.hack//Quantum

A complete newbie to .hack in all it's forms I went into this with no expectations aside from a few recommendations from friends after finishing up Log Horizon some time ago. I will also say this is my first ever real OVA experience which makes me a bit jarred by the necessities of storytelling in that medium.
I will say overall I enjoyed Quantum, a fun little, if dramatic and heartfelt journey that may not have left me with any real impression of whether or not I wish to continue with the franchise as a whole but certainly leaving me with a lot of enjoyment for ... this tale at least.
Another problem I had is I really had no sense of what things were or how they operated, there are many times that mechanics of the game or technology go unexplained though I am almost positive this would be solved for me if I were to watch some more major entries in the franchise like Sign that would have a bit more time to devote to such things.
Overall I enjoyed this one, not sure if Sign should go up on my list though. Oh well.

As a viewer who has never actually seen most of the .hack// series I decided to view .hack//Quantum as a way to get me interested in the rest of the series. In short, I would say that yes I am interested in the rest of the series. And I would definitely recommend to a friend who was interested in seeing new anime or in watching the rest of the series itself like me.

However, as many other reviews for this anime have stated .hack//Quantum does not seem to stand up to the rest of the series as a whole and I might recommend for a viewer ... to simply pass it unless they are a long time fan of the series.

.hack//Quantum is an great example of a show that is fantastic on the surface level but is held back by poor, and at times nonsensical and confusing, storytelling.

A summary of the opening episode is this: Three high school girls are playing a generically named anime cliche, "The World". They see a guild get taken out by a really OP boss monster and the stupid lovable main character girl picks up some unnamed item. They log off. The MC girl logs back in alone the next day to find that, for some reason, she is being hunted by a gang of nameless videogame mercs. While ... on the run she meets a furry blue child named Hermit. They get captured but then escape with the help of the other two girls in the trio. Another chase ensues and after fuzzy boy falls and dies some black hole thing erupts and teleports them all to virtual hell. For some reason they can feel real pain in this limbo so everyone freaks out and tries to log off. But before they can, Eri (the nerdy one) gets the magic touch and goes into a coma IRL. And so the mysterious happenings begin.

If this isn't making sense to you yet, I honestly can't say it ever will.

The art, animation and consistency in this show are leagues beyond most TV anime. The voice acting and sound design are more than competent. The characters are likable and and their personalities are distinct. The character designs are great, too. So this should be an awesome show right? Let me go heat up my popcorn. Well...

Frankly, the story is an absolute mess. In the three episodes there are I must have thought "Wait, How?" and "Huh, Why?" more times than I care to count. The World is chock full of unexplained mechanics and The Story is somehow even more so. The exposition scenes all feel like they just barely make enough sense to be passable and just sort of fall flat. Many events in the story don't really make sense at all and are never explained. Character motivations are often vague (a lot like that statement). The logic of .hack//Quantum's reality doesn't seem to line up with our own a lot of the time and it just leaves the viewer confused. It's sort of sad really because some of the concepts later in the story are good ideas that could be interesting but just aren't explored much. Although, with this level of confounding storytelling, I wouldn't really want them to be.

I've heard tell that all of the same ideas are present in the other iterations of .hack. This review is not comparing this version to the others. I haven't seen anything else in this franchise. I don't think I ever will, especially considering I have also heard tell of this being the best .hack has to offer.

All in all, I would say .hack//Quantum can be an enjoyable experience if you are willing to ignore the weak storytelling elements and focus on the pretty pictures and cute girls. I wouldn't really recommend that though, as there are other anime that do everything this series does but better and with a comprehensible plot.