Kirito awakens in a vast, fantastical forest filled with towering trees. In his search for clues to
the truth of his surroundings, he encounters a young boy who seems to know him. He ought to be a
simple NPC, but the depth of his emotions seem no different than a human. As they search for the boy's
parents, Kirito finds a peculiar memory returning to him. A memory from his own childhood, of this boy
and a girl, too, with golden hair, and a name he should have never forgotten - Alice.
(Source: Yen Press)
Note: The first episode aired with a runtime of ~48 minutes as opposed to the standard 24 minute
long episode.
I've never liked sword art online, it doesn't have anything to draw me in. The only thing I liked about the franchise is the memes it spawned. I went into this installment with an open mind. It was worth the watch, I'm really excited for the next arc. Kirito was facing his biggest challenge yet, he's once again in a video game. The difference is the AI think just like real people, except they have no idea they are AI. They established their own land, rules and social norms. The big theme is the influence of a moral compass, even the antagonists were saying they aren't as bad as demons because they are just part of an hierarchy and system. Kirito became tied up into a personal and bigger than life vendetta. Now the reason why I wanted to watch was the music and plot for Alicization. I still play the first opening to this DAY. It captures the feeling of adventure and suspense, you have a goal and you are excited yet nervous to achieve it. Kirito wasn't just some OP character destined to save this word just because there happens to be an enemy. He got to experience a whole life in this virtual world all while on the verge of death or being a vegetable. That's all I ever wanted from this series, stakes that actually peak my interests. The researchers are making this world to prove a point, what's the difference between AI and a person? You can give a robot the capacity to learn and feel, but just how far would people go for power and emotions? I loved the fights, each character had a reason to fight and was affected by the laws of the land. Royalty believed they were untouchable gods and abused their privileges meanwhile everyone dealt with it. At first I didn't understand why no one tried to revolt or fight against the royal douches, which eventually boiled down to fighting the royalty is no different than fighting the system. Even within the royalty, there's class divisions and rankings.Everyone knew their place and was aware how much wiggle room they had. Despite all this several characters strives to be the change they seek regardless of the law and danger. For once it didn't feel like just about kirito, we also had an amazing supporting cast who have their own goals. After finishing this anime, the biggest takeway I got was the fun should be about the journey and moments we have reaching there, not just about a unrelatable, annoying MC. It wasn't the best thing I've ever watched narrative wise, but I looked forward to every episode.
I really wanted to like this. The first season holds a lot of nostalgia for me, as it was my very first anime. But with all the contrived plot devices, bland characters, tropey cop outs, and boring setpieces, the show fails to engage its audience in any meaningful way. Leaving a couple interesting ideas, new and old, by the wayside. Art-wise, the characters, particularly Kirito, have been redesigned. It looks fine, I like the old version a bit more (maybe that's nostalgia talking), but after an episode or two, it’s hard to even notice a difference. The scenes are really clean. While the animation isn’t necessarily improved, the character and background art is crisp af. There are plenty of times when you can pause the video and just soak a scene in. The environments are beautiful and full of vibrant colors. The color designer did a fantastic job. I particularly like the use of orange and yellow in sunlight places, or anywhere is the forest. The color design is by far the best in the series. Fights are better than SAO’s previous seasons. While Alicization tends to focus on big moments in fights rather than the actual fights themselves, at least they aren't flashes of light in dust clouds anymore. I’m always curious what a studio like Bones or Madhouse would do with this, but A-1 did a pretty good job. The transformers noises are pretty distracting. It's cool that they're trying to showcase huge moments, but it comes off a bit cheeky. The first OP is awesome. They got LiSa again, and just like with the first season, she nails it. The OP has lots of cool cuts too. The handshake at the end is always hilarious (in a good way) to watch. Thematically, the show is all over the place. It tries to discuss interesting concepts such as humans playing as gods, what separates humans from machines, and power hierarchy in a society. But instead of seriously discussing these topics, it shifts almost all of its focus to saving a girl who the audience has such a tiny sliver of emotional attachment to. Alicization introduces a new girl… once again, establishes a confusing childhood friend trope for 10 minutes, and expects the audience to care about saving her for 20 episodes. The fact that they continually introduce new girls and leave Asuna out of everything is strange. Why was there so much build up the first season? Asuna is just used as a reward at the end of the tunnel at this point. Alicization would work better if it were spun off into its own thing, like the GGO alternative anime, rather than constantly ditching it’s characters for new girls it can put on the cover. Instead of discussing the characters or themes. Alicization wants to focus on the backstory of it’s boring world. Kawahara, author of the SAO light novels, has gotten away with this style of writing for a while. SAO is a wish-fulfillment fantasy in a gamey world. Who wouldn't want to play SAO it if it were real? I would play the shit out of it, and I bet you would too. That’s why the world building worked. What the audience doesn't care about is a generic fantasy, with a million pointless backstories, that is not a game we can't project ourselves onto playing. There’s so much less tension built into the world, as opposed to SAO wherein a simple sword mechanic could be the difference between life and death. The way some of the thematic concepts are introduced showcases the incompetent directing of the anime. The rape scene is laughably over the top. It focuses far more on shock value than anything. It brings up interesting themes, but refuses to talk about them. Using rape as a contrived plot device for nothing more than shock value is downright insulting. When Valvrave the Liberator pulls off rape better than you, there is a serious problem. Eugeo is the worst part about Alicization. He is a nice boy who doesn't like conflict and loves helping his friends. What an unrealistic, unoriginal, and boring character. We’ve seen this a million times. We two year time skip over any piece of character development we would need to care about him. The ending of his arc is ridiculous and doesn't earn the emotional payoff it thinks it deserves. I didn’t even notice this at first until I read a different review on MAL, but he never even talks to Alice after episode 1. Alice is his single motivation in life, the driving force of everything he has spent the last two years preparing for, and he doesn’t even bother to say a word to this girl. This perfectly exemplifies how contrived and plot-devicey these characters are. It doesn’t really matter what the reason is, Kawahara just needs to get Kirito to the top of this tower to kill the bad guy. The Aincrad arc is the only interesting arc in the series (kinda bar Mother’s Rosario). It explored the blurry line between reality and VR, and actually accomplished what it set out to achieve. The ideas established in SAO’s two previous seasons are thrown away in favor of new half baked themes, which could blend quite well with Alicization’s if only given a chance. Reki Kawahara is his own worst enemy. There are some great moments in Alicization, but they are ruined by another story the author is trying to tell before it can engage its audience in any interesting way.
# Sword Art Online: Alicization 5/9/6/7/7 ___ Note: I'll use my MAL reviewing format until I tweak it for AL. [link Here ](https://myanimelist.net/blog.php?eid=804354)is how my _"review"_ system works. __W.I.P__ ___ __✦Story__ Funnly enough I really loved SAO and ALO. Hated GGO, loved ordinal scale. And now that I reached GGO alternative and Alicization I got rather mixed feelings. For the most part I enjoyed the storytelling in this Anime but for some reason really overreached and somewhat "forced" in comparison to SAO 1. The whole concept and mis-aligment of time and somewhat Kirito essentially being there for "long time" is just odd. Anime offers story'wise some emotional moments, but at the same time they feel oddly weightless. Also I found it rather odd that although the whole storytelling of what was happening in "real world" and the concept of "Alicization" world might been "interesting" per sey. Yet still somehow rather questionable and the usual "humans are cu-- ahems". World building was okay. I guess as whole it was "okay" but ironically rather "souless". Anyhow `5/10` ___ __✦Art & Sound__ Not much to say. Superb as always. Whilst Animation felt somewhat "odd" at times with this overly glowing and saturated Art.. it was great nevertheless. Fight scenes and spells were great. OST was superb as always. `9/10` ___ __✦Character__ For some reason once again "evil" characters and power hungry rapey characters. "Boss" character was also rather useless. I did love Alice and bunch of side-characters, whilst boy duo was for the most part rather obnoxious. Also I felt somehow that Kirito as "character" got somewhat a "downgrade" All things together.. good enough I guess. Was some progression, fair amount of characters. Just there was a lot of "uselessness" in characters. `6/10` ___ ✦__Enjoyment & Overall__ What can I say. It felt rather borderline "7". Enjoyed it a bit more than pink loli running with guns. That was was simply for a reason that this universe has swords and magic. Whilst I did get tired of Kirito and lot of story elements that I simply didn't care about, it was still enjoyable. Also it was semi-interesting to see activities on both side of worlds. `7/10` ___ __✦✦Final score✦✦:__ `7/10` ___
__Story__ The soft-reboot feel to Alicization breathes new life into the doldrums that SAO was stuck in ever since the death game ended in Aincrad. Even in GGO, where the whole plot was someone trying to recreate the tension of the first arc, it never came close. Alicization achieves this by using previously established plot lines and tying them all together neatly. Effective usage of callbacks and context are the keys to success in long-running series. Previous seasons of SAO felt like they were almost episodic from the rest, most egregiously the GGO arc. That whole plot line is only tangentially related to SAO, and could’ve easily been a side story a la GGO Alternative were it not for Kirito being in it. Alicization is not like GGO. Right off the bat we have things that began in Aincrad, ALfheim, and ironically enough GGO, returning to make an impact on Kirito & Co (trademark pending). This isn’t a renaissance for SAO — one solid season isn’t going to make up for one and a half bad ones — but it’s a start. Eugeo is a huge character for the series. Kirito’s needed a bromance-type relationship for a long time, it improves his character so much it’s a shame we’ve had to wait this long. And no, the wannabe samurai comedic relief guy from Aincrad who makes one or two cameos a season doesn’t count. They can finally stop adding more dead end “love interests” to Kirito’s harem baggage train and start piling them up on Eugeo. Meta-plot things aside, the actual story of Alicization is nothing special. Shady government group does ethically questionable things with cutting edge technology. Things shockingly go wrong. Of course, the details are a bit more nuanced than this, but not by much. What makes it decent is that it’s not coming from left field, the government has been involved with Kirito since they escaped Aincrad. The main antagonist is far more bearable than the incel rapist from ALfheim, though they fall below the O.G. villain Heathcliff and the tragic villain from Ordinal Scale. I don’t really rate the GGO villain(s) that much, honestly it felt like a side story forced into being part of the main narrative. But Sinon’s ass shots, I guess? The overt Alice in Wonderland references are… classic anime, and not in a good way. They take all the names and such from Western fiction, but that’s it. No weird setting, no freaky characters, nope just generic fantasy, which is about as un-Alice in Wonderland as you can get. It’s called _Wonderland_, not _MMO Town Hub_. C’mon guys, at least have some weird shit in the ominous tower. A massive missed opportunity for them to really make SAO unique again after a million other medieval-themed isekai have since come out. __Story SPOILERS__ ~!The mystery with the Integrity Knights and the Axiom Church is engaging. I can’t say the antagonist’s motivations are well done, she was born evil because one of the founding four members from Rath was immoral and the descendents of those raised by this person become selfish and evil? Going all in on Nature instead of Nurture, I see. She’s the classic narcissistic, jealous, personality that always makes for decent unsympathetic antagonists. Since it’s SAO, there’s never a question as to whether or not Kirito will ultimately prevail, so the interest has to come from the “How” he does it, not the “If.” And in that, Alicization is predictable. Kirito waltzes into danger and either beats up the baddie or convinces them that he’s not evil after they hit each other for a while. Rinse and repeat a couple of times and bang, he’s confronting the big bad. The pacing seems a bit off in the latter 1/4 of Alicization. Pretty BIG things are introduced, only to have them be destroyed, ignored, or eliminated almost immediately. Here's a list (from what I can remember): 1. There are creatures from the... Dark Lands? Evil Lands? Bad Place? I can't even remember whatever it is they call it, near the top of the Tower of Power (Trademark also pending). Oooh, what's going on here, has the Administrator made a deal with the bad scientists at Rath, or maybe the evil creatures? NOPE, just there to fill in half an episode's worth of dead time. Sure you couldn't have just used some automatons made by Administrator instead? Maybe this is explored more in War for the Underworld (Press X to Doubt). 2. Chudelkin turns into a GIANT FIRE GOLEM out of nowhere after Administrator tells him he can sleep with her one night (Jesus, what a sad little simp). Kirito, Eugeo, and Alice own him in 20 seconds flat - and Administrator kicks his body into the wall like trash. And really, that character was trash, what the hell was that totally out-of-theme character design? Was he supposed to be their Alice in Wonderland weirdo? Yikes, if so. 3. Cardinal shows up and promptly makes a deal where they'll trade her life in exchange for letting the others go (Why would you ever trust Administrator's word, first of all?). OK, sure, that sword golem thing is OP as fuck - or is it? - and they need to escape. EXCEPT THEY IMMEDIATELY FIGHT ANYWAY after she's dead. Guess the writer painted himself into a corner and needed her to die? 4. The spider shows up because it loves Kirito, turns into a big version of itself, then promptly dies almost spontaneously to the sword golem. Funniest moment of the anime, tbh. 5. Eugeo turns into a fucking sword and uses Alice's memory crystal like Iron Man's chest reactor. Awesome, cool imagery, like a Studio Trigger anime. You're going to have Kirito wield it to kill Administrator, right? Wait, what are you doing... stop. Eugeo-Alice-Sword owns the sword golem in seconds, presumably killing a whole bunch of people that were such a big ethical issue only... half an episode ago? Guess Eugeo sort of forgot. Then, they charge at Administrator and get destroyed as quickly as they were created. Did the writer just ad hoc invent being able to turn people into swords explicitly for this moment? Where the hell is the buildup to all this? There are probably a few more glaring issues I've missed, but wow is there a lot of completely out of the blue B.S. jam packed into these final episodes. Almost none of these things have any foreshadowing at all, it's ridiculous. Where other anime spend almost too much time contextualizing the powers and power-levels of enemies and characters, Alicization's approach is "Fuck you, deal with it." The ending is OK. Eugeo’s character assassination (much more on that later) is complete through his self-sacrifice. The Big Bad Administrator… dies? Maybe? The whole scene where Chudelkin jumps into the beam with her and they explode is a bit weird. Is she going to appear as some The Thing monster — a disgusting fusion of Chudelkin and Administrator — in War for the Underworld? Or is she dead? Either way it was very confusing, and I need to make clear, not at all clever, way to have it happen.!~ __Character__ __Eugeo__ As stated in the Story section, Eugeo is a much needed addition to the typical cast of 90% women in SAO, but damn if he doesn't have some serious character development and writing issues. __Eugeo SPOILERS__ ~!Is Eugeo stupid? The knights are being mind controlled and he’s still like, “Kirito, why do you want to save them... they tried to kill you?” Because they’re mind controlled you moron? He knows this already, and yet he still acts like they’re to blame. Is he going to kill Alice? No, of course he isn’t, because he knows she’s been mind controlled. But these other guys? Nah, kill them. He said he hates the knights and the church, not just the Pontifex, who’s controlling everyone as a mad goddess. Again, what? Did he “just forget” like Dany did with the Iron Fleet about the conversation he had with Kirito and the Cardinal System girl? Oh boy Eugeo says he hates the Integrity Knights because they’ve forgotten themselves and become puppets for the Pontifex. Bet he won’t say that to Alice’s face, just to Bercouli (Broccoli). And then literally seconds after he says that he gets captured and turned into a puppet himself, marvelous. This is pretty egregious artificial anger for Eugeo’s character, it seems pretty out of place for him to be so angry when the only other time he’s lost it was when his and Kirito’s Pages were about to be raped by the nobles. I think it might just be to make Kirito seem like a level headed superhero who talks Eugeo down. This character is a complete mess. Why did they make him so emotionally unstable all of a sudden? They set him up to be the more serious, grounded, one while Kirito’s the more ad hoc, adaptable, one. Yes, he sees his Page getting raped, and the system he lives by allowing it to happen, even calling it just, but why then does he hate those that are also being used by said system? Shouldn’t he be the sympathetic one towards the Integrity Knights, more so than Kirito? What makes it worse is that, while he’ll say he hates Integrity Knights for what they are, he’ll have no cognitive dissonance with Alice being one. He’ll love her without question. There could’ve been a nuanced character arc here, where he struggles with reconciling his feelings for Alice the village girl with Alice the Integrity Knight, but that never happens.!~ __Asuna__ Once again this season does what SAO’s done for the past… every cour since the first one ended except for Mother’s Rosario. Asuna’s character comes down to “remember when I was a badass warrior? Yeah me too. Now watch as I do my best Cersei in GoT Season 7 & 8 impression and sit there spouting exposition.” God damn I hate what they’ve done to this character. It’s bad enough that all the side characters from SAO are basically worthless cameos now, but the one semi-interesting supporting/side character in the show is a full on angry housewife. She’s essentially Bulma from Dragonball, except Bulma never had her character ruined. __Asuna SPOILERS__ ~!Why oh why didn’t they write her immediately jumping into the world to save Kirito? So she could have conversations with the scientists about meaningless techno-babble? I was half-expecting them to start talking about Midichlorians. C’mon guys, you’re writing an action/adventure shounen, not The Martian, there’s no need for all this pseudo-scientific detail in monologues. The one conversation that Kirito has with Asuna and Sinon at the bar should’ve been enough! And before anyone says it, yes I'm aware that she enters the story more in War for the Underworld, but this isn't a review for that, is it? !~ __Kirito__ I actually sort of like Kirito in Alicization. Whereas in previous seasons he was so bland it was like eating a slice of plain white bread, now he at least has some underlying motivations that extend to more than “save the princess.” This is a positive continuation from the Ordinal Scale movie where he also showed much more nuance than Aincrad/ALfheim/GGO era Kirito. Don’t get me wrong, he still isn’t some incredibly layered character, he’s just been upgraded from “Blank Slate Self-Insert” to “Semi-Autonomous Human Drone with Added Humor Function.” __Kirito SPOILERS__ ~! His constant banter with Eugeo and Integrity Knight Alice, as well as the camaraderie and genuine respect towards [Sortiliena Serlut](https://anilist.co/character/131082/Sortiliena-Serlut) are highlights for him. It does have some swings and misses on the emotional beats, like that spider who the Cardinal had spying on him for 2 years or whatever. I couldn't help but burst out laughing when it showed up, turned into a giant version of itself, and died within 30 seconds. Serious Deus Ex Machina there.!~ __Animation__ Some of the fight scenes look bad, like the perspective is totally out of whack. Specifically the first real fight scene with Alice where Kirito and Eugeo are charging across the field towards her. Holy holy don’t pay too much attention to the perspective, it’s like the editor decided to go on vacation that week. There are several other times where similar issues crop up, it’s a bit strange. The scenes where things are working perspectively are top notch, though. __Sound__ Alicization has a nice compliment of music to go with its action scenes. The openings for both cours are good. No glaring issues. __Enjoyment__ SAO has always been a bit of a guilty pleasure - one that I love to tear into - and though it is a genuinely bad show for a number of reasons, I still find myself coming back to it whenever there's a new season.
In recent memory, there has been no series that people have quite loved to hate as _Sword Art Online_. And for good reason – although the premise is nothing short of stellar, and the settings and battles are vividly brought to life by a sizable animation budget and the Midas touch of Yuki Kajiura, my favorite anime soundtrack composer, the series’ merits just about end there. The cast consists of Kirito, the quintessential overpowered Gary Stu, and a gang of fellow characters that suffer from some of the poorest dialogue writing in any anime I’ve watched. As for character development and story pacing… the less said about Kirito’s power creep in season 1, the better. Season 2 was a considerably more enjoyable venture, but by then the damage was already done – the brand of _Sword Art Online_ became synonymous with style over substance, and with how to turn an exciting and original idea into a formulaic, cookie-cutter harem fantasy. Although I’m personally a decently big fan of the series as a whole, its many flaws notwithstanding, I still went into season 3 with something of a mixture of anticipation and trepidation, not just because of its sheer length (though I won’t be discussing the War of Underworld arc, which is a drastic downgrade compared to the first part of the season), but because of the admittedly fascinating prospect of having to watch Kirito eke out a living on his lonesome, without his fan girls to accompany him for the first time in God knows how long. I had no idea how the anime would handle character development if there wasn’t much to develop in the first place. It turns out there was little to worry about. _Sword Art Online: Alicization_ is, in my view, the redemption arc that such a series of unfortunate repute needed. It feels as if season 1 and 2 were merely the entrees, little more than ways for the author or production studio to flesh out how best to portray a story of this magnitude, and through trial and error they finally arrived at the optimal balance between grace and grit, resulting in 24 episodes (again, not discussing the War of Underworld arc here) of irrepressible, hot-on-your-heels entertainment. A real sight for sore eyes for people who, like me, enjoyed the series more for what it could be, and not for what it currently was. __Premise (5/5):__ Our tale begins in a magical realm where three friends are torn apart by the machinations of the uncaring world around them. Of course, this being _Sword Art Online_, the magic is nothing more than a virtually-generated veneer, though the significance behind these characters is expounded in the real world, where the typically stubborn and devoted Asuna pursues the breadcrumb trail left by her lover’s disappearance to quite literally the ends of the earth, culminating in a race against time in both the real and virtual planes. That’s not to say that the scenes rooted in reality are the most interesting part of the series – far from it, actually. The world built to house the eponymous Alice and her faithful companions is as colorful and imaginative in its scope as any high fantasy construction you might find in any other series. From the evolution of the skills used by characters within the Underworld, the virtual realm the characters inhabit; to the infrastructure of the setting itself and the intertwining of technological elements from the world we know with more preternatural, other-worldly facets; to the infraction-prevention system that embeds itself in the right eyeball of all AI entities in order to preclude mutiny against the Administrator, the sovereign of Centralia – _Alicization_ stretches our ideas and preconceived notions of what a virtual game might look like, and what purposes its complex systems could ultimately serve. After all, that’s what _Sword Art Online_ has always been about: not specifically the design of the game itself, but the real-life repercussions that the misuse of such a powerful instrument of corporeal and mental control might have on people, and on society as a whole. This point is enunciated as clearly as possible throughout _Alicization_, something that the previous seasons may have failed to do, despite their constant attempts to shoehorn real-life drama into the virtual world. ~~~img600(https://i.imgur.com/ZFaTA2i.jpg)~~~ ~~~_The beginning of the end._~~~ __Characters (3/5):__ You know a season of _Sword Art Online_ is good when it somehow manages to make Kirito a likable character. Gone is the monotonous, indomitable facade of the Black Swordsman from the previous seasons – here, he is as vulnerable and subject to the whims of the chaotic environment around him as anyone else, even if he is the only real human living in the Underworld. Kirito, having no memory of his previous adventures, must rely solely on his wits and his strength of will in order to pursue what seems like an impossible goal at best: to bring the brainwashed and subservient Alice back to her senses, and to return the memories that rightfully belonged to her. Yet the greatest obstacle to this noble aim ends up being the friendship he strikes with this new, unfamiliar iteration of Alice, who is not as cold-hearted and incorrigible of a personality as he originally envisaged. This dilemma lies at the heart of the struggle confronting all the Integrity Knights, a group of amnesiac soldiers – of whom Alice is now an integral member – who retain their humanity in the face of a corrupt, calculating, and psychopathic ruler. A thought should also be spared for Eugeo, the initially bumbling yet nevertheless honorable sidekick who, like Kirito, summons determination in the face of unfavorable odds for the sake of protecting the ones he loves, even when he himself, in all his fallibility, becomes prey to the Administrator’s seductive clutches out of his own misguided jealousy. All in all, the writing of the three main characters is nothing short of spectacular, and the level of depth to which their weaknesses are explored and brought to light is something I would not have expected given _Sword Art Online_‘s track record. Some of the other characters are rather one-dimensional and unpleasant, especially the Administrator and her right-hand-clown, Chudelkin, but the Integrity Knights are generally well-portrayed and satisfyingly multi-faceted, especially in their coming to terms with the evil that is being perpetrated under their noses, and ultimately their varied reactions to losing their respective battles with Kirito and Eugeo are a significant step-up compared to the snivelly and detestable opponents from preceding seasons. The characters inhabiting the real world, however, are not elevated to the same level of complexity. The cast of armed invaders of the Ocean Turtle, in particular, are depicted as bland and uninspired instigators of evil who serve no purpose other than to be as villainous and easily-hated as possible – a common theme with antagonists throughout all the seasons of _Sword Art Online_. I would often find myself dreading more and more the moments in which I was ripped out of the Underworld and into the real-life crossfire between faceless protagonists and faceless antagonists, the latter of whom were notable only for their horrible English and their inability to convey any semblance of unique personality beyond cringey jibes and angsty expressions of childish frustration. The motivations of the main antagonist, Gabriel Miller, to obtain the Soul Translator technology for himself feel forced at best, and downright silly at worst. In the end, any emotional gains made by the strength of the storytelling in the virtual world were almost inevitably nullified by the mind-numbing and deadpan delivery of the situation outside the Underworld, no matter how infrequent such scenes were. The story as a whole thus suffered considerably as a result. ~~~img600(https://i.imgur.com/KW4Wr0x.jpg)~~~ ~~~_A triumvirate that carries the series on their shoulders._~~~ __Audiovisuals (5/5):__ It’s not _Sword Art Online_ unless you have meticulously-animated battle scenes and a repertoire of relentless rock-orchestral fusion soundtracks by Yuki Kajiura driving the action on. The same musical themes from previous seasons are repeated here, albeit with slightly different twists and tweaks, and there’s nothing that lifts the heart more than hearing that familiar ringing violin melody rise above the sight of clashing steel and swirls of unbridled fury and fire. Although _Alicization_ continued to do what _Sword Art Online_ does best, it also showed considerably more enterprise in creating more diverse character and background designs – the outfits of each Integrity Knight reflected their personalities to a tee, meaning that each character essentially looked the way they spoke and spoke the way they looked, and the voice-acting consistently carried the tension that each scene evoked. The background art was typically well-drawn and of a high standard, though admittedly not much time was spent looking at it unless it was, for example, a panoramic shot of Rulid Village or some other important location. All in all, there can be little complaints about these particular aspects of any season of _Sword Art Online_. ~~~img600(https://i.imgur.com/qRIkEgS.jpg)~~~ ~~~_Spectacular detail is par for the course in Sword Art Online._~~~ __Execution (3/5):__ As mentioned previously, the regular switches between real and virtual can be jarring, especially if your attention is being directed towards Kirito and Eugeo’s dangerous march up the Tower in their quest for the missing piece to their friendship’s jigsaw. There is no worse feeling than having to force yourself to remember what was going on in the real world simply because the virtual scenes were so engaging, so fascinating, that any deviation from them was tantamount to an uncomfortable gap in the timeline of the story’s progression. Of course, the real world scenes are significant in their own way, mainly because they describe the true intentions behind Rath Company’s development of Alice and the Underworld, but it’s difficult to see them as any more than irritating breaks from the “main” storyline. It wouldn’t be fair to say that _Alicization_ trips over its own ambition in this regard, but even now it’s difficult to try and recall the explanations provided by Kikuoka about “souls”, NerveGears, and whatever other extra tidbits were deemed necessary towards understanding the full gravity of the revelations brought about by the interactions of each individual AI with one another. Some people may prefer the black box approach of previous _Sword Art Online_ seasons, where the NerveGear or AmuSphere were simply treated as mystical artifacts whose inner workings were never to be tampered with or explored – I certainly thought that was a more appropriate way of representing the technology, though I admit that reading about the advancements made in the Ocean Turtle’s secluded environs was initially quite interesting, before the whole thing started to spiral a little out of control. Nevertheless, on the balance of things, though _Alicization_ isn’t perfect by any stretch, it’s certainly a credible and solid manifestation of the raw, untapped potential supplied by the first two seasons. Alice and Eugeo are a breath of fresh air compared to the relative staleness of the rest of the static and immutable cast, and the Underworld is a realm that I would very much like to return to. That is, of course, if the War of Underworld arc gets any better. The arc itself was bad enough, reverting to type in terms of its lack of tension and artificial foisting of high stakes and unpleasant expedients (especially with the convenient arrival of a cavalry of several thousand players in the midst of battle) in order to move the story along – the addition of the original harem to the story might just about be the nail in the coffin. But we shall see. For now, I only have fond memories of this season, and long may that continue. ~~~__Overall rating: 4/5__~~~
SAO was one of my starting animes. I still to this day could vividly remember the days when I stayed up all night binging a whole season in one night. As I watched more and more anime, the way I consumed and viewed them changed. I grew more critical, and my opinions on shows I watched changed, but SAO holds a special place. Despite how "bad" it is, it is in my opinion the goto power fantasy show. The writing may be lacklustre, but as long as you keep ur brain shut, it is the highest quality trash you can find in anime. When this season aired it promised to be different, it promised to be better to fix the flaws of its former self. After seeing the first few, I was convinced, this was going to be a better SAO, but ultimately it falls flat on its face. This season starts with "soft rebooting" the SAO story, by trapping Kirito into this world that he was testing in. People praised this decision and I do agree with a soft reboot, but what baffles me is the fact that he keeps his memories IRL and forgets about his testing memories. This is such a missed opportunity if they had done the precise opposite, the story could have been much more engaging, going with a storyline of something like this: Kirito uses the fluclight machine as treatment He logs in sometime after Alice's kidnapping (1-5 years after) He and Eugeo make a promise to save Alice together. They train together while trying to finish the thick tree, (flashes of his IRL memory, including details of what the administrator is planning. The Plan not shown to the viewer beforehand so it is more engaging. Plus some SAO training montage so he gets mad skills, it also flushes out the OG SAO story.) Finish tree and goto capital. The school part mostly stays the same, but make the discrimination against lesser nobles more prevalent, things like different uniforms, different treatment, since Kirito and Eugeo are both the ONLY non-nobles, they get bullied hard. (They didn't show nearly enough of what it is actually like being a student, the whole time it was just Kirito being Kirito. The Misfit of Demon King Academy is partially what I am aiming for.) Kirito and Eugeo start the tower. (somewhere along the way Kirito figures out the administrator's plan through the pieces of his memory he has regained) They save Alice, tries to kill the administrator, but ultimately Eugeo dies, and Kirito for the first time losses a fight leaving him in the state he is now. The administrator is badly injured and has to flee to the outer worlds as she was secretly the leader of the outer world, but only kept the humans alive so the devs don't restart the sim (has been restarted before) and eventually find a way out and rule the living world. Alice drags Kirito back to her hometown, and start of next season. There are many missed opportunities like this but, overall the story was engaging enough, and it does in SAO fashion provide a lot of power fantasy. The only issue I had was the last fight, it took so long as if there was tension like OMG Kirito actually won?! If they didn't spend so many episodes animating a naked woman fighting Jesus himself and flushed the story out, it would've been much better. In the end, this was a fine season, people flame SAO for having bad writing, but at least it is very enjoyable (with your brain off) and this season stayed true the good old SAO formula, while providing us with an acctully new and engaging story. what didn't though is the War of the underworld seasons, it deserves a comprehensive review after a rewatch (if I ever muster the will to) of what the hell happened to that cluster fk.
I scrolled through some of the reviews on this and I say 10s, plural, this show is not very good. As you can see from, my score I didn't love this season, my emotions ranged from excitement (surprisingly), to boredom, to hate. Mainly boredom though. The show starts off ambiguously with us straight in the game world, the art and animation look great, the fantasy ambient music is playing in the back. It makes the first initial seconds feel really atmospheric. Your introduced to the first two main character as kids, within the first 3 minutes they come off as really endearing and loveable. I really can't give enough praise for the first episode or at least it's first half. The first episode is 40 mins long with the first part taking place in game and the second outside. If you've ever played Assassins Creed, you'll get a similar feeling when watching this. I love the in game world. I hate everything outside. The outside world doesn't play as significant a part as the initial episodes might lead you think. The main problem with them is it's just boring there's no real progression of the story everything outside of the in game world serves as a prelude to the events in game or as exposition neither serve to further the plot. Episode 5 and 6 are especially guilty of this. What are they? Two episodes of straight exposition, it so boring, I don't know who thought it was a good idea to do this. It took me 5 sittings to watch these two episodes, two of which I fell asleep in. That tbh is the main problem with this it sort of disguises itself with the high production quality of its earlier episode but is mediocre. Nothing really happens past episode 12, Kirito and Eugeo enter a tower where they fight for 5 mins and listen to exposition for the rest. By far what cemented this show as mediocre in my mind though was the ending, ignoring the garbage cliffhanger and setup for a a sequel, the whole situation that leads up to that makes no sense. The antagonist has no meaningful characterisation whatsoever, she's evil because she wants power or somehing like that. The whole final battle before the final battle and the final battle itself make no sense. It's really badly choreographed, it's just the same fight scene you see in every other action anime with a respectable budget. Things just sort of happen and if your looking, not watching or are maybe younger in age this might appease you but if that does not apply to you then like me you might just be like, wtf. You would be right as well because none of this is explained, it just happens. There's so much more that's wrong, Kiritos lack of characterization, the lack of interesting characters with this but I'm tired of typing. This show went from being really exciting for what I'd hoped to be a good season of a show that I was fond of in my childhood but just turned out to be boring. Really boring.