.hack// Beyond the World

Title:  .hack//Beyond the World
Rating:  4 of 5

For those who haven't seen any of the .hack series of anime, it resolves around a virtual world (called THE WORLD), similar to World of Warcraft, and the internet in general.  I don't know if they are all made by the same director/authors (maybe someone who can read Japanese can let me know) but the ones that I have seen seem to have different feels, so I would guess that there are multiple authors and they use the this virtual world as a central point and go out from there.

This particular series centers around a young girl who due to her curiosity and some gentle pressure of her classmates, ventures into THE WORLD.  There is a rather comical introduction as she is walking around with a bunch of bubbles over her head which representing the graphical interface used by players (similar to a program's menu options).  As she's walking around, some players notice and ask her to get rid of the bubbles.  Her first attempt at removing the bubbles ends with her holding two bananas that she can't drop.  Out of embarrassment, she runs to a secluded location where she is met by a strange glowing woman, who gives her a glowing cube that fuses with her digital character.  This obviously plays an important part of the play but she quickly forgets (or neglects) to tell her classmates until later.  As with the other .hack series, there is an issue with the world which renders people who are in the world unconscious.  One of her classmates who has feelings for the main character is one of the unfortunate souls who is impacted, which gives her additional reason to move forward and search for a solution to the developing problem.

With the aid of an American special agent and her grandfather and friends, she has to deliver the glowing cube back to the woman to save the world.  I was actually engrosses by the movie (it was almost 2 hours long) and didn't realize the length until I took a look at the clock.  Ignoring the few grammatical errors in the subtitles, let me know if you enjoyed it as much as I did.