In the Case of Mai Minase

The OAV begins with a middle-aged guy in a pink suit getting beat up by two people in the parking lot outside of the CyberConnect Corp Headquarters. One of the guys tells the middle-aged man to stop his "dream". The middle-aged man replies that it is not a dream and that they are all in on it, then he also ads that it was CC Corps' investigations that made him interested in the first place. To this, they could only reply that he should come back when he has allegations that will stand up in court.

The scene shifts to a cemetery in Nuremberg, Germany, where a tall, thin man kneels before Emma Wielant's headstone. The headstone inscription reads, "The hand that spun a legend will also become a legend itself". The man says, "This won't be the end. Not yet. I won't let it be over."

Back in Ishikawa Japan, an ambulance rushes 2 high school students to the hospital. They were found in a comatose state in their school's clubhouse by their friend Maseya Makino. One of the comatose victims, Mai Minase, is able to partly recover and she makes an "ah" sound. The two gurneys are then pushed into ER.

As Time passes, Mai was able to pull out of the coma and she is talking to Maseya by a river. Ever since the day that she went into a coma, Mai has been ditching school so Maseya has been trying to talk her into returning to classes. Since she has been gone from school, there have been rumors flying about her and she thinks that the club members will be angry with her for having the clubhouse sealed off. Mai then asks Maseya how Tomonari is doing. She does not understand why Tomonari is still in the coma and she was able to wake up.

When Mai gets home, she finds out that no one is waiting for her but her mother left her some food to eat and a note telling her that she will be out late and not to wait up for her. On a counter top, there is a photo of Mai when she was a child playing the violin with her grandfather. During this time, she is listening to a record of violin music, remembering how Tomonari took her to the computer-filler clubroom "to show her something". At first she refused because she had violin lessons, but Tomonari convinced her to stay by asking for only 10 minutes. Mai says that she does not play computer games, but Tomonari asks her to give it a try since he created a character just for her. While she is playing, she hears a musical tone, and Mai wakes up from her dream. Then the telephone rings and her father is on the line. He apologizes to Mai because he will not be home until next month, but he promises to return in time for the anniversary of her grandfather's death. While Mai is on the phone with her father, water starts dripping from the kitchen sink and that triggers the "tone" she heard from the game and she completely freezes.

The following day, Mai decides to go back to school. Along the way, she is confronted by the man who was beat up outside of CC Corp. He asks Mai if she was the girl who fell into the coma. He then asks if both she and Tomonari were playing a game just before they fell into the coma. Mai walks away and tells him that they need to go to class. A short while later, Mai sneaks out of class and goes back to the "clubhouse" where she first fell into the coma. There she meets up with the man. When Mai tries to walk away, the man grabs her arm, and asks her if she wants to know why she and her friend had collapsed. The man replied that it has to do with "The World". She gasps, and then Maseya runs up and demands to know who pink shirt is. The guy answers that his name is Junichiro Junichiro and then he leaves leaving Mai and Maseya alone.

In the school library, Maseya asks Mai to remember where Tomonari took her when they logged into "The World" Mai says that It was her first time in the game and that she only remembers the root town. Curious as to why Mai is acting a little differently, Maseya asks if anything had taken place between them. Mai replies "no, but so what if it did?"

After school, Mai decides to go to an Internet café to look up any information about Junichiro Tokuoka. She finds out that Junichiro is the Director of the Japanese version of "The World". Feeling uneasy about this information, she informs Maseya about the news. The next morning, Maseya tries to cheer Mai up by informing her that Junichiro is no longer at CyberConnect Corp. because he quit 6 months ago.

At the hospital, Mai goes in for a check up and everything checks out ok. During the checkup, she asks if subliminal information can cause a person to lose consciousness. The doctor laughs and says that 20 million copies of the game have been sold worldwide and a game could cause people to go into comas, more people would have fallen into them by now. As he is talking to Mai, he taps his pen against the desktop. Eventually the tapping triggers the "tone" that Mai has been hearing and she stares off into space.

Junichiro catches up with Mai and tells him that he wants to check out Tomonari's file and find out what happened. Mai agrees and tells him that Tomonari's login name is Sieg, and his password is Maiminase. When Mai asks Junichiro why he is investigating her, he replies that in Japan alone, 6 people are in a coma and all of them were playing The World at the time. However, Mai is the only one to successfully come out of the coma. Mai tries to run away, but Junicirio grabs her arm and asks why she was able to come out of the coma. Mai says she cannot remember anything and Junichiro walks away disappointed.

In a dream, Mai sees a place that is very similar to Stonehenge. At this place she sees a girl with long pink hair laughing. Mai then hears the "tone" and quickly wakes up from her dream. She then walks over to a tuning fork, picks it up, and taps it, only to discover the exact same sound.

Junichiro eventually calls Mai and asks her if she can get him into the clubhouse and try to play the game in the exact same environment and conditions that put her in the coma. Mai agrees and decides to meet him outside the school gates. Later that night, Mai is waiting in a pouring rain waiting for Junichiro to arrive. When he gets there, she asks him what his reason is for investigating the game. He calmly replies that his reasons are the "same as yours". Inside, the clubhouse, Junichiro powers up one of the PCs, and prepares to enter "The World" through a backdoor. He comments that whenever someone goes missing, there are always traces. He logs in as Sieg, and asks Mai if she recognizes the town that they have logged into. Although she does not recognize the town, she decides to play the game anyways and go to the field "Chosen Hopeless Nothingness".

On the field, Mai senses something is there, but Junichiro calmly replies that it is just a minor character. He then decides that they should go into the dungeon. That is when Mai starts to hear "the sound". When she brings it up, Junichiro says that he only hears the background music. Mai says, "It's coming" as the noise is getting louder. Junichiro is hooked on the game, but Mai cannot take it anymore and she rips her goggles off.

Desperate to do something, Mai takes his goggles off, and he topples over on his back as she tries to pry the controller from his hands. As a last effort, she grabs the game controller and pulls the PC to the floor, smashing it to pieces, as Junichiro just lies unmoving on the floor.

When Junichiro wakes up, he realizes that there is something different about The World and that together they are going to find out what is going on.