.hack//Liminality

Story

The .hack series isn't an easy one to get into for those of us who haven't played the game as there is plenty of background information that is left out in the anime. The strength of Liminality is it addresses some of these questions in a very intriguing manner. Liminality spans more than one .Hack anime, several of the manga and some games but the genius in this anime is it does so from the Real Life point of view (vs. gameplay). It manages to tie many loose ends together and in an entertaining fashion.

Characters

The characters are well fleshed out and developed. There is ... no sense of incongruity that these people don't behave like normal people would behave In Real Life. They're realistic and believable. Even the backstory characters of who developed fragment and why, is lovingly done. Overall, very solid.

Art/Animation and sound

Opening theme showcased the game in a very persuasive manner. If the game graphics looks anything as good as what's presented here then more people will play it. Character animation was clearly of a higher quality than .Hack/Sign or .Hack/Twilight. Sound effects are wonderful, music is good and even the insertion of the Hack/Sign theme was well done. Again, this was solid.

Enjoyment/Overall

Story wise, this has been the best of the .Hack anime I've seen so far, probably for the "summation" nature of this ova. It didn't feel too short or too long, there was no "filler" type material. The plot was tightly woven, pacing was great and thus I enjoyed this much more than the other .Hack series I've seen. Very very solid and good. I would have rated this higher if I were more familiar with the manga or played the game.

This OVA is the (very much superior) follow up to the "Hack Sign" series. The production is in the typical style of Bee Train, with the ever present, haunting melodies of Yuki Kajiura (a staple aspect in Bee Train productions) succeeding to be even better than in "Noir" or "Hack sign". And since those were earlier works, it does seem like the studio is getting the hang of the music production more and more.

Unlike "Hack Sign", significant events actually start happening from the word go, resulting in a captivating opening episode. Unfortunately, having set the bar rather high, the remaining three episodes are a ... little disappointing. In episode 2, the anime descends back to the usual faffing around that was so common in the "Hack Sign" series. The third and fourth episodes are better, but never really reach the standards set by the first.

"Hack Liminality" does go some way towards explaining the events in "Hack Sign", but not very much. Either the translators are at fault, or Bee Train need better explanations. There are a lot of vague statements thrown around, but they don't make much sense, and by the end, I was still fairly clueless about what's going on. Basically, the conclusion is something like "Aha! I've got it!!" I had no idea what exactly what they were doing or how did they did it. All I know is that there were some hacking involved. How can you make a proper sci-fi without explanations?!

Anyways, despite not really "getting it", I quite enjoyed the ride, I just wish they'd put in a more detailed explanation. Like "Hack Sign", this anime's high-ish rating is mainly boosted by its animation/music quality, but underneath it does have a bit more quality in its content to brag about as well.

This was suprisingly good! Usually in .hacks I am bored to tears but this was really good! I was very involved and focused 90% of the time. The first episode did drag on a bit but the final 3 weren't as long which was a good thing.

Story:
The story is outstanding! Unlike most .hack animes the story does not take place inside of "The World". This takes place in the real world and I like that. It does get somewhat confusing but if you pay attention you will understand it. The ending was a little confusing to me but I still really liked it.

Art:
The color was ... magnificent and the animation quality was very good! The only thing taht bugged me was the wair the bangs were done, particularly Mai's bangs. They looked amateurish and not good. :\

Sound:
The sound was outstanding! Although the opening themes changed for each episode, the ending stayed the same and I really liked that. Also, featuring some of the other .hack themes was a nice touch. The background music fit well with the scene. It was a little staticcy at times (it might just be my headphones though). They also had one of my personal favorite seiyuu's too ;)

Character:
The characters are very well designed and all have their own personalities and go together great. The only downside is that some of the cahracter I had no idea what there name was throughout the whole OVA.

Enjoyment:
Expecting another bored time watching this, I was quite surprised to find myself really enjoying this. This was definitely a really good anime to watch and if I ever have the time I would definitely rewatch this again.

Overall:
Great anime! With a few minor tweaks here and there it could've been outstanding but it is still one of the best .hacks I've ever seen. Definitely would reccomend this to someone.

Nice supplement to the .HackSign series, showing a group of 3 girls trying to look into and expose what was happening in the outside world during the events of .HackSign, as it's revealed that several other people around the world had fallen into a coma like Tsukasa from not being able to log out of The World due to the Morgana virus. They find out the company that created and managed the game was trying to cover the situation up while trying to solve the problem. It's a more realistic scenario than the fantasy one in .HackSign, however, this one, rather than being a psychological ... character study, is more of an investigation thriller. Still pretty interesting as supplemental material to a great anime.

It's worth noting here, that I write this review based on the condition that Liminality is watched with full knowledge of the story in the 4 original games on Playstation 2 as well as the entirety of .hack//SIGN.

.hack//Liminality is a very interesting addition to the .hack// lore because it is very largely based in the real world instead of the game The World. It elaborates on details that are alluded to but that the player may not really understand otherwise. Each episode has points of direct correlation to their accompanying games and it's not fair to leave them as a standalone object because they're simply ... not meant to be. The details and events you are given add without conflict to the story and are just a very strong addition to the lore.

The art direction and sound for Liminality is perfectly suited to what a viewer would expect after .hack//SIGN and while playing the PS2 games. There's really little more to say on this end. The music is done by the same artists and continue to set the atmosphere along with the anime visuals.

The characters themselves may be the weakest point in the episodes, in that they may seem unusually trusting or somewhat cliche. While I do cut a couple points from the character score for these problems, I don't think it actually detracts from the episodes at all and actually ends up being one of the rare cases where a cliche actually works well.

As a lore addition, .hack//Liminality is without any real flaw, but I would not suggest watching it without thorough knowledge of the games because it will feel disjointed. As before, it was not really meant to be a standalone series.