Phantasy Star Online 2: the Animation is not a good anime, but it is an interesting one. Because, well, you’d expect an adaptation of a science fiction MMORPG to be actually set in the game’s universe, don’t you? And indeed episode one opens with a sci-fi action scene, but then the opening plays and when we come back, it’s to that most ambitious and rare of settings, a Japanese high school. All that action before the opening? Just part of the PSO2 game two kids played on the bus our protagonist took to get back to “Seiga Academy”: the first of many many awkward scenes in which background characters enthuse about PSO2.
The plot only kicks in halfway through the first episode, after we’ve followed protagonist-kun going through his first day back at school routine. Student council prez above explains it: the student council has to create reports on PSO2 and protagonist-kun is drafted to provide them, being apparantly the only person in the school to have never played it or even have heard about it. All so we can have a lot of scenes of “duh what’s an MMO” or “gee, you mean I should be careful about mixing online and offline identities?” as he sets out to explore the wonderful world of Phantasy Star Online. So instead of a rousing sci-fi adventure, you get your basic slice of life high school series mixed with exciting scenes of people playing that sci-fi adventure. What saves it is that all of this is done so earnestly, so awkwardly, that it becomes funny again.
Stuco prez has an ulterior motive by the way: for some reason she fancies protagonist-kun and devised this blatantly transparant ploy to get him by her side. Which goes as far as dressing up like a robot and playing PSO2 alongside him to help him out. Turns out she’s not so good at hiding her identity though. It’s blatantly obvious to the viewer who she is from the start, while protagonist-kun ruins her grand revelation scene late in the series by quoting her own lines back at her. Stuco prez is about the only who likes him though: the rest of the school is pointlessly hostile to him from the start. security guards question his right to even be there, the student council itself is seething with jealousy and barely hidden anger at his sudden elevation and random classmates call him a pervert.
About twothirds through the series the show seems to realise it has to do something with the PSO2 universe and we get a plot about Darkers invading the real world, which actually had been building up in the background since the first episode. This is actually the least interesting part of the show, because it’s bogstandard sci-fi nonsense you’ve seen in countless other animes already, it lacks the bizarre touches the show put on the slice of life parts and it actually happens too late in the show to hve much impact. The parallel plot of the student council wanting to organise the cultural festival’s afterparty is much more interesting.
So should you watch Phantasy Star Online 2: the Animation? Of course not. In the end it’s still just an extended commercial for an online videogame that you’re not allowed to play anyway if you’re outside East Asia and the awkward stylistic choices made do not make up for this, just make it more amusing than if it had been a straight adaptation. But at least the ending is cute.
This was day 2 of the Twelve Days of Anime. Next time: Oshiete Galko-chan & Nijiro Days.