Nanase is a player in the worldwide MMORPG that is The World. She's shy and quiet and has a crush on fellow player Silabus, head of the guild Canard of which she is a member. Problem is, all Silabus can talk about is Alkaid, another player who has become a star in the game. When player killers of an opposing guild target Silabus, can Nanase find the strength to stand up for her friends? Or will she run away? In a game like The World, anything can happen!
Highlights:
The book starts with a person standing dramatically in the wind, saying they used to go by the name of Nanase. It quickly cuts to the story behind this single page, as Alkaid is made the new Emperor of arena, much to the delight of her friend Silabus. Nanase watches from the sidelines and wonders what the big deal is about Alkaid. She follows Silabus around but doesn't feel welcome, especially since all he talks about is Alkaid. When Nanase and Silabus are bullied by Bordeaux of the Kestrel clan, they are saved by Alkaid, and they go off to watch her be coronated Emperor. After Nanase embarasses herself at the coronation, she ends up having a talk with Alkaid, who asks her if she's done anything worth complimenting, leaving Nanase to seriously doubt herself and her abilities. She unknowingly thinks of a classmate in the real world who had been nice to her. Later, Nanase overhears two people talking, saying that Silabus has been picked by Bordeaux to become a PK target. Meanwhile, Silabus is unknowingly lured away to an abandoned area and is ambushed by Bordeaux. Nanase races to Canard HQ to try to help Silabus only to find that Alkaid is busy and that Slabus has been called away to a place called Delta Cursed Spiral's Scorpio.
Nanase, realizing there is nothing she can do, feels defeated and ends up not warping to where Silabus was. Silabus' partner Gaspard warps to the place himself, and finds Bordeaux down for the count — with Bordeaux still there, ready to tell them "Nanase's dirty little secret". Nanase has no idea that her guildmates know this and acts as though everything is normal. When Alkaid confronts Nanase about her past involvement with a certain guild, Nanase runs away and feels she can never return to Canard. She later runs into Kuhn, an old guildmaster of Canard, and finds out that Alkaid may lose against her next opponent. Realizing what she has to do, Nanase goes on a quest in order to help Alkaid, all the while wondering how she can change herself so that she stops copying other people. The final chapter takes place several days after the main story and follows Nanase's player in the real world.
Overall:
The one-shot book .hack//Alcor is another entry for the Hack franchise, but you could really fit it anywhere in the time line. It's supposed to be a prequel to GU+, but since it barely references anything in the game other than The World and PKs, you'd be forgiven for not realizing this. It's almost surprising to realize this is a Hack story; more Hack stories relate at least a little to the overarching stories than run through their collective narratives, like Fragment and Aura and so forth. Nothing like that is in .hack//Alcor; it is a sweet and straightforward story about a girl who is still finding herself both in the real world and in the interactive online The World.
Nanase is a protagonist one would find more often in a shoujo manga: she's insecure and shy and not sure what she really wants to do yet, so she copies those around her in an attempt to find some sort of identity. Her foil arrives in the shape of Alkaid, a young woman who is robust and energetic and self-capable. She can't understand why Nanase can't just be herself, and Nanase is too busy figuring out what "herself" actually is. Between them is Silabus, a nice enough young man who is helpful but talks on endlessly about how great Alkaid is, which serves to further drag Nanase down. This is where having The World as a setting helps the story; the game itself is where you can be anything you want, from your looks to your personality. The original anime for .hack//Sign explored these ideas as well with its protagonists using The World to discover who they truly are in both worlds. We have the privilege in .hack//Alcor to set aside bigger plots like the Key of the Twilight and concentrate on the personal conflicts brewing in the Canard Guild.
It's a nice story and an interesting look into a different kind of psychology rarely seen in MMORPG-based manga, but beyond that it doesn't offer much to a Hack devotee looking for their next fix of their favorite fantasy world. The art is simple and eye-catching, but nothing really special, although it does do very well when it comes to wide spreads. At the end of the book, there are notes by both the author and the artist commenting on finishing their joint project. The artist makes a point of saying that Nanase hasn't made a great deal of progress, but she has taken the first step forward which is progress in itself. I just wish this wasn't the last we will see of Nanase in the Hack world; perhaps the manga-ka would do us a great service by showing us Nanase in the future, possibly during the events of one of the later Hack storylines? Either way, it's a good lighthearted read that takes a deeper peek into the multi-layered environment that is The World.
ComicsOnline gives .hack//Alcor 3.5 out of 5 Twin Blades.
