It’s strange how little I’ve touched .hack on the blog.  Sure, there’s a constant presence of Natsume, but every now and then, the other aspects of the franchise deserve at least a fraction of that love.  But first, let me just point out if you haven’t noticed yet, that there is a new Natsume image over on the side (if you’re reading this from the Natsume blog and not the Cheesecake blog)… if your monitor has a large enough resolution.  Otherwise the site shrinks enough that she’s totally invisible.

Just looking at Quantum reminds me of a fanfic I wrote for Altimit Corp.  Remember that?  It was a website designed to hype up .hack//G.U. vols. 2 and 3.  I dunno how many points, if any, I got for .hack//Renaissance, and considering I only did a single chapter and never continued it, well… doesn’t really matter.  I barely remember any details, but I do know that it starred three female players using female versions of the Kite, Balmung, and Orca; their names were Mihono, Misora, and Mizuki.  The idea was for all three of them to have abilities designed to fight Data Bugs, but rather than Data Drain, it was an ability that directly deleted them.  Mihono had Azure Fire, Misora had Azure Wings, and Mizuki had Azure Blade.  What they would do with these abilities, I couldn’t say.  Well, they fought Data Bugs, I guess.

Needless to say, .hack//Quantum is almost nothing like .hack//Renaissance, and that could very well be a good thing.

We start off in the real life, which I assure you is not fantasy.

Our three main heroines, Azumi, Iori, and Eri, are all classmates who play The World.

In the world, the three control avatars loosely based on Kite, BlackRose, and Balmung.  Spoiler alert: they end up being better, more fleshed-out characters than any one of them.  Well, except for BlackRose.  I mean, she had four novels dedicated to her, so it’s kind of hard to compete against that.

Azumi controls the Kite-type, Sakuya.

Eri controls the BlackRose type, Mary.  And Iori controls the Balmung type, Tobias.

Tobias leads them through a dungeon raid with the hopes of avoiding a powerful boss fight; however, they get sidetracked when a guild arrives to challenge the boss.

And as it turns out, the boss is The One Sin.

Yes, THAT One Sin.

Meanwhile, a totally not-Mia character named Hermit is watching totally unsuspiciously and accidentally leaves behind a totally unimportant item.

While the battle is going on, Sakuya picks up the item Hermit left behind.  Then she accidentally triggers a trap that causes the floor to collapse, killing pretty much the entire guild and turning The One Sin’s attention to Sakuya’s party.  They hit the bricks to try and lose it, but the dragon’s aggro range is absurd.

Fun note: Tobias actually says “Thanks, CC Corp!” in response to the dragon following them through the entire dungeon.  The subtitled version is something like “CC Corp takes their job too seriously!” which is obviously an utter lie, unless that job is maximizing douchiness.  Honestly, “Thanks, CC Corp!” is just a subtly brilliant dub line if you’re even passingly familiar with MMO communities.

The three manage to make it out, though empty-handed.  But it’s not the reward that’s important; it’s the experience they had together.  Oh, and also the reward Tobias picked up.

The next day, Azumi is running late for school like the predictable archetype she is, and she experiences the unfortunate cost of staying up late to play video games.

While Azumi dozes off in class, Iori completely ignores the lesson and does some speculative marketing in The World.  Oh, and she finds out that the guild has placed a bounty on the party as punishment for ruining their raid.

Except it turns out that the bounty was placed not by the guild leader, but by IYOTEN and Asta.  Yeah.  Those two.

The guild leader is Shamrock, who looks suspiciously like Aina.  Also notable, Shamrock speaks with a distinctly older voice.  If anything, that makes her even MORE adorable.

Anyway, Shamrock doesn’t appreciate this unofficial bounty being placed, so she chews out some of her underlings for-

WE HAVE ANIMATED NATSUME!  BEST .HACK ANIME EVARRRRRR!!!!!

*ahem*

In Mac Anu, Sakuya befriends Hermit, then gets totally sacked by IYOTEN.

Apparently, IYOTEN and Asta have hacked inescapable potato sacks, and if Sakuya attempts to log out while in one, she’ll be banned by CC Corp because fuck context.  HAX!!

So basically, IYOTEN and Asta want Sakuya to call her friends in so they can take out their frustrations on them.  Note that the fact that this means they would be outnumbered 3-2 does not cross their minds.

Naturally, Mary and Tobias come to the rescue and ambush IYOTEN and Asta.  During the scuffle, Hermit breaks free and uses his magic twig (no, seriously) to delete the potato sack, freeing Sakuya.  They make their escape, but IYOTEN and Asta pursue them.  Then the guild shows up to punish IYOTEN and Asta, but Sakuya’s party doesn’t know that, so they run away from the guild as well.

The chase ends with IYOTEN punching Hermit off a ledge… yeah.

So Hermit falls to his doom.  AND BRINGS EVERYONE WITH HIM SOMEHOW.

Everyone wakes up in what one can only assume is Purgatory, or at least a virtual equivalent.  We see Asta impaled by a black AI and scream in a male voice.  Of course, we already knew Asta was a GIRL, but it’s nice hearing a reference to that tidbit.

Shamrock calls the AI “Sophia.”  Who is Sophia?  Yeah, we never find that out.  Oh, and she calls the place they’re in a “Pariah Folder.”  What is a Pariah Folder?  Ditto.  Guess we’ll just have to catch the movie to find out, but as far as we can tell, it’s just a place where everyone is Tsukasa, because everyone can feel pain in the game.

And, in typical .hack fashion, Sakuya witnesses her best friend get attacked as well.

Sakuya tries to save Mary, but gets knocked back by a force.

In real life, Azumi and Eri are hospitalized.  Azumi recovers, but Eri is still in a coma.  Luckily, we have unnecessary but appreciated hot springs scenes to lighten the mood.

After everyone leaves the Pariah Folder, Hermit is left behind to sort through the bodies and record data.   What he’s after, we’re not sure, but he does get a load of user data from a shifty broker.

Well, it definitely has something to do with genetic data, but… wait, you need to provide your genetic data to make an account in The World?

Meanwhile, Iori finds it suspicious that Eri got transferred to a hospital that is partially funded by CC Corp… which is ridiculous for additional reasons, but let’s move past that.  Apparently, there’s a rumor going around that people are going into comas from playing The World, and CC Corp is covering it up.  Yay, conspiracies!

Azumi doesn’t want to believe Iori’s conspiracy theory because, well, it’s ridiculous.  But then she immediately goes into a flashback about her talking Eri into joining her in The World, which pretty much confirms she’s just guilty that she’s indirectly responsible for putting Eri in a coma.

Anyway, Azumi eventually uses Hermit’s item she picked up way at the beginning and brings up a list of user data.  Included in the list is Eri’s personal data.  Understandably, Azumi and Iori are shocked and pissed.  Simultaneously.  Hmm… Pisked?

Iori looks up all of the players and makes some calls, confirming that every one of them is hospitalized in a facility partially owned by CC Corp.  This is just the breakthrough the needed… but they’re immediately prevented from contacting the police when a stranger calls Iori’s number to let Iori know she knows Iori made all those calls.  Now, we never see it, but I’m fairly certain Iori pisses her pants right about then.

Iori and Azumi are given instructions to meet up with the mystery caller who claims to be an ally.  Just before opening the door to her office, they are told to put on their HMDs, which changes the hallway into a virtual world version, making it the greatest Augmented Reality device ever.  When they open the door, a bunch of familiar characters pass by, which the stranger says are former Lost Ones.

The mysterious stranger is… Shamrock.  Yeah, like we didn’t see that one coming.  But since Iori and Azumi don’t trust Shamrock, she agrees to meet as real people (basically, take their HMDs off, which Iori could have done at any time without her permission, but whatever).

Shamrock’s true identity is that of Reiko Saeki, AKA Pi.  Yes, THAT Pi.

Reiko explains that the whole situation started with a mad programmer we know as Jyotaro Amagi, who planned to use The World to end discrimination by turning everyone into Lost Ones.  Pi’s explanation, not mine.

Amagi was disposed of, but a group of hackers decided to follow Amagi’s research and complete it… because they’re fucking lunatics.

So now everyone knows about the bigger picture.  But as for the list and Eri, hell if anyone knows.  The only thing they have to go on is the list.

Reiko finds out that the list was used to find users with specific genetic data, which is found through their social security numbers or something.  The reason?  The person who compiled the list is looking for a donor for a sick child.  One problem: the child died 7 years ago.  Hermit, who was eavesdropping on the conversation, is shocked to learn that all his effort has been for nothing.  Oh, and fuck all those people he put into comas.

So, Hermit does the only sane thing to do when you learn you’re dead and your consciousness is trapped in an online game: go fucking nuts.

And to drive home the point that there is nothing more unpredictable and dangerous than a powerful brat having a tantrum: Mac Anu gets invaded by Data Bugs and A BIG TREE.

Among the attackers is a sexy zombie Sophie/Eri.  Shamrock immediately tries to eliminate the threat via Data Drain.

Eri reverts to her regular form for a second before turning back.  With the Data Drain useless, Shamrock resorts to her trump card: blowing everything the fuck up.

The next scene has Shamrock explaining that the invasion was easily covered up, and that the hacker(s) are probably going to target the upcoming “territory war” event next.  Oh, and that massive attack?  It’s nothing particularly important.

Speaking of that territory war…

I would like to point out that there isn’t a single class in The World that carries a shield, yet everyone here is carrying a wooden sword and shield.

The territory war gets shifted into a Pariah Folder, by the way, turning a silly game into a massacre.

The players notice something is up when their slain targets start acting seriously injured.  “Hey, aren’t you going overacting a little?”  I’m sorry, but this is a world where EVERYONE overacts ALL THE TIME.  Which just confirms the weirdest thing about this Territory War: It’s a virtual LARP battle.  Seriously, just take the time to wrap your head around that.

Meanwhile, Hermit’s broker has been apprehended for interrogation.

The broker doesn’t have much useful information to divulge, and the Territory War escalates with each passing minute.

So we’ve got a corrupted Eri going around Data Draining folks willy nilly.  Okay.  Now how about something that can make hundreds of players collectively soil their pants?

Yeah, you know those giants in the background of the field stages in .hack//G.U.?  Hermit brought one of those things to life.

While all the players seek shelter, Sakuya barges into Shamrock’s room, where Shamrock learns that Sakuya’s corrupted hand has the ability to delete things, similar to Hermit’s stick.  Shamrock uses this ability to gain access to the Crest Gun.  Yeah, one of those massive cannons that R:2 lore says was used to kill all the gods using the power of Aurora.  That Crest Gun.  It’s apparently usable.

Then right after Sakuya opens up the Crest Gun, she gets locked away, because Sakuya is the hacker’s target.  Why?  Because Sakuya is a perfect donor match for the dead boy.

So… there’s this town on the giant’s back, and by descending into its ruins, you can reach its heart.  Shamrock sends Tobias in to destroy the heart while everyone else plays distraction.  It works about as well as you would think, since Tobias gets ambushed by Eri when she arrives at the heart.

Meanwhile, Sakuya breaks free and descends into the giant and meets up with Hermit, completely unaware that Hermit is her enemy.  But she explains that the enemy couldn’t be all that bad since he was doing all this to help a sick boy.  Completely missing both the fact that the hacker IS the dead boy, and that putting dozens of players into comas is WRONG.

Anyway, once they reach the heart, Hermit explains everything and monologues about his stick.

Oh, and it’s also a terrible existence being trapped in an MMO where you can feel pain and have no future in real life.  It’s at this point that Hermit has pretty much given up on everything and is willing to die.  He just asks for a hug from Sakuya before he goes.

By the way, why does Hermit have to go?  Because Shamrock is channeling her Data Drain through the Crest Gun, which is aimed at the giant.

But then Reiko calls Azumi and lets her know that Hermit is actually still alive.  He was just cryogenically frozen and had his brain hooked up to a machine to keep him alive through something called Soul Digitization.

Of course, this means Hermit’s tantrum could have been avoided if Reiko had just done more research before sharing her information with Sakuya.  So… fuck you, Pi.

Oh, and Reiko says Hermit was just the tip of the iceberg; he was just a puppet for a larger organization that provided him that stick of his.  It’s just a shame that the conclusion to this storyline won’t come from this cast.  Kind of like how .hack//SIGN had the larger threat passed off to Kite’s crew.

And the last scene of the anime is of the three girls in a hot spring, with Azumi looking forward to seeing Hermit again.

Emotion: 3
Once you get past the convoluted stuff, Hermit’s story is probably the heaviest one .hack has ever done… until the end, that is, but that doesn’t necessarily negate the dramatic weight… just lessens it.

Pleasure Rating: Proudly Displayed in a Glass Case
Easily a contender for best .hack anime ever (but SIGN has dat Kajiura, which kind of tips the scales).  It’s short, self-contained (well… maybe 90% self-contained), and it has a memorable central cast.

Rewatchability: 4
It’s a fun, short series, and it doesn’t require much investment in the rest of the franchise at all.

Music: Catchy Theme Song
Severe lack of Kajiura, but the music’s top notch, and the ending theme is a match for any of the GU games’ ending themes.

Marketability: 3
Even though the main 3 are just copies of Kite, BlackRose, and Balmung, they have their own unique twists to them.  They make those designs their own, and if they were the firsts instead of the originals, no one would bat an eye.  Sadly, it’s the preexisting franchise that hurts Quantum’s marketability more than anything, since they seem more like rehashes than they really are.  And the most original design in the corrupted Eri is probably completely buried as a result, which is a damned shame.  It’s a damned shame all around since the Quantum cast is probably in the top tier of enjoyable .hack casts.

Honestly, .hack//Quantum is one of the strongest .hack works out there.  Its only real flaw is the relative flatness of the main character, Sakuya/Azumi.  But, Quantum runs the full gauntlet of the .hack elements: conspiracy, technobabble, player consciousnesses trapped in a game world, Data Drain, and The World being far more important than any game has any right to.

What’s especially annoying is that Quantum ultimately ends up feeling like a leadup to the movie, which is still lacking an official English release and is pretty much guaranteed not to involve the Quantum cast.  And that brings us to the central flaw of the .hack franchise as a whole: how isolated each individual piece is.  Yes, each piece reveals a part of the whole, but outside of usually worthless cameos, once a cast plays out their part, they’re done for good.  It can be said that there’s lots of fanservice throughout the franchise, but it’s pretty much isolated to Kite, BlackRose, Balmung, and Aura.  The SIGN cameos in the original games were a joke, and Tsukasa wasn’t given anything new to do until LINK, and even then it was just a retread because of the nature of LINK.

This era of the .hack franchise had a LOT going for it, but missteps like the designs in Quantum show there’s a sketchy priority going on.  Sakuya, Mary, and Tobias could easily have been given different designs and the story would not have been any different, but they banked on the popularity of the Kite/Balmung/BlackRose designs drawing fans in, which is just insulting.  Especially since they planned on having another female Kite in the movie.  Was Sakuya just a tool to ease people into accepting a female Kite?  The movie even involves a trio of classmates, ultimately making Quantum seem redundant on a surface level.

Still, despite all my qualms about the current state of the .hack franchise, .hack//Quantum stands out as a surprisingly refreshing experience that could and probably should have been extended.

Well, that’s that for the review.  Starting in the next couple of days, I’ll start a new series of episode watchthrough posts.  I will post my thoughts on Sailor Moon Crystal starting next week, but first I’m binge-watching Avatar: The Last Airbender Book 1, and maybe Book 2 depending on how insane I am.  And considering the sleep deprivation involved… that could be pretty damn insane.