.hack//Sign

.hack//Sign (trademarked as .hack//SIGN) is an anime television series directed by Kōichi Mashimo and produced by studio Bee Train and Bandai Visual, that makes up one of the four original storylines of the .hack franchise. Twenty six original episodes aired in 2002 on TV and three additional bonus episodes (Intermezzo, Unison, and Gift) were released on DVD as original video animations (OVAs). The series features character design by Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, known for his work on Evangelion, and screenplay by Kazunori Itō, who penned the screenplay for the first Ghost in the Shell movie. The score was composed by Yuki Kajiura, marking her second collaboration with Kōichi Mashimo.

.hack//Sign is influenced by psychological and sociological subjects such as anxiety, escapism, and interpersonal relationships. The series focuses on a Wavemaster (magic user) named Tsukasa, a player character of a virtual-reality massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) called The World. Tsukasa wakes up to find himself in a dungeon in The World, but he suffers from short-term memory loss as he wonders where he is and how he got there. The situation gets worse when he discovers he is unable to log out and is trapped in the game. From then on, along with other players Tsukasa embarks on a quest to figure out the truth behind his abnormal situation.

.hack

.hack (pronounced "dot-hack") is a Japanese multimedia franchise that encompasses two projects; Project .hack and .hack Conglomerate. Both projects were primarily created/developed by CyberConnect2, and published by Bandai. The series is mainly followed through the anime and video game installations, and has been adapted through manga, novels and other related media.

Project .hack

Project .hack was the first project of the .hack series. It launched in 2002 with the anime series .hack//Sign in April 2002 and the PlayStation 2 game .hack//Infection in June 2002. Project developers included Koichi Mashimo (Bee Train), Kazunori Ito (Catfish), and Yoshiyuki Sadamoto, (Gainax). Since then, Project .hack has spanned television, video games, manga, and novels.

Games

Hack!

Hack! is a 2007 American horror film directed and written by Matt Flynn. The film centres on a group of students who, while on a field trip, become victims in a snuff film, and stars Danica McKellar, Jay Kenneth Johnson, William Forsythe, Sean Kanan, Juliet Landau, Justin Chon, Travis Schuldt, Adrienne Frantz and Gabrielle Richens. The film was released in the UK on July 20, 2007 before receiving a US release on December 11, 2007.

Plot

On a small island, a man (Kane Hodder) is chased by an unseen figure. As he stops to catch his breath, he is decapitated by his pursuer. Meanwhile, a group of teenage college students, including the social outcast Emily (Danica McKellar), Emily's love interest Johnny (Jay Kenneth Johnson), the flamboyant homosexual Ricky (Justin Chon), jock Tim (Travis Schuldt), boyish lesbian Maddy (Adrienne Frantz), stoner Q (Won-G) and girly-girl Sylvia (Gabrielle Richens), are chosen to go on a field trip to a small island. The group, along with their teacher Mr. Argento (Mike Wittlin), meet Captain J.T. Bates (Burt Young) who takes them to the island on his boat. Here, the group meet the eccentric couple Vincent King (Sean Kanan) and Mary Shelley (Juliet Landau) who they will be staying with. Mary begins to film the group on her hand-held recorder, saying that she is an aspiring director.

.hack (video game series)

.hack /dɒt hæk/ is a series of single-player hack and slash developed for the PlayStation 2 console by CyberConnect2 and published by Bandai. The series of four games, titled .hack//Infection, .hack//Mutation, .hack//Outbreak, and .hack//Quarantine, features a "game within a game"; a fictional massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) called The World which does not require the player to connect to the Internet. Players may transfer their characters and data between games in the series. Each game comes with an extra DVD containing an episode of .hack//Liminality, the accompanying original video animation series which details fictional events that occur concurrently with the games.

The games are part of a multimedia franchise called Project .hack which explores the mysterious origins of The World. Set after the events of the anime series .hack//Sign, the games focus on a player named Kite and his quest to discover why some users have become comatose as a result of playing The World. The search evolves into a deeper investigation of The World and its effects on the stability of the Internet.