Her importance is that she's a good friend of Haseo's--perhaps even more than a friend--and that she gets Data Drained by Tri-Edge, leaving the player herself in a coma.

The news that Tabby has been PKed was just delivered WAY too dramatically. I mean, she couldn't have been that high of a level at that point, and they already made it quite clear how common player killing is in The World. Besides, it's not like there are any horrible penalties incurred by dying. Yet the news is still met with a shocked gasp!

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.

I can confirm without a doubt that Shino and Atoli are two different people. It's kind of hard to play a game as a different character when you're in a coma.

Oh, okay. I've tried my hardest to avoid G.U. spoilers past the trailers and basic info, and last I heard about Shino/Atoli was something about Tri-Edge data draining her but she still played as an ally to Tri-Edge. It would have fit with the Mirage of Deceit title, but it didn't make a whole lot of sense otherwise.

Pai and Yata interest me. They interest me a lot. And how about that new character that Pai's interacting with? I wonder who it is. My initial impression was that it was Tawaraya, but eh.

And finally, after 13 episodes, Tri-Edge's name is said. What bugs me is where the name came from. It just seemed to come out of nowhere. I'm just going to assume that Haseo read the name on the BBS and that's why he didn't ask Phyllo who Tri-Edge was.

And how about episode 15? Kuhn appears. They might as well show Endrance, Sakubo, and Atoli while the series is at it.

Yeah, they pretty much said the rumor was already on the BBS. And I suppose he was named after his three-slices mark he leaves behind.

That new character: Subaru/Tsukasa? She made the same "hi" hand gesture as they did when they met each other offline. Either way, it could be some old character, seeing as how she was talking about what the old version was like.

Saburou (三郎) doesn't connect to either Subaru (昴) or Tsukasa (司). I also don't see how An and Mariko could have some sort of connection to Pai's player, especially when you take into account Pai's motivation.

No, I'm not talking about the name. I know it's not the same. Doesn't matter. I only meant the way she greeted Pai. You can't tell me they didn't show that on purpose.

I thought the same thing. Her name immediately caught my attention, and it would certainly be interesting for an old character to make a return in Roots. Sadly, it's probably just one of the TaN guys since he/she had to borrow a character body and the leader of TaN was in league with Pai and Yata already.

I think it was just coincidence. I mean, holding up a hand is holding up a hand.

You know, I like this episode for two reasons:

1. Kuhn is in it, even if his role is slightly pointless
2. Haseo is not in it

It's great to take a break from Haseo being emo. Honestly, sometimes I can't stand him.

The entire episode seemed like a filler episode. I'm not entirely sure why they didn't just slap in a recap episode and leave it at that. Maybe they thought that Tabby needed some more character development.

As mentioned above, Kuhn didn't really do anything. He was just kind of there as fanservice.

Episode 16 appears to get back in the swing of things with more emo!Haseo and investigating by Pai and Yata.

Phyllo making fun of the main characters to Kuhn, particularly Haseo, for always being emo and standing around doing nothing once something happens to them. That was just great, and makes me like Phyllo a lot more than I did before.

At least Tabby is becoming more and more bearable too. She's gone from the annoying bimbo who you want to thwack every time she opens her mouth to a decent character.

Haseo is quickly becoming one of the worst protagonists I've ever encountered. Someone needs to slap him and then bury him in the ground.

Episode 16 didn't really do anything monumental. Okay, so Pai and Yata're thinking of looking into researching Tabby to see if she's "special" and Saburou might end up being Tawaraya after all. Oh, and let's not forget how Phyllo survived his encounter with Tri-Edge. How positively exciting.[/sarcasm]

Haseo, please, get those two swords out of your ass.

They're not swords. Too small! Anyway, he is starting to get emo. I hate it when characters do that, unless it's an improvement on their character (Roan from RO anime). And he's probably gonna stay that way for the rest of the season, considering how he is in the G.U. trailers.

When Pai and Saburou are talking, she/he mentions a event with those limited edition guys at some forest, and if TaN was involved in that. Are they talking about Rena and Shugo? If so how is that possible? Isn't that from the previous version of the world? From what I understand this one is completely different.

Nope. What they're talking about has nothing to do with Rena and Shugo. Either what they said means nothing in the long run or we're going to see very soon what they mean.

Hmm...That guy with the mustache, who appearently is called Taihaku, he sounded like bear, so I looked it up, and it is indeed the same voice actor, this could just be a coincidence, or it means something. What do you think?

Like hack//sign this PC is also mature, so I think it could just be true. But other then the looks and voice I don't know anything about the guy

There's a rumor spreading that whoever manages to get through the Painful Forest (or whatever the name is) will get really strong, or something like that. Now, I think that Haseo will manage to get through it. And I think that he will get that strange armor which he has in the .hack//GU intro and in the ending to .hack//ROOTs, making him really fast and strong. And fixing his emo-problem partially. I hope Haseo doesn't stay emo throughout episodes 17-26 too...

It seems like a bit of a strange thing for Haseo to go directly from his 1st form to his 3rd form. But whatever, I guess.

Haseo's emoness is never going to go away. He gets even worse in the games when he PKs anything that moves. Ugh. I really can't stand him anymore.

How about that Ovan and Tri-Edge fight, huh? They didn't show us how Ovan beat Tri-Edge, which was kind of a cop-out, I think.

Episode 17 wasn't as bad as the other post-episode 13 episodes, but I still felt a sense of incompleteness. The semi-discussion about Aura was definitely pretty interesting.

And just like I thought, Haseo recieved the armor he had during the .hack//G.U. intro.

And that big thing asking Haseo...it was talking about its daughter...Aura? Could this be Aura's father, the creator of The World version-1? And which sword did it talk about? And how the hell did Haseo recieve that armor, if he was rejected by that thing?

Oh well, I guess all the next episodes will be about Haseo getting more and more emo, gaining hate towards PKers and turning into a famous PKK...

Touta is Tawaraya. Then who the hell is Saburou? I also thought it might have been Tawaraya since he/she seemed to know a lot about TaN and ender.

Wow, this was a badly paced show. There were so many things, especially towards the end, that should have been fleshed out. Instead, we got a lot of useless scenes and many, many unnecessary slow camera pans. What was with that scene of Haseo and Silver Knight in ep. 26? That just came out of nowhere and added absolutely nothing. Not to mention that as far as continuity goes, Silver Knight was banned and had his character deleted in .Hack//Key of the Twilight.

The final episodes focused way too much on Tabby as well. The Paw Squad? Having Hideo refer to her as "mama" and Haseo as "papa"? That poor guy must have absolutely no self-respect. I liked how ZW even put in a note at one point saying something like "Yes Tabby, you've been wondering that for the past 8 episodes. Please just die already."

Phyllo's death just seemed random and unnecessary too, aside from getting rid of him before the game. I suppose it sort of explains why he just sat there on the bridge all the time, but you'd think someone about to die would prefer to stare at the actual sunset outside his window.

It was a decent series overall, but it could have been condensed down into 13 episodes pretty easily. It was frustrating how they kept us waiting for action, and then when a huge fight did happen it continually cut away to people talking about it. The best example of this being when Haseo slaughtered 100 PKers, but it focused mostly on the Paw Squad talking about how horrible it was, Phyllo and Tawaraya talking about how the ambush might be happening already, and the moon as we hear the screams of the PKers. Even the fight with Tri-Edge in the cathedral looks lame in comparison to the same scene in the .Hack//GU trailer.

Unlike .Hack//Sign, which I loved, Roots was a little hard to finish with its dragging style.