My bedtime viewing last nite was .Hack//Sign 4-6. Progress, of a sort, I guess. The characters, which were always fairly crisply defined, albiet some of them as enigmatic, are deepening a bit. I can even remember their names now. (Hopefully those neurons can be easily retasked after the series is over.) The backstory is becoming clearer — perhaps a bit prematurely: The foreshadowing is a bit ham-handed. I always skip the awful OP and ED, so three episodes fit nicely into an hour, which is about how long it takes me to convert from merely incapable of useful thought to actually capable of sleeping. I might try to keep it down to two, going forward.

One of the more interesting things about this show is graphic character design. This is a favorite topic and activity for K, so I’m sure she’ll appreciate that. The tribal skin coloring, mythopoetic costumery, are quite nice. Backgrounds are rather childish at times — quite a contrast to the lushness of Mishishi.

The basic system is this: The World is an immersive online RPG. People log on, play a while, and when they are logged out they converse about The World in an online forum, the “BBS”. The obvious exception is Tsukasa, a somewhat gender-ambiguous depressed grey boy with a cape, and signature hat and paranormal staff, and wine-colored marks on his cheeks. Tsukasa has been online for at least 10 days and can’t log out. He can’t reset his terminal because he’s not at a terminal. He’s too depressed and alienated to socialize well, but people of good will, the kawaii brown girl Mimiru, a bikini’d “heavy sword” with yellow moons under her eyes, and Bear, reputedly an “ojisan” (old man) IRL, but a barrel-chested heavy sword with dramatic Pictish blue-and-white full body paint in The World, learn of his condition and become concerned. Bear tries to track Tsukasa down IRL, but the trail leads him to a girl in a coma (offscreen action), and Tsukasa later tells him that he’s a boy IRL. It’s unfortunately obvious then, when Tsukasa’s personal secret place includes a sleeping girl floating over a bed, and a levitating teddy bear, that this girl is the comatose one that Bear found IRL.

The most enigmatic elements at this point are: What is it that gives stubby-winged Princess Subasa her authority over the Crimson Knights (vigilantees in armor and skull-styled helmets who think of themselves as enforcers of the rules of The World, although their connection to the actual administration is questionable), what is the Guardian monster and the carved ring that floats inside of it, and is that stuffed levitating cat really the avatar of Tsubasa’s dead mother? Absurd though it seems, when these issues are baldly stated, the story and characters have been sufficiently engaging to lend these questions some real human interest. Enough at least, so that I will continue my bedtime viewing.