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| You pronounce the "." but not the "//". |
Dear Internet,
Do you
remember your first MMO? Has the feeling
continued throughout the years? Do you
remember having countless people play on your servers over the years? Meeting, battling monsters, grinding, and
finding like minded people and interests?
Was it enjoyable watching them have fun and interact like that? Do you think they were excited at every turn
of events and forming parties to go exploring in caves and dungeons with beasts
lying in wait? I suppose they did and
still do. I only played one MMO for a
while until I realized that I had no reason to keep playing. That pretty much sums up
".hack//Sign." It is a long
winded, slow moving, story empty animation that would make me question
following it if I was viewing it on a weekly schedule.
Let us
start off with the barebones plot that has been given so far. There is Tsukasa, a player in a video game
who cannot log out from the system, or The World. After a while it is hinted that this is
because the person playing Tsukasa is in a coma. Then there are the numerous characters with
next to no personality and interesting qualities. I tried to compose a description for the
multiple individuals that populate the show, but after a while none of them
seemed to make any difference. There is
Mimiru, a sword wielder who befriends the main character if you want to call it
that. Tsukasa might not because he or
she is such a massive pile of depression and angst that it actually slows down
the progression of the story to a standstill for the first seven episodes. There is Bear, another sword wielder who is
the oldest member of the cast, but that is really only implied. There is Silver Knight, the vice-leader of a
group of players who act as the defunct police since the administrators and
moderators of the game never seem to care what happens at all about what is
going on. He might as well be the leader
of the group since Subaru, the pretty girl commander of the Crimson Knights,
only ever acts as a figurehead and has not done one useful thing so far. There are a few other individuals that dot
the cast but I do not want to waste my time with them. Instead of making the plot move forward, they
only act as coffee filters, slowing the already molasses speeding story. Except for the cat, that damn cat that twists
the narrative at the Cheshire level.
The
plot has barely moved with 15 episodes down.
So far, the only bit of information about the characters outside of the
World is that Tsukasa might be in a coma, that Bear is an older man with a
spoiled son, and that Mimiru is a girl that is in high school or near
there. This complete lack of grounding
for the characters leaves the viewer to question just who the people that are
playing this game are. Not including
some sort of information to the various persons does not create some sort of
suspense to their identity when it is the entire cast. Tsukasa identifies the
cat as his or her dead mother and meets some sleeping, floating girl who may or
may not be the way to log out. There was
an attempt to find a way to get Tsukasa out of the game but that did nothing to
the status quo.
And
that is one of the biggest underlining problems so far with
"Sign." Nothing changes the
status quo. Everything pretty much stays
the same. The only exception is that at
one time Tsukasa was wanted by the Crimson Knights, but now he is not because
of a deal struck up between the two.
Other than that, the settings are not really changing because the
characters are able to go from one place to another in the blink of an eye. There was a hidden dungeon at one point, but
it lasted all on one episode before collapsing.
The action is nearly nonexistent.
You would think that a show that has a fantasy video game as its setting
would have intense battles against mythic beasts that can kill with one swipe
of their paw. No, instead the bulk of
"Sign" is about interpersonal relationships. People talk on and on and do very little in
between. After talking to one person,
they go and talk to another, sometimes lying and sometimes manipulating
information. But it never really feels
that anything actually changes. Even
when one individual betrays Bear's trust by telling someone else about a
secret, he continues to treat that character the same as before with little
reason as to why. "Sign" even
had an entire episode where Mimiru sits and waits for Tsukasa. A passerby references "Waiting for Godot,"
which Bear later explains the reference.
"Godot" is not just a comparison to that episode but to the
entire show so far. The audience is
waiting for something to happen but the cast would rather talk about nothing in
particular.
To top
that all off is the complete roundabout way all the characters talk. Every time they talk it seems like they are referencing
something that needs to be asked to be explained. Imagine if I said "It took off after a
little push," when meeting you after having not seen you for a while. You would then say, "What took
off?" I would reply, "The
airplane, remember?" There might be
an understanding that it was the airplane if that was the last thing that we
were monitoring last, but starting a conversation like that is plan out rude
and pointlessly add confusion. I should
not expect you to instantly remember what we were doing when last we met, nor
should I begin talking to you by making a confused statement that constantly warrants
a question to clarify. That is the
nature of "Sign," a bunch of confusion between the numerous
characters that really never gets anywhere.
It is like a spinning top, going around in circles and only moves away
from where it started when winding down.
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| She said this twice in ten seconds. |
Tomorrow
might be better. So far,
"Sign" is reading like a "No U-turns" on the highway.
Yours in digital,
BeepBoop
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