.hack//SLOW

<POTENTIAL SPOILERS SO DON'T CONTINUE IF THAT WILL BOTHER YOU!!!!!>

Yikes! .hack//SIGN is sure taking its time getting going. It seems like there's a lot of talking but not a lot accomplished. Granted this is only the second episode, but here are some thoughts.

The characters seem to be just there. Except for Sora, I can't remember anyones name. I know the main character (Tsukasa

Heh... better get used to it. It's pretty much that way for the whole series. I'm finding I like .hack//Tasogare no Udewa Densetsu MUCH better... ^)^

Tsukasa is the name I remember. Of course, I think of him as Mikasa S. Tsukasa.

I'm sort of enjoying the new .hack, but the girl with the cute animal will annoy me if she just cowers against walls every time there's a fight and since EVERY FIGHT ends with a Data Drain it's a little dull - the whole thing is just a little too formulaic.

(says the guy who just watched Someday's Dreamers 5, where virtually nothing happens at all, and still really enjoyed it)

Andrew H

And there are very few fights in the series. I can count the major ones on one hand, and even those are slightly abbreviated as it's the character's motivations that's highlighted.

If this turns you off, STOP WATCHING. I don't want to wade through posts complaining about this. It was never the point of .Hack//sign in the first place. Rather it's an exploration of people and how they interact.

I suspect people will ignore this.

'I have been a word in a book.' The Song of Taliesin

'If you will practice being fictional for a while, you will understand that fictional characters are sometimes more real than people with bodies and heartbeats.' Richard Bach

You'd hate the way my friends and I play MMORPGs then. We just stand around gabbing. You'd think we were the main cast of .hack or something. ^_^

That's because you haven't figured out yet that it's really intended to sell a game... a DRINKING game!

I've got a few of them figured out already.

One drink when:

Rina drools over a guy extra drink: Rina drools over Balmung

Mirelle drools over a rare item (or says 'rare item'

Shuugo drools over a doggie

Shuugo drools over a girl extra drink: Shuugo drools over Rina two extra drinks: Rina drools over Shuugo

An unbeatable monster appears

A high-level character attacks the unbeatable monster, and it instantly heals

Shuugo uses Data Drain extra drink: Shuugo uses Data Drain in public

Shuugo gains a level

Shuugo loses a level

Shuugo loses a tooth

Two drinks when it re-appears the very next scene! Make mine a double~!

No, we'd do that too. ^_^;

I'll say this for it, though. Even though it's twice as long, it seems to move twice as fast (and about four times as comprehensibly) as Serial Experiments Lain.

Madre de dios! That was a bad pun.

Catherine Johnson. And damn you for mentioning it before I did... ^_^