I know that there are probably not a lot of people who know of this rare gem called, ".hack//SIGN", instead, most people will probably know of Sword Art Online, and a few might have heard of Log Horizon. I'm only mentioning Sword Art Online, and Log Horizon, because they have the same idea as, hack//SIGN, a bunch of people playing an online game, and being stuck inside the game.
With .hack//SIGN, it's pretty much the same idea, but instead of all the players stuck inside the game, there's only one person who is stuck inside of the game, one thing, it's a slower-paced show, whereas, Sword Art Online is faster paced, I only saw the first few episodes of Log Horizon, but it felt fairly fast-paced.
Even though there are some gripes with .hack//SIGN, and the pacing of the show, without that show, the spin-off anime shows, video games, and manga's wouldn't have been a thing at all. In my opinion, it's rare to see, an anime show, be the start of a huge franchise.
One thing that I loved about .hack//SIGN, is, even though it's slow-paced, it gives you time to breathe and actually get to know all the characters and a little bit of their lives outside of the game. For me at least, it made the show feel more grounded and realistic and actually helped me get attached to the characters in the show, so by the end, it felt like I went on the journey with them.
.hack//SIGN was only 26 episodes, but to me, it wrapped everything up very nicely, and since it was the start of the rest of the franchise, it left a lot left for the rest of the games, anime, and manga to explore. Some of the games, had easter eggs in them, from .hack//SIGN, basically, they all connected to each other in some way. Yet at the same time, it's also possible to play the games out of order and still have fun, and enjoy the story.
The Games
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Following the anime, there were two-game series, that were spin off's of the original anime show, basically continuing the story, of where the anime left off. It is possible, like I said before, to play the games, without any knowledge of .hack//SIGN, but it does help to have some knowledge of what's going on, and how the game, " The World" actually works, at least for me, it made things go a lot more smoothly then just going in completely blind. With the first game series, with each game disc, came with it, an OVA, a stand-alone anime episode, showing what was happening in the real world, while you were playing the game, it adds more to the story and kinda explains more from an outside perspective. Something that I haven't seen any other type of videogame do.
As for the videogames, they explained the story, the farther you went, but at the same time, they didn't hold your hand, you had to put the work in yourself, grinding, leveling up your characters, getting stronger weapons, and more useful items, and even walking around talking to other characters, (npc's) to get more information on what's going on. The games even had a message board for you to get more information from other players in the game, and to read and reply to your emails, helping you get more information that way as well. It was very well put together, so you felt very immersed in the games and the story.
Now, onto Sword Art Online for a quick second. I watched three seasons of it, and honestly by the third season, I was done with it, for a multitude of reasons. To start off, the story went everywhere, it started as a mystery, horror, where all the characters were stuck inside the game, to harem, then it went from harem to damsel in distress, on top of the fact that the were was no direction of the show, you barely got to know the side characters that well, and the only ones they focused on, were Kirito and Asuna. Everyone acted like, Sword Art Online was the first anime ever to tackle the concept of being stuck inside a virtual game, when it wasn't the first anime to do this, it's just that, Sword Art Online became popular, because of all the advertisements that they were doing, so by the time the show aired, everyone knew what it was.
With the first set of .hack games that were split into four parts, each game came with it, an OVA episode, that was showing what was going on in the real world while you were playing the game. The OVA was called, .hack//Liminality, and in my opinion, it was very well written, showing more of the lore, and history of the story, the creator of the game "The World", helped you understand more of what was going on, so you weren't completely lost while you were playing the games.
In the anime .hack//SIGN, one of the main characters is Tsukasa, a male Wavemaster in the game, by the end of the show, it's revealed that Tsukasa's real identity in the real world, is actually a girl named, An Shoji. In my honest opinion, the handled the character Tsukasa very well, it explored the concept of self-identity, gender, sexuality, learning to trust others, and ultimately what it means to be human. One thing I always loved about Tsukasa (in the game "The World") was that he wasn't perfect, he had fears and insecurities, and it took him a long to open up and trust others. When you learn later on, that in the real world, An Shoji, basically was emotionally, verbally, and physically abused by her father, it makes perfect sense as to why she didn't trust anyone. By the end of the show, one of the players, Bear, in real life his name Ryo Sakuma, he ends up becoming a legal guardian of An Shoji, supporting her while she attends boarding school.
.hack//SIGN tackled a multitude of topics very gratefully with a lot of maturity to it, forcing the viewer to actually think, it didn't spoon-feed you everything, you actually had to pay attention to what the characters were saying, and what was going on, in order to understand the story.
It's ironic how popular Sword Art Online became, yet if you look back on the .hack franchise it became huge, from a single anime series to videogames, and manga's to light novels and soundtracks, including movies. Maybe I am bashing Sword Art Online, but I'm sorry, I didn't see Sword Art Online become as huge as the .hack franchise did. The only reason Sword Art Online became so popular, is because of the funding poured into it, for advertisement. With .hack, they didn't pour everything into advertisements, so they had to put more work into the writing of the stories and the characters overall. The graphics and colors may not be as bright and crisp as modern anime, but the story and characters made up for it. Just because an anime show like Sword Art Online is popular, doesn't mean that it's good or well written, sometimes the lesser-known anime shows are ten times better, and you don't feel like you wasted your time watching them.
I hope you enjoyed reading my thoughts about the anime .hack//SIGN. Maybe you'll enjoy it as much as I did.
