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.hack//Quantum is an great example of a show that is fantastic on the surface level but is held back by poor, and at times nonsensical and confusing, storytelling.

A summary of the opening episode is this: Three high school girls are playing a generically named anime cliche, "The World". They see a guild get taken out by a really OP boss monster and the stupid lovable main character girl picks up some unnamed item. They log off. The MC girl logs back in alone the next day to find that, for some reason, she is being hunted by a gang of nameless videogame mercs. While ... on the run she meets a furry blue child named Hermit. They get captured but then escape with the help of the other two girls in the trio. Another chase ensues and after fuzzy boy falls and dies some black hole thing erupts and teleports them all to virtual hell. For some reason they can feel real pain in this limbo so everyone freaks out and tries to log off. But before they can, Eri (the nerdy one) gets the magic touch and goes into a coma IRL. And so the mysterious happenings begin.

If this isn't making sense to you yet, I honestly can't say it ever will.

The art, animation and consistency in this show are leagues beyond most TV anime. The voice acting and sound design are more than competent. The characters are likable and and their personalities are distinct. The character designs are great, too. So this should be an awesome show right? Let me go heat up my popcorn. Well...

Frankly, the story is an absolute mess. In the three episodes there are I must have thought "Wait, How?" and "Huh, Why?" more times than I care to count. The World is chock full of unexplained mechanics and The Story is somehow even more so. The exposition scenes all feel like they just barely make enough sense to be passable and just sort of fall flat. Many events in the story don't really make sense at all and are never explained. Character motivations are often vague (a lot like that statement). The logic of .hack//Quantum's reality doesn't seem to line up with our own a lot of the time and it just leaves the viewer confused. It's sort of sad really because some of the concepts later in the story are good ideas that could be interesting but just aren't explored much. Although, with this level of confounding storytelling, I wouldn't really want them to be.

I've heard tell that all of the same ideas are present in the other iterations of .hack. This review is not comparing this version to the others. I haven't seen anything else in this franchise. I don't think I ever will, especially considering I have also heard tell of this being the best .hack has to offer.

All in all, I would say .hack//Quantum can be an enjoyable experience if you are willing to ignore the weak storytelling elements and focus on the pretty pictures and cute girls. I wouldn't really recommend that though, as there are other anime that do everything this series does but better and with a comprehensible plot.

I'm writing this review to rate each short film separately since it obviously doesn't make sense to give all of them one shared rating.

These ratings are based on MAL /10 guidelines (1 being "Appalling" 10 being "Masterpiece" etc)

Genius Party - Clearly meant to be an introduction for the longer films in Genius Party, this short of the same name somehow manages to become repetitive in its measly five minutes runtime. There is some pretty good art and animation but overall it never becomes too interesting. It seems like something I won't remember watching in a week. 5/10

Shanghai Dragon - Fun to watch. Great action scenes. ... Touching story. 8/10

Deathtic 4 - I don't know language they are speaking. 5/10

Doorbell - With something like this everything hinges on how the ending of the film presents itself. It presents itself pretty well. 7/10

Limit Cycle - I really don't understand this one at all. Although to be fair I gave up listening to the voice-over about half way through. There are some nice visuals present but I could never hope to decipher what they mean. 4/10

Happy Machine - Like Shanghai Dragon, this short film is great fun to watch all the way through. Unlike Shanghai Dragon, Happy Machine has much less conventional storytelling and there is no dialogue present. It doesn't really need these things to be enjoyable however and the ending is like a cherry on top. 7/10

Baby Blue - A fantastic roller coaster of a story that manages to stay believable and immersive throughout in spite of the ridiculous events that take place. In the 14 minutes this piece encompasses it managed to make me feel a more varied range of emotions than most full length anime series. 9/10