.hack//CELL: The Ending World

.hack//CELL #1

by Ryō Suzukaze, Akira Mutsuki

Hospital patient Midori Shinomura learns that she is mysteriously bound to another Midori, a warrior in The World, an on-line computer game, and in order to save them both, the Midori in the game must solve the mysteries of her own past.

Genres: Manga, Light Novel, Fantasy, Novels

204 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Kathleen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this to be an engaging but annoying read. There are occasional awkward wordings that make it clear the book was translated a bit too closely, but my main issues are with the world of "The World," the game in which the characters spend most of their time. Despite multiple references to in-game avatars fussing with their hair, it seems unlikely that such a thing would be either possible, necessary, or something a player would actually have their avatar do during a fight. The non-linear story is somewhat hard to follow, and I dislike the gaslighting of the reader wherein multiple realities, or layers of reality, are presented, and conflict with each other. However, I must admit that at this point, I should have expected a story in which "people are trapped in the game world and can't remember the real world" from the .hack franchise. The blurb on the back tells the story in a more comprehensible manner than the 200 pages inside.

[Stephanie Jachymek · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is a mess. Between the grammatical errors, hypocrisy and completely unrelatable characters it's just not great.
I feel no connection to anyone whatsoever and the entire story is a big convoluted mess even when I technically understand what's going on.
The violence is so over the top ridiculous at points it loses any credibility it had to whatever point it was trying to make in the first place. It's hard to take it so seriously when it's a video game character.
Midori isn't easily likable to me. Adamas has one personality trait. And then you have characters like Bordeaux who just straight up suck. Haseo is just thrown in here because he could be.
Definitely not a favourite on my end.

[Emilly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Re-read in 2023

Starting off - I would've given the book 4/5 but there were a few errors in grammar and general words. Unless I was absolutely sure what the meaning was, it would've thrown the story in a different tense.

The story revolves around "her" that becomes Midori and Midori Shimomura. The former being a PC in The World and the latter being a high school student in Japan.
Midori (PC) defines her existance as a "professional victim" for PKs and Midori is struggling with a unknown disease that causes her fainting spells and is sounding like something very similar to symptoms of multiple sclerosis (MS.) Both characters have to come to terms with how things are effecting their lives and decide if it is worth the struggle to continue or just collapse into nothingness.

Nothing really memorable happens, even the moment where mainstream characters like Haseo or Silabus show up it feels like they are just there to move it along. This style is akin to the shorter manga like .hack//Alcor, which focused on a side character (Nanase) wanting to become stronger and independent within the game. Recommended if you like to read fanfictions or just want something you can knock out in like 2 days or less.

---- Actually going to read Volume 2 sometime...