Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		5.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

.hack//Quantum OVA Blu-ray Movie Review

Virtually perfect.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman January 29, 2012

A generation or so ago, virtual reality was all the rage for storyline material in such fare as Disney’s Tron and the now long forgotten (and extremely short-lived) television series VR 5. What was it that led to this idea’s fairly quick rise and fall? Films and shows like Tron and VR 5 came along before there was really much of a personal computer movement to speak of, and once that did arrive, early attempts at rendering environments and the like were laughably primitive, so audiences may just have rejected the premises outright as being too outlandish. And the first “real” VR accoutrements, huge helmets and spacesuit looking costumes, seemed to suggest whoever was participating might be a cast member in some little known Ed Wood feature. But now with virtual realities so seamlessly interwoven into both videogames and films and television series themselves via CGI, the time seems ripe for more stories exploiting the idea of interior computer worlds. Anime has rather regularly exploited the premise from two opposing set ups, with characters either disappearing into virtual reality or having characters erupt from virtual reality into “real life.” .hack (pronounced “dot-Hack” just like “dot-com”) is resolutely in the former camp, and has had its own cross-platform offerings in both anime and videogames. .hack’s “game” world is called, perhaps ironically, The World, an MMORP that gamers can disappear into once they don the appropriate headgear and have the proper set up on their computers. .hack has moved through several iterations over the years, kind of mirroring the various generations of the various videogame platforms, until it now supposedly offers a “portable” virtual reality which is called The World R:X. (On a slightly tangential note, for those of you with a sense of humor about MMORPGs, if you haven’t seen it already, check out the satirical site The Onion newspaper runs and watch its “report” on a new MMORPG called “World of World of Warcraft,” which virtually recreates a nerdy kid in a dank basement playing “World of Warcraft.” It’s hilarious and comes highly recommended.)

The .hack franchise has had a somewhat spotty history in terms of at least its anime outings (though there are those who argue this is also true of the videogame releases as well). When a franchise like .hack is as successful as it’s been, it’s easy to fall into two traps: first, to keep repeating the same ideas over and over again, leading to a kind of stale feeling about the whole enterprise; and second, trying to invest the franchise with supposedly “innovative” new ideas, branching too far astray from the original premise and characters, and thereby alienating longtime fans. .hack has probably been guilty of both approaches, but longtime fans may well be pleaseantly surprised with this new three part OVA .hack//Quantum, as it seems to toe the line between either extreme, keeping those used to .hack happy with some tried and true elements while also pushing the envelope, at least just slightly, with some new ideas and formulations.

The three main characters here are a trio of young girl players who have the gamertags of Mary, Tobias and Sakuya. We also see these girls in their “real life” high school life, which gives .hack//Quantum at least the hint of being a shōnen. But really the bulk of this three part OVA takes place inside the gameworld of The World, and as such becomes more of a battle-centric enterprise which is actually quite redolent of “real” MMORPGs like, yes “World of Warcraft” or even “Dungeons and Dragons.” Each of the girl has their own quite distinctive personality, with little idiosyncrasies like Sakuya’s habit of wandering off the beaten track at any given moment to pick up supposedly valuable “items” that gain her extra game points. The World is full of gigantic dragons which provide quite a bit of the visual flair throughout this set, and the three girls also stumble upon a mysterious guild which provides grist for the mill of one of the main storylines.

There’s a certain conspiracy aspect to this outing along with an attendant feeling of paranoia, that helps to remove this from mere silliness, and it’s in these aspects that .hack//Quantum actually defies expectation and delivers some fun suspense. Other parts of this OVA are more meandering, though, so viewers need to pretty much be prepared to “go with flow,” letting the girls pause for little chats when they’re so inclined, and then similarly being ready for some over the top action and a little mystery. The best part of .hack//Quantum is that it is really beautifully designed, and so eve when the story is going off on a dead end tangent, it’s not as annoying as it might otherwise be, as the visual side of this OVA is incredibly impressive, perhaps distracting attention a little from some deficiencies in plotting and character.

.hack//Quantum OVA Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

.hack//Quantum is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of FUNimation Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. While the "real life" high school sequences of this OVA are fairly standard looking, the gameworld sequences are outstanding, with some really amazing looking CGI, especially with regard to the magnificent dragons that populate The World. Colors are bright, bold and extremely well saturated, and line detail is exceptionally strong throughout this enterprise. Character design also perks up considerably in the gameworld with the gamer avatars, which often glow effulgently and have some other very cool looking visual effects. Backgrounds in the gameworld are rendered with precision and excellence. This is a very, very strong looking presentation that should delight not just longtime .hack fans but newcomers as well.

.hack//Quantum OVA Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Zowie! That's about all you need to know with regard to .hack//Quantum's incredible lossless Dolby TrueHD 5.1 English dub. Purists may not like the voice actors in the English dub (several of whom are FUNimation regulars), but there is no escaping the incredible force of this track, one that is mixed much more aggressively than its Japanese Dolby TrueHD 5.1 counterpart. Sound effects are noticeably more present in the English mix, something that may just slightly tip the scales for the English option over the original Japanese. From the first moment of the OVA, when we're in the gameworld and the players are being chased by a gigantic dragon, the soundfield is just incredibly alive with surround effects, and when the dragon stomps down his enormous foot in the first few seconds, LFE simply erupts from the subwoofer. It's impressive, to say the least, and that propensity continues for the rest of the running time. The gameworld sequences are incredibly immersive, with various sound effects darting around the soundfield, but dialogue always crisply and cleanly presented. The Japanese track is OK, but I have continually wondered why the original tracks seem slightly anemic when compared to the English dubs on so many of these FUNimation releases. My hunch is simply that the mixing engineers "pump up the volume" of the effects track, and perhaps re-equalize things to emphasize the lower frequencies, for the difference on .hack//Quantum is even more noticeable than usual. Both tracks do sport excellent fidelity, though it's the English track that wins the dynamic range competition, by a landslide.

.hack//Quantum OVA Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Go, Our Chim Chims 1 (HD; 3:04) finds the little purple creatures talking about quantum physics. Or something like that.
• Go, Our Chim Chims 2 (HD; 2:08) is about psi and phi waves.
• Go, Our Chim Chims 3 (HD; 2:02) tackles the conundrum of Schrodinger's Cat.
• Yui Ogura's 'Yui-Yui' Cooking (1080i; 17:59) has Yui trying to make a charaben,
• Yui Ogura's 'Yui-Yui' Club (1080i; 11:12) finds Yui and some friends exploring adventures around Ogikubo Station.
• Yui Ogura's 'Yui-Yui' Cult Quiz (1080i; 8:21) has Yui divulging answers to the Cult Quiz which was included in the packaging of Volume 3 of the .hack BD and DVD releases.
• Promotional Videos (HD; 3:12)
• Original Commercial (HD; 00:17)
• Pre-Release Promotional Video (HD; 1:39)
• U.S. Trailer (HD; 1:02)
• Trailers for other FUNimation Releases

.hack//Quantum OVA Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The .hack universe can be a confusing one, but the good news is you don't need to be a longtime fan to understand what's going on (at least for the most part) in .hack//Quantum. This is one of the strongest .hack outings in quite a while, though it still has the tendency to slow to a crawl now and again. That tendency is easily overcome by the OVA's outstanding visuals and incredible sound design. While supplements aren't especially insightful or plentiful, this release boasts superior video and audio and comes Recommended.