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Happy Birthday Sakubo (朔望), real name Iori Nakanishi (中西伊織), born on May 26th 2006 Source from page 175 of .hack//Archives 06 #dothack #ドットハック

In The World (.hack//SIGN & .hack//IMOQ) there were originally 6 character classes Twinblade, Heavyblade, Blademaster, Longarm, Heavyaxeman, and Wavemaster from 2010 and prior. It wasn't till four years later in 2014 during .hack//Legend of the Twilight two new classes were introduced. Starting with Knucklemaster on the far right. (Source .hack//Archives 3 page 223) Translation for Knucklemaster as follows (Source .hack//Archives 3 page 223) Unlike the other 6 classes, the 7th class has a class change option, translation as follows: "A rare class that appeared as an advanced class of the Knucklemaster due to the class change system implemented in 2014. It has various features not found in the normal classes. Such as the need for a job change item for the firs time to transform into a non-human race and change class." (Source .hack//Archives 3 page 223) But this wasn't the first time we've heard of Knucklemaster, in the 2003-2004 Comptiq magazines .hack//The World Vol. 2 and Vol. 3 we are introduced to Knucklemasters as a playable class in the TTRPG or tabletop roleplaying game .hack//Infinite Generation. (source page 97 .hack//The World Vol. 2 magazine) In the 2012 doujinshi by Rei Izumi in celebration of the 10th anniversary of .hack//Legend of the Twilight manga, from pages 27-48 we see a story of Ouka, Crim, and Luke. In this story they are all helping Knucklemaster Ouka get the item needed to change class. This is what Ouka looks like as a Knucklemaster, her first class before upgrading to the Werewolf class. These two rings overlapping each other tied with a ribbon and a tail dangling, is the item needed to transform. After which obtaining it, Ouka uses it to transform from Knucklemaster class to the Werewolf class The hands change, removing the spiked bracelets and palm gloves for a fur sleeve with brass spiked knuckles. Body starts to change, real emphasis on the boa. End of the transformation This being the Ouka we all know and love (if you are a manga design lover since the anime design is different). .hack//Archives Vol. 3 on BookWalker https://bookwalker.jp/de51b97bf4-fd6e-4b2a-8ece-0e3beb15fe8e/ More on Ouka's origin's transcribed here https://www.pixiv.net/novel/show.php?id=7850995 Original written work here https://www.pixiv.net/en/artworks/61564877 Short video on the 10th Anniversary book by Rei Izumi

As talked about in a recent post about Knucklemaster and Werewolf being the 7th and 8th character classes mentioned in the .hack//Archives_03 book. What if I told you right now, if you popped in your .hack//IMOQ game disc and look up the texture asset xicon00 and look closely, you will see 8 character class icons. From left to right we see Twinblade Wavemaster Knucklemaster Blademaster Samurai Heavyblade Heavyaxe Longarm These icons confirm a spiked knuckle as the icon for Knucklemaster with the 3rd icon from the left, and a curved katana for Samurai with the 5th icon from the left. Now we can go further back this with several usable weapons in-game with the Twinblade weapons and the Heavyblade weapons. As you may or may not know, the Twinblade and Heavyblade have the most weapons by any of the 6 character classes in-game. But something strange happens when you equip these items, most notably Kite's twinblade weapons. The twinblade weapons can be split in two categories that Kite uses, first is the bladed weapons or two dagger type of weapons. And the second is the dual gloves, dual spikes, or dual claws type of weapons. The first type the dagger type is strictly the twinblade class whereas the glove/spike/claw type weapons are in fact remnants from the Knucklemaster class. (image above shows Kite with a dual dagger type weapon and a dual glove type weapon) Heavyblade are no different, where one style of weapons they use is a oversized bladed weapon usually as large as Black Rose, and the other style is a slender curved light sword. It is implied the slender lighter blades are the remnant for the Samurai class. It's pretty easy to see that Sanjuro was meant to be part of the Samurai class. But unlike Knucklemaster, there was no mention of the Samurai class in the book .hack//Archives_03. Also has been noted that Natsumi may have been planned as a Knucklemaster class based on her weapon on page 193 of .hack//Archives_03. ( D / Natsume: The weapon is depicted as a tonfa instead of a twin sword. ) Below are my interpretations of which weapon would have belong to which class.

Today at 5pm PST get ready to learn about the lore for .hack's "The World R1" from the .hack//Infection, .hack//SIGN, .hack//Legend of the Twilight era of the franchise as written by CyberConnect2 #dothack #ドットハック