata being Ovan's captors, since they're party members in the game too. I'm guessing as of right now Ovan won't be too thrilled seeing them again. Also nifty watching Haseo already start to earn his title of being a PKK. Loved how he made the guy slice his own partner.

Pretty much my only disappointment was that Tri-Edge used his daggers to kill Shino rather than Data Drain. I was really hoping to see some Data Drain action. The question is if Shino and Atori (in the game) are the same people or just copy character models like with Blackrose and Mimiru. One of the chains at the cathedral altar rusted after Shino was sliced, and those 8 chains represented each of the 8 Waves before, so that sorta hints that they're the same person.

I honestly wouldn't doubt it if we get a new OP after this episode. It's exactly halfway through the series, as of right now over half the characters in the opening are banned/quit The World, and we all know the show is more concerned with appearance than actual story development at times.