.hack//Quantum Review

Title: .hack//Quantum

Air Date: Jan 28, 2011, to Apr 7, 2011

Episodes: 3

Genre: Adventure, Sci-fi

Where to watch: Funimation

Languages: Japanese, English

Similar Shows: Sword Art Online, Accel World

Introduction:

Hot off the heels of Legend of the Twilight, Quantum is the next anime on the list for Funimation. Quantum is one of the last installments of the '.hack//' series and by far is easily one of the best, if not the best. This three-part OVA features 3 high school girls who get lost in a video game known as 'The World'.

One day while playing the game, one girl gets taken hostage, and her body is rendered into a coma while her soul is floating somewhere within The World. Characters Sakuya and Tobias team together to help save their friend, meet new people, and get help along the way.

Animation:

Easily said, the last installment of the series is the best animated. I'm not sure if it is because there were only three episodes of they spent a lot more time on the animation and crafting out the characters better or another reason, possibly the number of years since the previous installment. However, I have nothing negative to say about how the characters looked.

The character design that is a different situation. With this only being the second installment in the series that I've watched, I was sure that Sakuya was the black rose character I had seen in Legend of the Twilight. To my surprise, this was not the case. They took the exact character design, gave it long hair, and gifted it to someone else. The same could be said surrounding her friends' avatars as they look to be incarnations of previous characters we had seen before.

With this, I would have liked to see more imagination. Still, because they looked a lot better than previous characters in the series, I will not complain too much about it.

For example, isn't Sakuya an older version of Shugo only better animated?

Pacing:

I won't turn this into a comparison story of quantum verse Legend of the Twilight, but the storyline seems better put together than I had expected. Again, I'm not sure if this was because there were only three episodes within this installment.

Throughout the time they had spent searching for Mary, it was apparent their process, what they were investigating, and the people they had met. Each thing came together to serve a cohesive and easy-to-follow plot that wasn't as boring as what I had in the last series.

Either way, the best decision they could have made was to cut this down to a three-part OVA. If they didn't, they'd likely have another situation as they did with the past series in which it went on for far too long with no sort of decent progression.

Character Development:

I didn't expect to get much with character development what does series. Sakuya’s progress is the most throughout this series. I won't say she is the best-written character, but she has many great points to her. At first, she is a character that focuses on mostly playing the game and not much else. As time goes on, she investigates why Mary is in a coma which causes a shift in her personality. She empathizes more with others and genuinely wants to help more than just a friend. This is best seen with her discussion with hermit as she's searching for the person responsible.

Overall Score: C (Not my Cup of Orange Juice)

Overall, Quantum is exceptionally better than most of the other stories in the franchise. This story is well put together and has a clear direction from beginning to end. We also get to see the development of the characters and also their interactions with each other. There are also fewer moments where I was confused about what was happening instead of the series before.

So when all is said and done, the show gets the job done. As it stands, the .hack series just isn’t for me.

CL Song: Shizuku by Yuka Nanri