Anime Special! - .hack//Liminality

This is actually an OVA of of the original .hack//SIGN that has only 4 episodes and each of them has a different title, but the same topic. The order of episodes are: Infection, Mutation, Outbreak & Quarantine with the mutual name Liminality. The story this time follows players & people around them who are outside of the game and are watching what is happening. "The World" (that's the name of the game) is starting to affect reality and the borders of real world & "The World" are becoming blurred. Once again players are being trapped by the game but this time a group of people gets together to discover what is really going on. The main problem again was the creators' wish to make a prefect AI which backfired when the sub program blocked it's release because it got too smart. Liminality OVA's finally explain the outsider's view of the game and it's influence on reality on a much bigger level. Interesting to watch and a good sequel to .hack//SIGN.

In the year 2007, an MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) known as 'The World' is released in the US and becomes insanely popular, spreading worldwide and reaching up to 20 million players. One day, a mysterious phenomenon occurs where all the monsters in the game become increasingly powerful and harbour otherwise unheard of abilities. Along with this, players are unable to make any progress with their characters. Naturally, these occurrences render The World rather unplayable, so a player who goes by the name of Kite decides to get to the bottom of it.
The story follows three girls, Mai Minase, Yuki Aihara, and Kyoko Tohno, and a former CC Corp. director of the Japanese version of The World, Junichiro Tokuoka. They investigate as to why several people have fallen into a coma while playing the game. The first three episodes centers on one of the girls, but in episode four, it centers on all characters.

Directed by:    
Koichi Mashimo (general director)
Masayuki Yoshihara In the Case of Mai Minase
Koji Sawai In the Case of Yuki Aihara; Trismegistus
Hiroshi Morioka In the Case of Kyoko Tohno
Studio: Bee Train, Bandai Games
Released: June 20, 2002 – April 12, 2003
Runtime: 45 minutes (episode 1), 27 minutes (episode 2), 30 minutes (episode 3 and 4)
Episodes: 4