MAPPY EDIT: split from this thread.

If you read the .hack// manga and play the games the show becomes a lot better as you actually know what it's all about. SIGN alone is incomplete and appears to be a lot about nothing when viewed by itself.

Point noted Atory .
However I personally still think that it wasn't worth spending 26 eps of slow pacing , limited dialog subject , recycled scenery , limited action / event , and heck the 3-minute-scene-between-2-protagonist-nodding-between-each-other-as-the gondola-passes ...

as a sign of a "I want my life spent watching it at AJAS back" moment .

I always say that the producers of any series, one that uses multiple forms of media, should make sure that each branch of that media stands up on its own without the need to refer to its siblings to make itself a worthy entry in the overall plot.

I can understand why .hack//LIMINALITY jumped around so much, as it was practically released as the real-world counterpart to the game. But .hack//SIGN arrived first and was on its own for close to half a year.

26 episodes of incompleteness, made worse by there being very little actually happening within its own plot structure, made it a painful experience to trawl through. Much like the Type Moon anime series have been painful, for similar, albeit less excusable, reasons (much of what made the games popular was left out because they couldn't, or wouldn't, work a way of including enough of it for runtime, leaving the series' covering a whole lot of nothing).

That it was made by Bee Train, a studio noted for their tendency to stretch things out to fill up schedules and covering it up with admittedly superior (some of the best) BGM, just didn't help its cause.

it seems that maybe you simply did not understand the complexities of the hack series. not all animes have to be fast paced action to be good. hack was all about the amazing atmosphere, immersing you into a different world, making you think beyond the realms of what was simply seen on the screen in front of you, but what you could not see. the surreal scenery, the hypnotic music, the serene surroundings all merged to give the discerning veiwer a truly memorable experience. a faster pace may well have corrupted a series that now stands alone as an epic of acheivement. and with three successfull series, a fourth on its way, and four games to play, how can we argue with success?

Madman wrote:it seems that maybe you simply did not understand the complexities of the hack series. not all animes have to be fast paced action to be good. hack was all about the amazing atmosphere, immersing you into a different world, making you think beyond the realms of what was simply seen on the screen in front of you, but what you could not see. the surreal scenery, the hypnotic music, the serene surroundings all merged to give the discerning veiwer a truly memorable experience. a faster pace may well have corrupted a series that now stands alone as an epic of acheivement. and with three successfull series, a fourth on its way, and four games to play, how can we argue with success?

True for people who knew the package for most anime watchers, the anime is made by people who have too much bong when they make the anime.

I endured Hack sign but in the end, the story is like WTF for me.

Guess you need to play the games to fill in the gaps.

.hack//LIMINALITY wasn't practically released with the games... It was released with the games (and to a lesser extent .hack//GIFT which is a piece of crap unless you understand all the game characters, it's literally a gift for those players who made it through all 4 games to sit back and laugh at the heroes you were just playing as)! I have the original games and if anyone wants to borrow them sometime just ask. .hack//LOTT the anime is a load of crap... it's made just for "fanservice". The manga is a lot better as it actually contains the main character (the anime didn't) and explains SIGN, ANOTHER BIRTH and AI BUSTER. I haven't read AI BUSTER, watched ROOTS or played G.U. yet.

Note: ANOTHER BIRTH (the original games) is now released as manga for those who don't play videogames.

stormy001 wrote:

Madman wrote:it seems that maybe you simply did not understand the complexities of the hack series. not all animes have to be fast paced action to be good. hack was all about the amazing atmosphere, immersing you into a different world, making you think beyond the realms of what was simply seen on the screen in front of you, but what you could not see. the surreal scenery, the hypnotic music, the serene surroundings all merged to give the discerning veiwer a truly memorable experience. a faster pace may well have corrupted a series that now stands alone as an epic of acheivement. and with three successfull series, a fourth on its way, and four games to play, how can we argue with success?

True for people who knew the package for most anime watchers, the anime is made by people who have too much bong when they make the anime.

I endured Hack sign but in the end, the story is like WTF for me.

Guess you need to play the games to fill in the gaps.

.Hack series is not complex at all, the .hack sign anime did not really add any meaningful insight into the game. The only thing I can remotely say is related is Maho and even then it didnt fully explain who or what she is. Its just an excuse for a cash cow.... well if "they" could get people to fork out top dollar for the first four games why not go futhur and produce an anime which has really no meaning then add those characters as extras in the game.

This is the basic out line of the story in .hack without all the complexities.

1.Creator creates 2 AIs one is a babysitter morganna and one is a AI to act like a child.
2. Creator's wife creates a poem who is deceased and the Creator creates "the world" from it which these 2 AI inhabit.
3. To complete "the World" the player must statisfy the requirements of the poem.
4. AI babysitter goes into despair ala Skynet because when the child AI wakes up the AI would be useless.
5. AI babysitter is totally pissed when the Child AI wakes up and wants to elimate the Child AI
6. Heroes come and tries to kill the babysitter AI which the Child AI steps in the way and gets knocked off statisfying the poem who then becomes god of the net ala Lain.

At least in Hack roots the PCs were much more active than Hack Sign and alot of people got knocked off all the time XD but story complex no... Its only complex when you pay attention to the minute details but thats the basic skeleton outline of the whole story.

Madman wrote:it seems that maybe you simply did not understand the complexities of the hack series. not all animes have to be fast paced action to be good. hack was all about the amazing atmosphere, immersing you into a different world, making you think beyond the realms of what was simply seen on the screen in front of you, but what you could not see. the surreal scenery, the hypnotic music, the serene surroundings all merged to give the discerning veiwer a truly memorable experience. a faster pace may well have corrupted a series that now stands alone as an epic of acheivement. and with three successfull series, a fourth on its way, and four games to play, how can we argue with success?

Oh, I understood entirely what the .hack series was about. I haven't followed anime for this long without looking into something more deeply that I felt was incomplete. And I'm certainly someone who likes shows for their complexity, atmosphere and things left unsaid. So I should have been the kind of person who liked something such as .hack//SIGN, and was surprised to find that I didn't. Because .hack//SIGN wasn't made the way it was for its atmosphere and/or those amazing complexities that we don't see. It was made that way to save Bee Train money and resources. They had been given the opportunity to make a spinoff and had the schedule paid for them. They had to fill the 26 weeks with something, so they filled it with lots of nothing. That way some people could convince themselves it was all about atmosphere, unseen complexities and things left unsaid. Bleh.

Success, in terms of the series actually being good and/or getting the ratings, and therefore having commissioned new seasons and/or franchise series, rarely happens. Certainly not in anime. That's just a sign that someone behind the scenes is willing to pay the bills and take up the shortfall.

And chibihack is certainly a pile of crap once you've read the manga.

hack.//WHAT ?


The end result of unnecessary brain filler ... ignorance in hope of total absence from memory .

Yes, it looked good. Yes, it sounded great. It's not meant to be a 26 episode music clip, though. RPGs are supposed to have actions, quests, plots, appealing characters, proper character types. .hack//sign had none of this whatsoever. I'm sure it had a full, proper story behind it. But let's face it. Slow pacing, no action and lots of dialogue may work in the East, but it does sweet bugger all in the West. We want stuff to happen and we want a story with brains, brawn and beauty behind it. sign offered none of that and paid the price. Honestly, it's hard to think of a more unlikeable character than Tsukasa. Except for Shinji, of course.

Liminality was a bit interesting but still too confusing. twilight was a step in the right direction but ending it at 3 volumes/12 episodes was a terrible mistake. It had good characters, some actual RPG happening, a decent plot/story, it was cute, it was funny. And they stopped it. Why?

All I can say is...someone give Studio Bones the funds to animate World of krieg handwerk. Or I.G.

Last Exile wrote:RPGs are supposed to have actions, quests, plots, appealing characters, proper character types.

Since when has MMORPGs had any of these as strong points?

Last Exile wrote:Liminality was a bit interesting but still too confusing.

Once again, play the games and watch the LIMINALITY discs when you play the game it comes with. It makes a lot more sense then and really adds to the experience by seeing what is happening in the real world. I like the whole hacker rivalry elements of Helba, Queen of Darkness and Bith the Black versus Apeiron, King of Light and Fili the White as it is central to both worlds (Apparently there is more detail of this in FRAGMENTS).

Last Exile wrote:Twilight was a step in the right direction but ending it at 3 volumes/12 episodes was a terrible mistake.

LOTT manga, yes... Anime, no! The anime was horrid and completely void of any real .hack// storyline... it basically was built around the incest factors for perverted fanboys, the produces pretty much said that themselves. It was evident that they wanted to target that particular audience with the ending of GIFT as well.

I suggest you read AI BUSTER if you liked the LOTT manga. I'll probably be getting it soon so I can read it myself. It's meant to be from the view of one of the Programmers/Debuggers of the initial game FRAGMENTS (Which has been released as a real MMORPG in Japan).

Atory wrote:

Last Exile wrote:RPGs are supposed to have actions, quests, plots, appealing characters, proper character types.

Since when has MMORPGs had any of these as strong points?

Yes, but .hack//SIGN is not an MMORPG. It may be based upon one, but as Hitchcock said, drama is life with the boring bits cut out. .hack//SIGN was MMORPG life without the boring bits cut out. You could reduce everything that mattered in .hack//SIGN to a 2 hour movie and you'd lose very very little in terms of characterization, plot and atmosphere.

Atory wrote:

Last Exile wrote:Liminality was a bit interesting but still too confusing.

Once again, play the games and watch the LIMINALITY discs when you play the game it comes with. It makes a lot more sense then and really adds to the experience by seeing what is happening in the real world. I like the whole hacker rivalry elements of Helba, Queen of Darkness and Bith the Black versus Apeiron, King of Light and Fili the White as it is central to both worlds (Apparently there is more detail of this in FRAGMENTS).

It should be pretty obvious that .hack//LIMINALITY was designed as a companion piece to the game. It is a lot of the real-world stuff that we didn't get with the aforementioned series, and probably should have. I was so much more interested in what was happening in the real world in .hack//SIGN than what was happening in The World, and all we were left with are a few half-hearted crumbs that did more to round out the characters than all of those long, atmospheric scenes of nothing set to moody music. But then, lets face it, .hack//SIGN was a 26-episode advertisement for the game, so I'm amazed we got that much.

Atory wrote:

Last Exile wrote:Twilight was a step in the right direction but ending it at 3 volumes/12 episodes was a terrible mistake.

LOTT manga, yes... Anime, no! The anime was horrid and completely void of any real .hack// storyline... it basically was built around the incest factors for perverted fanboys, the produces pretty much said that themselves. It was evident that they wanted to target that particular audience with the ending of GIFT as well.

I suggest you read AI BUSTER if you liked the LOTT manga. I'll probably be getting it soon so I can read it myself. It's meant to be from the view of one of the Programmers/Debuggers of the initial game FRAGMENTS (Which has been released as a real MMORPG in Japan).

So much happens in the first episode of Legend of Twilight's Bracelet that you can almost convince yourself that it is a step in the right direction. Once you read the manga, you realize you've been duped.

The first episode is like the manga but from then on they go "Wait, we forgot the main character, crap!"

Last Exile wrote:

All I can say is...someone give Studio Bones the funds to animate World of krieg handwerk. Or I.G.

Naw it will end up like Ragnarok Online: the Animation, interesting on the borderline of boring. They shouldnt of made the .hack//sign anime as it probably did more harm to the game then good. After watching it I did not even want to touch the game, just went straight to the FAQ and read the story there even though its a weak prequel.

At at another level the seperate series don't even seem to fit together without the game. .HACK is a project to make a complete story, but using games, anime and manga for seperate volumes.

Imagine if Lord of the Rings was done where volume 1 is a book, volume 2 is a game and volume 3 is a movie

I should probably borrow the games off Atory sometime, been wanting to play those for ages.

If you can't be bothered with the games there are guides that explain what goes on in the plot etc.