– .Hack//Sign was one of my favourite series. It was one of the first series I watched and it still was completely unlike any other series I watched afterwards, in the way in which it put a huge focus on the social interaction part of the MMORPG, asking deep questions in the process.
– .Hack//Liminality was a step back, but still quite an interesting look at the real versus the virtual world, even though it didn’t really answer all of the questions.
– .Hack//Dusk was a complete abomination that just consisted out of a bunch of boring and childish random stories with a boy who magically received a godmode bracelet.
– .Hack//Roots had many good points, but for every good point it also had three bad points. One of the major ones was that it was so serious business that it didn’t really feel like a MMORPG that the characters were playing in.
Now, I’m really glad that .Hack//Quantum managed to break that trend and how it tries to restore the .Hack franchise to its former glory. This episode portrayed the lead characters really as a bunch of teenaged girls who were messing around in an online world. It showed how they balanced their online activities with their real life ones, and it all felt very down to earth.
That all made the end of this episode really good, in which in true .Hack fashion the lines between reality and virtual reality get broken. Unlike some of the other .Hack installments though, it doesn’t really try to be thought-provoking, but instead is much more an adventure series. In exchange we got nicely written and down to earth characters with a simple but effective plot.
But then again, I’m not expecting that the last two episodes will have the same tone as this one. After all, this comes from the director of Tokyo Magnitude.; let’s not forget the incredible contrast between the first and second episode of that series… The way in which one of the lead characters got seemingly killed is a very big hint to that, and I’m really curious to see what they can do with that.
The animation was quite good. But alas, I do have to say that the soundtrack is unremarkable at best, but then again .Hack//Sign and .Hack//Roots featured the best soundtracks I’ve ever listened to, so the standards it had to live up here were really high.
OVA Episode Rating: 8,25/10
I’m just glad the main isn’t annoying 😀
finaly a new .hack, just abit sad that it is only a ova, but i still hope for a good .hack anime again =)
Caught the first episode and, while I’ve never seen the other series, I really liked it and can’t wait for more!
W00t! More .Hack! This is why I read anime blogs (well, 2 of them).
And it’s fun to see that I agree with the breakdown of the .Hack franchise :p
This episode is surprisingly good, although so far, it, of course, pales compared to .hack//Sign.
I think if there where more OVAs the story could become a 2nd SIGN. But there just isn’t enough time for deeper insights and thought-provocing elemtents with only three episodes.
Besides that, I really like it. It’s IMO definitely better than Roots and Twilight.
Enjoyed this first ep … actually portrayed playing a straight forward MMORPG quite well this time around. Haven’t been overly impressed with any of the .hack series, this one might buck that trend
Been really looking forward to this as a big .hack fan especially of SIGN.
Like everyone, great start so it’s a shame this is going to be so short.
Hope the last two are really good too.
Is it ok to watch this ova without having watched any of the others or playing the games?
Henrcast: yeah, you should be okay.
Nice blog ya got here.
After a disappointing spring anime lineup, I’m looking forward to any new anime that’ll provide me with my fix. Here’s to hoping Quantum doesn’t disappoint! 🙂
So far I’ve seen 2 episodes its good I wish they had brought Yuki back for the sound track then this anime would have the perfect tone that its been trying to portray