Been a very long time since I watched anything associated with this series, 2002 to be specific. That’s when .hack//SIGN aired and, while I had a high opinion of it at the time, more exposure to anime and thinking about the story soured me on it. The characters were fine and the music was straight fire (still one of my favorite soundtracks - Yuki Kajiura remains a force), but the narrate got strange and ground to a crawl at points. So I booted this up in the hopes of capturing some of what I loved about the series so long ago. Once the OP came up,I certainly felt like I was chasing those feelings again, as I’m still quite fond of it.

The rest though… yeah, I’m reminded of its flaws. The characters are even less interesting here, and given that the limited narrative doesn’t have much in the way of stakes or creativity to it (the monster designs are interesting, but that’s about it), I found this to be a dud. Its limited scope accomplishes what it sets out to do and nothing more. Character motivations are largely face value with a couple of strange turns that just felt like they were stuck in there to hint at more complexity. They try to make you believe there are stakes when it definitely doesn’t feel like it - they seem incredibly arbitrary, which is even more frustrating given that the issues involved are pretty relatable, at least from where I'm sitting. Overall, it’s just not interesting. There's not enough here to recommend it unless you want to check off the .hack entries.