.hack//Sign



Airing back in 2002, .hack//SIGN is a 26-episode Anime centering around a teenaged boy named Tsukasa who wakes up Inside a Computer System, an MMORPG called The World, with little memory of Real Life. Around the same time, a number of strange anomalies begin to occur in the game, causing a number of other characters to investigate the events surrounding Tsukasa and his strange connection to the game.

The show is notable for taking place inside an MMO yet featuring very little action. Most episodes consist of tense conversations between the various characters about the state of things, and the show is largely dialog-driven. It does not suffer from this. Also note that the entire thing is just a setup for the .hack games, so large chunks of the plot aren't resolved in this series.

See .hack for information about the franchise as a whole.

There are character sheets.


 * A Friend in Need:
 * Abusive Parents: Tsukasa's father shown in flashbacks is shown to be quite a Jerkass. Despising Tsukasa for being a girl Slapping Tsukasa after being caught shoplifting, yelling and screaming while raving drunk and yanking a little kitten away that she was caring for. Added all to the fact he talks with the doctor about pulling comatose daughter off life support.
 * A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Morganna certainly turned out... badly.
 * All There in the Manual:
 * Between My Legs: Mimiru's introduction.
 * Cherubic Choir:.
 * City of Canals: Mac Anu
 * Clothing Damage: The main cast's clothing disintegrates in the opening animation, Subaru's dress is destroyed when she's assaulted by another PK, and when  punishes Tsukasa, his clothing is completely ripped apart.
 * Contemplate Our Navels
 * Creepy Monotone: Morganna
 * Cyberspace: The setting, almost entirely, is an MMORPG.
 * Dark Reprise: There are two versions of the song, Aura. One showing the majesty of the world, and the other showing the horror.
 * Deliberately Monochrome: All shots of Real Life are in static-filled greyscale, with Hidden Eyes. Except for the final real life shot
 * Despair Gambit:.
 * Does This Remind You of Anything?: The scene where is incredibly, disturbingly evocative of rape;  The camera angles during the first part just make the comparison all the more chillingly real.
 * Empathic Environment:
 * The End - or Is It?: The series ends with a pretty clear indication that  Justified, since the story really isn't over, and the anime was intended to be followed by the video games.
 * Eureka Moment
 * Eyes Always Shut: A-20. It shows that even though all the characters are drawn the same way, hers is much more cartoony-looking than most others.
 * Facial Markings: Used to distinguish Player Characters from NPCs.
 * Genre Savvy: Justified since they're people playing an MMORPG.
 * Gotterdammerung: In the backstory of The World, a war between the humans and the gods ended with the death of the gods and massive destruction.
 * Guardian Entity: Tsukasa has a cruel and trigger happy guardian.
 * Hair Colors: For the same reason as the Facial Markings.
 * Hermetic Magic
 * Heroic BSOD: Tsukasa after.
 * Hidden Eyes: Nearly everyone's depiction in the real world has overshadowed eyes. Only the few honest or "free" personalities have eyes.
 * Inaction Sequence: There are substantial stretches of dialog in this series which can come across as filler. But because of the nature of the story, players are just trying to explain what is happening outside the scope of the game.
 * Instant AI, Just Add Water: Or research on emotions, in this case.
 * Instant Runes
 * The Ken Burns Effect: The series is full of it
 * Meadow Run:.
 * Only Six Faces: Not really with the main characters, but because this is a video game, many extras and background characters show up now and then with the same character customizations as the protagonists. Apparently Subaru is so popular that other players create characters in the game to look just like her.
 * Painting the Fourth Wall: Happens a few times, most notably when Mimiru freeze in mid-gesture because her player walked way to get a snack, or when Bear stops in his tracks to say that he needs more paper to map the dungeon.
 * Role Playing Game Verse: Literally.
 * Schrödinger's Butterfly: The series ends with
 * Schoolgirl Lesbians: Tsukasa and Subaru
 * MMORPGs are Serious Business: The basic point of the franchise but .hack//SIGN is infamous for taking it to ridiculous extremes.
 * The Power of Friendship
 * "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
 * There Are No Girls on the Internet: Averted.
 * Too Clever by Half: Sora. One of the World's most powerful characters and skilled players, with maxed-out level and attributes, and he's fully aware of how good he is while being insufferably immature about it all. Then in the last episode of SIGN we learn
 * Trapped in Another World: Tsukasa again.
 * Twenty Minutes Into the Future
 * Widget Series: There are enough qualities of The World to make it qualify, such as an Honest Axe quest featuring a water fairy with a deranged accent instead of Mercury, and an emo Grunty that runs away to be an Eeyore somewhere if you force it to grow up.
 * Woman in White: Aura, Helba.
 * "World of Cardboard" Speech:
 * Why Couldn't You Be Different?: Tsukasa's father doesn't like her for being a girl.
 * You Are Not Alone:
 * You Gotta Have Blue Hair: There are player characters like Sora running around with green hair.
 * Your Mind Makes It Real: Characters who get attacked by Data Drain also reportedly suffer severe comas in the real world.