Ok, so recently I purchased and watched the first two volumes of this anime (Volume 3 is being delivered this week), and I think it's great, but I need a little help clearing up some things.

First, Subaru reminds the Silver Knight that the Crimson Knights are still just players, despite what they do in the game world, right? I was wondering how it came to be that they/Subaru seem to have special privileges despite that (if it's explained later in the series, just say that instead, I don't want any spoilers :o)

Second, I've been buying the DVDs from Play, but as you can see from that listing Volume 6 is missing, although you can see the page for that volume by following a link from another page. The thing that's bothering me about that is that Amazon show a similar cover design, but for Volume 7. Volume 6 on Amazon is a lot different to what Play says it is. I don't earn all that much money per week, and I'd hate to buy the wrong DVD, so I was wondering if anyone might be able to tell me which of those sites/volumes is the correct one?

Lastly, discuss .hack//SIGN or any other animes you enjoy I've already got a list of titles I'm looking into buying after I've finished this series, but I'm always open to suggestions.

Oh, and spoilers in tags, please :p

.hack//sign is possibly the worse anime I've ever watched. Worse than DBZ.

Okay, since I am the resident fanboy of all things .hack, here's the lowdown:

1. They don't have special priviledges. It just seems that way. She reminds them they are just players, as a point that they do NOT have special priviledges. They don't really have the right to go around "capturing / eliminating" or anything. But since there are nigh-to-no rules in The World, it's okay for them to do so.

Some of the mixup may be from the way they talk as if they are with the administrators of The World. In reality, it's far from that. They sometimes send letters and petitions to the Admins, but they don't always do what they ask, and even more often do not reply at all. Think the World of Warcraft GM petition system.

As for the DVDs, I am not sure. None of the boxart matches the US version. However, in the US version, there are only 6 DVDs. It sounds to me that Play may have screwed up something somewhere, unless they completely reidid the episode sorting for DVDs.

Way to base the story of an entire show on the first ... 2 episodes? After about episode 10 or so, it's not even about "defenders of the game" or anything. It's not even about the game at all.

I was being funny. I've watched a good many episodes. It's nothing but a bunch of dramatic pauses, really loud arguments and the occasional battle. Seriously, it's the epitome of bad Anime. Japanese timing is horrible.

JediKirby

Ahh, thanks CM. I think it was the line were Subaru says she spoke to...what was it? Lord Orca of the Azure Sky? Something like that. And the fact that she has that fancy boat :p It just made it seem like they were a step above all the other players.

As for the DVDs, do you know how many episodes are on each of the US volumes? The two I have so far both have four episodes on each.

I guess when I get up to that part of the series I'll just have to take my chances on Volume 6 =/

They were beta testers, so they are level 60. That's why.

Balmung. Balmung freakin owns.

Anyway, she has a boat cause she bought it. (Or rather the Crimson Knights did)

And Subaru herself is like... level 1. She's never been in a battle. But everyone respects her because she was there since the beta and always helped people out however she could.

Really interesting stuff happens with the Crimson Knights soon, also. Watch out for that.

As for kirbs dislike of .hack: You would probably like .hack//DUSK more. There is tons more action in it. And for the pauses and dragouts, while annoying, do not compare to DBZ's 3 episodes of nothing but screaming.

.hack//sign is easily one of my favorite series ever, I love it so. It isn't perfect, but I just adored the storyline and the characters and everything. [Sora and Subaru particularly].

It does a wonderful job I think of keeping the story arc, while at the same time doing a great exploration of all the facets of online interaction, and brings out a number of just entertaining or absorbing vignettes from the World. It really does a very good job, I felt, of portraying a living breathing World, as it were. The gamesys it utilizes is a bit sketchy, however the playerbase and politics and such were spot-on.

The whole time I was watching, I felt very akin to it all, based on my own long-term World-esque experiences, particularly Achaea. I felt the captured the spirit of it all very well, despite some technical difficulties.

The only thing I would say as a down-side, per se, is that they re-capped a fair bit. This would be totally fine, and fairly beneficial were one watching it as it came out or such. However for someone that goes through it in a week, it can be a bit of a bother.

All in all, however, I think it's simply wonderful. [And as a rule, I can't stand most anime, the other primary exceptions I make are for Evangelion, Rah-Xephon, Ghost in the Shell, Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, and FLCL {being my most recent adoration}.]

Aside from the horribly overdramatic final episode (especially when Tsukasa wakes up and meets Subaru) , .Hack//Sign is a great series (though i learned a lot less over the course of the series about the main backstory than i did in Liminality. What is the time difference between Sign, Liminality and Udeden anyway?). Rates in my tope 5 (alongside Gundam Wing, Gundam Seed/Seed Destiny, Tekkaman Blade/Tekkaman Blade II, and Turn A Gundam)

.hack//SIGN is first.
.hack//LIMINALITY is next
.hack//games are after
.hack//UDEDEN (DUSK) is last.

Anime sucks.

So does your mom.

Rob you get a -3 for lack of originality.

Anime's biggest flaw is probably the absolutely horrible voice acting. Followed closely by the yelling scenes where people's mouths get frickin' huge. GAH.

Other than that... well, I don't really care.

You get a -3 for not knowing how to STFU.

Dor -- about your downside to the /hack series re-capping too much, I have to go out on a limb and say that's not just particular to that show. A LOT of the more popular animes do that. I've been watching Naruto, for instance, and DAMN do they re-cap a lot. At first I thought the same as you did -- such re-capping would be useful for those watching one new episode a week, but then I realized that this likely isn't the case. More likely, the re-caps only serve to delay the audience from seeing the conflict build and climax as it should. Anime has a REAL bad habit of over-explaining everything, which is something writers usually avoid, but they over-explain because they fear the latter (not giving the audience reasons why things happen), and this extends to character behaviors as well, which they over-explain via re-caps and flashbacks. A little explination is fine for a series, but anime series almost ALWAYS over-due it WAY too much, and it results in dragging the story. Re-caps are ONLY useful for new audience members who start watching the show for each episode.

Actually, Japanese voice acting isn't TOO bad, it's the dubbing of it for America that sucks. Which is why I always watch anime subbed.

Oh no, elitism inbound.

HIDE THE CHILDREN.

Please quote when posting, so that we know who you are insulting. kthnx.

[QUOTE=Cool Matty]Actually, Japanese voice acting isn't TOO bad, it's the dubbing of it for America that sucks. Which is why I always watch anime subbed.[/QUOTE]

The subbed version of .hack is like 1 million times better than dubbed.. ich...

Yeah, .hack//sign is one of the few animes I actually liked. The story, the characthers, the animation was all really well done, and kept you watching.

The only problem I had was the ending was kind of rushed and over dramatic, but it was still all right.
And Ginkan, I hated Ginkan.. but whatever.

Those are both show-specific.

1. The bad voice-acting is the fault of the company who records it.

2. Other than DBZ and the occasional comic scene, few anime's actually do that.

I don't like the shows where there are few episodes (Witch Hunter Robin would be the only exception). Gundam SEED was okay, 60-something episodes. Inuyasha's got something like 150.


Btw, how do you people manage to buy the episodes on DVD? They're so expensive! Like 60 bucks for 4 episodes. In a big series, you end up spending almost thousands of dollars.

Oddly enough, if I wanted to read all the time I'd pick up a book (or a manga, in this case). So yeah, Dub me up scotty. And there's very few animes that are good dubbed, therefore there's very few animes I like. And you can call me 'close-minded and stupid' or whatever your next insult to my intelligence will be because I prefer to listen instead of read all the time all you want. The only two movies I can stand subbed aren't even anime.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]Oddly enough, if I wanted to read all the time I'd pick up a book (or a manga, in this case). So yeah, Dub me up scotty. And there's very few animes that are good dubbed, therefore there's very few animes I like. And you can call me 'close-minded and stupid' or whatever your next insult to my intelligence will be because I prefer to listen instead of read all the time all you want. The only two movies I can stand subbed aren't even anime.[/QUOTE]

The best sound, of course, is when people can draw anime properly, and the show actually gets recorded for the first time in English (or your native language) INSTEAD of being dubbed.





(off-topic. OMFG, THE CAT JUST SAID "DOOR"!!!!!!)

Inuyasha is so god damn horrible dubbed or subbed.

Never mention it, ever again.

Play sells them (on average) for £14.99, which is just under $30 (US). I find the animes with 20-odd episodes in them (Cowboy Bebop, Trigun, .hack, etc.) more enjoyable than the ones with hundreds of episodes (DBZ being a prime example) because they're more to the point, and don't drag things out unnecessarily.

Mobile Suit Gundam > *