La Biblioteca de Amestris

Infinite Dendrogram keeps bringing great characters and thoughtful details. I know what you may be thinking. This is just another fast food isekai anime. Even if you are right, I keep finding remarkable elements in this serie. Today, let's talk about Marie Adler and roleplaying.

This is the second time I feel the urge to write about this anime. I love MMORPG games, but I'm often disappointed with the isekai genre. I find that most of those series only offer "Eastern Eggs" or basically some fan service and background to hook you up, but nothing more. In fact, besides a few minor details, I don't feel that Sword Art Online is a MMO or MMORPG, especially when you compare Sword Art Online with Log Horizon, which offers the closest experience that I've seen of how a raid against a final boss should actually feel. If you have not watched Log Horizon, I strongly recommend you to watch it, at least the first seasons. 

In that sense, Infinite Dendrogram feels closer to Log Horizon. Accordingly, we have been introduced to a little cosmos of character that I've personally encountered when I play FFXIV or Guild Wars 2. It's not only about finding the tsundere, the dancer, the paladin, and the pk. It's about finding real people, one of those is Marie Adler, the roleplayer. 


Marie Adler is a character that was early introduced in the serie, but we didn't get a slice of her background until very recently.  The real name of Marie Adler is Ichimiya Nagisa, a talented mangaka who got an important contract to serialize the story of Marie Adler, one of Nagisa's characters. The manga was very successful, but the magazine bankrupted and the Marie Adler serie had to stop. When Nagisa finally obtained a new contract to continue drawing, it was too late. She just couldn't do it. Writers' block! Nagisa had to drop out drawing the character because she was incapable to beat the white page. 

Shortly after, Nagisa found out about Infinite Dendrogram and decided to play the game with her character, Marie Adler, as a way to find out and understand her own character to continue writing her story.


Fictions writers have found in roleplaying a way to develop their own stories, as Nagisa did. I personally got interested on this because it's very challenging to get into the mind of my characters and describe how they would react in specific scenarios. Also, I feel that I need to learn how to make the words of each character recognizable. I've always believe that good writers can allow you to distinguish their character only with their dialogues and without indicating who is saying it. The fact that your character is having an actual conversation with someone else is exactly what I need. Practice. Roleplaying is a very interesting tool for writers.

I also find roleplaying as a great exercise to improvise because you are creating dialogues at the moment with another character. The best thing is that there is not such thing as writer's block with someone else while you are roleplaying. Everything is happening right away. You're on stage. Goblins have breached the town defenses. What are you gonna go? Anything? Do something. Furthermore, your audience (the other players) are listening you. You don't want them to get bored. They don't have all day and you want to keep their attention and interest.


What is also great about roleplaying in a videogame is that you don't waste time on planing the lore because let's face it. Writing and planing the lore of your novel is one of the most interesting things to do, but also, the best excuse to evade the actual work of writing your stories. I personally find very difficult to jump from building the background to actually write the book. Roleplaying can help you with that.

Think about Marie Adler. Purpose and emotions matter. After this episode, I understood her. Finding that one of the characters was actually doing the same as me made me very happy. I feel that I could relate on her after knowing why she was playing the game. That was awesome. I feel rapport, and consequently, I begin to care about this character.


Marie Adler feels real, she could be someone I can actually encounter inside a game. Other series, by contrast, all full of disposable characters. Having characters like this, I think, provide us with some physical and concrete that we can actually feel and enjoy. In fact, there were a few moments that you can see how Nagisa was forcing herself to act as Marie Adler, which reforces this idea. Well done, Infinite Dendrogram.

If you are watching this serie, I would like to hear your thoughts.