21 December 2008: .hack//SIGN honestly wasn't that bad
Bear pulls Mimiru to safety.
It didn't take me long to finish watching .hack//SIGN. As per its reputation, the pacing is pretty slow and there is a lot of moping. Subaru is entirely too emo for her own good, and Tsukasa does whine quite a bit. But it's all right if you think of the series as being about (a) meeting people on the Internet (best-case scenario) and (b) discovering you have a soul mate instead of (c) being about Tsukasa's inability to log out and wondering if people who die in The World will die in Real Life, too.
Thanks to My-Otome, I don't think Mimiru's sword looks big.
I do think the show focuses too much on Tsukasa, though. Pretty much any moment Tsukasa isn't on screen the other characters are talking about him. Quite frankly, Tsukasa's plight isn't that interesting. However, the other characters are okay. Mimiru is charming, and I liked seeing the different players' various approaches to enjoying The World. As much as a prick Sora was, you kinda have to appreciate where he's coming from when you have other players like Subaru and her Crimson Knights. Most of those guys are ass clowns.
.hack//GIFT is kinda awesome—mostly for Subaru's cruelty, not the unexpected nudity.
All in all, I liked .hack//SIGN enough to chase down all its OAVs and I kinda wish I had more episodes to watch. The OAVs are more satisfying than the series proper—probably because they focus more on the game itself. To tell you the truth, I would have liked .hack//SIGN best if it didn't have a plot and instead spent all its time as a slice-of-life series about Mimiru and Bear grinding and leveling through The World.
