.hack//Intermezzo

This was a refreshing change from the main storyline. I thought the main series was just awful. The only thing that carried me through it was the stellar music and nostalgia for the era before social media. It's a shame because Intermezzo proves it could have been a lot better.

This episode's story is simple and easy to follow. You don't need to watch the main series at all. It follows characters in an MMO who are played by real people, and the mystery about one of them is revealed.

If the entire series had been vignettes like this one, about how the game meaningfully affected the ... personal lives of ordinary people and their relationships, even while it remained a healthy and light distraction, I would have liked it very much.

I actually had watched .hack//SIGN in 2007, and didn't find it too crash hot. I don't think at the time, I had realized that there were more .hack series apart from Legend Of The Twilight and Roots, so I never got round to watching Intermezzo, and the others.

STORY: Couldn't really remember much from the main SIGN series, and I was reminded today about how. .. average the story line was. Of course this is only a one episode special, so there wasn't much to it; Mimiru drags along Bear to check for something in a temporarily re-opened dungeon in The World. I mustn't have been ... paying attention because of the overall story line, because I hadn't realized that majority of this episode is made up of reminiscent scenes, and it became a surprise to realize that the small, un-named 12 year old girl in the reminiscent scenes is actually Mimiru in the past. That made no sense to me, but whatever. Another turn off would be the MMORPG theme, and that would be probably because of the characters which I will discuss later.

ART: .hack art, well, character designs remind me of Angelic Layer's and I honestly can't be screwed looking up whether it is designed by the same person. Anyway. The overall design is pretty smooth and bold, however the noses are a bit of a bother sometimes. Animation was par, apart from some parts, typically involving bright, flashy scenes, oh, and the opening.

SOUND: The sound has always been good in the .hack series, even if I do have to strain my brain to remember. Same goes for both the ending and opening themes, especially the opening. I guess the 'chanting'(?) used in the series is appealing to me.

CHARACTERS: I'm sorry but, do any of these people who play in The World actually have a life? If you completely ignore the fact that the players seem to be almost always online and how serious they play the game, I think I would probably give the overall series a 6. In Intermezzo, the audience is introduced to three 18 year old girls, taking turns to play a single character called Mimika. The three of them go on about how that they can be appreciated in The World, and not in actual life, suggesting that they are 'incompetent' and 'plain'. Sure, on the odd occasion I play MMORPGs, but only for fun when I have spare time and I feel like it. I don't take it very seriously, and I only play at my own pace. But is it really necessary to take a MMORPG, or any game, so seriously that it almost blends in with your own life offline? Many times during Intermezzo, and the other .hack series, I've wanted to remind the characters that "it's just a game."

This special was fine, and I honestly can't expand any further on it. Definitely something I would suggest to a .hack fan, and if you're not interested in MMORPG themes or you didn't really enjoy .hack//SIGN (however I'm the type of person who HAS to watch every series' special, movie, ova, etc, and I don't normally drop anime.), I do not suggest watching this.

Been a very long time since I watched anything associated with this series, 2002 to be specific. That’s when .hack//SIGN aired and, while I had a high opinion of it at the time, more exposure to anime and thinking about the story soured me on it. The characters were fine and the music was straight fire (still one of my favorite soundtracks - Yuki Kajiura remains a force), but the narrate got strange and ground to a crawl at points.

So I booted this up in the hopes of capturing some of what I loved about the series so long ago. Once the OP came up, ... I certainly felt like I was chasing those feelings again, as I’m still quite fond of it.

The rest though… yeah, I’m reminded of its flaws. The characters are even less interesting here, and given that the limited narrative doesn’t have much in the way of stakes or creativity to it (the monster designs are interesting, but that’s about it), I found this to be a dud. Its limited scope accomplishes what it sets out to do and nothing more. Character motivations are largely face value with a couple of strange turns that just felt like they were stuck in there to hint at more complexity. They try to make you believe there are stakes when it definitely doesn’t feel like it - they seem incredibly arbitrary, which is even more frustrating given that the issues involved are pretty relatable, at least from where I'm sitting. Overall, it’s just not interesting. There's not enough here to recommend it unless you want to check off the .hack entries.