.hack//4Koma (rank 4)

Publisher: Tokyopop
Volumes: 1 (Complete), OOP but not hard to find
Shounen
Genre: Video games, 4koma. Comedy

Summary: This volume is about half 4koma about the .hack characters: mostly .hack//GU+ but for reasons that are beyond me, Kite and Balmung and some others are in it too. There’s also some short 1-2 page each short manga called Gaspard’s Go Go The World about a newbie’s adventures. Lastly there is a short story in a regular manga format called Peaco’s Story about Haseo and Atoli.

Review: I have only read the .hack manga that was put out by Tokyopop and I haven’t played any of the games or watched any of the anime past the first one. So honestly while I found this manga decently entertaining, I also didn’t entirely get what was going on the whole time. I got the .hack//GU+ jokes, which make up about half of the content of this book, but a lot of the rest of it flew over my head.

All in all it was still enjoyable, but nothing really exceptional. I can definitely say someone who’s never had any experience with the .hack lore would be totally lost reading this though. But for 4Koma they were pretty good.

Gaspard’s Go Go The World was alright. I liked the art style fine but none of the 1-2 page stories were all that entertaining. Kind of unfortunate, I mean newbie adventures sounded like it could have been interesting.

Lastly Peaco’s Story was sweet. If you ship Haseo and Atoli I think you will enjoy it.

Recommendations: At the very minimum I think you would need to have read .hack//GU+ to get some of the jokes. I imagine it would be even better if you’ve played some of the games, (I haven’t at all) but even then I still don’t entirely get why Kite acts so crazy.

Not recommended: If you have no experience with .hack at all, don’t pick this one up first. At the very least I would start with .hack//Legend of the Twilight’s Bracelet manga (which explains the setting and the game) and .hack//GU+ manga (like half the 4koma and the short story are about .hack//GU+ characters)

Age Rating: PG: for some very mild violence