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 Stretch
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[series:4822#628] | ||||||
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(Rent- or Watch+) (All episodes watched): I wasn't sure whether to include 'Comedy' as a keyword for this show, because despite the title and poster above, there didn't seem to be any effort to amuse us during episode one. Instead the complex premise is laid out; I understood it in general but the details confused me. Why is Haga still loyally doing his job after being stranded for a year within this game? Is he trying to fix whatever problem caused him and his co-workers to be trapped there, ala Sword Art Online? If his job was to make sure that Nikola and her village would get wiped out, why did he fight the hoimoidragon (they look more like toads) that attacked it? What did he mean when he said "Nikola, are you a bug too?" At any rate, the revived Nikola asks to become his apprentice as he does his work as a 'King's Seeker', supposedly a secret investigator working for the King but actually a debugger, at least in this case. I was left with mixed feelings about this show; the premise could have been organized and explained better, but it might be interesting. I'll need to watch another episode. In episode two Haga and Nikola encounter two more debuggers who are not nearly as nice as Haga is. This show is telling an interesting story but doing so in a disjointed way. One of the newcomers first stabs Haga with a knife then asks him to switch sides(?). Haga explains that the reason he's still trying to fix bugs is so that by 'winning' the game perhaps he'll be released from it, ala SAO. But these guys don't particularly want to return to their pre-game lives in Japan since they enjoy so much power here when they operate in 'debug' mode which allows them to ignore many laws of nature. I didn't grasp why winning the game would require that he and Nikola check to make sure a stone wall is as solid as it appears to be. When one of the newcomers attacks him using debug mode Haga is able to trick him and hurl him into some sort of infinite void which we the viewers had had no idea existed. The plot of this show feels as if it were thrown together in a hurry. Haga and Nikola go to the 'Advent Altar' in search of the other members of Haga's team. They find two of the four, who have met strange fates due to bugs in the game programming. Things get more interesting when Nikola is briefly possessed by Tesla, the AI that runs the game, which explains that it basically supports Haga's efforts to debug and urges him to get on with it. In episode four they meet Amano, the animal-like character who turns out to be a former debugger himself. The evil debuggers attack them and manage only to kill a close friend of Amano, which causes him to vow that he will kill all of them. This might get interesting. In episode five Haga, Nikola and Amano go to the castle that the bad guys have been operating out of, and which they have redesigned. They make use of the way the programming works for a particular quest that any player who enters this castle will automatically begin--namely, that no different teams of adventurers will run into each other and thereby possibly interfere with each other. This was sort of interesting, though I wish there were more of these software twists than there are in this show. The jokes are actually fairly amusing despite my early doubts. This show makes plentiful use of superdeformed mode--or did they just have another team animate around half of it, because there seems little justification to switch most of the time. At one point I noticed one character in each mode on the screen at the same time, but it apparently wasn't meant as any sort of joke. Seems like some corner-cutting was needed to complete this particular episode, because the quality of succeeding ones was better. Haga, Nikola and Amano discover that the leader of the bad guys has been betrayed by his underlings, because he was tiring of the game and wanted to find a way to log out. They are discovered, and escape from what should be a hopeless situation by using another bug, though this one didn't make as much sense to me. The leader of the bad guys (who should be dead) attempts to 'turn' Amano by claiming that there's a way his dead NPC friend can be revived. Still no sign of the elf woman who appears in the OP sequence. In episode eight the bad leader keeps his promise but the end result is not what Amano had hoped for. Now Amano must live up to his side of the deal, except things change somewhat when the elf-woman finally appears. This is Akira Kagari, another debugger who has decided to make the best of her life within the game. Nikola finally acquires the skull-shaped device which has also been appearing in the OP sequences. The forceful Kagari seems trustworthy despite a misunderstanding, so she is allowed to join the party (she had insisted she would whether she got permission or not). I like the way this show gives us a quick summary of where things stand at the beginning of each episode. They meet a strange person, Bayle, who seems to be an NPC yet has become extremely strong (and extremely unpopular with his(her?) fellow villagers). They reason that another debugger must be behind all this, and attempt to figure out just what happened. In episode ten we learn the story behind Bayle and his unfortunate debugger. Haga tries to reason with him but Akira has a better (or at least quicker) idea. The encounter leaves Nikola unconscious and when she remains that way indefinitely Akira proposes they go to the city she operates from, where the High Priest might be able to help her. They do this, and we get a surprise regarding Alba, the priest/king. I noticed that while this show ought to be nearing a conclusion (unless it is two seasons long?) I wasn't sensing any such thing. It is modestly entertaining but will need a satisfying end to deserve a 'Rent' rating. Though they don't seem terribly evil, Alba and his aides don't trust these newcomers and arrange to have them hurled into the dungeon beneath the city of Marzuna (I think). Haga finds himself alone deep, deep underneath the temple and without his debugger stone or knives, but meets another missing debugger with a strange avatar. He also learns that a fearsome 'boss' monster blocks the way out of this lowest level of the dungeon. For some reason Amano, Akira, and that female character of Amano's species find themselves together in a bizarre casino where a person can provide a strange form of collateral to borrow money for gambling. But the games are riddled with bugs. Haga reunites with the others and comes up with an idea to use various bugs to break out, and it made a fair amount of sense. Nikola, meanwhile, is told that the others have deserted her (Tesla has gone back to sleep). Apparently season one of the series ended at this point (episode 13) as she decides whether she believes this story or not. I felt a definite relief as she decides that she trusts Haga and is being lied to, which means she's not a simple-minded, two-dimensional character who believes whatever she's told. Haga, Amano and Akira are still trapped within the dysfunctional videogame and there's no telling what will become of Nikola if the game is put in order. The series doesn't seem to be continuing in the Fall 2024 season, but I hope it eventually will. Last updated Monday, December 30 2024. Created Monday, July 29 2024. | ||||||||
