[OVA] .hack //Quantum

Currently finished: Episode 2

When I first heard of this new .hack OVA, I thought "oh, great, someone is reviving another franchise that has been beaten to death to try to pocket some quick cash." My initial thought was not to bother with it at all. But then, me being me, who has set my goal to become the ultimate living anime encyclopedia, decided to grab at least one episode and see how it is. Man was I surprised.

By now, I think anybody that know the name of .hack something is probably going to be pretty familiar with the general premise of the story: somebody playing this virtual reality MMO game ends up discovering this huge conspiracy behind the company that makes the game, usually involves someone's mind got trapped in the game--It's been like this since the very first of its kind, .hack //Sign. Although lately, there has been quite a few terrible .hack series, you gotta give the credit to the original .hack //Sign. At the time it was made, MMORPG is not nearly as widely known as it is nowadays. You have to give kudos to those who came up with the idea, not to mention the original .hack //Sign had a pretty decent story as well.

Anyway, I digress. Back to the matter in hand. Back when .hack //Roots aired, I could not follow through even to half-way point of the series because it was so slow and boring. I was expecting the caliber of work that was similar to .hack //Sign but I was completely disappointed. Then a couple of new .hack came out that fell in expectation due to the exact same problem.

.hack //Quantum however, shined some new and refreshing light onto this aging and badly beaten franchise.

For starters, the main character is very clear defined and interesting. I think they've employed the "clumsy girl" concept very well in creating this character. Two, being an OVA has the advantage of moving plot very quickly--you don't have to wait for 5 episodes before anything interesting starts to happen. It dropped you right in the main event and you are actually anxious to see what's coming next. They don't seem to be much, but these two critical points in my opinion actually managed to turn this badly beaten franchise into something quite unique and interesting. While the final episode is yet to be released, I'm going to go ahead give it a first impression score of:

88

By the way, there are some something in episode two that references something in .hack //G.U. So it might be beneficial to watch that before you start .hack //Quantum since it may give you better insight knowledge in understanding the historic timeline within the story.

One other note, it's kind of hard to image the main character, Sakuya's voice is done by Kana Hanazawa (花澤香菜) who played the voice of Kanade from Angel Beats, as well as Anri from Durarara!!. The playfulness in her voice makes her sounds so much different.