Characters / .hack//Second Generation

Terminal Disc

Jyotaro Amagi

Voiced by: Yūya Uchida (Japanese)

World Identity: None.

Real Identity: A young but already well-respected genius programmer that co-headed the Restore Aura Plan for CC Corp when Aura's disappearance caused instability for The World. Despite warnings, he believes himself to be at least a match for Harald Hoerwick's genius...to disastrous consequences

Appears in: Terminal Disc, .hack//LINK, .hack//Quantum (flashback)

Tropes Associated With:

• A God Am I: Bansyoya seemed to think Amagi thought of himself as such and LINK validates his belief. More than simply planning to restore Aura, on top of already wanting to surpass Harald's genius, Amagi wanted to control the ultimate AI, which would put him in a position to control the entire network. His plan to corrupt Aura and enact mass Real Digitization in LINK is basically his revenge for being denied what he felt was the godhood that came from his genius.
• Crazy-Prepared: He had a Dummy Morganna Factor ready, expected Bansyoya to do something drastic like steal one of the Phases. While it failed, we're not told if it did because of the Dummy Factor or if the plan was doomed from the beginning.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Of both G.U. and Link.
  • In G.U. alone, he is responsible for deleting and harvesting Mia in front of Elk's eyes, forever traumatizing the already mentally fragile kid. Moreover, that sacrifice was in vain anyway, since the Plan failed, deleting 80% of R:1's data in the process, and, in his ensuing insanity from being brain-fried from the botched program, set fire to CC Corp, irreparably damaging the servers of The World, thus The World R:2. The seven remaining Epitaphs (Bansyoya stole Tarvos and Amagi replaced it with a dummy) were then scattered, randomly attaching themselves to certain players.
  • He made Geist in his image, and everything the evil jester does is his programming. He's ultimately the reason Tokio was subtly bugged with a virus that would infect and corrupt Aura once Tokio unsealed her.
• Incest Subtext: One-sided, but he seems to be a bit too attached to the memory of his late young aunt and effectively adopted mother Ayaka. There's also the fact that the image of the princess in one of his earlier games, from whom AIKA would take her form from, was subconsciously designed after Ayaka, and also that his online consciousness' dying words are her name, and notably, he uses no honorific^note which is only reserved for those one is romantically close to.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Amagi simply saw the R.A. Plan as a vehicle to advance his own ego and genius, clearly irreverent of Harald's visions and ideals for Aura. His ego trip is rewarded with severe mental damage, and being primarily responsible for the destruction of R:1
• Smug Snake: He seriously thought he was as great, if not better than Harald, who he was severely envious of. Oh boy was he wrong. He also ultimately causes much more direct harm than his predecessor does, whose only real wrongdoings were that his programs went out of control.
• Superior Successor: Amagi certainly thought himself to be so, to the point that he laughed off the idea of Cubia as nothing more than faulty programming on Harald's part. In the end, he was anything but.
• Teen Genius: Already a world-renowned programmer at 19. Deconstructed as this clearly went to his head, well, see Smug Snake above.

Jun Bansyoya

Voiced by: Shigenori Soya (Japanese); Richard Epcar (English)

World Identity: An unknown PC that he used to see The World R:1 on its last days.

Real Identity: The other head of the Restore Aura Plan. However, when realizing that their plan to recreate the 8 Phases would also recreate Cubia, after his pleas fell on deaf ears, he stole Tarvos and later passed it to his younger stepsister, Reiko Saeki, the player of Pi.

Appears in: Terminal Disc .hack//Quantum (flashback)

Tropes Associated With:

• Apocalyptic Log: The Terminal Disc serves as one, serving as the framing device for a pretty concise recap of the original games and the backstory of how R:2 came to be.
• Broken Pedestal: His young assistant Kazumi came to hate him when the older man abandoned the R.A. Plan, as he was so sure of the plan's success.
• Cassandra Truth: Amagi laughed off his concerns about the power of the Eight Phases potentially causing an Anti-Existence, as he was convinced his program was perfect enough for such a thing not to happen, even going as far to say that Cubia was merely the result of Harald's faulty programming. It's here when Jun realizes how far gone Amagi was in his delusions of superiority.
• Defector from Decadence: Though he resigned from CC Corp from taking the fall of the cavalcade of disasters that resulted from the failure of the R.A. Plan, he knew for a fact that his former bosses themselves nothing but ignorant, greedy, and corrupt dirtbags, especially after having seen their complete bungling of the Second Network Crisis and the many cover-ups to protect their assets. It's not known if Bansyoya already had misgivings about the company even during the days of the Plan or only by the time he made his Apocalyptic Log.
• Genre Savvy: Having personally researched the events of the original quadrilogy, he rightfully suspected that their Plan could also recreate Cubia or worse. Sadly, he was the only one who was aware of that fact...or cared.
• Hero-Worshipper: Downplayed, but Bansyoya clearly thought highly of Kite and BlackRose's endeavors, and the burden they shouldered, doing on their own without any corporate knowledge or backing, unlike himself and the members of Project G.U.
• Jacob Marley Warning: The final two videos of his Apocalyptic Log contain this. The first shows him to suddenly freaking out once he starts talking about Ovan, particularly, him being the bearer of Corbenik, the unusual nature of his sealed left arm, and more importantly, Ovan naming his guild as the Twilight Brigade could possibly indicate the man knowing about more than just the Epitaph of the Twilight, possibly even the dark history of The World. The second is a direct letter to Reiko, which contains the stolen Tarvos for her to use.
• Not So Stoic: For most of the Terminal Disc, he recounts most of the story with a calm tone. However, in the second-to-last video, once he begins talking about Ovan starting up the Twilight Brigade, he starts freaking out due to the potential implications, and the video starts futzing as if to add to that.
• Older Hero vs. Younger Villain: Downplayed. Bansyoya's not quite a hero, but he was certainly more benevolent, cautious, and rational than his younger partner. He was out to restore the stability of the net as he was supposed to do, wasn't driven by a desire to surpass the genius of Harald, had done enough research to know that their endeavor might have unwanted consequences, and knew from that research that his bosses were dirty bastards.
• Properly Paranoid: Due to being Genre Savvy, he became fearful of what their Plan could also potentially unleash. It's really only in late Redemption that we see he was correct.
• Spanner in the Works: Arguable. It's not known whether Amagi would have been driven insane from the experiment anyway had Bansyoya not stolen Tarvos.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Though he and Amagi worked very closely and mostly pretty well, they actually did not get along. While Bansyoya admitted to feeling resentful and envious towards the younger and much talented man, it's pretty clear the latter's ego certainly wasn't helping. Things only got rougher between the two men as time went on.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Bansyoya went missing some time during early Roots^note He singled out Sora and Sieg among the original comatose victims in the sense that he knew they later became the Avatar Users Haseo and Kuhn, respectively, the former one he couldn't have known until after Haseo's first log-in and we never learn what happened to him. However, he might be dead and his spirit, somehow, is inhabiting Pi's Lost Weapon, as she feels him residing in it.

.hack//Roots

Haseo the Terror of Death

Haseo in his Xth Form

Voiced by: Takahiro Sakurai (Japanese); Yuri Lowenthal (English, video games); Andrew Francis (English, anime)

World Identity: The main character of Roots and the G.U. games, an aggressive and self-centered Adept Rogue. He finds a mentor in Ovan and a love interest in Shino, but when Ovan disappears and Shino is PKed and put into a coma, Haseo begins a personal quest to find and beat Tri-Edge, the name given to Shino's killer. Holds the avatar of the first Phase, Skeith, The Terror of Death.

Real Identity: Ryou Misaki, a high school student and the same person who played the player-killer Sora back in SIGN. Though he's older, his general personality has changed little.

Appears in: .hack//Roots, .hack//G.U., .hack//Link

Tropes Associated With:

• All Your Powers Combined: Skeith's absorption of all the other Epitaphs across the games results in this. In Volume 4, Haseo's 5th form invokes this, allowing him to summon forth different Epitaphs and wield their power directly.
• Aloof Ally: To both G.U. and Canard, before gradually warming up to both.
• Always Save the Girl: Haseo's single-minded obsession with saving Shino without care for anything else drives most of his early Jerkass behavior.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: By the end of the story, Haseo has become the leader of a well-known (though still small) guild and a three-time Arena Emperor, mostly through beating the tar out of everything that's come his way.
• The Atoner: Haseo's driven by self-loathing over his failure to save Shino and later Alkaid as much as anything else.
• Atop a Mountain of Corpses: In the .hack//Link manga.
• Awesome, but Impractical: B-st Form, exclusive to the Trilogy OVA retelling of the story, is a feral version of Haseo's third form brought on by giving in to his raw fury. It possesses the ability to dual-wield Broadswords, unleash a Storm of Blades, and rip open holes in space. It's also completely useless against the target of his rage, who defeats Haseo in this form without breaking a sweat.
• Ax-Crazy: Unlocking his Avatar is incredibly bad for Haseo's already-unstable psyche, leading him to spend much of the second half of Rebirth with this sort of characterization as he uses it recklessly in the Arena.
• Badass Biker: One benefit of being a guildmaster is access to a Steam Bike, a Cool Bike which gets even cooler in subsequent volumes as upgrade parts for it become available.
• Badass Longcoat: 5th Form features a prominent one.
• Bad Samaritan: Haseo is on the unkind end of this trope a lot. The first four people we see him interact with in G.U. all present themselves as friends and allies, and each one is a villain. This rather strongly influenced his loner tendencies, as he feels keeping friends away means they can't betray you. Lampshaded ironically by Sakaki.
  Sakaki: Isn't it hard to think of every person you meet in this game as an enemy?
• Battle Couple: With Atoli as their romantic arc progresses. He also partakes in a two-player training session with Alkaid that has decided shades of it.
• Berserk Button: Shino in particular is one, though just about anything will set Haseo off.
• The Berserker: His B-st Form.
• BFS: 2nd Form grants access to Edge Punisher weapons, massive broadswords that often double as gigantic chainsaws. In its non-extended form, his 5th Form's sword, Gate of Ouroboros, is taller than he is, putting its length at an average of six feet at best. Unlike a typical Edge Punisher broadsword, Haseo wields it with the swiftness of a Blade Brandier's sword, making a distinction between them.
• Blessed with Suck: Played with. Being a Jerkass to Harald pumps him up to level 133 with his third form unlocked, making him incredibly powerful by normal player standards, but also seals away Skeith, making him completely unable to put up any kind of meaningful resistance against Tri-Edge.
• Blood Knight: Part of his initial characterization is an intense bloodlust, which he matures out of by the end of Rebirth.
• Bounty Hunter: Haseo can become one who tracks down and kills PKs in a side quest. He can get rewards for the number of PKs he kills and can get special rewards for killing specific PKs known as chaotic PKs because they are the worst of the worst PKs, and therefore are placed on a blacklist of the most wanted PKs.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: In the .hack//Link manga.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: The Brooding Boy to Shino's Gentle Girl in Roots, then to Atoli's Gentle Girl in the games.
• Bottomless Magazines: In the OVA and .hack//Link. Averted in the games, where he has a set number of bullets before having to reload by tapping the Guard button. Alchemizing his Dual Guns weapons increases their magazine capacity in addition to the usual benefits.
• Bully Hunter: Haseo is famous as the PKK, or "Player Killer Killer", who targets and kills PKs like a vigilante. He's not doing this for moral reasons, but because he's hunting the specific PK Tri-Edge.
• By the Power of Grayskull!: "Come on, come on! I'm right here. SKEITH!"
• The Captain: Of the Canard Guild.
• The Cassandra: Unintentionally. He berates Atoli a couple of times for her blind Faith in Sakaki, claiming that the guy doesn't give a lick about her well being and is just using her. He ends up being right.
• Catchphrase: "Guess I'll log out and check my email or something"
• Character Development: Haseo has probably seen more character development than any other character in the franchise when you take Sora's personality into consideration. In the R:2 timeline alone, he went from a hopeless beginner to a revenge-obsessed jerk in Roots, then started the GU games as a Nominal Hero, evolved into a Type 2 Anti-Hero, and eventually made pure hero status by the end of the series. Overall, he becomes much, much more likable as the series goes on.
• Chick Magnet: Haseo ends up with two canon fangirls (Atoli and Alkaid), one obsessed stalker ( Bordeaux) and one fanboy (Endrance). Relationship Values allow him to additionally marry nearly all of the game's female characters in the various Promise Card endings.
• The Chosen One: By both Skeith and Ovan. Much of the plot of the games is the latter's carefully orchestrated scheme to goad Haseo into fighting every other Avatar.
• Combat Pragmatist: Haseo sees his use of his Avatar in the Arena as being this, failing to grasp the dangers until Kuhn shows him the hard way.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Kite was a kind, sincere Nice Guy from start to finish, who brought out the best in his allies and won over his rivals with diplomacy and empathy; his colour scheme strongly highlighted that Red Is Heroic. Haseo is a rude, dismissive Jerk with a Heart of Gold who pushes others away and has serious issues with the concepts of friendship and betrayal; his quite literally Darker and Edgier design, inclining more to Red and Black and Evil All Over, emphasizes the difference.
• Cooldown Hug: Given to the AIDA-infected Atoli in the Trilogy OVA, which is a little different from how it went in the games.
• The Corruption: Subverted. He's almost corrupted by AIDA from Taihaku's sword, but Atoli calls his name, making him strong enough to reject AIDA.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: During the prologue FMV of Rebirth. Awesome.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Dark actually is pretty evil early on, but Haseo's completed most of his Character Development by the time he reacquires his 3rd Form, which is a suit of almost completely black armor adorned with spikes. Most of both Volume 2 and Volume 3 is spent with this appearance. His 5th Form is a return to a black color scheme, but is significantly a lot less edgy looking than his first three forms, and retains a lot of white from Xth Form, allowing him to retain a much more heroic look. The black color scheme and wave tattoos on his face and chest are a result from Zelkova using the data from Kusabira/Tri-Edge to act as Restraining Bolt for Skeith so its power can be used with no fear of Cubia showing up again.
• Death from Above: His Plasma Blade Divine Awakening, Avatar Awakening, and all of his ultimate Arts.
• Death of a Thousand Cuts: As his primary class is Twin Blade, naturally his initial fighting style is built around this. Xth Form's Dual Guns focus on it even more, capable of grinding opponents down under an endless hail of bullets.
• Determinator: For all of Haseo's flaws that he learns to grow out of, one thing that never changes is his determination to save the Lost Ones; if anything, it grows even stronger. His most prominent feat of willpower comes in Redemption, where he forces an AIDA out of his body, the only person ever to succeed in doing so.
• Difficult, but Awesome: Adept Rogues are most charitably thought of as this by most players.
• Discard and Draw: 5th Form basically switches Haseo's weapons and skills from his four previous forms, with a new weapon and ability set allowing Haseo to use attacks from the Eight Phases that Skeith has absorbed. In essence, Haseo's arguably not even an Adept Rouge anymore, but an entirely new class of his own.
• Dual Wielding: Begins with Dual Blades in his Adept Rogue 1st Form, and eventually gains Dual Guns in his Xth as well.
• Dramatic Gun Cock: Every time he reloads his Dual Guns.
• Dramatic Irony: During flashbacks/Roots, Shino introduces the story of Aura to Haseo, who's not quite buying such a fanciful story of something existing beyond The World's lore. Even after all the business with Epitaphs and AIDA, he's still initially skeptical when Yata suggest trying to contact her in the hopes that she may help them deal with Cubia, though. What's funny is that Ryou was there when Aura was born...as Sora. In fact, turning on Morganna to help the newly born Aura escape from Morganna is Ryou's final act as Sora before getting Data Drained by Skeith, falling into a coma, and losing his memories. One wonders if Aura knows who he is when they meet her.
• The Dreaded: He was known as the Terror of Death for good reason before the time he was data drained back to level 1. The status quickly disappeared after he was data drained. The status comes back if Haseo starts a side quest of being a Bounty Hunter of PKs and starts killing more and more PKs including several which are identified as chaotic PKs, or the worst of the worst PKs, in The World R:2 even in Rebirth, or the first volume.
• 11th-Hour Superpower: 5th Form is this, as Haseo only acquires it a few days before the The World R:2 is permanenly shut down.
• Everyone Has Standards: For as much as a complete and utter prick that Haseo started Rebirth as, his moments with characters like Bo and realizing that his impulsive actions have consequences significantly humble him. Perhaps the biggest cases are when Pi is endangered by an AIDA and he genuinely saves her with full concern for her well-being, despite being such a douche to her most of the time before, and his seeing Gaspard's crying self that gets him to immediately work to protect Canard as a guild. This Hidden Heart of Gold ends up being the crux to his finding a way to grow and evolve into The Hero in full.
• Evil Costume Switch: B-st Form, featured in the Trilogy OVA and some other media. A more animalistic version of 3rd Form, it adds Combat Tentacles and the ability to dual-wield Broadswords.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Compare his hair in the first his 3 Forms to his Xth Form.
• Expy: The late parts of G.U., and slightly later the Trilogy OVA, already begin to show the style and cinematic scope that CyberConnect2 would later expand into Asura's Wrath, a game that stars another silver-haired man with red eyes, anger issues, and multiple forms.
• Facial Markings: Most characters in the franchise have these, but Haseo's are notable in that they disappear and are redrawn as the last step of assuming each new form.
• Flash Step: Among the abilities Xth Form grants is the ability to dash by double-tapping the Guard button. The weight of the weapon type that Haseo's holding determines the distance of the dash.
• Friendly Enemy: To Midori and Matsu.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Completing the Forest of Pain turned him from an irrelevant novice to the feared Terror of Death overnight. He doesn't take going back to being a nobody well.
• Freudian Excuse: On top of the fact that he was exploited and screwed over by a severe case of Bad Samaritan right after logging into The World for the first time, his first guild in the Twilight Brigade fell apart hard due to the other guilds practically waging war on them, close friends going into hiding or outright quitting the game, his first love interest of Shino being put into a coma by Tri-Edge, and Ovan spontaneously abandoning him and what was left of the guild. Combine this with the fact that though mentally suppressed, he's also one of the Lost One coma victims of Skeith from The World: R1 and has thus always been a troubled individual even as a kid and it's easy to see why Haseo would be a bit of a Jerkass when pretty much everything that could've gone wrong, did.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Haseo's eyes glow whenever Skeith is exerting influence over him, which is much more common in the OVA.
• Good Is Not Nice: While he becomes one of the nicest characters over the course of the G.U. games, Haseo is still sarcastic if not ruthless to anyone who falls pretty squarely in the morally ambiguous territory; Yata, Ovan, and Sakaki all end up being targets early on for various reasons and remain there especially as the games progress and hidden motives become revealed.
  • He also often takes a "tough love" approach to his teammates, caring for them while also wanting them to be strong enough to defend themselves sometimes; a few parts of each volume can almost be construed as "Haseo drags his teammates to various areas to level them up for whatever comes ahead".
• Gratuitous English: Takahiro Sakurai can actually pronounce English well!
  • In the OVA he use the word "faker".
  • In Versus he speak the words "Justice" and "Judgment".
  • Subverted too because he uses Engrish in "Second" and "Third" lines.
• The Grim Reaper: As the Terror of Death.
• The Gunslinger: His Xth form.
  • Gun Fu
  • Guns Akimbo
• Hate at First Sight: Not that Haseo likes most people he meets at first, but his immediate hatred of Sakaki is particularly strong. And justified.
• Hidden Depths: He's certainly not on anywhere on the level of Pi or Yata, but the former helping him get a job at the Network Analysis Bureau post-Redemption reveals he's got a better knack for programming than expected. At the very least, it's something Pi and Yata can better refine while still crediting him for his major contribution.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: By Atoli in the OVA.
• Infinity -1 Sword: Ticking Death and the Doppelganger equipment.
• Infinity +1 Sword: Empty Skies for Twin Blades, Silad for Broadswords, Shadowy Death for Scythes, DG-Z for Dual Guns.
• Ironic Hell: The World R:2 as a whole is one for him: the powerful and well-known PK Sora now lives in a world where far too many others are just like he was. And just to drive the point home, while he becomes one of the most powerful and feared PKs ever to walk R:2, he still manages get PKed by someone far more powerful than he is.
• Irony: As a Level 133 Adept Rogue with some obscenely overpowered gear and all his Job Extensions, Haseo was an absolute monster in PvP but evaded teamwork and social things like guilds after what happened to the Twilight Brigade. His Avatar was also sealed, and this resulted in Tri-Edge utterly thrashing him with no effort. By the rematch at the end of Rebirth, at best Haseo is level 50 and only has his first Job Extension, but he's taken the time to actually build up genuine skill, gained trusty allies and started to learn how to reign in his more violent habits which lets him control his Avatar and triumph.
• Jack of All Trades: The Adept Rogue's hat is being mediocre at everything. Protagonist privileges, though, mean Haseo is actually more of a Lightning Bruiser.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Initially was just rough around the edges, but his early experiences in The World really soured him into thinking power was everything, and became a Jerk with a Heart of Jerk. Once he got humbled by Tri-Edge and was all but forced to start socializing with other players to hope to get his revenge, he gradually softens up into a nicer person. Gradually being a key word. Amusingly enough, his e-mail responses to others can be either more like his in-game self, or surprisingly humble, curious and even occasionally somewhat pleasant, implying a lot of his excess assholery is mostly a front he puts up to look tougher on the outside than he really is.
• Kick the Dog: Frequently, before his Character Development, and poor Atoli gets the worst of it. The player can also exaggerate this through rude and sometimes downright cruel email responses and forum posts.
• Large Ham: Possibly the biggest in the entire franchise, even more so than Piros. He has plenty to ham over and both of his voice actors take full advantage.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: Thanks to Skeith's data drain back in SIGN, he remembers nothing about being Sora.
• Laser-Guided Karma: In his previous role as Sora in "The World R:1", he was a notorious player killer. When he starts playing "The World R:2", he is almost immediately ganked by some player killers who taught him the basics of this game and then immediately player killed him as soon as they finished his first playing field.
  • Sakaki's entire existence seems to be one as well, as like Ryou himself seven years prior, he's a ten-year-old malcontent that causes trouble for others. Except Sakaki is far, FAR more dangerous than Sora was in threat level and evil.
  • On the flip side, despite having resigned to let the players take care of Cubia, Aura decides to give one or two nudges to tip the scales in Haseo's favor. One wonders if she knows who Haseo is and remembers what he did, that he as Sora was there when she was born and effectively helped her escape from Morganna with Tsukasa, Subaru, and Mimiru, getting Data Drained and falling into a coma in the process.
• Laughing Mad: Haseo gets plenty of evil laughter during his descent into Villain Protagonist in the second half of Rebirth.
• Light Is Good: Appropriately, after he goes through much of his character arc, he gains his Xth form, which, in contrast to all his previous ones, is predominately white.
• Lightning Bruiser: Unlike most Adept Rogues, Haseo lacks the poor stats the class is supposed to have, and being the main character grants him a number of advantages when it comes to inflating those stats even further through quest rewards and unique weapons.
• Literal Split Personality: In the scene where he achieves Xth Form, Haseo briefly speaks with Skeith, who appears to have permanently absorbed the personality of Haseo's former identity Sora after stealing that part of his mind for itself all the way back in SIGN. Unlike most examples of such a reveal, no Split-Personality Merge occurs, and Haseo never gets those memories back, nor does he appear to realize that Skeith took them; it exists purely as a bonus for the audience.
• Loner-Turned-Friend: At first to Shino and Ovan, then to Silabus and Gaspard and through them the rest of The World.
• Love Makes You Evil: Shino being rendered comatose by Tri-Edge marks Haseo's Start of Darkness.
• Love Triangle: At first between Shino and Atoli, then later between Atoli and Alkaid.
• Luminescent Blush: On rare occasion, typically when one of the women in his life is involved. Link features it as part of his Cross Rengeki.
• Madness Mantra: "It's here, it's here, it's here, IT'S HERE!"
• Magically Inept Fighter: Because he wears heavy armor due to choosing that kind of armor when he created this character, he is strong against physical attacks but weak against magic attacks. Furthermore, he cannot learn spells by levelling up his weapons. He has only two methods of using magic himself: using a consumable spell scroll that casts a spell when it is consumed, or using scrolls that permanently teach him magic. Because all of the classes he chose to create his adept rogue deal in physical attacks, his magic attacks are weaker than those cast by players who naturally use magic like shadow warlocks, macabre dancers, and harvest clerics.
• Magic Staff: The novel retelling of the G.U. story has Haseo gain a different form in lieu of the Xth Form, which provides him with Skeith's Celtic cross-shaped staff.
• Magikarp Power: While he's quite serviceable as a Twin Blade or Edge Punisher in his first two forms, Haseo's Adept Rogue class doesn't really come into its own until he regains his 3rd Form in Volume 2 and gains the ability to put multiple weapon types on one Skill Trigger, allowing him to swap weapons as part of attacking and thus greatly improving the practicality of doing so mid-battle.
• Magnetic Hero: With the pull strengthening with Character Development. Comes to a head in late Redemption when Haseo, through Zelkova, has emails sent out for players who are willing to help cull the numbers of Cubia Gomorras down. Forum posters are skeptical at first, but not only do many of the former PKK's allies come to his aid, so do some of his PK enemies, but most of all, many Arena Rankers, merely because Haseo called for their aid, likewise proving that Sakaki's attempt to defame Haseo as a cheater ultimately amounted to nothing.
  • Comes to an even more amazing head in the post-game, when he is voted as the greatest online gamer, due to his feats at the Arena and his reputation as a PKK, up to including a lot of fangirls, calling him "mysterious, yet cool".
• Meaningful Name: Haseo's title of The Terror of Death reflects the fear he inspires as a PKK, certainly, but it also reflects his own fears, especially with regards to Shino. When confronted with the possibility of a berserk Skeith actually taking a life, he panics more than the guy in danger of being killed. He actually rejects the title in Vol. 3, signifying his Character Development, and when he claims it again before summoning Skeith to battle Cubia, it's in reference to calling himself as his Phase.
  • Haseo itself is a reference to the Japanese poet Matsuo Bashou (via Alternate Character Reading), whose disciple was named Kawai Sora. In other words, a subtle clue to Haseo's player also being Sora's player.
• Memento MacGuffin: The Lit Honeysuckle Twin Blades act as one to Shino, even though he doesn't get them from her. They also act as one to Alkaid, who's rendered a Lost One as well not long after giving them to him.
• Mix-and-Match Weapon: Dual Guns take the form of pistols with Laser Blade bayonets pointing downward, as if being held Reverse Grip like Twin Blade weapons usually are.
• Morphic Resonance: Skeith changes appearances with him, even to the point of becoming mostly white after Haseo gains his Xth form.
• Multi-Melee Master: His Adept Rogue class grants him the ability to wield Twin Blade, Edge Punisher and Flick Reaper weapons, while Xth Form adds the exclusive Dual Gunner weapons. 5th Form in the Updated Re-release not only adds a Whip Sword to his already vast arsenal, but also the ability to manifest temporary weapons based on each of the Eight Phases.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Skeith going berserk against Kuhn and Magus is the first major step in Haseo's growth for the better, as he's shown the consequences of his actions for the first time in his life and is horrified at what he sees.
• My Greatest Failure: Failing to save Alkaid drives Haseo almost as strongly as Shino from the second half of Reminisce onward.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast / Red Baron: "The Terror Of Death"
• Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"!: Multiple times in Volume 1. Like most of Haseo's Jerkass traits, he grows out of it.
• Nominal Hero: Though Haseo has his moments of kindness, he clearly starts out only wanting power for selfish reasons and fully exploits his position as an Epitaph User as such - something others around him are quick to notice, Pi in particular. This blows up in his face when it gets out of control and alienates his allies, forcing him to have to fix his own ideology and grow into a genuinely heroic individual.
• No-Sell: Haseo has precisely zero tolerance for Endrance wallowing in self pity over Mia.
• Not Quite Dead: His first time being PKed by IYOTEN and Asta, Azure Kite's Data Drain, and being at ground zero of Corbenik's Rebirth ability all leave Haseo face-down on the ground and dead-eyed, but naturally he survives all three.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In Vol.1 watching Skeith going absolutely out of control and giving arguably the most violent beatdown of the entire series is enough to make even, a then Blood Knight, Haseo to panic. He goes from thinking he can cow Skeith into stopping by screaming at his avatar until it finally hits him that Skeith wouldn't stop until he annihilated his enemy Kuhn's avatar, Magus, which could possibly turn him into a Lost One.
• One-Man Army: Haseo was exclusively a solo player during his PKK days.
• Papa Wolf: To Canard in Volume 3, after embracing his role as its guildmaster and having grown to care about the people in it.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Among the Avatars, Skeith is the smallest by a considerable margin, with even Gorre being twice his height.
• Power Gives You Wings: Xth Form is commonly portrayed as being able to manifest Skeith's Laser Blade wings.
• Power Glows: When summoning his Avatar.
• The Power of Friendship: The point of the 3rd Form quest. Haseo nearly bungles it.
• Psychotic Smirk: Haseo has quite the number of them in Rebirth, at first from his high-level PKK status and later from his Avatar.
• Power-Up Letdown: Haseo's 5th form has him lose the ability to use his normal three weapons in favor of a Whip Sword. Since this sword is not one of the game's normal weapons classes, Haseo becomes unable to target enemies' weaknesses to certain weapons. One of the potentially biggest positives to being an Adept Rogue is that an Adept Rogue is able to target weaknesses to three different weapon types.
• Rage Breaking Point: Haseo's attempts to put up with Atoli during their trip to Δ Blurry Obsessive Slacker so that he can recruit her for the Arena involve an ever-increasing amount of teeth-gritting. At the end, when she both declines his offer and inadvertently insults his motivations, Haseo blows up at her.
• Real-Time Weapon Change: Adept Rogues like Haseo are able to change their weapons in real time once they complete their second job extension. In Haseo's case, he can change between twin swords which are great at dealing a high amount of damage per second against most ground-based enemies via Death of a Thousand Cuts against a single enemy but are nearly worthless against flying enemies, a broadsword which is great at destroying armor and damaging the hardest enemies and is long enough to make hitting flying enemies somewhat easier but have tough times dealing enough hits in a combo to open enemies up to rengeki attacks, a scythe which excels at damaging many enemies surrounding Haseo and as an excellent Anti-Air weapon but is slow in dealing damage per second against a single ground-level enemy unless the enemy is weak to scythes, and dual guns which are quite weak but are long range and Anti-Air weapons. Most enemies are weak against one of the first three weapons, allowing one to score weapon critical hits with enhanced damage by choosing the correct weapon.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Gives a scathing one to Atoli when his frustration at her boils over.
  Haseo: 'Slow down? Stop and to enjoy?' Ha...haha! It's impossible! I can't take this anymore! What are you, an idiot?! All of this...all of this, all of this...is nothing more than a bunch of computer data! It's just a bunch of fake stuff made by slapping textures on top of polygons! How the hell do you find any part of this made-up world beautiful?! There's only one thing that's real about this world, and that's us! The players! Getting stronger and defeating your opponent, those are the ways that all of us keep connected! That's the way this game is played! What's wrong with that, huh?! ANSWER ME! TELL ME: WHAT'S WRONG WITH THAT?!...leave. Damn, you're so irritating! Don't show your face again!
  • He later delivers an epic one to Ovan before he goes into a coma.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: His original color scheme fits the part, and there's a period where his attitude fits as well.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: His default eye color is a dark red. Summoning Skeith once he unlocks his Avatar turns them a blood red. Being possessed by Skeith during a few instances in volume 1 and being unable to control what Skeith is doing makes them glow red like Skeith's cross from R1.
• Red Oni: To Ovan's Blue Oni.
• Say My Name: Haseo wouldn't have his reputation as the franchise's largest ham if it didn't include him shouting people's names at every given opportunity.
• Screaming Warrior: Haseo has the loudest battle dialogue of any party member, with a kiai delivered on nearly every strike.
• Screw Destiny: He's determined enough in this regard to even defeat Cubia, something his predecessor was unable to accomplish without destroying the Twilight Bracelet that had spawned it.
• Second Love: Shino was his first, Atoli is his second, and when given the choice he chooses the latter.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: To Sakaki.
• Skyward Scream: Shino, Pi and Alkaid each get him to give one for various reasons.
• Slasher Smile: One of Haseo's most common expressions in Rebirth as he goes mad with power, right up until his Heel Realization.
• Spin Attack: Scythes are built around this sort of move, and the revised Twin Blade attack routine introduced in Reminisce has them as well.
• Storm of Blades: Skeith the 3rd does it with its array of laser blades, while B-st Form in the OVA does it with a massive stream of broadswords.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Warms up once you get to know him. A male example, for real.
• Terror Hero: Enough so that it's in his nickname. He stops relying on fear after the Data Drain resets his progress.
• Too Awesome to Use: Shortly after the events or Redemption Zelkova had Skeith sealed away, as its transformation into a Key of the Twilight could recreate Cubia once again. Using Kusabira's AIDA data, Zelkova creates an anomalous factor that acts as a Restraining Bolt for the unsealed Skeith, allowing Haseo to use its power again without the risk of recreating Cubia.
• Too Many Belts: 1st Form has a shirt made entirely out of belts, with 52 belts on his body overall. Each successive form eases up on the belt count.
• Took a Level in Kindness: It takes him a bit to start, but once his Character Development gets going Haseo steadily transforms from a Designated Hero to the genuine article.
• Transformation Sequence: Each Job Extension Haseo undergoes comes with a suitably flashy cutscene to display the transformation into the new form.
• Trauma Button: The primary reason he goes out of his way to save Pi from an AIDA infection, is because he feared her going into a coma like Shino did. He noticeably becomes far more emotional after defeating her Avatar.
• Tsundere: Male, type A.
• Unstoppable Rage: Subverted. His rage is very stoppable and his Superpowered Evil Side is a pushover (albeit a freaking scary one) compared to his Xth Form.
• Unwitting Pawn: To Ovan.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: 5th Form is basically him in a long black trenchcoat and pants with a design to give the illusion of being low-cut, all to proudly display the AIDA-based wave tattoos on a very sculpted torso.
• Warrior Therapist: Not that he means to be, but just as Haseo grows from a Jerkass to a kind and noble hero through his interactions with others, those same interactions push many of them to overcome traumas in their lives or otherwise become better people.
• What the Hell, Hero?: On the receiving end multiple times throughout Rebirth, and on the giving end to Ovan in Redemption.
• Whip Sword: The new weapon he gains with his new form in Vol.4: Reconnection.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Initially plays this straight, but subverts it more as time goes on.
• Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises: Any time Haseo's shocked. Notable examples include all of his Arena fights in Rebirth except the one with Matsu, The Reveal near the end of Reminisce, and the stinger after the credits in Reminisce.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Unlocking his Avatar causes Haseo to regress as a character to the point of becoming a Villain Protagonist, using it recklessly in most of his Arena matches until his fight with Kuhn brings about a Heel Realization that marks the start of his change for the better.
• The Worf Effect: His enormous level and skill as a player mean nothing when he first tries to take on Tri-Edge at Hulle Granz Cathedral.
• Would Hit a Girl: He does not care about the sex of a PKer that he finds. He kills them all, especially if that girl's name is Bordeaux.
• Yin-Yang Bomb: Technically, 5th Form counts, because of purified AIDA data in him acting to keep Skeith's power in check, reflected on the distinctively black dot-based wave tattoos on his bare chest and face, and a return to black clothing.

Ovan

Voiced by: Hiroki Tochi (Japanese); Jamieson Price (English, video games); Michael Kopsa (English, anime)

World Identity: A famously powerful Steam Gunner, easily distinguished by the massive cylinder locked over his left arm. He's the founder and leader of the Twilight Brigade, a guild dedicated to finding the Key of the Twilight, which most other players have long since discounted as pure fantasy. Holds the avatar of the eighth Phase, Corbenik, The Rebirth.

Real Identity: Masato Indou, a young man, and the older brother of Aina. According to one of the Newsbreak segments in the G.U. games, CC Corp has accused him of creating the AIDA "virus," resulting in mass protests by players in his defense.

Appears in: .hack//Roots, .hack//G.U., .hack//Link

Tropes Associated With:

• Affably Evil: Ovan's never anything less than cordial and helpful towards Haseo with regards to chasing the mystery of Tri-Edge.
• Anti-Villain: Ovan's ultimate goal of stopping Tri-Edge and reviving the Lost Ones is legitimately good. The things he does and forces Haseo to do in order to get there, less so.
• Badass Longcoat: A white coat, too.
• Bad Powers, Good People: He continues wielding an admittedly more benevolent form of AIDA even as a teammate.
• Bayonet Ya: The weapon of the Steam Gunner class.
• Being Evil Sucks: AIDA <Tri-Edge> forces him to act as a serial killer. He very much wants to stop.
• BFG: In the second encounter with Corbenik, its left arm is completely consumed by AIDA <Tri-Edge> and mutates into a gigantic cannon.
• Big Bad: Or rather, the AIDA sealed in his left arm is.
• Big Bad Friend: One of the people Haseo most admires, and the true identity of Tri-Edge from the very beginning.
• Body Horror: His AIDA-infected left arm is grotesque even by the standards of infectees, with a Combat Tentacle growing from his shoulder and his hand mutated into some kind of bandage-wrapped axe.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Not always, but he can't always control the bloodlust of the AIDA in his arm.
• Breaking Speech: Ovan proves extremely good at delivering these in a way that motivates people to do what he needs them to do. One delivered to Atoli near the end of Rebirth spurs the events of the entire next volume, and another in Redemption is essential to finding the last Epitaph User.
• By the Power of Grayskull!: "Come the Rebirth! Corbenik!"
• The Captain: To the Twilight Guild in Roots.
• Catchphrase: "BURN THIS SIGHT INTO YOUR EYES!!"
• The Chessmaster: One way or another, almost everything in Roots and the G.U. games was planned or anticipated by him. Except for Cubia that is.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Although he and Morganna Mode Gone have several similarities in both personality and tactics, Ovan stands in contrast to his predecessor by being a human, taking much longer to reveal his true role in the plot and then subverting that role by revealing his bengin endgame. To summarize: Morganna was willing to destroy both the online and the real world to kill her daughter Aura and escape deletion. Ovan, meanwhile, was willing to risk destroying the online and real world in a Heroic Sacrifice to save his sister Aina.
• Crazy-Prepared: Nearly everything Ovan does is part of his grand scheme. He even manages to incorporate his AIDA's homicidal tendencies into it by giving Haseo the means to reach areas he couldn't otherwise go.
• Death Seeker: The only way out of his predicament is for Ovan to die, but forces conspire to make this extremely difficult for him.
• Despair Event Horizon: He doesn't show it, but he hit it long before the games or anime started.
• The Dragon: Directly to AIDA - which he loathes with every fiber of his being.
• Evil Makeover: Played straight and inverted. AIDA gives him an evil arm of the Red and Black and Evil All Over flavour when he's the Big Bad, but when he's redeemed, AIDA/Kusabira gives him a Blue Is Heroic version.
• Foreshadowing: The Twilight Brigade was created to find the Key of Twilight, and eventually it does, from a certain point of view.
• Friendly Enemy: Justified. He doesn't actually want to be a host for AIDA, but he can't help it, so a lot of his dialogue post-reveal is encouraging Haseo to beat him and to help his confidence.
• Gambit Roulette: For as much as his grand master plan involved putting Haseo through one ordeal after another to make him stronger, there's one point where it could have very easily, and almost did, go very wrong: Giving Sakaki a powerful AIDA and possibly the means to usurp Yata as system administrator almost ended in the madman abusing his privileges to ban him for good. Only Taihaku's intervention and desire to beat Haseo himself nipped that in the bud. It's not clear if Ovan could have accounted for that.
• Gay Option: In Vol 4, where he finally joins Haseo's party, he can be sent the Promise Card. Uniquely, he can do both the Forever in Love and Best Wishes endings, which depends on a dialouge choice. The Forever in Love ending however is played for laughs, as he misinterprates what Haseo means by "More then a regular freind", causing Haseo to freak out, and the ending slides show them at the wedding event with an upset Haseo wearing the wedding the dress.
• Godzilla Threshold: Ovan's entire plan is the dangerous, desperate scheme of a man running out of time and options alike.
• Good All Along: In the end, Ovan's goal is to save his sister Aina and exterminate the threat of AIDA.
• Good Is Not Nice: Even though Ovan's ultimate goal is noble, he does some truly awful things in pursuit of it. Of particular note is delivering a Breaking Speech to Atoli that's calculated to set off the entire events of Reminisce, all for the sake of provoking one fight.
• Gun Fu: Notably in Versus.
• Guns Akimbo: In addition to his main bayonet, he carries a pistol in his left hand.
• Happy Flashback: Several times in Redemption, about his peaceful days with his little sister Aina before AIDA ruined their lives.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Performing one is the lynchpin of his entire scheme.
• Jekyll & Hyde: AIDA <Tri-Edge> occasionally breaks out of it's seal an takes over his body; .
• Kick the Dog: Has a habit of manipulating everyone he finds relevant to his plans, sure, and the cast are aware of it. Then his true cause is revealed, and while the AIDA infection may be perverting some element of his normal self, he straight up admits to Haseo and Yata's faces that everything he did with them was solely to control and tame their Epitaphs for resurrecting his sister. Yata has a Heroic BSoD that leads to his Awakening, Haseo straight up loses his shit and goes on his own rant about it after beating the hell out of him.
• I Need You Stronger: Everything Ovan does throughout all three games is for the sake of building Haseo up by getting him into fights with every other Avatar.
• Infinity +1 Sword: Coming Reincarnation.
• Large Ham: Normally Ovan is quite sedate, but when the situation calls for it, he's fully capable of engaging Haseo in Ham-to-Ham Combat.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Not that Ovan's weak ordinarily, but you really don't want to be around when he unlocks that cylinder...
• Made of Iron: One of the few player-type enemies who can't be knocked down by Broadsword attacks.
• Meaningful Name: His title of The Rebirth reflects the way he changes the lives of those around him.
• My God, What Have I Done?: The first thing his AIDA infection did was make him PK his own sister, which sent her into a coma.
• No Kill like Overkill: While the details of Ovan's battle with the Azure Knights aren't seen, Ovan giving Haseo one of Kite's severed arms as a trophy suggests it went very badly for the trio.
• No-Sell: Ovan shrugs off attacks from Haseo's B-st Form in the OVA, as well as during the boss battle with him in Reminisce.
• Not Quite Dead: Ovan survives Rebirth's usage, if only just.
  • Back from the Dead: The now-noncanon Returner OVA features Ovan's return without much explanation, while Last Recode offers a bit of a longer story as to how it happens.
• Offscreen Villainy: Nearly all of Ovan's villainous actions take place offscreen until The Reveal.
• One-Man Army: Ovan's condition may be terrible, but it comes with the benefit of truly monstrous strength.
• One-Winged Angel: With his AIDA arm acting as the wing.
• Poor Communication Kills: And how. Haseo rightfully chews him out for being such a relentlessly opaque, cryptic secret keeper in Vol 4.
• Power Glows: When summoning his Avatar.
• Promoted to Playable: In .hack//G.U. Last Recode's fourth volume, Ovan finally joins Haseo as a party member.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: On the receiving end from Haseo after he's had enough of Ovan's vague bullshit and manipulations. Primarily that the way he had his plans unfold where collateral damage was totally acceptable, giving at least some of himself to AIDA for his goals despite the hell it put him through, and manipulating every single person he came across completely tanked Haseo's sympathy for Ovan trying to rescue Aina. Everybody suffers and grieves, but Ovan taking everything to such absurdly dickish degrees to get what he wants over anything else while inflicting suffering on everyone around him and causing Poor Communication Kills hard, with Haseo being a trouble magnet for this on purpose, is simply not justifiable. As Haseo puts it, Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse, Ovan is just a selfish jerk that ended up in a horrible situation, and that he's not any more unique or special than anyone else to justify it. It takes Redemption Equals Death for Ovan to start realizing he really did go too far.
• Redemption Equals Death: "Become stronger, Haseo. Strong enough to kill me..."
• Reset Button: His Avatar's ability.
• Restraining Bolt: The lock on Ovan's left arm is a seal, designed to contain the Tri-Edge AIDA so he can still control his PC. However it can't keep AIDA contained forever; the lock's already failed a couple of times (which is how Shino wound up in a coma), and it's just a matter of time before it completely overwhelms him.
• The Reveal: Most of the plot of the first two volumes is the buildup to Ovan revealing what's inside that cylinder on his arm.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: The shinier they are, the more scared you ought to be.
• Spread Shot: One of his attacks in .hack//Versus.
• Soul Jar: As the original host of AIDA, the coma victims can see what he sees.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Tends to appear out-of-the blue, talk mysteriously about things with Haseo that he might know a little too much about, then vanish before anyone else can drop in. He also has a habit of doing this at the exact right moment when major events are happening to make sure things go his way. Interestingly, this is shown to make Haseo more infuriated with him as the series goes, both leaving without a full explanation and his disappearing again.
• Taking You with Me: The whole point of his scheming is to eliminate AIDA, even if that means killing himself as well.
• Talking to Themself: AIDA <Tri-Edge> can speak through his voice, and does so in order to taunt him.
• Two Beings, One Body: In the fourth volume of Last Recode, Kusabira reintegrates into him.
• Übermensch: Ovan has both a deep understanding of human nature, a heavy skepticism towards conventional morality, naturally draws people towards him with his strength and ultimately does what he wants, in a rational manner and without remourse. Also provides a very subtle deconstruction, in that while his Ubermensch traits do lead him to perform superhuman feats of social engineering and to accoplish the near-impossible at great cost to himself and the world at large, his confident dismissal of the Power of Friendship and his fundamental refusal to acknowledge trust outside of control actually prevent him from finding a less-destructive solution to his problems or from acquiring the full benefit of the skills of the people he manipulates.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Before AIDA took everything from him.
• Using You All Along: Haseo is his Unwitting Pawn. Downplayed, in that he wants the same thing as Haseo; a lot of his scheming is due to trying to work around AIDA <Tri-Edge>.
• Villain Takes an Interest: It's unclear if Ovan knew immediately that Haseo was the host of Skeith.

Shino

Voiced by: Kaori Nazuka (Japanese); Kari Wahlgren (English, video games); Kelly Sheridan (English, anime)

World Identity: A Harvest Cleric and second in command of the Twilight Brigade, she's an all-around wonderfully pleasant girl who's almost as affectionate toward Haseo as she is admiring of Ovan. Halfway through Roots, she's PKed and put in a coma by Tri-Edge.

Real Identity: Shino Nanao, a seemingly lonesome young college student. She doesn't reveal much about herself, save that she lives in a small apartment with a lot of books and not much else, other than that she keeps houseplants (wanting a big enough house to house corn dracaena) and that she has health problems.

Appears in: .hack//Roots, .hack//G.U., .hack//Link

Tropes Associated With:

• Adaptation Dye-Job: Made more confusing by her Palette Swap partway through the story. Prior to said swap, Shino wears white with pink hair, switching to a black outfit with silver hair later on. The G.U.+ manga gives Shino blue hair to go with her black outfit instead, with the black-and-white pages causing it to appear black as well.
• And I Must Scream: Shino was lucky enough to get a front seat to Ovan's carnage thanks to her mind being trapped in his arm.
• Always with You: She spent the majority of the series with her awareness inside Ovan's arm.
• Angelic Beauty: Her first appearance, with its primarily white palette and angelic wings.
• Asleep for Days: The exact amount of time Shino spends comatose is unclear, but it spans roughly a five-month period from February to mid-late summer 2017.
• Back from the Dead: Like most other coma victims in the franchise, she re-awakens once the problem that caused the coma is fixed.
• The Baroness: To Ovan in Roots.
• Brought Down to Normal: The noncanon G.U.+ manga declares that Shino was the original Epitaph User of Innis, but it abandoned her in favor of Atoli upon Shino falling comatose. Even after her reawakening, Innis remains with Atoli. In all other forms of media, Atoli had Innis from the beginning.
• Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: The first Gentle Girl to Haseo's Brooding Boy.
• Creepy Child: Her brief appearance in the last episode of Online Jack sees her deliver a rather cryptic statement about AIDA before leaving.
• Curtains Match the Window: After her palette swap, her hair and eyes both turn silver.
• Did Not Get The Guy: Though she still flirts a bit with Haseo, Shino's accepting of the fact that he chose Atoli over her.
• I Was Just Passing Through: She claims this when saving Haseo at the start of Roots, though given later events it's more likely Ovan planned ahead.
• Living Emotional Crutch / Only Friend: To Haseo after the Twilight Brigade disbanded. Shino letting Haseo treat her like this proved to be a terrible mistake.
• Meaningful Name: Just like Atoli, she really earns the title of The Mirage of Deceit.
• Missed the Call: Only in the noncanon G.U.+ manga, where she was the original host for Innis before it abandoned her in favor of Atoli.
• Morality Pet: To both Haseo and Ovan in Roots.
• Nice Girl: Shino's chief defining character trait.
• Perpetual Smiler: She's often seen with a smile on her face.
• Second Love: Haseo's her second, with Ovan her first, but Haseo ultimately rejects her in favor of his second.
• Stepford Smiler: She might seem composed to the casual observer, but inside her mind is a very depressed young woman.
• Turn the Other Cheek: She forgives Ovan for PKing her unintentionally.
• White Magician Girl: As a Harvest Cleric, she specializes in healing magic, but learns a few offensive spells and can be taught more.

Sakisaka

Voiced by: Ryōtarō Okiayu (Japanese); Alistair Abell (English)

World Identity: A Steam Gunner fond of mysteries, wordplay, and good old-fashioned adventure. One of the first members of the Twilight Brigade, he becomes increasingly frustrated by their apparently fruitless quest, but remains loyal until its disbanding, and quits the game soon after.

Real Identity: Shinnosuke Sakamaki. A young man who says he lives in a bachelor apartment with few windows. He quits The World to join his friends in a new online game called Riot Gun.

Appears in: .hack//Roots

Tropes Associated With:

• Beneath the Mask / Hidden Depths: Sakisaka's a much more serious character than his goofy appearance suggests.
• Catchphrase: In Japanese, Sakisaka is fond of particular puns and wordplay the Brigade calls "the Sakisaka catchphrase." The translators couldn't (or just didn't) render this in English, so it became "I'm perplexed at X and I'm surprised at Y."
• Cool Teacher: Tabby likes to think so.
• Expressive Mask: His goggles are able to flash words or symbols on their lenses, especially when he's surprised.
• Hidden Eyes: On the rare occasion he's being sincere and serious, the lens flare on his goggles fades to expose his eyes underneath.
• Improbable Use of a Weapon: He always uses his bayonet as a melee weapon, never as a gun.

Tabby

Voiced by: Megumi Toyoguchi (Japanese); Stephanie Sheh (English, video games); Marÿke Hendrikse (English, anime)

World Identity: A Tribal Grappler designed to look like a Cat Girl, complete with cat ears and a ponytail that looks like a cat's tail due to being a member of Lei Tribe. Tabby is fairly naive and new to the experiences of The World. Despite her lack of experience, she always tries to find the best out of any situation and is always cheerful and perky. She only uses her "Feline Soul Gauntlets" weapon and nothing else because Shino gave them to her as a gift.

Real Identity: Moe Kubo, age 16. Her parents admit they named her Moe after a "popular anime craze when she was born." Being the younger of the two sisters in her family, she often has to compete for attention. It makes it hard that her sister is smarter and better than her in school. Tabby's encounters in "The World" soon helped her gain self confidence. She is studying to become a nurse so that she can help Shino in real life, or others who fall comatose from similar situations.

Appears in: .hack//Roots, .Hack//G.U. 3: Redemption, .hack//Link

Tropes Associated With:

• All for Nothing: Subverted. When she finally gets in her head that trying to help Haseo in The World won’t get anything done (and she certainly hasn't really helped him in any meaningful way anyway), she takes a break from the game to study nursing in the hopes of helping Shino’s comatose body. Except Shino, as well as all the Lost Ones, are saved long before she even concludes her first semester courses. However, Tabby isn't bothered by this, as she feels she's finally found something she wants to do in her life.
• Braids of Action: The end of the braid even resembles a tail!
• Break the Cutie: Ender PK'ed her.
• Cat Girl: Designed as such.
• Cleavage Window: Her profile picture.
• Combat Stilettos: Can't be seen here but an artwork of Roots confirms this.
• Genki Girl: There's a reason why she's so energetic. It's not like she wants to be. She's medicated in order to deal with depression from family issues.
• The Glomp: Give this to Haseo in Redemption when he finds her in the Forest of Pain. (Earlier she mailed Haseo to come and see her at the entrance, but then she go inside the forest by herself.)
• Idiot Hero: In spades! Aside from the explanations listed under The Load and Nice Job Breaking It, Hero, you wanna know how much of one she is? Despite saying in her email that she'd meet Haseo at the entrance to the Forest of Pain, she decides to go 50 floors in, only getting that far in on her own through using Smoke Screens, and then decides to take a catnap to wait for Haseo. All just so she can talk with him (and Shino if she's in your party) one more time before saying she's quitting the game for good...but then backpedals almost immediately after.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Justified. Given her family problems, she thinks that nobody ever believes in her, but Wool and Kuhn helped her overcome that issue when they befriended her.
• I Want My Friends To Be Happy: She just wants to help Haseo and try and help Shino in any way she can, in the game or out. Naturally, Haseo doesn't care and thinks she just gets in the way. While one would think that's his problem though, and that it's usually never her fault for anything, how Roots plays out shows otherwise.
• Innocent Fanservice Girl: She didn't even protest when Tokio touched her breasts unintentionally, instead she's confused.
• The Load: Tabby throughout Roots did not amount to anything at all, and, in fact, many times, she exacerbated problems due to being an oblivious and gullible Idiot Hero that jumped to conclusions without thinking at all. Even when her actions ultimately do lead to some actual good, namely the Medic Union, the guild they started out as was railroaded by her to just help just Haseo, which ultimately went nowhere very quickly, leading to her two guildmates to abandon her^note Even Seisaku, who crushed on her and tried to get her to come with him instead, to no avail, though talking to him in Root Towns show he's not bitter about it. Yes, she is such a massive case of The Load that she’s still one even when actually spearheading something. Is it any wonder why Haseo thought everyone else was as unhelpful as she was? The most helpful she actually gets to be is when she finally puts playing The World on hiatus to study being a nurse in the hopes of caring for Shino, but see All for Nothing.
• Meaningful Name: Tabby is a name that can be found in some colors of cat.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Oh boy, where to begin with her… Much of Haseo’s extreme isolationist, borderline psychotic, mentality following Shino falling comatose can be pinned largely on her being even more of The Load than she already was to the Brigade. It’s her sheer ineffectual attempts to be of any use that convince him that everybody is equally as ineffectual as her in actually trying to save Shino. And in general, she often caused conflicts due to her constant misunderstandings, gullibility, and obliviousness. It's telling that Haseo's personality only improves after being surrounded by more pleasant company that happen to be more useful and smarter than her. See also The Load.
  • Irony: Her general uselessness ultimately drove Haseo into the arms of Naobi and Ender anyway...but now as Yata and Pi, and they and others, prove much more pleasant and competent friends than Tabby does.
• Optional Party Member: In G.U., she can join Haseo in Vol. 3's post-game content if he clears at least half of the Forest of Pain Bonus Dungeon. Averted in last Recode, as she'll join automatically in Vol. 4 if not already recruited.
• Shipper on Deck: On The World's last day she tries to get Haseo to agree that Shino and Ovan would make a cute couple.
• Took a Level in Badass: Subverted. Going 50 floors into the superdungeon known as the Forest of Pain alone, with level far lower than yours would likely be (at least in the 130s) would seem awesome, but then you learn she used monster avoidance items (Smoke Screens) to get in that far.

Phyllo

Voiced by: Junpei Takiguchi (Japanese); Russel Roberts (English)

World Identity: A small Harvest Cleric who's almost always seen sitting at the bridge of Mac Anu, simply watching people go by, and striking up conversation with anybody who's interested. Considered an excellent source of advice and wisdom by anybody who knows him.

Real Identity: Kojirou Nakamura, aged 62, widowed and owning two cats and a pet dog, who like to meddle with his gaming. As he tells Haseo, he's just there to kill time. He dies of cancer at the end of Roots, but continues to assist Haseo through his last will.

Appears in: .hack//Roots, .hack//G.U.: Reminiscence

Tropes Associated With:

• Brain Uploading: A more mystical example than the norm for the franchise. His last scene in Reminisce, seen only if the player unlocks all of the Lost Weapons, teases that Phyllo's soul lives on in The World.
• Cool Old Guy: So old in fact that he's a Posthumous Character instead by the time of the games.
• The Man Behind the Man: To Antares, who helps Haseo as the executor of Phyllo's last will.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: A clue that stuff ain't right offline is that he mentions that he's rehomed his pets. This is the first sign that his offline persona is dying.
• The Voiceless: In the games he communicates exclusively through emails and text chat, since he's already dead. In his last appearance, he speaks, but what he says is only written onscreen without being heard by the player.

Naobi

Voiced by: Takumi Yamazaki (Japanese); Paul Dobson (English)

World Identity: A hulking Macabre Dancer, and the guildmaster of TaN. Has a rivalry against Ovan and appears to be using the guild only for its resources, with which he can monitor and oppose the Twilight Brigade, delegating TaN's daily business to Tawaraya.

Real Identity: See Yata.

Appears in: .hack//Roots

Tropes Associated With:

• The Captain: Of the guild TaN.
• The Rival: To Ovan.
• Sock Puppet: One of at least two controlled by Yata. This one's purpose seems to be mainly to antagonize Ovan.

Ender

Voiced by: Sanae Kobayashi (Japanese); Lisa Ann Beley (English)

World Identity: A Blade Brandier and player-killer, working against the Twilight Brigade at the behest of Naobi. Whatever her motivation is, she really loves her work.

Real Identity: See Pi.

Appears in: .hack//Roots

Tropes Associated With:

• Blood Knight: She's a PK'er.
• Break the Cutie: She PK'ed Tabby.
• Deadpan Snarker: Towards the Twilight Guild.
• Foreshadowing: The reason she loves her job is because she's playing with Takumi Hino (Yata & Nala's player).

Tawaraya

Voiced by: Kenta Miyake (Japanese); Mark Acheson (English)

World Identity: A Shadow Warlock dressed as a traditional Japanese merchant. As the public face of TaN, he runs the guild's routine business: trading everything from rare items to information. When the guild is dissolved for illegal activity and his account banned, he later manages to return as Tohta, playing essentially the same character with a different appearance (and trying unsuccessfully not to be recognized as his former self).

Real Identity: A young man in college, eventually getting the opportunity to study overseas. Apparently considers his work in The World as good practice. Even while doing TaN's dirty work, he takes his role as an honest and ethical businessman very seriously.

Appears in: .hack//Roots

Tropes Associated With:

• Catchphrase: "Come again!"
• A Day in the Limelight: The episode Return takes a break from Haseo and focuses entirely on Tohta.
• Meaningful Name: Both his characters are inspired by the Japanese folk hero they're named after. Phyllo immediately figures out they share the same player because of this.
• Spell My Name With An S: The English dub of Roots calls him "Tawalaya," probably just because it's much easier for an English speaker to say.
• You Are the New Trend: Intentionally. TaN must stay on the cutting edge.

Saburo

Voiced by: Shizuka Itō (Japanese); Rebecca Shoichet (English)

World Identity: An Edge Punisher enlisted by Pi and Yata to observe and occasionally interfere with Haseo. In the end though, she does exactly what she wants to, and nothing else. Very fond of baffling and nonsensical metaphors.

Real Identity: A 24-yo male stock trader named Yasuo Nagai

Appears in: .hack//Roots

Tropes Associated With:

• Cross Player: Saburo's real identity is Yasuo Nagai, a male stock trader.

.hack//Alcor & .hack//CELL

Midori

Voiced by: Satsuki Yukino (Japanese); Saffron Henderson (English)

World Identity: A "Professional Victim" who lets people fight and kill her in return for payment. Her Class is Edge Punisher and she used to be a PKer.

Real Identity: Midori was born from a "virtual cell" in a medical computer. The cell was taken from a girl named Midori Shimomura who was suffering from a mysterious degenerative disorder. In an attempt to understand her condition, the doctors used a blood sample from her to create the virtual cell. However, the cell took on a life of its own and escaped into the network, where it grew and became sentient. "She" eventually arrived in The World R:2, where "she" created the PC Midori. With the exception of the blood sample, Midori does not exist outside of the worldwide computer network and the electronic devices attached to it. She is, however, able to use those devices to observe and interact with the real world. The original Midori creates an identical character once she recovers and it is unknown which of them appears in Link.

Appears in: .hack//Cell, .hack//Roots, .hack///Link

Tropes Associated With:

• Animal Motifs: Dragonfly.
• Blood Knight: She's a PK'er before she met Adamas.
• Facial Markings: Novel illustrations only.
• Fashionable Asymmetry: In the novel.
• Foil: To Bordeaux.
• Friendly Enemy: To Haseo in the end.
• Impossibly Cool Clothes: Her clothes is this in the novel illustrations.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: The reason she searches Tri-Edge/Azure Flame Kite.
• Lightning Bruiser: She's quite fast for being an Edge Punisher.
• Loners Are Freaks: Described by other player when she pass the Chaos Gate in Mac Anu. Suddenly she feels pain in her chest and smiles on her own.
• Meaningful Name: Midori usually translates to "green", but it's written as "blue" for her case, which is her color scheme.
• Mistaken for Badass: She's not even a skillful player. But due to her calm nature, people mistaken her as badass.
• Named Weapons: Dragonblossom.
• Navel-Deep Neckline: Her Xth Form in .hack//Link has a plunging neckline.
• Perpetual Frowner: Don't judge a character by her illustrations.
• Pink Means Feminine: Not really, but this is the color of her BFS.
• Shock and Awe: In LINK, she demonstrate a very destructive attack during her Cross Rengeki with Tokio. Much to Tokio's amazement and fear.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: While she generally displays cool personality, she actually have soft side for PCs like Silabus and Gaspard.
• Took a Level in Badass: She holds no fear when being challenged by the PKK Haseo.

Sakubo (Saku)

Bo (left) and Saku (right)

Voiced by: Megumi Toyoguchi (Japanese); Erin Fitzgerald (English)

World Identity: Saku is a bratty and aggressive Shadow Warlock who is one of Endrance's most rabid fangirls. She is a member of a rumor-maniac guild called Trifle. She shares her PC with her younger twin brother, Bo. They hold the Avatar of the fifth Phase, Gorre, The Machinator.

Real Identity: Sakura Nakanishi is the elder twin sister of Iori, the player behind Bo. They are both 10 years old.

Appears in: .hack//Alcor, .hack//G.U., .hack//Link

Tropes Associated With:

• Black Magician Girl: Being a Shadow Warlock, she specializes in offensive magic.
• Bratty Half-Pint: The shortest and youngest Epitaph User, and abrasive at best to everyone but her crush Endrance.
• Composite Character: Sakubo's role is merged with Silabus and Gaspards's in the G.U. novels.
• Cool Crown: Her Xth Form in Link adds a ridiculously massive crown to the top of Saku's hat.
• The Corruption: Saku spends a chunk of Volume 2 infected by AIDA, though it only seems to make her slightly more possessive of Endrance than normal.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Starts out as mostly being a self-proclaimed Perky Female Minion to Endrance until the latter pulls a Heel–Face Turn. Though she follows Endrance, it's more of an Enemy Mine in her case as she never really displays loyalty to Haseo or the other Epitaph Users like he does. When Endrance fakes a Face–Heel Turn and appears to join Sakaki, unaware that it isn't real, Saku pulls one herself and even gloats about it. When she learns that he was just being The Mole the whole time, the fact that her genuine turn was pointless breaks her, now convinced that neither Bo nor Endrance need her when they have Haseo. If Haseo (i.e. the player) chooses to dissuade her from disappearing from Bo's consciousness through an email chain, she pulls a true Heel–Face Turn, though remains a Tsundere towards him^note Much heavier on the tsun than even Bordeaux at that.
• Hot-Blooded: Compared to her brother, Saku's intensely aggressive. It extends to gameplay, as her default AI setting is Rage compared to Bo's default setting of Free-Will, and her Favorite Action triggers when she gets a kill as opposed to Bo's preference for Haseo to rack up combos.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Not in the sense that she wants an Avatar, although she has one, but Saku is desperate to have a place in Endrance's heart, and thus deeply jealous of Haseo for having it instead. It becomes especially pronounced after the Sage Palace Tournament, prompting her to run away.
• Infinity -1 Sword: Infinite Spiral.
• Infinity +1 Sword: Eternal Light.
• Kids Are Cruel: While not quite up to Bordeaux's levels, Saku gets more than her share of nasty actions and dialogue, including giving Negimaru a rather savage verbal and magical beatdown.
• Literal Split Personality: Avatar Gorre allows both Saku and Bo to control it simultaneously during certain attacks, the only time they're seen together aside from one cutscene in Volume 3.
• Meaningful Name: Her half of the character name means "new moon". Her title of The Machinator reflects her tendency to resort to underhanded tactics to get what she wants and her schemes for Endrance's affections.
• Power Glows: When summoning her Avatar.
• Precocious Crush: Saku's madly in love with Endrance, who's twice her age.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: She utterly rips Negimaru apart at the end of a quest.
  "I'll say it again! Guys who are.. losers offline.. are big losers.. online too!!!!"
  • Followed by brutally blasting the hell out of him as he runs away in tears.
• The Reveal: Saku actually does not exist in the real world. The "real" Sakura was stillborn. Saku is Iori's alternate personality that came to be when Iori heard that his mother wished that his sister had lived instead of him.
• Split-Personality Makeover: Saku taking control of their character results in Sakubo's skirt and hair flaring outward, her backpack changing color, and her motif changing from moon-dominated to sun-dominated.
• Split-Personality Merge: By December 2018, Saku has steadily begun to disappear as Bo's home life improves, though she's not outright gone yet.
• Stalker with a Crush: She acts this way towards Endrance at the best of times. When AIDA gets involved, well:
  "Haseo... You... You've come here to steal Master En from me, haven't you?! Ohhhhhhh no you don't! No you don't! No you don't! No you dooooooooon't!!!"

Sakubo (Bo)

Voiced by: Megumi Toyoguchi (Japanese); Erin Fitzgerald (English)

World Identity: Bo is a timid boy who shares his character with his sister Saku. In contrast to Saku's outgoing nature, Bo is shy and withdrawn. Through the events of the game, he comes to view Haseo as a big brother of sorts. They hold the Avatar of the fifth Phase, Gorre, The Machinator.

Real Identity: Iori Nakanishi is Sakura's younger twin. He is physically frail, often having to stay home from school due to illness. This is a source of strife for his parents.

Appears in: .hack//G.U., .hack//Link

Tropes Associated With:

• Ambiguously Gay: Given their situation, it's unclear if Saku's intense crush on Endrance is actually reflective of Bo.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: His relationship with Haseo is partially this; Haseo sold him the Dusty Miller he wanted at an extreme discount in one of his first genuinely nice moments, and Bo's never anything but nice to him afterwards.
• Blue Oni: To Saku's Red.
• Child Mage: His temperament, character model, and class culminate into this.
• Composite Character: See Saku's entry of the same trope.
• Cool Big Bro: Sees Haseo and Tokio as this.
• Cool Crown: His Xth Form in Link adds a ridiculously massive crown to the top of his hat.
• The Corruption: Gets infected by AIDA alongside his sister.
• Crossdressing Voices: In both versions.
• Cross Player: The in-game character itself is still a girl, regardless of the flattened skirt and hair whenever Bo plays.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Though the character model is actually female.
• Infinity -1 Sword: Infinite Spiral.
• Infinity +1 Sword: Eternal Light.
• Logic Bomb: Thanks to his Split Personality he proves to be one toward AIDA. In particular the AIDA using Aina's character that he spends some time with becomes hung up on the fact that "one is two" and just leaves.
• Meaningful Name: His half of the character name means "full moon". His title of The Machinator is more obviously applicable to Saku than himself, but he's still indicated to be intelligent and serves as a Spanner in the Works for Saku's more selfish plans.
• Morality Pet: Even at Haseo's worst, he never treats Bo anything short of kindly, and said acts of kindness are some of the first positive steps in his character growth.
• Nice Guy: While Saku almost immediately starts out chastising and belittling Haseo, Bo is unfalteringly nice to him.
• Power Glows: When summoning his Avatar.
• The Reveal: He has no sibling in reality, and it was his frustrated mother's anger that created the alternate personality of Saku.
• Split Personality: The original half.
• Split-Personality Merge: By December 2018, Bo's home life has improved to the point where Saku has mostly faded from his psyche, though she's not quite gone yet.
• You Should Have Died Instead: His mother wishes it was Sakura who lived instead of him, which is why he creates Saku.

Endrance

Voiced by: Mitsuki Saiga (Japanese); Liam O'Brien (English)

World Identity: Endrance is a famous Blade Brandier who is the Emperor of the Demon Palace Arena in the beginning of the games. His beauty and aloof attitude attracts many fans, but he shows no interest in anything but the small cat on his shoulder that he calls "Mia". Fittingly, he holds the avatar of the sixth Phase, Macha, The Temptress.

Real Identity: Kaoru Ichinose is a 20-year old hikikomori who was behind the character of Elk from the previous games. Despite his reclusive lifestyle, he supposedly has the looks of a fashion model.

Appears in: .hack//Alcor, .hack//G.U., .hack//Link

Tropes Associated With:

• Agent Peacock: He's magnificently campy and effete (and very explicitly bisexual, as an aside), but is one of the ace fighters that Haseo relies on in his quest to save the Lost Ones.
• Always with You: Never once realizes that the Mia he's always known and been constantly been looking for has been with him ever since he became Endrance, made more obvious that Macha's design here is very obviously Mia-like. Unfortunately, being unaware of this fact leads him to associate a cat-like AIDA as her. Even after joining forces with Project G.U., he's never told this, and Yata, formerly being his old comrade Wiseman, and thus also knew the original Mia, is never shown to tell him about his Avatar being Mia nor brings up the possibility of it. However, if you do his Lost Weapon sidequest in Vol. 2, he gets a scene with a very strong implication that he learns that Mia is his Avatar and has always been with him^note While a sidequest in LINK involves Endrance finally learning this, Avatar Macha briefly regaining her Mia form to talk to him, the characters there aren't the actual ones, merely AI recreations, so it doesn't apply to Kaoru himself.
• Arc Villain: Of the Demon Palace tournament arc.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: He was an Arena Emperor before he was defeated by Haseo.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: To Haseo, falling in love with him in all but name after Haseo emotionally picks him up after his defeat.
• Big Damn Heroes: Once each of the Just in Time and Changed My Mind, Kid variety, followed by an awesome put-down.
• Braids of Action: In his Xth form in Link.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: He first appears to be The Fighting Narcissist. He's actually a lot less obnoxious.
• Campy Combat: An effeminate long-haired, bisexual man who carries a rose and indulges in prose about beauty. He also happens to be a famed Blade Brandier, wielding a flashy purple blade and fighting with graceful twirls.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: He's usually in his own little world (with the sun of that world being "Mia" and later, Haseo) and generally speaks in a detached, resigned tone about whatever's going on (while fawning over Haseo). It makes the times where he's actually focused and not zoned out all the more poignant.
• Combat Pragmatist: Use his Avatar to win with ease in the Arena and become the Emperor. Good going! But thank goodness he didn't made it to the top three...
• Conveniently Timed Attack from Behind: When he goes Heel–Face Turn towards Sakaki.
• The Corruption: Infected by AIDA through Mia.
• Crossdressing Voices: In the Japanese version only. He's voiced by Liam O'Brien in the English version.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Averted. Defeating him helped, but what really bonds him to Haseo is the subsequent You Are Not Alone speech.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Inverted. Endrance is remarkably petty and hostile towards Haseo during their first meeting, giving him a rather scathing insult with little provocation. This makes such a bad first impression that it gives Haseo all the impetus he needs to knock Endrance off his throne.
• Depraved Bisexual: Subverted. The "depraved" aspect of his personality was a result of his AIDA infection, and he's perfectly nice after being cured. The bisexual aspect also only comes into focus after his Heel–Face Turn, where he develops an obvious attraction to Haseo.
• Does Not Like Spam: Not a fan of meat due to being Afraid of Blood, which it reminds him of.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: His Xth Form in Link. Kaoru is not that much less pretty than his PC, as validated by the Ragtime novel, backing up the whole "fashion model" looks.
• Dull Eyes of Unhappiness: After he loses Mia.
• Effeminate Misogynistic Guy: Less misogynistic, but more very socially awkward and shy. In fairness, he's generally withdrawn from everyone that isn't Haseo.
• Experienced Protagonist: He's a former .hacker, originally being the player of Elk in R1. Unfortunately, unlike the other returning .hackers^note Yata, Piros the 3rd, and Natsume, his own status is never brought up, nor is the fact that he was a key factor why the .hackers didn't flat out lose the final battle against Morganna (See Elk's entry for more details).
• Fake Defector: Pretends to side with Sakaki in Redemption, followed by a Moment of Awesome.
• Flower Motifs: Roses.
• Hikikomori: According to Yata, he's in The World 24/7, only logging out enough to get some sleep. Probably due to the psychological trauma of losing Mia to the Restore Aura Plan, likely Mia being ripped from literally in front of him. Later resolves to going out of his house more often, if only for Haseo.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: He doesn't care at all whether Haseo returns his affection or not.
• Infinity -1 Sword: Tempting Rose.
• Infinity +1 Sword: Seductive Rose.
• Irony: In the cutscenes during the Avatar Macha battle, Endrance expresses his dislike of being in Avatar Space as "she isn't there". He's referring to the AIDA cat who he believes is Mia...when in fact, the real Mia is right there with him, as the Avatar he freely uses.
• Kirk Summation: Haseo breaks him out of his depression in Reminisce with one of these. Afterwards, he starts getting fond of using them against the villains, particularly in situations where twisted love, admiration, or affection are involved in the motive.
• Lady of War: Gender flip.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy. Even offline too.
• Meaningful Name: Not his character name, but his title of The Temptress reflects his obsession with love.
• Power Glows: When summoning his Avatar.
• Purple Prose: Will wax lyrical about beauty and his love for Mia and Haseo.
• Purple Is Powerful: This dude proves it.
• Single-Target Sexuality: First Mia (sort of), then Haseo.
• Spikes of Doom: In his Xth Form in Link.
• Something about a Rose: Roses are Endrance's overall motif. He sometimes carries a rose and his Macha form has a rose for a lower half of a body.
• Stalker with a Crush: Not nearly as bad as Saku, but he does appear to scare the hell out of Haseo. Leads to something of an unrequited Love Triangle in which Saku hates Haseo because she thinks he stole Endrance.
• Took a Level in Badass: Zigzagged. Kaoru plays Endrance as a much more audacious and aggressive character than he did Elk, reflected by his new choice of class. While Elk was a Shrinking Violet Squishy Wizard, Endrance is a flamboyant front-line fighter. As an Epitaph user, Endrance is also imbued with much more power and potential than the Elk character enjoyed. Personality-wise, though, he's just as, if not more vulnerable than he was as Elk — a tunnel-visioned loner who requires a Living Emotional Crutch to function.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Acts much nicer to the team, especially Haseo, following his defeat. Being cured of the Hate Plague probably helped.
• Undying Loyalty: To Haseo.
• Villain Respect: In Volume 1. Not for Haseo, but for Alkaid. Endrance acknowledges her as a powerful rival and claims that Haseo won't be able to win unless he unleashes his Avatar.
• White Hair, Black Heart: Prior to his Heel–Face Turn.Justified since he was possessed by AIDA and was unwittingly high off his ass for most of the first game.

Alkaid

Voiced by: Masumi Asano (Japanese); Erin Fitzgerald (English)

World Identity: The former Emperor of the Demon Palace, before Endrance took the title. She at first hates Haseo for "cheating" to defeat her in the Inevitable Tournament, but after getting to know him better, she quickly warms up to him and becomes one of his allies. She is PK'ed and put into a coma by an AIDA-possessed Bordeaux late in Reminisce, and his failure to protect her is something that weighs heavily on Haseo for some time afterward.

Real Identity: Chika Kuramoto, a high school girl and something of a bookworm. She's highly fond of Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

Appears In: .hack//Alcor, .hack//G.U., .hack//Link

Tropes Associated With:

• Ascended Extra: She plays important role for Nanase's Character Development in .hack//Alcor.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: She's one of the Arena Emperors.
• Badass Bookworm: She is this in the real world.
• Badass Boast: Many of them. In .hack//Link manga for example; "The strongest one in here is no other than me!"
• Battle Couple: With Haseo in a Quest.
• Big Damn Heroes: Saves Nanase and Silabus from Bordeaux and her men in .hack//Alcor.
• Brainwashed: Alongside Haseo in .hack//Link manga.
• Chickification: Averted. She gets more gushy as she grows closer to Haseo, but also enjoys much more success than she did as an antagonist.
• Cool Big Sis: To Nanase in .hack//Alcor.
• Cutscene Power to the Max: It doesn't matter if Haseo is level 50 in Rebirth by the time he fights her, which would be able to wipe the floor with her in gameplay within seconds. Get her down to a threshold, and she cuts off the fight to thrash Haseo which causes him to unwittingly use his Avatar in desperation on her. She later does this again in Redemption to take down Cubia Gomoroas left and right shortly after waking up from her coma, despite the fact that she's actually been massively left behind in level due to being inactive for so long. Last Recode automatically puts her to your party's level average to fix this and keep her relevant in the endgame.
• Damsel in Distress: She's put to coma by infected Bordeaux through the last half of Reminisce to the end of Redemption.
• Death of a Thousand Cuts: Twin Blades in general focus on hit count over raw damage. Her initial weapon, Dorje Hatchet, is a rapid attack type which only further emphasizes that style.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Averted. Haseo had to cheat to defeat Alkaid, and she spends the rest of the volume hating him for it. He grows on her through unrelated circumstances in Volume 2.
• Demoted to Extra: In the games she's fine however... both G.U.+ and G.U. Novels she shows up simply to get beat by Endrance and in G.U. Trilogy only to stop Haseo's winning streak in the Arena in either case she never shows up again.
• Determined Defeatist: When she was defeated by Endrance in .hack//Alcor, she strives to defeat him. The result? In Reminisce, she's one of the top three Arena Emprors of Icolo.
• Dual Wielding: She's a Twin Blade.
• Evil Costume Switch: In .hack//Link manga.
• Fangirl: Of Salvador Aihara. Alkaid's player is also a huge fan of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, as revealed if you send her the right greeting cards.
• The Gadfly: She really gets a kick out of teasing Atoli in Vol.2 dubbing her training with Haseo as "super secret training" with a flirtatious tone.
• Genki Girl: After Haseo manages to befriend her.
• Hollywood Heart Attack: Being PKed by an AIDA infected Bordeaux didn't just render her comatose, it stopped her heart.
• Irony: She was friends with Nanase, who, unknown to her, became Sophora of Moon Tree. Definitely unknown to both girls, though, Chika was classmates with Nanase/Sophora's player Yuasa, who idolized the former, before the latter moved away.
• Idiot Hair: More a sign of being a Genki Girl than with being dumb or naive, though.
• Lethal Chef: Possibly — Haseo is skeptical of her cooking abilities from the start, and she definitely sucks at cooking ramen. Although, it's not outright proven, considering the lack of information regarding the subject.
• Little Miss Badass: Her height is 153cm.
• Love Triangle: Subverted. One seems to be forming between her and Atoli (over Haseo, naturally), but the two reconcile and become good friends fairly quickly.
  • She fully acknowledges that Haseo likes Atoli more, but that won't stop her from trying to win him over. She still likes Atoli, though — it's more just her competitive spirit.
  • After the Vegalta has been dealt with she and Atoli begin butting heads over this again as they try to drag Haseo off onto different types of dungeons for the last day of The World.
• Luminescent Blush: Twice, in .hack//G.U. after she do a Quest together with Haseo and give him the reward (the Honeysuckle blades) and after Haseo tells her what Honerysuckle means she turns red. In .hack//Link when she become dere-dere after Tokio touches her breasts unintentionally.
• Ms. Fanservice: After Pi.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: After Redemption, she became emperor of all three palaces and defended the title for half a year.
• Pintsized Power House: She's the tiniest of all the Arena Emperors.
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: Certainly acts the part. She's dismissive of anyone whom she considers weak, and absolutely despises cheaters. But earn her respect and she's one of the most loyal and dependable friends you could have.
• Ship Tease: Holy crap, is there ever.
  • Haseo even glomps her at one point!
  • She also rather openly talks about her feelings for him in Emails if prompted to in a light hearted manner. And the track that plays When's she's falling comatose is entitled "For you my dearest." She also takes to referring to Haseo as her "Prince Charming" after he revives her.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Delivered straight when you meet her in a quest after your tournament fight.
• Theme Naming: As with the other Emperors, she's named after a star in both languages. Youkou^note romanized as "Yowkow" (揺光 twinkling light) is the Japanese name of the star Alkaid, the tip of the Big Dipper.
• Third-Option Love Interest: Alongside Atoli and Shino, who both can interchangably be the Betty and Veronica.
• Tomboy: Subverted. She admits that it's more just her online persona and she's actually a slightly introverted bookworm offline.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Tomboy to Atoli's Girly.

Zelkova

Voiced by: Akiko Kimura (Japanese); Wendee Lee (English)

World Identity: A young-looking Flick Reaper, and the leader of Moon Tree. Though he is kind and seems carefree, he is actually one of the game's most advanced and powerful players, and is much more aware of what's happening than he lets on. He takes a rather lax attitude toward governing Moon Tree, allowing Sakaki to build up support against him. When he isn't acting as Moon Tree's leader, he spends his time as the caretaker of the Netslum, further hinting that he's far more than he appears.

Real Identity: A complete mystery to everyone. There are hints that he may in fact be an AI.

Appears In: .hack//Alcor, .hack//G.U., .hack//Link

Trope Associated With

• Ambiguously Human: The more Zelkova reveals about his true abilities, the less human he seems. It's eventually confirmed in the fourth volume that he is, in fact, a Rogue AI from Netslum.
• Big Good: Moon Tree's members certainly see him as this, and he picks up a lot of elements of the role for G.U. in Vol. 3.
• Crossdressing Voices: In both versions.
• Genius Bruiser: Like Helba before him, he's an exceptionally powerful party member in battle while also being a brilliant hacker.
• Heroic Sacrifice: A temporary version in the Updated Re-release last Recode, as he sacrificed himself to Vegalta to delay the destabilization of The World, but is recovered by Haseo, with help from Kusabira.
• Hidden Depths: He seems a lot more naive than he actually is.
• Knowledge Broker: He knows A LOT.
• Motifs: Moon.
• Mysterious Protector: For the G.U., a role he takes most prominently in Volume 3.
• Playful Hacker: If anything, he's an even better hacker than Helba before him, able to directly modify the abilities of an Epitaph PC, completely rewrite their appearance, and create a whole new class in the process. Normally PCs with Epitaph-based abilities are invulnerable to hacking by anything short of Data Drain, making this a superhuman feat. His horns are also mentioned to be the product of hacking.
• Replacement Goldfish: Sort of plays this role for Kaede, whose son died in a car accident.
• Sinister Scythe: His weapon of choice as he's of the Flick Reaper class. Very, very much a good guy though.
• Sure, Let's Go with That: After insisting that Kusabira isn't his sister, he backtracks on it and just accepts it after figuring out what she really is as that would cause less problems than calling out the fact that she's an AIDA.
• The Captain: Of Moon Tree and Net Slum Tartarga.
• The Strategist: Towards the final battle against Cubia.
• Unusual Ears: The horns.

Bordeaux

Voiced by: Akiko Hiramatsu (Japanese); Allison Matthews (English, Roots), Mary Elizabeth McGlynn (G.U.)

World Identity: A Blade Brandier PK from the Kestrel guild.

Real Identity: Nina Kircheis, a young half-German, half-Japanese girl that uses The World as an outlet for her bitterness and stress over her parents' divorce.

Appears in: .hack//Roots, .hack/Alcor, .hack//G.U.

Tropes Associated With:

• Arachnid Appearance and Attire: Her clothes and and initial weapon are spider-themed. Oswald, the AIDA that Sakaki infected her with, is also shaped like a spider.
• Ax-Crazy: She is a violent maniacal PK. Her AIDA infection made her violent tendencies worse. This is not unexpected for a troubled teenage girl using an online game to take her stress out on.
• Birds of a Feather: She feels she has this going on with Haseo, hence her obsession with him, but their respective dysfunctions only result in them becoming bitter enemies. She has better luck after the Cubia incident. There's even a non-forum wallpaper you get post-game of them (with Grein and Negimaru in the background), both genuinely smiling and enjoying the other's company called "Two of a Kind"
• Easily Forgiven: Her turning Alkaid into a Lost One is oddly swept under the rug by both her and Haseo, though probably due to her being AIDA-infected and not actually a malicious person like Sakaki, just a severely dysfunctional and emotionally stunted teenage girl, and was somewhat trying to reform (at least as much as an otherwise proud PK such as her can be.
• Hero Killer: PKs Alkaid while AIDA-infected, thus rendering her a Lost One
• Hidden Depths:
  • She's much like how Haseo started: an emotionally stressed teen with an unfortunate penchant for lashing out with violence. When tensions between them finally cool, she reveals herself to be a Tsundere, between her lines and even body language. Enough that a bonus wallpaper for the desktop showing Haseo's harem includes her and she's more plainly flustered than SAKU, the other Tsundere of the harem, is. Keep in mind that the wallpaper is not among the ones gained from in-universe fanart.
  • She's implied to be more aware of her dysfunction than she normally lets on, based on her wording in her Promise Card email reply, where she recognizes that she may just cause Haseo aggravation and difficulty if he chooses t be with her.
• Fire-Forged Friends: She eventually grew used to having Negimaru around after first beating him up for insulting her, then not wanting him to tag along with her.
  • This also applies to Haseo, hence her giving her member address in Redemption's post-game. Of course, she won't immediately admit it, claiming she just wants to PK him.
• Karma Houdini: She's apparently hurt Alkaid long before the former turned the latter into a Lost One, as she made Alkaid think Nanase betrayed her, leading them to break off their friendship, and the latter to become Sophora of Moon Tree. Given the scant references of the events of Alcor in the game, this is never resolved after Bordeaux's Heel–Face Turn.
• Reformed, but Not Tamed: Downplayed. She's not about to give up PK-ing or her reputation about it, but it's clear that she's stopped antagonizing Haseo or his friends, because she genuinely wants to start over in connecting with him, proud and not completely honest as she is about it.
• Secret Character: Sends Haseo her member address at the start of Redemption's post-game content.
• Spiders Are Scary: Her motif, and even the form her AIDA takes. Even her attempt to befriend Haseo in Redemption's post-game with the excuse of wanting a better chance to PK him sort of reminiscent of Black Widow tendencies.
• Stalker with a Crush: Giving her the Promise card gets her to reveal that her obsession with Haseo was indeed romantic in nature and she was jealous of the bonds he was forming with others, scared he would be taken away from her, but given her issues, their interactions tragically ended up being antagonistic...at least at first.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Guess who her Arena team name of "Only 1 Target" is referring to.
• Yandere: Her failure to properly connect with Haseo initally while becoming jealous of the bonds he was forming, thus afraid someone would take him away from her, making her target those close to him, like Silabus, Gaspard, and Alkaid. Her PK-ing of the last one has strong shades of Murder the Hypotenuse. Thankfully, she gets over this after her recovery, at most, develops into a Tsundere. Her Promise Card ending finally has her drop all roughness entirely, probably the first time Nina has felt comfortable doing so.

Grein

Voiced by: Katsuhika Houki (Japanese), Daran Norris (English)

World Identity: A member of Kestrel, and one of Bordeaux's lackeys. He's the strong, silent type.

Real Identity: A 17 year old male named Souji Komiyama.

Appears in: .hack//Roots, .hack//Alcor, .hack//G.U.

Tropes Associated With:

• Fat Bastard: His character model is fat, and he is a PK.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Reminisce reveals that he first attracted Bordeaux's attention after beating up a mouthy Negimaru. This also applies to Negimaru himself.
• Hidden Depths: He's a Shrinking Violet, unable to muster the nerve to contact or approach the still-active Negimaru without external help from Antares and the prospect of being able to PK Haseo together. He's also the most civil of the trio. Not Punch-Clock Villain level, but capable of putting aside any aggression towards Haseo to thank him for helping him and Negimaru reunite through being motivation for them both.
• Intelligible Unintelligible: He communicates mostly in grunts, but Negimaru is somehow able to interpret his meaning from this. Haseo gets to hear him say ONE word.
• Pet the Dog: After the Chaotic PK quest in Redemption, he appears behind Haseo when he is alone in Breg Epona...and just waits for him to turn around, says "thank you" (for inadvertently helping him reunite with Negimaru, even as a common motivation for them to PK), and then leaves, without a hint of aggression.
• Scary Black Man: He is this to his victims of his player killing activities.

Negimaru

Voiced by: Mitsuo Iwata (Japanese), Kirk Thomton (English)

World Identity: A Twin Blade PK whose green hair is styled to make his head look like an onion. Formerly the leader of his own gang, he became one of Bordeaux's lackeys after losing a challenge to her (even though she didn't want him tagging along at first). He is a bully, yet terrified of those stronger than him.

Real Identity: An 18 year old male named Kazushige Ooyama.

Appears in: .hack//Roots, .hack//Alcor, .hack//G.U.

Tropes Associated With:

• Amazing Technicolor Population: His character's skin is green.
• Determinator: After Bordeaux and Grein's disappearance following the Holy Palace Tournament, he resolves to be a notorious PK, even a Chaotic PK, in his own right and get revenge on Haseo. Both in the hopes that his missing comrades will hear of him, and thus find their way back to him again. Naturally, both utterly fail, but he does get to reunite with Grein then Bordeaux anyway.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Reminisce shows that he's this for Bordeaux and Grein, having been beaten up by both in the past, and genuinely respecting them in the present.
• Goldfish Poop Gang: He appears several times across the trilogy. Haseo doesn't consider him a threat. Antares sets up his much-desired reunion with Grein to teach Haseo against simply seeing him as this.
• Lean and Mean: His model is skinny, and he is a PK.
• Red Baron: Invoked. To try and make a big name for himself, Negimaru began callimg himself, "the Lone Azure Negimaru". No one takes it seriously or mishears it as "the Lone Negi", to his annoyance.

Silabus

Voiced by: Daisuke Sakaguchi (Japanese); Sam Riegel/Reece Thompson (English)

World Identity: A Blade Brandier, and the guild master of Canard following Kuhn's departure, though he passes that role on to Haseo soon after becoming allies.

Real Identity: Yuuichi Morino, a college student studying Liberal Arts.

Appears in: .hack//Roots, .hack//Alcor, .hack//G.U., .hack//CELL, .hack//Link

Tropes Associated With:

• Badass Normal: He's not an Epitaph User, but will go toe-to-toe against the bad guys as much as he can alongside Haseo. He'll be the one most likely to contribute to plot-relevant events of the "normal" players after Antares and Alkaid.
• Excellent Judge of Character: He can see Haseo's hidden leadership abilities and immediately promotes him to the Guildmaster of Canard. Haseo, despite his grumblings, ends up being a magnificent leader.
• Fat and Skinny: The skinny to Gaspard's fat.
• The Lancer: To Haseo in Vol. 1 of G.U., before the Epitaph Users become more prominent, although he still is one of Haseo's closest allies beyond that.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: He and Gaspard join Haseo for the final battle once they realize the danger that both the real world and the game are in. They both hold their own alongside people like the Emperors, Zelkova, and Gabi.
• Mentor Archetype: A Subversion; he and Gaspard eagerly assist new players learn how to play, but Haseo already knows the game's mechanics when they attempt to give him a tutorial. Except Awakening, which Haseo had never used due to never forming a party. More importantly, what they actually teach Haseo is how to enjoy the game like normal players do.
• Nice Guy: He's unfailingly kind and gentle to almost everyone - he's one of the few characters to never lose his temper at Haseo, despite the verbal abuse the latter slings at him and Gaspard.
• Pretty Boy: His good looks are noted by a good amount of players on the forum.
• Those Two Guys: With Gaspard.

Gaspard

Voiced by: Akiko Yajima (Japanese), Dave Wittenberg/Richard Ian Cox (English)

World Identity: A Shadow Warlock of the Tu Tribe, and Silabus' partner.

Real Identity: Kouta Maki, a Hokkaido middle school student.

Appears in: .hack//Alcor, .hack//G.U., .hack//CELL

Tropes Associated With:

• Big Fun: He is fat and a nice guy to be around.
• Cowardly Lion: Despite playing a game centered around fighting, he actually dislikes getting into battles - despite that, he's a very good fighter when he needs to be.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Fat, short, goofy-looking, the best Crimson VS player in the world, and a scarily talented salesman.
• Cuteness Proximity: It's noted that Gaspard is able to sell the stuff Haseo gives him at an outrageous markup in part because he's so cute.
• Fat and Skinny: The fat to Silabus's skinny.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Like Silabus, he joins up with the final battle when he realizes the dangers posed by Cubia, and he manages to hold his own.
• Nice Guy: Like Silabus, he's unfailingly kind to almost everyone.
• Those Two Guys: With Silabus.

.hack//G.U.

Asta

Voiced by: Yoko Honna (Japanese, in-game), Nozomu Sasaki (Japanese, real identity), Tabitha St. Germain (English, Roots), Sandy Fox (English, G.U. Vol. 1-2) Kate Higgins (English, G.U. Vol. 3)

World Identity: A female Blade Brandier from the Kestrel guild. One of the first players that Haseo met, alongside her partner IYOTEN, they are actually PKs that intended to kill Haseo after showing him how to play.

Real Identity: Tatsumi Hori, a male that enjoys playing The World outdoors with a laptop.

Appears in: .hack//Roots, .hack//G.U.

Tropes Associated With:

• Red and Black and Evil All Over: This character wears black and red, and PKs newbies.
• Griefer: His preferred method of playing is to PK newbies.
• G.I.R.L.: Picked a female character model just to help lure PK targets.

IYOTEN

Voiced by: Daisuke Namikawa (Japanese), Steve Blum (English, Vols. 1 and 2), Vic Mignogna (English, Vol. 3)

World Identity: A male Blade Brandier that works as Asta's PK partner.

Real Identity: Naoya Sakai, a teenager that knows Asta's real-life player.

Appears in: .hack//Roots, .hack//G.U.

Tropes Associated With:

• Eyes Out of Sight: White hair always covers his character's eyes.
• Griefer: His preferred method of playing is to PK newbies.
• White Hair, Black Heart: He has white hair, and he loves to PK newbies.

Atoli

Voiced by: Ayako Kawasumi (Japanese); Bridget Hoffman (English)

World Identity: A Harvest Cleric who just wants everybody to get along. She has an obsessive loyalty to Sakaki, her immediate superior in the anti-player-killer Moon Tree guild, but quickly attaches herself to Haseo in order to "fix" him. Holds the avatar of the second Phase, Innis, The Mirage of Deceit.

Real Identity: Chigusa Kusaka, a young high school girl. Being constantly bullied in school and oppressed by her parents - who believe girls should be quiet and unnoticable - led her to browsing suicide websites where she met Sakaki's player, who invited her to play The World.

Appears in: .hack//G.U., .hack//Link

Tropes Associated With:

• All Girls Want Bad Boys: A bit of an inversion. Haseo is a rude and dismissive jerk when he first meets Atoli, but she is intrigued enough by the encounter to follow around and befriend him. However, this is less an attraction to him treating her like dirt and more a desire to bring out the good heart she's certain lies under the surface.
• All of the Other Reindeer: She is constantly bullied in real life.
• Animal Motifs: Birds.
• Attention Whore: Subverted, in the real life only. Lampshaded by her screams during Avatar battle with Haseo. "Nobody wants to look at me!!"
• Badass Adorable: She can fight Haseo on even terms when she awakens her Epitaph. Also, out of the mage classes, Harvest Clerics are only outmatched by Macabre Dancers in usefulness, and you don't get another one of either until late in Vol. 3.
• Battle Couple: In Rebirth, Atoli requested Haseo to go on a quest together with just both of them.
• Beneath the Mask: She's actually a mobidly depressed, embittered, occasionally suicidal girl desperate for recognition and acceptance. Her Love Freak persona is largely her trying to appeal to everybody. Adding a few guilt issues to the mix pushes her over the edge...
• Beware the Nice Ones: In Volume 3, you can unlock a series of parody videos based on the spinoff comic .hack//4koma. In one of them, Atoli brutally beats a rather cute-looking monster, and when Haseo restrains her at the end of the video, she's giggling maniacally. Granted, this is an exaggeration of her personality overall, but this comes into play quite seriously in Volume 2, when she gets infected with AIDA and turns out to not be as nice as she seems, summoning her Avatar to attack Haseo.
• Body Horror: OVA only, after infected by AIDA in the Battle in the Center of the Mind with Haseo.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Thanks Sakaki.
• Break the Cutie/Broken Bird: By being on the receiving end of Kick the Dog her whole life.
• Bungled Suicide: In real life, her left wrist has marks from failed suicide attempts, at least as shown in the non-canon manga. She has stopped trying to take her own life after meeting Haseo.
• Character Development: Not as extreme an example as Haseo, but pretty close. She starts out fairly diminutive, with a naive, sweet, overly trusting and submissive personality that annoys Haseo to no end. Later, after showing what's Beneath the Mask relentlessly in Volume 2 (and being infected with AIDA), she becomes somewhat of a Determinator, standing up for herself to the point where Haseo can't tie her down (to make a point, she summons her Avatar in front of Haseo to try and convince him to let her join his team in the Sage Palace arena tournament, and when he stubbornly refuses to let her in out of concern for her, she basically forces her way onto his team). Even before that, she's still chewing out Sakaki for betraying her (see "The Reason You Suck" Speech).
• Cooldown Hug: Given this by Haseo in the OVA.
• The Corruption: OVA only.
• Cute Mute: She's the only PC to be muted when The World was moved into AIDA Server where no one can Log Out.
• Deuteragonist: Of the first two games. She's Out of Focus in Vol 4, and to a lesser extent in Vol 3.
• Driven to Suicide: She's actually tried and failed a few times to commit suicide.
  • It even extends to her Avatar, which is the only opponent in any of the games that will stun itself if its attacks are blocked, though this behavior may also be what remains of Atoli's sanity fighting back.
• Fangirl: Definitely towards Sakaki until he crosses his Moral Event Horizon. And quite a bit for Haseo.
• Friend to All Living Things: Although her favorites are birds, she apparently likes all sorts of other animals. In The World, this manifests as her finding Lucky Animals and Chim Chims incredibly cute, to the point of restraining Haseo from kicking one in an early quest.
• Generic Cuteness / Informed Deformity: One of the reasons she is bullied by her classmates in real life is because she is "unattractive", but when we see her offline self in G.U.+ manga and the art of her offline self and some of the others in the Ragtime novel, she's actually rather cute. Of course, it's also possible this is more due to who are bullying her rather than her being "unattractive" by nature.
• Genki Girl: A timid one, but definitely upbeat. On the outside.
• Growing A Spine: As the story continues.
• Guilt Complex: After being freed by Haseo.
• Heel–Face Turn: Fully abandons Sakaki after having used her and Innis for his mad schemes. She does try once to talk him down, but by Redemption, even she understands he cannot be reasoned with.
• Hidden Depths: One of her Epitaph's primary abilities is deceit, allowing her to create a perfect façade. As such, she's probably the best example of this trope in the entire series.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Give this to Haseo when she's infected by AIDA.
• Infinity -1 Sword: Dancing Haze.
• Infinity +1 Sword: Flame Dancer.
• It's All My Fault: More or less her mindset after she is attacked by AIDA and has her Epitaph stolen. And then Sakaki proceeds to Mind Rape her using this argument...
• The Klutz / Cute Clumsy Girl: When she met Haseo for the first time. But later it disappears from her character.
• Love Freak: To the max. Love is all she wants, partly thanks to bullying in her school and detached home life. Then we find out where she met Sakaki. And then G.U. Vol. 2 happened...
• Love Redeems: In the OVA.
• Madness Mantra: While under AIDA's influence. I WANT YOU TO LOOK AT ME! (...) NO ONE EVER LOOKS AT ME!
• Magical Girlfriend: In some ways, Atoli is a deconstruction of this. She latches onto Haseo when he's at his nadir and tries desperately to be his friend despite all the anger and abuse he heaps on her. But rather than be some unrealistic saint, it's more of a manifestation of the incredibly low self-worth that drives her seek to please people in spite of or perhaps because of abuse.
• Magikarp Power: Left with her default spells and AI settings, Atoli is your standard healbot with very little utility otherwise. Trade Non Player Characters in Mac Anu for spellbooks to teach her the elemental spells, and switch her AI from Life to Free-Will so she'll use them, and she becomes a very solid alternative to Gaspard who can also heal when needed.
• Master of Illusion: Her Avatar.
• Meaningful Name: Her name is derived from "Atori", which means "brambling". Her Avatar's title of The Mirage of Deceit, meanwhile...where to even start?
• The Medic: She's a Harvest Cleric.
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Towards Sakaki at the end of Reminisce, now that she knows he'd just been using her the whole time
• The Mole: Sakaki assigns Atoli to spy on Haseo. She stops spying on Haseo when Sakaki infects her with AIDA and then Haseo is forced to use Skeith to Data Drain her infection away.
• Nice Girl: But then again, see Beware of the Nice Ones.
• Power Glows: When summoning her Avatar.
• Protectorate: To the whole G.U. members, since she's the weakest in the terms of Job Class. Lampshaded in Reminisce.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Possibly applies, as she acts rather silly, ditzy and naive, but she can actually be fairly intelligent sometimes (and that's not even taking into account how she acts underneath the mask).
• Official Couple: With Haseo if the ending of G.U.+, the ending of G.U. Trilogy, the side story Peaco's Story from 4koma & the G.U. mission #19 from LINK are anything to go by.
• Raven Hair, Ivory Skin: In the real world.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Yes, she actually delivers one of these. To Sakaki. Who had just betrayed her and used every method in the book to crush her mind and spirit. And then proceeded to whoop his ass afterward. Granted, she did it in her own special way, but it was still awesome coming from her.
• Replacement Goldfish: Atoli deeply fears being this to Haseo after finding out how much she resembles Shino. To make matters even worse for her, they even both had the Avatar Innis as a consequence of Atoli's resemblance to Shino. In actuality, while she believed that her resemblance to Shino was why Haseo even bothered to talk to her, Haseo actually was at his cruelest towards her because of her resemblance to the girl he lost, and his better treatment of her later on was him overcoming his perception of Atoli as Shino's substitute.
• The Scream: When AIDA take her Morganna Factor, unables her to summon her Avatar and loses her voice.
• Sexier Alter Ego: Actually inverted, in a rare case for the genre: while Atoli's certainly cute, her offline self is arguably even more so, her crippling lack of self-esteem aside.
• Stepford Smiler: As imposed by her parents.
• Stocking Filler: She has fairly notable garters.
• Supreme Chef: One of Atoli's few sources of pride is her cooking ability. She's also a bit of a Picky Eater, though.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: The Girly to Alkaid's Tomboy.
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: Unlike most people under AIDA influence, Atoli directs her rampage against the people she perceived as having rejected her.
• Why Couldn't You Be Different?: Her parents harassed her for her failing grades and her attitude, as they believe girls should be quiet and unnoticed. Her peers likewise harassed her for not keeping up with the trends or meeting their expectations.
• You Remind Me of X: One thing that Haseo was quick to notice about her was that she looked just like Shino. Justified because Atoli is using the same in-game avatar.

Kuhn

Voiced by: Shin-ichiro Miki (Japanese); Johnny Yong Bosch (English, video games); Louis Chirillo (English, anime)

World Identity: A member of G.U., Kuhn is a Steam Gunner who is friendly to newbies and fond of hitting on girls at every opportunity. Holds the Avatar of the third Phase, Magus, The Propagation.

Real Identity: Tomonari Kasumi, a 24-year old who has been trying, and failing, to join CC Corp proper. He is the player behind Sieg from the original games.

Appears in: .hack//Roots, .hack//G.U.

Tropes Associated With:

• Bash Brothers: Eventually forms this kind of relationship with Haseo. It helps that, from a gameplay prospective, he's one of the best companions since his long-range specials act as a good counterpart to Haseo's close-range brawling, and his Lost Weapon is one of the best in the game with its gigantic bonuses to his damage output.
• Big Brother Mentor: To Silabus, Gaspard and Haseo.
• Big Damn Heroes: His first appearance in Volume 1. Also he saved Nanase from a monster in .hack//Alcor.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: His online persona, at least.
• By the Power of Grayskull!: "Come on, my Magus!"
• The Captain: Averted, he's a former guild master of Canard, but he's left and Silabus is in charge though they still refer to him as Guildmaster.
• Casanova Wannabe: Confesses to Haseo that although his skirt-chasing personality makes him a hit in The World, he has trouble forming relationships offline and hasn't had a serious girlfriend since high school.
• Chivalrous Pervert: There's actually a reason for this behavior. His girlfriend dumped him in between the first games and G.U.
  • "Girls I like: All kinds! Girls I don't like: None!"
• Firing One-Handed: Initially, but there are some skills that requires him to hold his bayonet with two hands.
• The Gunslinger: The only pure Steam Gunner who joins Haseo's party.
• Healing Factor: The benefit of Magus's Propagation ability, allowing Kuhn to endure a Data Drain by regenerating the lost data.
• Idiot Hair: Just see the hair animation when he runs.
• Infinity -1 Sword: Silent Jade.
• Infinity +1 Sword: Silent Eden.
• Irony: The "Propagation" technique is introduced when he restores himself after being Data Drained by an out of control Skeith. Tomonari probably wishes he could have had that ability last time Skeith did that to him back in R1.
• Meaningful Name: Not his character name, but his title of The Propagation refers to both his skirt-chasing attitude and the way he propagates his ideals through others, seen in both Kestrel and Canard.
• The Medic: His Avatar, among the eight.
• Nice Guy: Loyal, kind, and a lot more idealistic than most of his teammates.
• Not What It Looks Like: In the sidequest where a girl Kuhn insists on "helping" turns out to be grade-school age. He's thoroughly scorned by Haseo and Pi (though they might have just been teasing), but his chivalrous nature persists nevertheless.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Kuhn's only ever seen to completely lose his temper when faced with Haseo's reckless abuse of his Avatar because he knows how dangerous that is and how easily it not only it can backfire but also put non-Epitaph Users at real life risk.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: He's a generally silly person that does a few really stupid themes, but he's also the most noble-minded and straightforwardly heroic of the Epitaph Users by a considerable margin until Haseo's had most of his Character Development - development, it should be noted, that has its first major leap forward because of Kuhn. He also doesn't come across as the type who would have been the assistant guildmaster of Kestrel.
• Power Glows: When summoning his Avatar.
• Spikes of Doom: In his Xth Form in Link.
• Super Prototype: The Terminal Disc reveals that, as Magus was the first of the Phases to be retrieved for the R.A. Plan, Kuhn's character was the first successfully made Epitaph PC, though it would only be Tomonari who would be able to handle Magus even remotely safely.
• The One That Got Away: Mai is this to him, according to him in the manga version. He still carries feelings for her, but it's one-sided. He does admit to Pi that he wants to confess to her again should they ever meet, to which Pi notes that he seems confident that she's waiting for him.
• Unknown Rival: An inverted and ironic application of this trope. Kuhn clearly does not notice anything familiar about Azure Balmung despite, barring the liberties to his design, should otherwise be a dead ringer for the one person he as Sieg 7 years ago was obsessed with rivaling, the original Balmung. It sadly reinforces the idea that the appearances of the former .hackers have been forgotten.

Yata

Voiced by: Takumi Yamazaki (Japanese); Steve Blum (English, video games); Paul Dobson (English, anime)

World Identity: Yata is the mysterious leader of G.U.. He is observing the AIDA phenomenon for CC Corp, but his amoral stance on player safety earns him Haseo and Kuhn's disrespect. Also plays Nala, an officer of the Moon Tree guild, and Naobi, former Guildmaster of TaN. Holds the Avatar of the fourth Phase, Fidchell, the Prophet.

Real Identity: Takumi Hino returns, having previously played the character of Wiseman. In real life he is a 17-year old stock broker who lives on his own in Tokyo.

Appears in: .hack//G.U.

Tropes Associated With:

• Authority Equals Asskicking: Yata spends almost the entire trilogy as Mission Control, but when he joins he proves to be a potent fighter in his own right.
• Bullet Hell: That One Attack of his Avatar.
• Can't Catch Up: Not his abilities as a player, but regarding being an Epitaph PC. As of Ovan revealing to have Corbenik, he's the only one yet to awaken his own Phase, and it eats at him, aggravating his deeper issues. His Trauma Conga Line in Redemption is the bursting point, but he gets over it thanks to Haseo and Pi.
• The Captain: Of Raven Guild, or rather G.U.
• The Chessmaster: While sometimes outplayed by Ovan and Sakaki, Yata is a highly competent strategist in his own right, including taking advantage of the options Sock Puppet accounts give him to do things he can't otherwise.
• Combat Stilettos: Wears wedge pump sandals. While this could be a trait of the otherwise elegantly-designed Macabre Dancer class, the only other member of the class seen with both the heels and the fairly scant upper-body clothing is the definitely intentionally effeminate Hiiragi.
• Character Development: Which Haseo notices by the end. Yata starts out even more cryptic and almost Ambiguously Evil compared to his Wiseman days, but after having his admin position taken away from him, and undergoing a Heroic BSoD-induced Freak Out when he returns to The World, resulting in Fidchell awakening and going nuts, he starts being less of a manipulative and snobby dick, citing with conviction his genuine desire to protect and save The World, with neither his previous obsession with gaining Aura or AIDA's attention nor his resentment towards Ovan for having both present. As if to cement this, he joins the party for real. Also, his voice and speech pattern become more passionate, speaking much less cryptically.
• Clear Their Name: After Cubia is dealt with, Takumi anonymously leaks information that disproves CC Corp's claim of Ovan being responsible for AIDA, forcing the company to retract making him The Scapegoat. He cites being unhappy with their treatment of the incident, and knowing what CC Corp did to him personally, among other things, who can blame him?
• Dual Wielding: He's a Macabre Dancer and dual-wields fans.
• The Faceless: Yata is among the characters with his offline self shown in picture in the Ragtime novel. Unlike the others, however, 17-year old Takumi's face is never seen, and the cover only shows that he's as tall as Endrance and has scraggy hair, but his eyes are obscured by his hand holding either his glasses or shades. And that's actually the first time Takumi Hino has ever been depicted offline in any media.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Pi is the only character who actually likes Yata, with everyone else coolly indifferent towards him at best. Yata doesn't seem to mind this status, except that he's aware it even extends to Aura and AIDA, whose favor he does want and is frustrated that he can't have. This kind of changes after his Trauma Conga Line, and while everyone but Pi still don't fully like him as a friend, they, especially Haseo, begin to respect him a lot more. It helps that after being booted and his Freak Out, he becomes more honest and less arrogant.
• I Just Want to Be Special: Yata confesses to Ovan that he spent all of "The World R:2" frustrated that despite his determination and conviction neither AIDA, the invasive god, nor Aura, the absent god, had shown him any favor. He's apparently over it when he and Haseo finally meet Aura at Hulle Granz, thanks to finally awakening Fidchell and some words and care from Pi.
• Improbable Weapon User: Macabre Dancers have the most unusual weapons of any class, dual-wielding gigantic war fans.
• Infinity -1 Sword: Voice Usurper. Not counting Ovan, unlike the other six, Yata already has it with him when he joins as Redemption starts with all Lost Weapons given to their assigned characters if they weren't unlocked in Reminisce.
• Infinity +1 Sword: Voice Cleanser.
• Karma Houdini: Haseo never finds out he was Naobi, or that he's partially responsible for Shino being attacked.
• Mad Oracle: Fidchell, as with its original incarnation, has a habit of spitting out prophecies when it goes berserk.
• Manipulative Bastard: And he's damn proud of it, at least at first.
• Meaningful Name: Twofold: his character name is a shortened form of Yatagarasu, a bird whose appearance signals divine intervention, reflecting his status as a member of CC Corp. His default Dark Crow weapon pays further homage to the name. It also reflects his love of soccer established back as Wiseman^note  the bird being the symbol of the Japan Football Association despite suffering a Career-Ending Injury. His Epitaph title of The Prophet, meanwhile, reflects his desire to know everything about The World.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In Roots when he and Pi try to brute force the black box around Ovan's arm. It causes the security lock to fail and the AIDA inside to go berserk, leading to it PKing Shino and thus sending Haseo on his quest for revenge.
• Not So Above It All: Though he doesn't say it out loud, Haseo isn't fooled by Yata's obvious Tsundere attitude towards Ovan freezing himself and his survival throughout the course of Reconnection.
• Perpetual Frowner: There are rare occasions that prompt a smirk, but Yata isn't seen to smile much if at all under normal circumstances.
• Power Glows: When summoning his Avatar.
• The Red Mage: His job allows him to learn many of the spells used by Harvest Clerics and Shadow Warlocks (including debuff/bad status types) but he doesn't gain the high-level spells of either class. He is the only one, however, that gains a very useful party-wide +50% speed/movement boost spell.
• Refused by the Call: Yata resents Ovan deeply for having the favor of both Aura and AIDA, unaware that he had been chosen but was just looking in the wrong place. Or rather, he was chosen, had yet to awaken his Phase while the other seven already did. Being unceremoniously sacked by CC Corp in favor of Sakaki, and Ovan rubbing all of it in his face just made his resentment worse. Ironically, the emotional stress of it all finally activated Fidchell, and when he finally does meet Aura again, he seems to be over it.
• Supporting Leader: By late Redemption, after he's joined the party for real, talking to him as a party member reveals that, even if he has the actual authority in the group, he prefers to entrust Haseo to lead them in battle.
• Younger Than They Look: The voice is a little more fitting now than it was as Wiseman, but Yata's still only 17 and sounds like a man in his 40s.

Pi

Voiced by: Sanae Kobayashi (Japanese); Jessica Straus (English, video games); Lisa Ann Beley (English, anime)

World Identity: Pi is Yata's assistant, and a field agent of sorts for G.U. and their official C.C. Corp contact. Pi is a down-to-earth, no-nonsense woman who is focused on the mission at hand. Unlike Yata, however, she is genuinely concerned for the safety of the players of The World. She is also the player behind Ender during the events of Roots, working under Naobi (Yata) in the TaN guild. Their actions during this time are are of questionable morality, as TaN was shut down and many members banned as a result. It's unknown if CC Corp is aware they were the same player. Holds the avatar of the seventh Phase, Tarvos, The Avenger.

Real Identity: Reiko Saeki is 24 years old, and a former programmer. She quit her job suddenly to work for CC Corp in order to find out information about her half-brother Jun Bansyoya.

Appears in: .hack//GU

Tropes Associated With:

• Action Girl: A prominent female ally in the G.U. series that personally handles a lot of danger.
• The Baroness: A strange, protagonist version of the trope. She definitely has the dominatrix overtones in her insistence on obedience and her B&D avatar, and she is fanatically devoted to Yata who protagonist status is quite questionable until Vol. 3. Her outfit's pretty Stripperiffic too, even if it lacks the black leather/vinyl fashion normally associated with the trope, and she's got the coldness and refusal to actual make use of her sex appeal that's common to this trope. Lastly, she's a villain and The Dragon for Yata/Naobi in .hack//Roots. Despite all this, she's one of the good guys.
• Berserk Button: In the early days of their meeting, Haseo calls her "old hag" and she's certainly not happy about it.
• Big Brother Attraction: She may have some form of this trope, although it seems for the most part more like Big Brother Worship. The fact that she responds to Haseo asking what her "type" is by saying that she follows in the footsteps of her older brother is a bit suspicious, though, especially since that card is generally reserved for asking what kind of person someone is looking for in a romantic relationship.) She says the only gentleman allowed to ride in her car is her cat. Of course, it's likely that that's not what she meant. It helps that, as the Terminal Disc reveals, Jun was a doting older brother, expressing strong lament of never seeing her again in his final message to her, and is easily a moral man among the den of snakes that was CC Corp.
• Cool Big Sis: Serves this role to Haseo after they become allies. In Last Recode, she even gets him a job at Network Analysis Bureau after she starts working there.
• The Corruption: She's infected by AIDA in Rebirth but then saved by Haseo.
• Deadpan Snarker: To Sakaki.
• Determinator: CC Corp may stripped Yata from his position, but that's not going to stop Pi to do everything for Yata and the rest of the G.U. member. She deserves applause.
• Double Agent: Non-antagonist/evil example. In .hack//Link work for Yata and a staff of CC Corp.
• Heroic Breakdown: In manga only, where she finds Yata PK'ed by Tri-Edge.
• Idiot Hair: Same case as Kuhn.
• Infinity -1 Sword: Stained Wing.
• Infinity +1 Sword: Blinding Wing.
• The Informant: Passing along information from both Yata and C.C. Corp, as she's their only actual employee among the Epitaph Users.
• I Owe You My Life: Incredibly downplayed, but once Haseo manages to save her from an AIDA when she saved Zelkova from being hit instead, not only does this earn Haseo her trust finally, but she starts going out of her way to be a Mama Bear whenever someone starts trying to step on him while she's around.
• Karma Houdini: Haseo never finds out she was Ender, or that she's partially responsible for Shino being attacked.
• Leotard of Power: Did you see it, in the picture?
• Meaningful Name: In-universe, Pi chose the character name for the mathematical term, seeing it as indivisible and unbreakable. Her title of The Avenger, meanwhile, reflects her undying loyalty to her brother and to Yata.
• Ms. Fanservice: Clearly. Reiko herself is definitely easy on the eyes, as we see in Quantum seven years later.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In Roots, when she and Yata try to brute force the black box around Ovan's arm. It causes the security lock to fail and the AIDA inside to go berserk, leading to it PKing Shino, and Ovan no longer being able to trust himself around other players, thus sending Haseo on his quest for revenge.
• Power Glows: When summoning her Avatar.
  • Tron Lines: When it's summoned.
• Replacement Goldfish: While Yata is incapacitated in Volume 3, Pi takes his place as The Captain of G.U.
• Right-Hand Hottie: To Yata, at least concerning Project G.U.
• The Scream: Manga only, when she finds out that Yata was already killed by Tri-Edge.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: She manages to un-ban a member of Ta N that served under her doing black ops, Saburou, due to her sway as an admin in exchange for some tasks she needed done that "Pi" can't do.
• The Strategist: She's the one who strategizes the G.U. members meeting in a hacked area in-between The World to evade from Sakaki's observation from the Serpent of Lore. She also builds some strategies for the G.U. there.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Are you Yata? Then she'll follow your every order. If you're not? She'll remain reserved as much as possible for a sense of distant professionalism from those around her. But get close to her and she can be remarkably kind, it just takes a bit of effort.
• Stripperiffic: Her PC model doesn't leave much to the imagination.
• Tsundere: She tries to act cold and distant, but once Haseo saves her from an AIDA, she manages to cause a Luminescent Blush from Haseo when she points out he's calling her by her name for the first time. She softens up considerably afterwards and as time goes on, but mostly keeps up the tsun tsun with bouts of dere dere.
• Take This Job and Shove It: She plans to quit CC Corp in the epilogue, and by Reconnection and 7 years later in Quantum, she's working for the NAB. Considering CC Corp's complete fowl up of the entire mess, plus Project G.U. now having no purpose, it's easy to see why she'd bail.
  • An even earlier example is her completely refusing to work with Sakaki, when CC Corp unceremoniously replaces Yata with him. In fact, this was likely one of many reasons for her completely quitting after Redemption.
• Undying Loyalty: To Yata.
• You Are Not Alone: Gives this speech to a depressed Yata.

Piros the 3rd

Voiced by: Masaya Onosaka (JP), Daran Norris (EN)

World Identity: An overly dramatic Lord Partizan. Wears heavy armor similar to his previous incarnation, albeit gold-plated this time, and with a red visor.

Real Identity: Hiroshi Matsumaya, the graphical designer behind the original Piros in The World: R1. It turns out, offline, he looks EXACTLY as the original Piros with the exact same bowl cut.

Appears in: .hack//G.U.

Tropes Associated With:

• Affectionate Parody: Like his previous incarnation, he's one to the president of CyberConnect2, Hiroshi Matsuyama.
• Bling of War: His previous incarnation wore bright green armor. This one wears bright gold armor. With sunglasses.
• Boisterous Bruiser: The only party member whose capacity for ham approaches Haseo's own.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: Three of them, one for each volume of the original trilogy, all performed by his namesake.
• I Have This Friend: Piros tells Haseo a hypothetical story about a graphics designer who logged into the game, only to find the environments he slaved over defaced with Tri-Edge signs. Haseo is unconvinced of the story's hypothetical nature.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: A forum post reveals that he easily took down a group of P Kers that ambushed him despite his continued buffoonery. He's not a veteran of The World R:1 and the .hackers for nothing.
• Legendary in the Sequel: He and Natsume, being the only .hackers unchanged (in online identity, at least) between versions are recognized by other gamers, though many understandably doubt Piros' status, given his appearance and behavior.
• No Indoor Voice: It's rare for Piros to speak at any volume below a shout.
• Punny Name: "Piroshi-san".

Antares

Voiced by: Shinpachi Tsuji (Japanese), Kirk Thornton (English)

World Identity: An Arena Champion, and founder of the guild Icolo.

Real Identity: Mikihisa Ogata, former wrestler, and current editor of a professional wrestling magazine. He lives in Tokyo with his wife and two young daughters.

Appears in: .hack//G.U.

Tropes Associated With:

• Deadpan Snarker: If in the party and you let enemies get too close he'll let out a rather sarcastic "oops!" for your clumsiness.
• Drunken Master: Ogata enjoys his whiskey in real life, and proclaims Haseo as his student.
• Mentor Archetype: Assists Haseo in regaining his 2nd and 3rd Adept Rogue forms, and in unlocking the Lost Weapons.
• Proud Warrior Race Guy: Like the other Arena Emperors, though Antares is more focused on the need for continual self-improvement and the importance of teamwork, facts which led him to become disillusioned with the self-centered attitudes of the other Emperors.
• Secret-Keeper: He knows a lot more than he lets on, having been a friend to the late Phyllo. He later helps Haseo unlock the Lost Weapons as per Phyllo's last will and testament.
• Stealth Mentor: He acts like an over-the-top, self-appointed mentor to Haseo, taking him on quests and other mundane activities in order to "train" him. In reality, he actually is fulfilling Phyllo's last request to make Haseo strong and heroic.
  • Possibly the biggest example of this is the Chaotic PK quest, where he initially promises that it's just a fun quest for them without any lecturing. In reality, he organizes Grein's return as the 10th Chaotic PK candidate to allow him to finally reunite with Negimaru, but more importantly to teach Haseo not to simply underestimate even the pitifully weak, because his "mercy" could backfire on him.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: After Sakaki exposes Skeith to the public and framing Haseo as a cheater, Antares assures his apprentice that said power is not a cheat and having it means that Haseo has a bigger purpose to fulfill in The World.
• Tengu: His appearance most definitely evokes one, with the long-nosed mask, red skin, and geta, befitting his status as a gruff and proud sage who mentors other fighters.
• Theme Naming: As with the other members of Icolo, he's named after a major star. His Japanese name Taika (大火, great flame) is what Antares is called in that language.

Sirius

Voiced by: Isshin Chiba (Japanese), Michael McConnohie (English)

World Identity: A Tribal Grappler from the Lei Tribe, he is a member of Icolo, the guild of champions, and the Holy Palace Emperor.

Real Identity: Myeon-do Min, a Korean working in Japan.

Appears in: .hack//G.U.

Tropes Associated With:

• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: Like most of the other Emperors, Sirius is obsessed with his status in the Holy Palace Arena. And like the rest of them, he grows out of it.
• Authority Equals Asskicking: The only character besides Haseo to pull off a Divine Awakening.
• The Corruption: He's possessed by AIDA during a tournament and becomes murderously covetous of remaining the Emperor.
• My God, What Have I Done?: When he finds out what happened to Alkaid.
• Theme Naming: As with the other members of Icolo, he's named after a major star. Sirius and his namesake's name in Japanese is Tenrou (天狼, heavenly wolf).

Taihaku

Voiced by: Kazuhiro Nakata (Japanese), D.C. Douglas / Ross Douglas (English)

World Identity: The current guild master of Icolo, and the Sage Palace champion. Was also the first player to complete the "Forest of Pain" quest. He admires personal strength above all else, and respects Haseo for his past reputation as a solo PKKer.

Real Identity: Keisuke Kurokai, a 28-year-old man.

Appears in: .hack//Roots, .hack//G.U.

Tropes Associated With:

• Anti-Magic: His sword Maxwell possesses the unique Riddle Me That ability, which boosts all of his damage output by 50% and makes him completely immune to magic. He gives Haseo the Silad broadsword, whose Riddle Me This ability is the same thing but halved.
• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: Like most of the other Emperors. Although Taihaku's arrogance is more restrained in its brazenness than the rest, he's still steeped in pride. As with them, he also loses the arrogance, but once again, it's subtle.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: The status of Icolo's guildmaster belongs to him because he's the Sage Palace Emperor.
• Cool Sword: Silad, the best Broadsword that Haseo can use in Redemption. It also somehow resembles his now-destroyed Maxwell, on top of carrying a somewhat weaker version of Maxwell's Anti-Magic property.
• Determinator: So powerful is Taihaku's will that he can rebel against the control of AIDA, making him one of only three characters to ever put up any meaningful resistance to it and the only one who did it without the benefit of an Epitaph.
• Evil Weapon: Maxwell becomes one after an AIDA infects it.
• Odd Name Out: In two ways. Unlike the other three, his name isn't changed in translation because of the other way this trope applies. Taihaku (太白) means 'great white'', a moniker for "the morning star", aka the planet Venus instead of an actual star, neither of those translations obviously working for respective reasons.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Overrules Sakaki's attempt to ban Haseo on grounds of cheating in the previous two tournaments in favor of wanting to defeat latter himself. We're not sure if he really meant it or it was a ruse, but the fact that he treats Haseo with nothing but respect after the tournament, plus Haseo noting that Taihaku's message in the tournament announcement email being very Out of Character implies the latter.
• Restraining Bolt: The AIDA embedded in his sword Maxwell acts as one to enslave him to Sakaki.
• So Proud of You: Displays pride to Haseo after the Sage Palace Tournament after seeing how much the latter has grown and changed for the better, especially when the latter refuses the Sage Emperor's room in Icolo, preferring being the guildmaster of Canard.

Gabi

Voiced by: Kouji Ishii (Japanese), D.C. Douglas (English)

World Identity: A male Ya Tribe Edge Punisher, and master of the PK guild Kestrel.

Real Identity: Daijirou Washio, an elderly, retired professor of cultural anthropology that started playing The World to experience a society unlike any in the real world. He is also a novelist under the pen name Shoutarou Mayuzumi.

Appears in: .hack//G.U.

Tropes Associated With:

• Authority Equals Asskicking: He is a guildmaster and the strongest member of Kestrel.
• Badass Normal: Among the characters who know nothing of AIDA or Epitaphs, Gabi is one of the strongest and most knowledgeable.
• Catchphrase: "This too is part of The World"
• Flash Step: Whether due to his level or stats, or just sheer capability as a player, he can pull these off casually to the point that he reappears in different positions in his introduction cutscene before anyone realizes he's even moved.
• Cool Old Guy: Elderly, yet good enough at video games to be respected by PKs and in charge of his own guild.
• Large and in Charge: Even among Ya Tribe players, he's huge! And his very larger-than-life personality helps.
• The Most Wanted: He becomes a Chaotic PK in .hack//LINK.
• Red Herring: He's presented in Rebirth as much more of a major player than he actually becomes, particularly in the trailer at the end of it, and his guild is similarly built up as a major antagonistic faction. Both of these turn out to apply much more to Zelkova and Moon Tree than to Gabi and Kestrel, who recede from the spotlight.
• Sliding Scale of Libertarianism and Authoritarianism: He heavily leans towards Libertarianism in his management of Kestrel: he mostly lets his members do as they please in the pursuit of the freedom that The World provides.
• Smarter Than You Look: He's a big burly type who lets his guild members run wild and doing little to nothing to restrain them. He has a strange way of talking, he makes a policy of never reading any email that's more than three lines long. He's also a cultural anthropologist!

Tri-Edge/Azure Kite

Voiced by: Sayaka Aida (Japanese); Mona Marshall (English)

World Identity: A player-killer named for the three-line scars he leaves in the background graphics of places where he's taken victims, who go into comas in the real world. Little is known of him, but most players believe he's a small Twin Blade wreathed in blue fire, who never speaks.

Real Identity: Exactly who or what Tri-Edge is remains a mystery through Roots and most of the G.U. games... but it turns out he's an AI made by Aura to protect the system, and the true Tri-Edge is someone else.

Appears in: .hack//Roots, .hack//G.U., .hack//LINK

Tropes Associated With:

• An Arm and a Leg: His zombie nature means he gets torn up pretty regularly without lasting harm. His first stage of his Azure Flame God transformation has him dismember himself, while one of his severed arms is part of The Reveal.
• Back from the Dead: Complete by awaking from inside a coffin.
• Big Damn Heroes: In the .hack//Link manga to Tsukasa, when he's attacked by Brainwashed Haseo.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: He mops the floor with Haseo upon their first encounter. Not only is Haseo defeated, but Tri-edge even knocks him back down to level one.
• Creepy Child: Just look at him.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Literally.
• Disproportionate Retribution: If you send him the 'Challenge' card, he responds with what can be interpreted as "You must die".
• Dual Wielding: Wields Dual Blades akin to the player he's inspired by.
• Expy: Tri-Edge looks like a zombified Kite. This is intentional, as he was created from Aura's memories of Kite.
• Foreshadowing: During his Disc-One Final Boss battle, Azure Kite will occasionally perform an unblockable cutscene attack in which he attacks Haseo from three sides, creating a Sign mark on the ground below him at the end of the combo. Except the shape is wrong.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: In the OVA.
• Good Is Not Nice: Azure Kite's only goal is to defend the system from the cataclysmic threat of AIDA, something he does without particular care for who gets hurt along the way.
• The Grim Reaper: Subverted. Although he sometimes appears in random area and PK'ed someone there, he only cleans The World from harmful things to protect The World.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: If data from the original four games is carried over, his name will be whatever the player named Kite. Last Recode, which doesn't feature carryover, instead names him Azure Kite.
• Hidden Eyes: Subverted, sometimes they're visible in several cutscenes. Averted in the OVA.
• I Did What I Had to Do: He has the reason why he Data Drained Haseo.
• Implacable Man: Nothing will stop him. No matter how many times he's beaten in combat, he'll regenerate and return soon after.
• Impossibly Cool Weapon: His Empty Skies Twin Blades open up into a signature three-clawed shape.
• Incendiary Exponent: He's called Azure Flame Kite for a reason.
• Irony: Being the knight of Aura, he can't beat AIDA and Ovan to protect The World. In other words, he actually powerless to protect Aura.
• Made of Iron: Haseo himself can't make him move from the place he stand on. Averted in case of Ovan though.
• Mistaken for Murderer: He is NOT Tri-Edge, as Tri-Edge was actually referred to a type of AIDA.
• One-Winged Angel: His "Azure Flame God" form.
• Perpetual Frowner: The only time he shows any kind of emotion is during a fight. He smiles during his Promise ending, though.
• Playing with Fire: Azure flames.
• Power Floats: During his boss battle, and as a party member.
• The Quiet One: Never speaks, in fights he only shouts and outside of battle he tends to make zombie-like groaning and hissing noises. His conversation balloons only contain ellipses, and his responses to being sent cards are usually one word long and special characters tend to replace letters in ways that don't make sense.
  ...I re#$%se
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: In Roots.
• Red Herring: Pretty much Azure Kite's entire role is to distract from The Reveal.
• Reverse Grip: How he wields his Dual Blades.
• Secret Character: After destroying Cubia in Redemption, Aura gives you the member addresses of Azure Kite, along with Azure Orca and Azure Balmung. They can't change equipment but you can raise their affection for Haseo like any of his other party members. Haseo can even do the Promise Ending with them.
• Shoot the Hostage: Not the brightest or most moral AI, Azure Kite fires a Data Drain straight through Haseo to get Ovan, who had been secretly been hiding right behind him. Of course this doesn't hurt Haseo all that much (compared to the last time where he fell into a Coma), but it does undo his grueling eight months of level grinding by making him go from level 133 to level 1.
• Soul Jar: For the original Kite in .hack//Link manga.
• The Stoic: For most of the time.
  • Not So Stoic: Sometimes he'll say "Th#%ks" if we give him a Gift or Trade items with him.
  • Also, in .hack//Link. In his Cross Rengeki he says "gomen..." (sorry) to Tokio for making him exhausted evading the Data Drain.
• Undying Loyalty: To Aura.
• Unskilled, but Strong: He's not really one for finesse or tactics, as shown by his initial fight with Haseo. Whereas Haseo does his best to assault using his various weapons, all Azure Kite does is block with only his arm, and even uses Data Drain while his actual target was behind Haseo. Justified because, as an AI, and one nowhere near as advanced as Aura, his use of nuanced thought is limited.
• With a Friend and a Stranger: Tri-Edge is later joined by zombified versions of Orca and Balmung.

Azure Balmung and Azure Orca

Azure Balmung

Azure Orca

Voiced by:

World Identity: Two familiar-looking entities that guard Azure Kite's coffin as he regenerates from the battle at the end of G.U. Vol. 1.

Real Identity: Similar to Azure Kite, their true identities and motivations are unknown... but it turns out they're also AI made by Aura to protect the system.

Appears in: .hack//G.U.

Tropes Associated With:

• Expy: Of Balmung and Orca from The World. This is intentional, as they were created from Aura's memories of them.
• Eyes Out of Sight: Balmung's eyes are covered by his hair.
• Secret Character: After destroying Cubia in Redemption, Aura gives you the member addresses of Azure Kite, along with Azure Orca and Azure Balmung. They can't change equipment but you can raise their affection for Haseo like any of his other party members. Haseo can even do the Promise Ending with them.
• Undying Loyalty: To Aura.
• With a Friend and a Stranger: With Azure Kite.

Aina

Voiced by: Atsuko Enomoto (Japanese); Rachel Hirschfeld (English, Vol.3 ), Jennie Kwan (English, Vol.4

World Identity: A Shadow Warlock, seen on rare occasions. Yata reveals toward the end of Roots that he'd seen her talking with Phyllo, because it was through her that Phyllo met Ovan. She later appears and spends some time with Sakubo in Redemption, while somehow also attracting the attention of Piros the 3rd.

Real Identity: Aina Indou, Ovan/Masato's younger sister. Already sick and hospitalized, she lapsed into a coma when PKed by Tri-Edge. After Ovan apparently dies to activate Corbenik's Rebirth ability, she returns to normal, but resents Haseo for separating them, believing it was better to be trapped with her brother than to be apart from him completely.

Appears in: .hack//Roots (sort of), .hack//G.U.: Redemption

Tropes Associated With:

• Anger Born of Worry: Given her age, she can understandably be rather irrational when emotional, mostly when it comes to Ovan's survival and them being together, most of it directed at Haseo. She does apologize for her behavior when calmed down and given more information.
• Always with You: Literally to Ovan, until she recovers.
• Black Magician Girl: She is a Shadow Warlock, after all.
• Elegant Gothic Lolita: Her PC's appearance includes plenty of lace and frills.
• Empty Shell: Coma caused her PC to this.
• Emotionless Girl: Before she recovers from coma.
• Long-Distance Relationship: A Platonic example; she had to be moved to Germany for proper medical treatment, and can only experience hanging out with her brother Ovan through The World.
• The Scream: When she's PK'ed by AIDA whose controlled Ovan.
• Seen It All: Through Ovan's left arm.
• Walking Spoiler: She was Ovan's first victim as Tri-Edge, and the whole reason he wanted to find the Key of the Twilight.
• Ungrateful Bitch: Initially. She lashes out at Haseo for "not saving Ovan". Her consciousness was trapped within Tri-Edge after becoming a Lost One and she still had moments of lucidity then. However, if her recovery meant the potential loss of her brother, then she'd have preferred to have stayed comatose. In fact, she thinks of damning The World if it can no longer be a place where she can be with him. It takes Bo to talk her out of it.

Sakaki

Voiced by: Katsuyuki Konishi (Japanese, PC); Junko Minagawa (Japanese, player); Crispin Freeman (English, PC); Mary Elizabeth McGlynn (English, player)

World Identity: One of the Seven Council of the Moon Tree guild, and among the most influential of them. He's seen as an inspiration by most of Moon Tree and an annoying, preachy busybody by everyone else. Becomes a major antagonist in Volumes 2 and 3 after he is given control of AIDA by Ovan.

Real Identity: Tooru Uike, a precociously intelligent young boy who wants to be taken seriously despite his youth.

Appears in: .hack//G.U.

Tropes Associated With:

• All Take and No Give: Of the controlling giver type. Oh dear lord, poor Atoli.
• All for Nothing: Even after his (online) demise, it initially seems that he was still successful at destroying Haseo's general reputation by exposing his initial abuse of Skeith. However, as proven by Haseo's Gondor Calls for Aid moment later, when it comes down to it, many players who should've otherwise refused the call answered simply because Haseo asked for their help in saving The World, cheating accusations be damned. It helps that Haseo had the help of Zelkova, who remains well-respected after the entire collapse of Moon Tree's reputation, itself due to Sakaki
• And I Must Scream: When about to be killed by Azure Flame Kite.
• Asshole Victim: It's seriously nice to see him begging Ovan for AIDA seeds on his hands and knees, getting cornered by the Azure Knights, screaming for help like a coward, and being finally killed for good by Azure Kite.
• Ax-Crazy: Any good intentions he might have had in the beginning are gone by Redemption, as he's been infected with AIDA himself and desires nothing more than to make Haseo suffer for the "crime" of defying him.
• Back from the Dead: In Redemption and he's getting worst.
• Beneath the Mask: He was kind to almost anybody, but in reality he's a son of a—.
• BFS: As an Edge Punisher, naturally he wields one.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Sakaki plays the role of The Heavy as soon as he becomes a villain, with roughly one and a half volumes' worth of content dedicated to fighting him, but ultimately proves nothing more than a disposable pawn.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: A male example. The All-Loving Hero facade breaks down fast once he thinks he no longer needs it.
• Body Horror: Sakaki <Zenith> is almost completely corroded by AIDA.
• Break the Haughty: His final scene in Redemption is one hundred percent distilled break. And it is awesome.
• Broken Pedestal: Poor Atoli thought Sakaki was actually a noble paragon until she finally got a peak at what he was Beneath the Mask. She completely abandons all faith in him even having an ounce of good left inside after he personally betrays her and attempts to break her body and spirit.
• Disney Villain Death: His last stand in Reminisce takes place on the high cliffs of Briona Gwydion, and ends in him falling off the bridge into the mists below. It happens again in Redemption, only this time we see what's waiting for him at the bottom.
• Drunk on the Dark Side: As Sakaki <Zenith>, he abandons any pretense of virtue. Justified in that an AIDA possession is overtly compared to a crippling drug addiction.
• Easy Amnesia: The final episode of Online Jack, taking place after AIDA and Cubia are dealt with, shows him carefree with no memory of his activities. This is almost exactly what happened to another malcontent of a child seven years prior in R:1. Who is this kid? Ryou Misaki, Haseo himself.
• Enfant Terrible: Even before AIDA and the possibility of using it to control people's minds entered the picture, Sakaki was a twisted schemer and manipulator. He is ten years old.
• Everything's Better with Samurai / Katanas Are Just Better: In Link.
• Evil Counterpart: To Takumi Hino. Like him seven years ago as Wiseman, Sakaki is a ten-year old that is clearly far more intelligent than your average one and is able to amass a network of people that is directed towards a greater goal. Both also have issues with not being noticed by others for their talents, Tooru not being taken seriously by adults, while Takumi not being noticed by Aura OR AIDA. Both are also rather manipulative towards people. Naturally, the difference is that Takumi, even as the more morally dubious Yata, kept his resentment under control and directed his talents towards actually solving the greater crisis and the betterment of The World and its players, while Tooru reveled in his supposed superiority and takes advantage of the crisis for more nefarious means and causes untold amounts of harm for the sake remaking the world in his image of a utopia.
• Evil Laugh: Lets one out a few times, such as when he has an AIDA-possessed Atoli try to devour Haseo.
• Evil Makeover: Gets a nasty one thanks to AIDA.
• Expy: Listen to his speeches about the "ideal world" and tell me he's not channeling Light Yagami. "I am Sakaki! The god of The World!"
• Facial Markings: Among the various aspects of his Evil Makeover.
• Foreshadowing: The Reveal is hinted at rather strongly if you keep up with Salvador Aihara's show.
• Good Hair, Evil Hair: His goes from a tidy high tail, fitting his character as a noble, upright samurai, to wild and wind-swept when corrupted by AIDA.
• Godhood Seeker: His plan in Reminisce is to use AIDA to rule the digital and real worlds and make it a paradise under his rule.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Twice over.
  • In Reminisce, his schemes towards Atoli ultimately cause her to overcome her dependency, awaken her Avatar, and fighting Innis brings Haseo a step closer towards fulfilling the plan to destroy AIDA, which Sakaki wants to use to take over the world.
  • In Redemption, his ego causes him not to ban Haseo when he has the chance, ultimately leading to his downfall.
• Humiliation Conga: He had it coming a long way. After getting his ass handed to Haseo in Reminisce, he is betrayed by Endrance in Redemption and after getting his AIDA form Data Drained by Skeith he has to beg for another chance from The Man Behind the Man just to face Azure Kite, one of the most ruthless anti-AIDA programs in The World who kills him.
• Kids Are Cruel: He's only ten years old.
• Killed Off for Real: By Azure Flame Kite.
• Manipulative Bastard: For God's sake, he recruited Atoli as his personal cheerleader after finding her on a suicide site.
• Laughing Mad: During the final battle against him in his AIDA form, Victorian, he tends to laugh maniacally while trying to fry Haseo with his attacks just to show how lost he is.
• Mind Rape: What he does to Atoli through AIDA, in an attempt to gain control of her Epitaph.
• Motive Decay: He goes from a Well-Intentioned Extremist who wanted to remake the real world from the online world to create a world where nobody hurts and oppresses each other to basically trolling Haseo and his friends and doing everything he can to make them miserable for shits and giggles. Justified as AIDA is likely amplifying his hatred towards Haseo.
• Nice Guy: His mask.
• Not Quite Dead: In the end of Reminisce.
• Obviously Evil: Post-AIDA infusion. The fact that his PC can go around looking like that and still convince anyone – including CC Corp, who make the guy a system admin! – that he's the good guy is nothing short of astounding.
• One-Winged Angel: His AIDA infested form, figuratively and literally.
• Sanity Slippage: How sane he was in the first place is up for debate, but before fusing with AIDA he was an efficient Manipulative Bastard who kept his cool and presented a kind and empathetic mask to better influence those around him; after the fusion, he gives up on this approach in favour of throwing his power around like a madman, given to much ranting and raving, and the charisma that brought him so far evaporates for the most part.
• Smug Snake: While certainly intelligent, Sakaki isn't nearly the mastermind he thinks he is. All of his plans follow Ovan's script to the letter, and that script doesn't call for Sakaki to survive the closing act.
• The Heavy: Most of Reminisce and the first half of Redemption focus on Sakaki as the main antagonist.
• Troll: After becoming an administrator, he blocks you from checking your opponents' info before one of the tournament matches, and will infrequently send Haseo taunting, passive aggressive emails complete with insincere emojis.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behaviour: He has an impressive vocabulary for a ten-year-old and the casual self confidence of someone far older. Both of which clearly helped him groom a depressed Atoli on a suicide website.
• Tyrant Takes the Helm: In Volume 3, he becomes a system admin and replaces Yata as leader of G.U.
• Übermensch: Subverted. His Charisma, strong attatchment to his ideals and willingness to do the unthinkable in service to those ideals certainly imply he's got a lot more going for him than the average PC. However, his Jumping Off the Slippery Slope and descent into megalomania, and the reveal that Ovan has been spoonfeeding him instructions and AIDA seeds make it clear that he's just an egotistical brat with a talent for manipulation and a distinctly naive belief in having a magnificent destiny.
• Villain Has a Point: The guy is a manipulative prick who only gets worse, but he's completely right when he tells Haseo that his initial personality only made enemies of everyone. Of course, he continues to view Haseo through this lens after Haseo has undergone hefty Character Development.
• Walking Spoiler: Just reading anything tagged is almost sure to spoil a HUGE part of his role in .hack G.U Volume 2 and 3.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: What he is at first...
• Wise Beyond Their Years: The issues of morality and ideology he's grappling with are far beyond what most individuals his age spend time thinking about. He's only ten years old.
• Younger Than They Look: Listen to his speeches and word usage and realize they're supposed to be from a 10 year old.

Kaede

Voiced by: Sayaka Oohara (Japanese), Kari Wahlgren (English)

World Identity: The captain of the Moon Tree guild's Third Division.

Real Identity: Kyouko Kaga, a lady currently working in the nursing field. Was previously married and had a son, but a car crash caused by her own carelessness led to her child's death and a divorce.

Appears in: .hack//G.U.

Tropes Associated With:

• Right-Hand Hottie: To Zelkova. Averts any romantic connotations, despite rumors, due to viewing him as a Replacement Goldfish for her deceased son.
• My Greatest Failure: She already lost her biological son at a young age as a young mother, she doesn't want anything bad happening to Zelkova. So, of course, she's beside herself with the idea that Zelkova gets captured and nearly deleted, even lying to her to keep her and the rest of Moon Tree from danger, and then, after he's rescued, the idea that he may disappear once The World R:2 is shut down for good.
• My Greatest Second Chance: Her attachment to Zelkova is clearly her penance for apparent carelessness.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Averted. She likely knows that Zelkova is an AI since she knows Netslum is his home domain and it's implied it's not been her first time there. For that matter, the fact that she knows of Netslum's existence, and also very likely is equally aware of everything about the Epitaph of the Twilight and the Phases, all thanks to him. That Zelkova brings her in shows how much he trusts her and how much she herself is devoted to him.
• Teen Pregnancy: Potentially, given that she got married as a teen and her son's death and her divorce happened when she was 24.
• Yamato Nadeshiko: She's a prim and well-mannered woman wearing a sleeveless kimono.

Nala

Voiced by:

World Identity: The captain of Moon Tree's Fourth Division.

Real Identity: A mystery, until The Reveal.

Appears in: .hack//G.U.

Tropes Associated With:

• The Mole: He's an alter-ego for Yata to allow him to spy on, and manipulate, Moon Tree.
• Sock Puppet: One of Yata's.

Hiiragi

Voiced by: Taiki Matsuno (Japanese), Doug Erholtz (English)

World Identity: The captain of Moon Tree's Fifth Division.

Real Identity: A fashion designer named Fumihiko Yuki. He works in Kyoto. Originally created Hiiragi from a fashion perspective, and considered the character simply to be role-play until he met the attractive Sakaki.

Appears in: .hack//G.U.

Tropes Associated With:

• Camp Gay: He's highly devoted to Sakaki, is extremely effeminate and dresses like a woman.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: And he prefers it that way.
• Heel–Face Turn: He's probably the least sympathetic of Sakaki's followers, but still pulls this later in the story.
• Important Haircut: Invoked Trope; Hiiragi says he'll be editing his character's appearance to have one of these after the final battle, as a metaphor for moving past Sakaki.
• Insistent Terminology: He doesn't care for people referring to him as 'he,' and flies into a rage whenever it happens.
• Suddenly Shouting: He goes from soft-spoken to flipping out at the drop of a hat and for any small provocation.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: He wears women's clothes and is a member of Moon Tree, a guild that opposes PKing.

Sophora

Voiced by: Houko Kuwashima (Japanese), Lia Sargent (English)

World Identity: The captain of Moon Tree's Sixth Division.

Real Identity: A high school girl from Sapporo with the surname Yuasa. Turns out, she was classmates and friends with Chika Kuramoto, the player behind Alkaid, before moving elsewhere.

Appears in: .hack//G.U.

Tropes Associated With:

• All There in the Manual: Nothing at all in-game hints of Sophora's former identity of Nanase and anything about it, from her former membership of Kestrel and Canard, her crush on Silabus, and her friendship with Alkaid. Only the existence of the Alcor manga is what connects Moon Tree's ruthless captain of the Sixth Division to a shy girl who joined Canard to be closer to her crush.
• Ninja: Leader of Moon Tree's black ops, under the cover of being their Medics Division
• Rogue Protagonist: She was formerly Nanase, protagonist of the .hack//Alcor manga and a member of Canard, mostly to get Silabus' affections. Seems that in the process of switching schools and becoming more confident, she becomes a loyal agent of Sakaki. Like all the other captains who sided with him, however, she pulls a Heel–Face Turn once more
• Theme Naming: In addition to having the name of a species of tree to fit with the other captains, her former identity Nanase has one tied to her former friendship with Alkaid. "Nanase" (七星) means "seven stars", and considering Alkaid's namesake, is clearly a reference to the seven stars of the Big Dipper. Even the title of the manga she starred in, Alcor, is named after one of the binary pair "next" to Alkaid. Fittingly enough, it means "the neglected/forgotten one".
• We Used to Be Friends: As Nanase, she was once friends with Alkaid and Silabus, even having a crush on the latter, but ever since becoming Sophora, there's no word on whether she maintains contact with them. One would think Bordeaux's machinations making Alkaid think Nanase betrayed her might have something to do with that, but Alkaid was able to apologize for believing the PK's setup.

Matsu

Voiced by: Hiroshi Yanaka (Japanese), Dave Wittenberg (English)

World Identity: The captain of Moon Tree's Seventh Division. A male Adept Rogue capable of using Steam Gunner and Edge Punisher weapons. Formerly a notorious PK, he renounced his old ways, and has forbidden himself from using the Edge Punisher weaponry he'd PK'd so many with.

Real Identity: Shingo Kudou, Japanese high school student. Formerly a delinquent, but a motorcycle accident left him temporarily bedridden. He gained an interest in playing The World during that time, which helped curb his real-life violent tendencies.

Appears in: .hack//G.U.

Tropes Associated With:

• The Atoner: In Redemption.
• Badass Biker: He is the top ranking biker in all of the motorcycle/unicycle time trials until Haseo beats his times.
• Can't Catch Up: Chooses to only use Steam Gunner weapons, but being an Adept Rogue means that he'll always have lower stats than a pure Steam Gunner such as Kuhn.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Despite being one of Sakaki's main followers, he gets better through a little Character Development, makes peace with Haseo after being defeated, and finds respect for Zelkova again; he then resolves to be a better man. He then supports Sakaki's Moon Tree coup, despite knowing about AIDA and its link to Sakaki. After that... well, consult the first sentence again.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: Matsu is alleged to be much stronger with his Broadsword than with his gun, but he only ever uses his sword during a single story match with him. This includes once he becomes a playable character, where he'll actively refuse to equip or use his Broadsword.
• Japanese Delinquents: Specifically, a Bosozoku, or motorcycle racer. During Gondor Calls for Aid moment in late Redemption, in the Japanese audio, he specifically uses the word oyabun, the term for the absolute leader of a yakuza clan, in reference to Haseo, showing his level of respect toward his rival.
• My Master, Right or Wrong: Matsu more or less realises that Sakaki is behind the AIDA epidemic, but remains loyal to him regardless out of personal gratitude until his defeat in Vol 2.
• Red Baron: Was known as the "Flame Sword Demon" when he was a PK.
• I Let You Win: Based on his dialogue after the fact this was his solution to the dilemma with the Moon Tree coup as he owed too much to Sakaki to not help him but really didn't approve of what he was doing, so he supports it but deliberately throws the fight against Haseo when he appears to stop it by not using a sword against him even though they both know he stands no chance against him without it.

Natsume the Edgemaniac

Voiced by: Maaya Sakamoto (Japanese), Lia Sargent (English, G.U. Vol. 3), Kate Higgins (English, G.U. Last Recode Vol. 3 & 4)

World Identity: Similar to her character in The World: R1, Natsume is a female, green-haired Twin Blade. However, she also has a violent PK side that surfaces when she sees rare items whose names contain the word "Edge".

Real Identity: Natsume Oguro, returning from the original game quadrology.

Appears in: .hack//G.U.

Tropes Associated With:

• Boss Subtitles / Red Baron: "The Edgemaniac", when she is a Chaotic PK.
• Breather Boss: She is a boss that shows up after Haseo defeats Cubia and slaughtered the other Chaotic PKs, but she is nothing compared to how strong Haseo had to get to beat Cubia.
• The Call Put Me on Hold: Of all the returning .hackers, only Natsume missed out on both the AIDA infection and the return of Cubia, something she's a little disappointed about when she finds out. It's not until the Vegalta appears that she finally gets a chance to live up to the reputation of being a .hacker.
• Continuity Nod: The "Spiral Edge" weapon she starts with has the same name as the first blades Kite gave her in the original game quadrology.
• The Dreaded: Much to her confusion. Chaotic PKs will even go after Haseo with little hesitation. Natsume's only encounter with Chaotic PKs, that she's aware of, had the player in question immediately surrender and hand over their weapon rather than risk a fight with her. She just assumed they were being nice.
• Eyes Always Shut: The only time they open is when her Superpowered Evil Side takes over.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: For extra emphasis on the danger of her Edgemaniac personality.
• Face–Heel Turn: In the .hack R1 Games, she is a member of the celebrated .hackers. In the .hack//G.U. games, she is a Chaotic PK that Haseo can PKK due to her Superpowered Evil Side. Other players treat her as a supervillain to be feared. They do not know about her Split Personality. Yet in the below-mentioned wallpapers, her status as a .hacker is still well known.
• Foreshadowing: While she makes no direct appearance until Vol. 3's post-game, she appears in various wallpapers and Crimson VS cards that can be collected. Unlike any of the callback wallpapers and cards, however, she is repeatedly depicted along side Piros the 3rd rather than characters of the original quadrology.
• Foil: To Bordeaux. Natsume's obsession with Kite over seven years has only given her a Yandere Ax-Crazy Split Personality. And while Bordeaux does also become violently antagonistic towards Haseo due to their mutual dysfunction at first, tensions between them cool enough that she tries to start over with attempting to connect with him, if roughly.
• Idiot Hair: Has a prominent strand that's as long as her head is tall.
• Named Weapons: She's under the assumption that Tri-Edge is this, associating the name with neither Azure Kite nor AIDA.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: The title "The Edgemaniac" shows that you really need to stay away from her unless you are prepared to PKK her, especially if she thinks that you have some equipment with the word "Edge" in it which she will steal.
• Optional Boss: She cannot be fought until the post-game of Vol. 3.
• Optional Party Member: Joins Haseo in Vol. 3 if he beats all eight Chaotic PKs, including herself, and then has Piros the 3rd properly introduce her to him.
• Platonic Life-Partners: Likely due to retaining her crush on Kite, she's actually the only female character Haseo can't marry, as she receives a "best wishes" ending variant shared with the male characters that's mostly Played for Laughs if her relationship values are maxed out.
• Secret Character: Doesn't make a single appearance until her optional fight with Haseo.
• Split Personality: She has two personalities who are unaware of each other: the nice one from the .hack R1 Games and a Superpowered Evil Side that Haseo can PKK.
• Stalker with a Crush: Piros the 3rd makes mention of her stalking Kite over the last seven years. She denies it but, given her constant mentioning of him, it's hard to doubt Piros here.
• Superpowered Evil Side: Natsume has no control over her PK side, and isn't even sure how it exists, guessing that a hacker might be involved.

AIDA

The "Anna" strain, with ordinary AIDA behind it

World Identity: Artificially Intelligent Data Anomalies, appearing as clusters of undulating black spots. How they were created and what they want is unknown, but they've recently become hostile toward humans, infecting players and compelling them to pursue their natural - usually negative - impulses beyond reason.

Real Identity: None. AIDA victims, however, become little more than lifeless drones in reality, serving the will of AIDA and exhibiting superhuman power on one occasion.

Appears in:

Tropes Associated With:

• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The aggressive AIDA are malicious artificial intelligences.
• Always Chaotic Evil: Averted, actually. GU Returner reveals that the hostile AIDA that were causing all the problems had discovered aggression and went a little crazy with it. The Rebirth didn't wipe out all of AIDA... just the aggressive ones. The rest of AIDA is peaceful and non-interfering, preferring to remain hidden in the background rather than interact directly with humans.
  • Also averted in Vol. 4: Reconnect.
• Big Bad: AIDA <Tri-Edge> is the true Big Bad of the G.U. trilogy. It is the malicious AI that infected and forced Ovan into evil.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: On any account you're being touched (eventually infected) by them, you'll be this.
• Dark Is Evil: The only visual indication normal players have to the presence of AIDA is a mass of black spots, and the blackened mutated limbs of those infected.
• Emotion Bomb: AIDA's effect on people. AIDA is curious about human emotion, so it bonds itself to people's consciousnesses to experiment with it. It often amplifies those emotions in the process, to disastrous levels.
• Evil Knockoff: AIDA <Oswald> and <Victorian>, the latter especially, act much like a poor man's Avatar.
• Evil Makes You Monstrous: AIDA-PCs without Epitaphs tend to undergo heavy mutation of their PC's appearance. Even an Epitaph User and their Avatar can have their appearance corrupted if the AIDA is powerful enough.
• Expy: A mostly formless, malicious digital entity that dwells within a digital world, but can also manifest in the real world by possessing people, and whose name is written in all caps. Are we talking about AIDA, or XANA?
• Fantastic Drug: Lampshaded in the G.U. manga. Rather than conforming to the typical implications of "possession", they instead hold out a (poor) substitute for whatever it is you're desperate for and cloud your judgment so you don't notice the lie. As long as you're infected, you're both higher than a kite and has zero self-restraint.
• The Heartless: Subverted in last Recode and Link.
• Immune to Bullets: Any normal weapons can't hurt them, as they can only be hurt and defeated by Avatar.
• Invisible to Normals: As stated above the only thing most people can see of AIDA are black spots and mutated characters. The various monstrosities they become go unseen much like the Avatars.
• Nonstandard Character Design: Averted only for the case of Helen, for she was spider shaped.
• Red Right Hand: Or, more specifically, black left arms.
• The Corruption: AIDA are this to humans, but humans are also this to AIDA. An AIDA without a host is basically harmless.
• Theme Naming: AIDA variants are basic human names (Anna, Helen, Victorian...), and most of their attacks are named after programming languages. Victorian's attacks are instead named after terms of grandiosity, befitting the immense ego of its user.

Hetero Team

From left to right: Axanthic (Osamu), Hetero (Hajime), Leucistic (Sei)

World Identity: An Arena Team that Sakaki forcefully infected with the Grunwald AIDA, hoping to use them against Haseo. Responsible for turning Sirius into a Lost One during the Sage Palace Tournament. They are not seen again after Haseo defeats them.

Real Identity: Siblings Hajime, Osamu, and Sei Maekawa.

Appears In: .hack//G.U. Vol. 3: Redemption

Tropes Associated With:

• The Dragon: Briefly serve this role to Sakaki.
• Evil Makeover: Once Grunwald is Data Drained, it's revealed that their PCs look completely different without it.
• Forced into Evil: Over the course of the match, it becomes pretty clear that they don't want any of this, even Axanthic weakly pleading to Haseo for help, in a brief moment of lucidity
• Fashionable Asymmetry: The only way to tell Axanthic and Leucistic apart is which of their legs is covered.
• Theme Naming: All three are named after genetic phenotypes.

Kusabira

Voiced by: Sumire Uesaka (Japanese), Janice Kawaye (English)

World Identity: A new character introduced in the Updated Re-release last Recode. A resident of the Netslum that claims to be Zelkova's younger sister, and has problems matching people's faces with their names.

Real Identity: As with Zelkova, it's a complete mystery to everyone, until The Reveal.

Appears in: .hack//G.U. Vol. 4: Reconnect

Tropes Associated With:

• Big Bad: of the first three episodes, since, as the Tri-Edge AIDA, she's the ultimate reason why Shino became a Lost One.
• Chekhov's Gun: As mentioned above in Bo's section, AIDA became rather hung up on the concept of two as one. This ultimately ends up being her method of curing Ovan.
• Death Equals Redemption and Redemption Equals Life: Manages to be both of this. As the Tri-Edge AIDA, she was purified by Corbenik's Rebirth, and reconstituted herself as a cute Zelkova-like girl to be able to safely interact with players without causing panic or harm to them. Her appearance is part of a plan to rescue the captured Zelkova and ultimately save Ovan's consciousness. While she sacrifices her independence, she lives on fused once more to Ovan, proof that humans, AI, and AIDA may be able to peacefully coexist after all.
• Enemy Without: Ovan's, though the 'Enemy' part doesn't really apply anymore.
• Foil: Is this to AIKA from LINK, herself a sapient and peaceful AIDA who also sacrifices herself for the greater good, meaning Kusabira also acts as a Call-Forward. While AIKA is sweet, bubbly, and can socialize with others well, Kusabira is soft-spoken, sedate, and has an inability to properly interact with players.
• Heel–Face Turn: Helps save The World and Ovan's life, rather than continuing to send players into comas as Tri-Edge.
• No Social Skills: Constantly addresses the wrong people as Haseo before the real one has to correct her, with a routine apology and explanation of being unable to match names with faces. While certainly not unexpected from a denizen of Netslum, it seems odd from her being Zelkova's sister until the reveal that she's actually a reborn and purified Tri-Edge; cognition's pretty much new to her.
• The Reveal: She is the Tri-Edge AIDA, having survived and gained intelligence after Ovan caused Rebirth. She is looking for a way to reunite with him and help him regain consciousness, and succeeds with Haseo's help.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Definitely looks the part of someone claiming to be Zelkova's sister. Done somewhat deliberately to safely interact with the player cast and convince Haseo to save the AI boy she claims to be her brother.
• Two Beings, One Body: She has to return to being a part of Ovan for him to regain consciousness.
• Walking Spoiler: Due to her being a major part of Reconnect's resolution.

Vegalta

Voiced by:

World Identity: A new danger introduced in the Updated Re-release Last Recode. A monster originating from outside The World, rampantly consuming its data and causing it to destabilize before its planned server shutdown. It is attempting to preserve The World's data within itself, while also deleting anomalies such as the Netslum and AIDA, which is why it tracked Kusabira.

Real Identity: None, as it is made of corrupted data.

Appears in: .hack//G.U. Vol. 4: Reconnect

Tropes Associated With:

• Boss Subtitles: "Visitor from Hades" as Moralta.
• Fusion Dance: Its One-Winged Angel form is a mishmash of its body along with Duke Orius, Cernunnos, and The One Sin
• Flunky Boss: In every encounter with it, the player will have to defeat the enemies it summons to dismiss an invincible barrier protecting Vegalta.
• One-Winged Angel: Its multi-stage Moralta form, which is fought by an enhanced Skeith.

Online Jack

Salvador Aihara

Voiced by: Masashi Ebara (Japanese), Daran Norris (English)

World Identity: Kazubolo, guild master of Soulmates. Tends to describe himself as "The World's last hope".

Real Identity: Carlos "Salvador" Aihara is an eccentric news reporter, born in Brazil and currently residing in Saitama Prefecture. During G.U., he is the host of web show "Online Jack", investigating the recent string of coma victims caused by Doll Syndrome. Though he is able to trace the cause to The World, he is severely injured and hospitalized during his investigation while protecting teacher Michiru Tajima from student affected by AIDA. Additionally, accidental property damage and his lack of hard evidence leads to people calling for the cancellation of his show.

Appears in: .hack//G.U.

Tropes Associated With:

• Chivalrous Pervert: Relentlessly so.
• Going for the Big Scoop: He does not let things like social norms or laws against burglary get in the way of his investigations.
• Hero of Another Story: Though "hero" may be stretching it. His adventures in Online Jack never directly interact with Haseo's, but brush on some of the same events. It's through his show that we learn Sakaki is an unusually hypercompetent elementary school kid^note something only learned in game if randomly talking to Pi while she's in your party during early Redemption, while this fact is learned by Reminisce's Online Jack segments, that his machinations do indeed affect the real world, and, most importantly, what his vision of a utopia actually looks like.
• Hidden Depths: He seems like a hopeless Idiot Hero throughout most of his show, but some news the player can read delves into his backstory a bit.
• Intrepid Reporter: He is a rate news reporter whose investigation into Doll Syndrome wrecks CC Corp's attempts to cover it up.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Shares this with Professor Sugai and Michiru, but moreso he, as both his break-ins of both the latter's school and CC Corp's lab result in public outrage, temporary arrest, and the cancellation of the show, even though the former was to save Michiru, who initially went in alone, was attacked by her mind-controlled students, and the latter was all three wanting to save the vanished children. However, see Vindicated by History.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Zigzagged. On the forums, he generally does an excellent job of hiding who he really is, despite not acting differently. When interacting with players in The World, he tends to inadvertently promote "Salvador Aihara's" movies in only a way it should be obvious that he's Aihara, but nobody picks up on it somehow. The only exception is Haseo, who can encounter him in a mini-sidequest unlocked after viewing the Online Jack episode where he's knocked out by Tooru "Sakaki" Uike. What gives him away is the fact that he name drops Michiru and the fact that he's secretly logged in from his hospital room. Chasing him around gets him to spill and bribes you with a wallpaper to keep his identity a secret.
• Vindicated by History: In-Universe, charges against him and his companions are dropped following respective leaks of information by Prof. Sugai and an anonymous Takumi Hino that reveal CC Corp's wrongdoings. Moreover, Online Jack is Un-Cancelled, and while many continue to criticize Aihara's recklessness, defenders cite that he managed to cover the AIDA incident long before it actually started making major headlines, and ultimately was one more source of evidence in the long list of CC Corp's corruption.

Taichiro Sugai

Voiced by: Tomomichi Nishimura (Japanese), Richard Epcar (English)

World Identity: N/A

Real Identity: An assistant professor at Chikuba University Medical School, who authored a book on Doll Syndrome. Salvador attempts to interview him and identify his information source. Following Kawaguchi's hospitalization, he is able to identify the writing left behind on the walls as names from the Epitaph of Twilight; this, the revelation that all the victims in Michiru's class were in the Moon Tree guild, plus abnormal electrical energy radiating from Syndrome victims, helps identify The World as a cause. Following his appearances on Online Jack, his book became a bigger hit, though he puts his focus towards trying to help the victims.

Appears in: .hack//G.U.

Tropes Associated With:

• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Was willing to risk his career and break in CC Corp's facility to save the children. Unfortunately...
  • No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: They not only not find the kids, but seeing the activation of Corbenik's Rebirth knocked them out and only got them arrested. Among many reasons they're let off the hook is Professor Sugai's leaking of information, forcing charges to be dropped.

Michiru Tajima

Voiced by: Atsuko Enomoto (Japanese), Bridget Hoffman (English)

World Identity: N/A

Real Identity: A fourth-grade school teacher whose had several students in her class fall victim to Doll Syndrome. She crosses paths with Salvador during his investigation, and after mistaking him for a predator, reluctantly lets him follow her to the house of one of her students, Kawaguchi. Finding the student comatose in front of his computer, they take him to a hospital, only for him to vanish and leave behind nothing but strange writing on the walls. Receiving a strange text from him later, Michiru and Salvador attempt to meet Kawaguchi at her school, only to be attacked by Doll Syndrome victims being led by another student of hers, Tooru Uike (Sakaki in The World:R2). Salvador saves her, but is hit by an electrical attack in the process, leaving him hospitalized. Michiru was fired from her position due to the damage to the school and lack of evidence on what actually happened, but after helping to use Online Jack to warn others about The World:R2's dangers, she became a popular net idol.

Appears in: .hack//G.U.

Tropes Associated With:

• Hot Teacher: Aihara certainly thinks so, and he's clearly not wrong, as the many angles of her figure will tell you. She's pretty enough to garner attention as a net idol after she's unfairly fired for breaking and entering her school to find her missing students.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Despite trying to stick to the rules, and a series of misfortunes result in her unfairly getting fired anyway, she willingly teams up with Aihara to solve the mystery and rescue the kids, even if she's no longer their teacher.

Osamu Kawaguchi

Voiced by: Touko Aoyama (Japanese), Dave Wittenberg (English)

World Identity: Unknown, but was in the Moon Tree guild, part of the Second Division.

Real Identity: An elementary school student taught by Michiru Tajima that is affected by Doll Syndrome. When Michiru and Salvador first check on him, he is only able to utter the word "Sakaki" before going comatose. Though he was rushed to the hospital after, he soon vanished after leaving messages on the walls, turning up later controlled by Tooru Uike (Sakaki).

Appears in: .hack//G.U.

Tropes Associated With:

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