.hack//Liminality

Story

The .hack series isn't an easy one to get into for those of us who haven't played the game as there is plenty of background information that is left out in the anime. The strength of Liminality is it addresses some of these questions in a very intriguing manner. Liminality spans more than one .Hack anime, several of the manga and some games but the genius in this anime is it does so from the Real Life point of view (vs. gameplay). It manages to tie many loose ends together and in an entertaining fashion.

Characters

The characters are well fleshed out and developed. There is no sense of incongruity that these people don't behave like normal people would behave In Real Life. They're realistic and believable. Even the backstory characters of who developed fragment and why, is lovingly done. Overall, very solid.

Art/Animation and sound

Opening theme showcased the game in a very persuasive manner. If the game graphics looks anything as good as what's presented here then more people will play it. Character animation was clearly of a higher quality than .Hack/Sign or .Hack/Twilight. Sound effects are wonderful, music is good and even the insertion of the Hack/Sign theme was well done. Again, this was solid.

Enjoyment/Overall

Story wise, this has been the best of the .Hack anime I've seen so far, probably for the "summation" nature of this ova. It didn't feel too short or too long, there was no "filler" type material. The plot was tightly woven, pacing was great and thus I enjoyed this much more than the other .Hack series I've seen. Very very solid and good. I would have rated this higher if I were more familiar with the manga or played the game.

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This OVA is the (very much superior) follow up to the "Hack Sign" series. The production is in the typical style of Bee Train, with the ever present, haunting melodies of Yuki Kajiura (a staple aspect in Bee Train productions) succeeding to be even better than in "Noir" or "Hack sign". And since those were earlier works, it does seem like the studio is getting the hang of the music production more and more.

Unlike "Hack Sign", significant events actually start happening from the word go, resulting in a captivating opening episode. Unfortunately, having set the bar rather high, the remaining three episodes are a little disappointing. In episode 2, the anime descends back to the usual faffing around that was so common in the "Hack Sign" series. The third and fourth episodes are better, but never really reach the standards set by the first.

"Hack Liminality" does go some way towards explaining the events in "Hack Sign", but not very much. Either the translators are at fault, or Bee Train need better explanations. There are a lot of vague statements thrown around, but they don't make much sense, and by the end, I was still fairly clueless about what's going on. Basically, the conclusion is something like "Aha! I've got it!!" I had no idea what exactly what they were doing or how did they did it. All I know is that there were some hacking involved. How can you make a proper sci-fi without explanations?!

Anyways, despite not really "getting it", I quite enjoyed the ride, I just wish they'd put in a more detailed explanation. Like "Hack Sign", this anime's high-ish rating is mainly boosted by its animation/music quality, but underneath it does have a bit more quality in its content to brag about as well.

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This was suprisingly good! Usually in .hacks I am bored to tears but this was really good! I was very involved and focused 90% of the time. The first episode did drag on a bit but the final 3 weren't as long which was a good thing.

Story:
The story is outstanding! Unlike most .hack animes the story does not take place inside of "The World". This takes place in the real world and I like that. It does get somewhat confusing but if you pay attention you will understand it. The ending was a little confusing to me but I still really liked it.

Art:
The color was magnificent and the animation quality was very good! The only thing taht bugged me was the wair the bangs were done, particularly Mai's bangs. They looked amateurish and not good. :\

Sound:
The sound was outstanding! Although the opening themes changed for each episode, the ending stayed the same and I really liked that. Also, featuring some of the other .hack themes was a nice touch. The background music fit well with the scene. It was a little staticcy at times (it might just be my headphones though). They also had one of my personal favorite seiyuu's too ;)

Character:
The characters are very well designed and all have their own personalities and go together great. The only downside is that some of the cahracter I had no idea what there name was throughout the whole OVA.

Enjoyment:
Expecting another bored time watching this, I was quite surprised to find myself really enjoying this. This was definitely a really good anime to watch and if I ever have the time I would definitely rewatch this again.

Overall:
Great anime! With a few minor tweaks here and there it could've been outstanding but it is still one of the best .hacks I've ever seen. Definitely would reccomend this to someone.

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All right before we get started, just want to make sure that you all know that I haven't played any of the hack games, although a lot of my friends have been telling me to go and get the games because they are really good (from what they said)

Unfortunately the anime series are a completely different form of media so yeah this is my take on it.

Story

Honestly though, it's hard to watch an anime that where you're already supposed to know things and with the lack of background information it's really difficult to get into the story line especially when there's still so much to explain. Although it's quite fairly simple and almost identical to the other .hack stories, it focuses on the mysterious comas that's been happening to the players all over the world, and how they're trying to solve it and yadda yadda yadda it goes on. One thing that really surprised me about this is the fact that the settings is completely in the real world, I expected it to be placed in the video game because it's .hack and all but that caught me off guard when the whole thing was set in the real world. Overall, it's getting old hearing almost the same thing over and over again from other series, but the upside is there's always new information that they present about the whole .hack series as a whole which kind of answers a lot of questions from the other series.

Art

The fact that it's an OVA, the art is already given as better than worse. I do have to point out that the style of art is quite different from all the other ones though, maybe because it's an OVA or maybe because it's actually placed in the real world rather than the colourful places of "The World", either way I really have no complaints about the art.

Character

I never really saw any character growth mainly because the time spent in the whole OVA weren't really that long, it didn't take them years or months to get to the end but I would say just days, so the amount of character growth from the beginning to the end I would say was "just right" not too much but not to the point where you wouldn't notice anything. They give you a good variety of characters, but the protagonists weren't very persuasive about their beliefs or goals, they never really showed that much passion about the whole ordeal. I found them too laid back with the situations that were happening and wished they'd react in a more believable manner. There was that guy that always had a cigarette in his mouth, I've always liked characters that are like that, shows them that they too can relieve stress the deathly way.

Overall

Honestly though, with my full opinion on this, the .hack series were probably the ones that I dreaded through watching the most, but then again I think back they were probably one of the first animes I've ever really watched seriously, so it was hard form to get into it and try to analyze as much crap as I can to make a good review.

Liminality was different because they weren't in the video game for once, and that already, gives this anime a point of uniqueness compared to the rest of the .hacks!

cheers

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Critic’s Log - Earthdate: July 17, 2014. Supplemental Review to .Hack//SIGN


I looked into the .Hack video games and I really couldn’t get interested in playing them…However there was something else that came along with it… here’s .Hack//Liminality

In the year 2007, the MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) known as 'The World' was released in the US and became insanely popular, spreading worldwide and reaching up to 20 million players. One day, a mysterious phenomenon occurs where all the monsters in the game become increasingly powerful and harbour unheard of abilities. Along with this, players are unable to make any progress with their characters. Naturally, these occurrences render The World rather unplayable, so a player who goes by the name of Kite decides to get to the bottom of it.

To be technical, this is a Bee Train production and like I said before with my .Hack//SIGN review about Bee Train. They have done some decent works since the studio’s foundation to today. There is one thing that is completely different from .Hack//SIGN and that is the character designs. Yoshiyuki Sadamoto did not do the character designs for this 4-part OVA series, instead we have Toshiya Washida, who usually does Key animations for the most part in his career. For this short OVA series, I do not like the character designs in this one, and it’s not because Yoshiyuki Sadamoto did not do the character designs. It’s because some of the design choices look a little awkward on some characters. At least some non-character designs are drawn in well… and that’s one of the things that surprisingly stand out in LIMINALITY unlike SIGN. When I reviewed .Hack//SIGN, I did rant about how the animation hardly moves in some parts… Well, Liminality is an upgrade on that. For what this anime is… The animation is decent in this anime. The artwork and visuals are also not bad either. The only real problem I had with the animation is the openings. The openings used clips from each part of the .Hack video games. It’s a unique approach but I didn’t care for those openings that much. Anyway, When I saw .Hack//SIGN, I found myself bored because .Hack/SIGN hardly moved when it comes to animation. On the other hand, .Hack//Liminality is also boring as well but not because of the animation. The animation here is actually decent… a lot more decent than .Hack//SIGN with the expection of a different character designer.

The music by Yuki Kaijura may have been memorable in .Hack//SIGN and I do commend her for having a different vibe for this anime’s soundtrack considering that it’s placed in the real world and not in “The World”. However, the soundtrack is kind of forgettable but it fits in the show somehow...I really don’t have much to comment about the soundtrack of .Hack//Liminality. The opening themes are okay I guess but I find them forgettable because the opening and closing themes aren’t really talked about these days and for a 4-part OVA series. I guess that is to be expected. The soundtrack might not be some of Kaijura-san’s best work and that is totally fine… At least the soundtrack was somewhat decent.

When voice acting is concerned. I don’t think either casting between Sub and Dub are worth saying a mouthful over because of the length of .Hack//Liminality. Mabashi Ebara, Sanae Kobayashi, Saeko Chiba, and Aya Hisakawa are competent seiyus but since they are playing characters that are rather forgettable. The voice acting alone does not save the show. I could say the same with its English Dub and the dub has a competent voice cast. Some big names, some unknowns. Jamieson Price, Michelle Ruff, and Sherry Lynn do play their roles fine but… The voice acting doesn’t do the show justice. That’s all I can say about the voice acting.

If there is one weak aspect of .Hack//Liminality, it is the characters. For something thats around 2 and a half hours consisting of 4 OVA’s and part of an Anime franchise that these characters are only in...There’s bound to be some issues. I gave the characters a chance but… I found them forgettable…Even with 4 OVA’s, The only relevant character is Junichiro because of the fact that he is the creator of "The World" other than that, The characters were still forgettable. That’s all I can really say about the characters.


Do you want to know something? Assuming you were aware that .Hack//Liminality was released alongside the 4 part .Hack Video games. Each of these episodes came with each part of the game. 4 games and 4 OVA episodes. Also, these OVA’s are in the point of view of the real world and not in “The World”. Would you like to know what would be a great idea? Having the point of view focused on the real life counterparts of the characters in the 4 part video game… This OVA did come with the 4-part .hack games anyway. What does Junichiro Tokuoka, Mai Minase, Yuki Aihara, and Kyoko Tohno have to do with the games? Pretty much nothing… To stress this even further, the characters that you will see in this OVA do not appear anywhere else unless there’s cameos elsewhere. .Hack//SIGN was an interesting anime even in its slowness. The .hack video games felt normally paced but the game series was considered to be repetitive at times and even though I was looking into the story of the games… The games’ story felt boring at times. THIS ANIME ON THE OTHER HAND FELT POINTLESS. Why? The 4-part video games of .hack were inbetween .Hack//SIGN’s chronology…Liminality is within the .hack video games. We have one .hack entry within another .Hack entry within the .hack entry that started it all. The games were near the end of .Hack//SIGN’s chronology which is fine I guess. What’s not fine is that the video game’s OVA companion has little connection to the fucking game to begin with. When I heard that Liminality was taking place during the video games and that the real world was the point of view it was focused on, I thought this would deal with the real-life counterparts of Kite, Black Rose, and others… The fact that the main characters in Liminality have no connection to the video games, it kind of makes .Hack//Liminality pointless… And you know what else is a problem with .Hack//Liminality, it feels like .Hack//SIGN… The show is filled with dialogue and intrigue...The games are different which is understandable. .Hack//Liminality is unacceptable for not parallelling the OVA to the games between characters we know in “The World” and their real-life counterparts.

.Hack//Liminality was released alongside .Hack//Infection, .Hack//Mutation, .Hack//Outbreak, and .Hack//Quarantine… There has not been a re-release since and the games were for the PlayStation 2. That being said, .Hack//Liminality is out of print.

With everything said, .Hack//Liminality was conceived to be a companion to the video games that it was released with concerning that the point of view is in the real world during the events of the video games. this OVA of .Hack fails due to a slow pace, and forgettable characters who only are involved in this .Hack entry. Yuki Kaijura’s soundtrack is decent, and the animation is also decent despite the different character designs in this .Hack entry to .Hack//SIGN. If you like the games… Feel free to watch this one since they technically go together. if you were not fond of the games… This doesn’t do the games justice.



I give .Hack//Liminality a 3.1 out of 10. it is WEAK!




Feel free to leave a comment.

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Personal disclaimer, I watched this following .hack sign and on hazy childhood memories of the PS2 games. Part of my lackluster impression of the series is it seems to start and stop in the middle of a story, rather than itself being a self-contained story, so I may simply be missing out on details from other media that tie Liminality into a timeline better.

All that said, Liminality was a bit too disjointed and inconsequential for me. The first three episodes mainly serve to introduce each of the three main female cast members, followed by a finale where the crew undertakes a mission against the main threat. Unlike most .hack series', Liminality takes place almost entirely in the real world, as opposed to the game, 'The World.' This is normally a talking point for those who praise Liminality as it is novel, though it removes a bit of context and makes Liminality more of a standard investigative series.

There is a number of things Liminality does quite well, starting with the title. The concept of Liminality can be summarized as the dissonant space that lies between those uninitiated into a ritual and true believers of a ritual's powers. This is actually a really interesting topic, one I wouldn't expect from an anime (much less an OVA of 4 episodes), and gets a decent amount of dialog to explain how it pertains to the story's events. Sound design has always been something I've considered Bee Train quite good at, to which Liminality is not an exception. The cast are all pretty interesting and likeable considering how little time you share with them and visual design benefits from things like Bee Train's eclectic shot pacing and angles as well as attention to detail. I spent at least a minute or two marveling that a phone's antenna poked through a character's hair while she was on the phone, for example.

That said, the flaws in the show are still pretty glaring. Side characters are exceptionally important for an episode only to be never mentioned again, one of the main characters really doesn't provide any usefulness in the final episode to the point one wonders why she even was necessary, very vague romance implications feel more like filler than characterization, and the whole investigative aspect feels lacking, perhaps due to the series' abruptness or because it is not strong enough to stand on its own without supporting lore from other media in the series.

If you're a fan of Bee Train or the .hack series, you might enjoy the ride, though otherwise I can't say I recommend it.

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It's worth noting here, that I write this review based on the condition that Liminality is watched with full knowledge of the story in the 4 original games on Playstation 2 as well as the entirety of .hack//SIGN.

.hack//Liminality is a very interesting addition to the .hack// lore because it is very largely based in the real world instead of the game The World. It elaborates on details that are alluded to but that the player may not really understand otherwise. Each episode has points of direct correlation to their accompanying games and it's not fair to leave them as a standalone object because they're simply not meant to be. The details and events you are given add without conflict to the story and are just a very strong addition to the lore.

The art direction and sound for Liminality is perfectly suited to what a viewer would expect after .hack//SIGN and while playing the PS2 games. There's really little more to say on this end. The music is done by the same artists and continue to set the atmosphere along with the anime visuals.

The characters themselves may be the weakest point in the episodes, in that they may seem unusually trusting or somewhat cliche. While I do cut a couple points from the character score for these problems, I don't think it actually detracts from the episodes at all and actually ends up being one of the rare cases where a cliche actually works well.

As a lore addition, .hack//Liminality is without any real flaw, but I would not suggest watching it without thorough knowledge of the games because it will feel disjointed. As before, it was not really meant to be a standalone series.

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This review is shorter than usual because this is an OVA. There won't be as much detail in the pros and cons of each category, but it'll be enough for you to decide if you're interested in this anime. Let's begin, my friend.

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Story - 9/10

+ While .hack//Sign takes place in the game world, .hack//Liminality focuses on the real world. The story reveals more details about the problems the game world has on the real world, which I enjoyed. I also loved knowing more of the mystery behind it.

- The story can be a bit slow at times, but it's a very minor issue.

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Characters - 2/10

- I found the characters to be quite bland and none of them really stood out, probably because there wasn't a lot of character development to work with in the first place. None of them were dumb or annoying, they were just... bland, no personality. I really wanted to say something positive about the characters since I enjoyed the story. I accept any forms of hate, just don't blow up my house.

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Art - 7/10

+ Here's the good news. The art in this anime was overall good, just not as great as the art in .hack//Sign. I love the smoothness of the animation.

- Now for the bad news. I didn't like how some of the characters were drawn, especially when it comes to the hair because it looked... I don't know, clumpy and cut-out? I also didn't like the main female's eyes, I just don't enjoy that art style I guess.

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Sound - 8/10

+ I really enjoyed the music in this OVA, such as the separate main themes of all four episodes. I also recognized some of the awesome music found in .hack//Sign. Win!

+ The characters may be bland, but I liked the dialogue of the English dub.

- Just like .hack//Sign, some of the music can be overwhelming at times.

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Enjoyment - 6/10

+ I may have some disappointments but I enjoyed watching this OVA, it was nice knowing more of the backstory of the .hack series in a different perspective.

- This OVA would have been more enjoyable if the characters looked better and had some colorful personalities. I'm just glad this wasn't a full-length anime or I would dropped it before reaching the halfway mark.

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Final Score - 32/50 (64%)

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Would I watch this anime again? No, once is enough for me.

Do I recommend this anime? Yeah, but only if you're a fan of the .hack series. This can be watched if you don't know anything about .hack, but I'd say you're wasting your time.

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Overall
I might have got the chronology wrong, but I started out with this OVA, and have yet to see "Sign" and "Twilight". That's probably why I didn't understand a thing.

Animation
Not bad, not great. It looks kind of like most TV animes out there. I guess you expect more from an OVA, though. I like the attention to detail in the animation, though (throw a frying pan down a hatch, and it's still there when you get down there).

Sound
Voice acting is solid but nothing special. Background music is a bit repetative and there are few different songs considering this being a rather short OVA.

The ending theme gave me a real deja vu. I can't put my finger on it, but I have heard it before somewhere. Are there other animes using this song?

Story
Alright, I probably should have started with "Sign" or something... I didn't understand a thing! Yes, there are strange things going on regarding "The world", but what? And why is this rag-tag collection of characters seeking the truth?
Hopefully this OVA will make more sense when you have watched other parts of the .Hack story.

Character
As I said, I can't see how the characters' backgrounds link together, and certainly not how they are connected to the story (which I also failed to understand, by the way). Mai-chan is the only one with a real motive as far as I can see. Even though every character gets a whole episode of their own, there are no explanations of who they actually are and why they do what they do.

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Okay Before I start this Review This anime is a alternative series to .Hack/ / Sign.

Story: The Story of .Hack/ /Liminality is about two girls. Minase Mai and Tomonari Kasumi both collapse while playing "The World" while hearing a strange sound. They are both hospitalized and Mai is the only one that wakes up, while her friend Kasumi is put into a coma. The creator of the world Tokuoka Junichiro comes to help because he tells Mai not only her friend has been put into a coma, but another 6 people have also been put into a coma. Because of that mysterious sound that has been discovered by Mai.

Art: I quite liked the art style of .Hack/ /Liminality it was quite nice. There are just some minor improvements.

Character: The Character development was average in .hack/ /Liminality. I would have liked to see a tiny bit of more development into the characters.

Enjoyment: The enjoyment I had with .Hack/ /Liminality was average.

Overall: I give .Hack/ /Liminality a 5/10

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Nice supplement to the .HackSign series, showing a group of 3 girls trying to look into and expose what was happening in the outside world during the events of .HackSign, as it's revealed that several other people around the world had fallen into a coma like Tsukasa from not being able to log out of The World due to the Morgana virus. They find out the company that created and managed the game was trying to cover the situation up while trying to solve the problem. It's a more realistic scenario than the fantasy one in .HackSign, however, this one, rather than being a psychological character study, is more of an investigation thriller. Still pretty interesting as supplemental material to a great anime.

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