.hack//SIGN - Finished
Continuing on the Bee Train theme, we next have .hack//SIGN. It’s a 26 ep series (actually 25 eps, with 1 ep as a summary of the series, plus 2 more bonus eps) made between Noir and Madlax for Bandai and, despite its premise of a boy lost in an online world, does not betray the usual Bee Train formula of character and mystery driven plot. I went in expecting little, and came out very pleasantly surprised. In fact, it could even be the best of the series I’ve seen this time around.
What does .hack//SIGN have going for it? Again, it’s not a show that will appeal to everyone. It’s all about characters and the mystery behind the plot - the show begins with little background on the setting, almost no information on the main character Tsukasa, and adds more characters whose motivations and back stories only slowly come to light over the course of the series. It’s really slow (the bulk of episodes consist of just dialogue upon dialogue) but it’s also really fascinating, because the characters are surprisingly developed and the script is one of the best I’ve had the pleasure of watching in anime.
Bee Train’s main flaw with this sort of formula, aside from pacing which tends to be uneven, is that they bite off more than they can chew, ie over-promising and under-delivering. They seem to build up a great setting and atmosphere, taunt and tantalize with convoluted mysteries, suck you in with complex and interesting if not necessarily very likeable characters, and then drop the ball at the very end by giving you a resolution to the characters but leaving massive unexplained holes in the plot. In the case of Madlax, the revelations of plot were just plain lame and silly.
.hack//SIGN also suffers a bit from this, because the ending just makes you go, “Huh? What the heck just happened?” but actually not too bad in terms of filling in the background (although it is a case that you have to just conjecture with the clues they give you). Apparently, more is explained in the games and sequels which are part of the massive .hack Project universe.
Otherwise though, this series is far superior to Madlax and, from the 13 eps I have seen, Noir. The pace is admittedly slow (hello, 13 eps before Something happens?), but it’s far better executed. The production values are high and not only is it very pleasant on the eyes, the direction is mature as well. As I mentioned, I thought the writing was excellent. But the highlight of the show is the characters. Because .hack//SIGN is set in an network game world, it allows the producers to contrast online personas vs their real-life counterparts, leading to explorations of how people view their roles and purposes in “The World”. Seemingly shallow or one-dimensional at first, as the show progresses these characters become surprisingly real to us as we are given glimpses of their offline lives.
Why do people play “The World”? We are shown a variety - there’s Tsukasa, of course, seeking escape from an abusive father, fearful of human contact yet craving desperately emotional warmth; Mimiru who is a high-school girl playing for fun but becomes worried about Tsukasa; Bear, an older man with a long gaming history who finds himself trying to atone online for his failure as a real-life father; Sora, an extremely powerful character whose online personality belies his real identity as a young brat; BT, a young woman who trades in information online but who is actually lonely for real human companionship; Crim, the flamboyant gung-ho hero who plays for totally for fun because he has too much to juggle with his real job as a businessman; Ginkan, the opposite of Crim, a young man who immerses himself into his role as a knight because he isn’t much of anything on the Outside.
Personally, however, I liked Subaru, a little girl who is leader of the Crimson Knights, the most. Her values on justice and fairness, her beliefs about her online role, her attraction to Tsukasa as one withdrawn soul to another, and her own story of looking for escape and finding, in “The World”, the freedom she cannot have in real life - I think she is a real inspiration for the growth in character that we are shown. Naive, weak, hesitant, yet stronger than anyone else because she learnt to overcome her weaknesses…
Overall a surprisingly mature show, this series is a real treat for those who have the patience. I’m glad I decided to give it a try.
BTW, the music was, of course, by Kajiura Yuki. Not as good as the other series, I thought, in part because the lyrics are in English, but still a big part of making the show as good as it was.
