Dot Hack is a franchise from the early 2000s that tells the story of an online game that over it's many iterations features it's players falling into a coma and the mysterious circumstances behind it. However the franchise is a mixed bag of mediocrity but it could've been so much more if a better writer was allowed to create it.
A New Freedom for the Disabled
Subaru from the Hack Sign anime is disabled in real life, the game acts as an immersive virtual reality that gives her the ability to walk, allowing the possibility for a storyline in which the technology could help her walk again, Angelic Layer did do this in their anime iteration.
Helping the Abused Find a New Life
Spoilers in play for Hack Sign and Belle.
Tsukasa is revealed to be a girl in real life with an abusive father, by the end, Bear becomes her legal guardian with Subaru and Mimiru becoming her best friends, elements of this plot were later reused for the film Belle.
Balmung's Rise to Admin
I'd be down for a spinoff of Balmung's rise to administrator, something like "My Senpai is Annoying" would really work.
Mistral and Mireille's Family Life
A spinoff of Mistral and her daughter's day to day life. I'll call it.
"My MMO crazy daughter took all my rare items"
Go Darker than Sword Art Online
With the reoccurring Coma plot already being quite dark, to go further may feel like copying Sword Art Online but on a grander scale could be closer to Summer Wars where the stakes threaten the real world itself.
Twilight Should've Been More About Shugo and Rena Dealing with Divorced Parents
Foreshadowing for what I think of the Legend of the Twilight Anime I'm finishing tomorrow but I really think they should've used the plot to look into how the siblings use the game to deal with the difficulties brought on by their parents divorce.
Haseo's Player Killing Becomes Darker
Haseo was a known Player Killer early on in Dot Hack, I smell a Death Note plot.
So Many Possible Human Moments
The possibilities that Dot Hack squandered are too many to name and many have been used to better effect by other anime.
Dot Hack has so many human moments because it's always treated it's premise exactly how it should be treated, it remembers that the players of the online game are humans grounded in the rules of real life.
Other stories that use the video game world plot often blur the lines between reality and game, mostly because we never see what that real world is.
