Well, anime as any other, you'll say after watching this one, nothing particulary good or extremly bad about it... Wrong.

Fitst - the story. It takes place four years after "Twilight" incident, and //Liminality series. Twins, Shugo and Rena, formerly separated (there were some parental problems or something, it is not very clearly said in anime) win possibility to play "The World" game using characters of legendary .hackers team - "Kite" and "Black Rose" models. Rena is super happy, while Shugo thinks RPGs suck. Well, he somehow changes his mind when, during his first-ever play, he gets killed, revived and kissed. By Aura, some white-clothed air-floating semi-ghost girl. Kind'a interesting adventure, I'll say. At least it could be, especially as lucky boy gets super-rare artifact - "Kite's bracelet" - given to him by Aura. To "save 'The World'" of course. And have fun. Quite.

At the first glance story looks quite nice, if one likes teenage series. Then you may ask - why my rating is so low? Nothing good or bad, you will say (as I said at the begining). And it's still wrong. Very wrong.

You see, this anime as 'stand-alone' production deserves 5/10. Quite good music, Story not very good, but not bad either. Not very genuine and original but not lame either.
But - .hack//Dusk (as it is commonly called) is not a standalone. It is something like a sequel of .hack//SIGN. And .hack//LIMINALITY (as well as of 4 PS2 games). And cannot be judged "as is".

And - when you watch .hack//LIMINALITY (not even to mention .hack//SIGN, first and definitely the best part of the series) you start to ask - "what have you done with .hack project", "is it really connected" - and sentences like that. Yes, it is connected. It can be seen during the story development, when heroes encounter EXACTLY the same situactions as heroes of DUSK or LIMINALITY series. And when I say - exactly - I mean Exactly. Their reactions are different (sometimes) but only that. If it were not the same serie i'll say it is plagiarism. Well, I'll say it anyway. There are some uncrossable borders - in theory at least.

When it comes to comparison with .hack//SIGN TV serie, one of the very few which deserve 10/10 rating for me, situation's getting worse and worse. SIGN is prety psychological, with a lot of 'what is in ones mind' situations. It is the beautifull story of coming into one's senses. And heart, in some way, but not classical and boring one. It is definitely about higher feelings, not only so-called love, but also hate, sorrow, shame.. Beautifull, I advise every one to watch.

DUSK on he other hand distorts and flattens whole topic. Situations are similar to sign (plagiarism I said) but reactions are so - typical - you can nearly every time say whar will be next. Boring. Very boring. And even more boring sometimes.

Suprisingly, it is enjoyable. It is a paradox, commonly seen in anime. I'll give this anime "the four" normally. But, as the sequel of "the 10" it gets -1 point. If you're fan of .hack, you'd better read DUSK manga, which is definitely better.