Somewhere in the MMORPG called "The World," a group is gathered at a pub, awaiting the start of an event. There, old friends and acquaintances are reunited, including those who rarely log on. Some are even forging new relationships for the first time. Together, invited by the hacker Helba, the group leaves for the event in the Net Slums where a celebration awaits them all.
I had seen this when I was around age 14, and now I'm 28 as I review this with a different perspective. At 14 (I never played the games) I really didn't understand what was going on at all in this. I just thought it was another episode to knock off my list of anime to watch. But now I'm back after playing the 4 games and refreshing my memory of SIGN.
You can't truly appreciate this without having played the 4 PS2 games games from Infection to Quarantine. Otherwise, the episode seems pretty pointless, and you wouldn't understand why for example Sora is walking around,...or who Macha is and why they can't remember anything.
The purpose of this episode was to tie up the past-history of SIGN that was teased throughout the 4 games together with the characters from the PS2 games, while beautifully giving us closure on Macha's backstory.
So my positive bias comes from the fact I played all 4 games and Macha's backstory (from .hack Quarantine's Macha epilogue) makes this episode worth your time. I wouldn't watch this if you only watched .hack//SIGN. It's meant to be watched after SIGN and the 4 games.
Once again, be aware that just like my .hack//Intermezzo review, I cannot talk much about this anime because it's so short. I may have written more info that can be shared between Intermezzo and Unison, so please refer to the Intermezzo review if you wish - http://myanimelist.net/reviews.php?id=26094
Pretty sure I've actually already seen this, but I re-watched it again because I wasn't sure.
STORY: This special is basically a feel-good episode for the main SIGN series, and really only shows the anime in a light-hearted manner, compared to SIGN's typical dark themes. This was definitely a nice, enlightening way to end the series, (even if I had...watched SIGN in 2007.) and has a mixture of SIGN and Legend Of The Twilight characters meeting up for a celebration, and interacting with each other. Even Sora who is portrayed as a devious character, took part in the celebrations and enjoyed himself.
ART: Simply bold and smooth, and the animation is fairly well done in this, like the rest if the SIGN series. (Best if you referred to the Intermezzo review of mine, since I'm being lazy here.)
SOUND: The .hack series sound has always been good, whether it's background music/insert music or opening and ending theme songs.
Characters: Rather than the ridiculousness of the players taking The World so seriously and deeply, we don't actually see this in this special. As a personal opinion, because the actual players and their seriousness isn't shown, I actually enjoyed this a bit more than the main series and Intermezzo.
Best suggested for .hack fans, and I know that they will enjoy this special either way, if they just want something easy and relaxing.
This is largely just OK. A series that really lives and thrives on its characters, this episode at least gave those characters some moments to interact and showcase their growth.
However, the plot just felt like a means of giving our central crew some minor, unnecessary closure while passing the torch onto a palette-swapped group for the next .hack series. I know this was an issue in the original series, but the derpy eyes were extremely noticeable this time around with all the close-ups. And the ending to it felt particularly weird. I get that you want a happy rounding out of the series, but...the dance number with mostly repeating character graphics and some minor character assassination definitely felt more bitter than sweet to me. As usual, love the music in these scenes, so it's hard to hate on them too much. Didn’t help that the few moments meant to show some larger consequences resulting from the events of the series were a little too technical to feel meaningful. It’s fine, nothing special.
Although it was never the most popular, the .hack anime possesses some of the most memorable music in any anime. If you’ve never given .hack a try, its OST is the best place to start.
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