The series takes place on Tom Sawyer Island where an augmented reality where civilians use devices called decoration customizers with which a user can adjust their surroundings to their liking.
We also learn that their form of currency is "love" which is essentially social media likes. However, there is a person of mystery Phantom ZERO who is capable of erasing love so they are more or less a terrorist who is jeopardizing their system.
The main character is Berry a young teen who is obsessed with discovering the identity of Phantom ZERO when, because of a faulty deco, she discovers an invisible girl named Hack. Summing it up, she is part of a club known as the Ghost Detectives Club, the ghosts in this case being socially dead with no access to love and living off the radar.
One positive of the show is its animation style. It reminds me a lot of mid-90s shows. It is colorful and inventive in its depiction of an augment-controlled reality. The moments with the lead characters entering the hyperspace also tend to result in cool scenes.
As far as the plot goes, it is flawed. The idea of this kind of world where everything is online is something that has been done before, but the show doesn't perfectly tie everything together.
For instance, while it establishes that love is the fictional island's form of currency, it doesn't satisfyingly explain how love works. There is no mention of potential issues regarding love such as an inflation of likes. At best, "love" amounts to wealth.
Then there are times when the social commentary is pretty on-the-nose and unsubtle. The idea that people chase after social media likes that they do not care about the environment and take a back seat to pollution is a good one, but only because it is something that is already happening in real life. Doesn't really feel like the show has much to say.
The characters; at first, it is hard to get into them. Berry is the typical rebellious girl who gets in too deep. Also found it somewhat odd that once she became a "ghost" there seemed to not be any real angst coming to it. After all, she was reported as dead by the media but Berry is like "Oh well, love-y!"
The only real time she shows any grief is when she realizes how much her parents were sacrificing to ensure that she was not captured by the Customer Service police force. It is supposed to be a sad moment, but...I don't think the show earned it. Will explain why later.
Hack is a mysterious girl who is after Phantom ZERO. She can best be described as a hyperactive, eccentric hacker whose main gimmick is referring to other people or things with rhyming words. So, for Berry, it is "Nerdy-birdy;" Phantom ZERO "glitchy witchy," you get it. It is amusing at first, but it does get annoying the more she uses this strange pattern of speaking. She is determined to get ZERO, but we have no clues as to why.
As for the Ghost Detectives Club themselves, they are interesting characters with odd quirks. There is Hank, the laid-back engineer; Mr. Watson, a strange man with a cat mask who documents rumors; Smiley, a young girl wearing a gas mask to cover that terrifying smile of hers (I am serious, you would want to sleep with one eye open out of fear that she'd cut your jugular in your sleep). Then there is her grandmother Madame 44 who appears on an intercom and pilots a robot suit.
But then there is Finn. He is the one who started the club and is the most enigmatic figure. You know that he has some sort of agenda he is working on which could likely conflict with his teammates' goals. In fact, he does a heel turn in episode 8 which feels both predictive but also out-of-character.
We get a backstory to explain his sudden heel turn and it is genuinely sad. But does it do more for Finn as a character to where you care whether he achieves his goal or not? Honestly, no.
The show drags out its continuing narrative that it does not take enough time to earn its emotional moments. There are times when it was clearly intended for you to feel sad for the characters but it is so forced and you can't really be bothered to care about whether they stop Phantom ZERO or not.
Despite this, it is by no means a bad show. It's something I like, but not immediately "love."
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