Hackadoll the Animation is a series of shorts based on DeNA’s news app Hacka Doll, which is available for iOS and Android devices. The anime was produced by Creators in Pack in collaboration with Studio Trigger. It is currently available for streaming on Crunchyroll.
Hacka Dolls are Personal Entertainment AI, who strive to advance humanity by helping them out with various problems. There are three main Hacka Dolls, creatively named Hacka Doll #1, Hack Doll #2 and Hacka Doll #3 respectively.
There is also the leader Hack Doll #0, and the eccentric Hacka Doll #4. In addition, there are the various characters that the Hacka Dolls help to advance.
The Hacka Dolls themselves possess typical character traits, that any veteran anime watcher would have seen many times before. Still, with each episode at around seven minutes long, there’s not much in the way of time for characterisation.
The anime is episodic in nature, though the first and last episode pretty much serve as bookends. Everything else is its own self-contained episode, though.
The humour of Hacka Doll the Animation isn’t for everyone. There’s a few occasions where references to other anime are made, including a pretty spectacular dream sequence in the final episode. The humour can be quite surreal at times as well, and is pretty much hit-and-miss.
Score: 7/10
Hackadoll the Animation is an enjoyable romp, particularly if you enjoy referential and surreal humour.
