One year after the SAO incident, Kirito is approached by Seijiro Kikuoka from Japan's Ministry of
Internal Affairs and Communications Department "VR Division" with a rather peculiar request.
That was an investigation on the "Death Gun" incident that occurred in the gun and steel filled VRMMO
called Gun Gale Online (GGO). "Players who are shot by a mysterious avatar with a jet black gun lose
their lives even in the real world..." Failing to turn down Kikuoka's bizarre request, Kirito logs in
to GGO even though he is not completely convinced that the virtual world could physically affect the
real world.
Kirito wanders in an unfamiliar world in order to gain any clues about the "Death Gun." Then, a female
sniper named Sinon who owns a gigantic "Hecate II" rifle extends Kirito a helping hand. With Sinon's
help, Kirito decides to enter the "Bullet of Bullets," a large tournament to choose the most powerful
gunner within the realm of GGO, in hopes to become the target of the "Death Gun" and make direct
contact with the mysterious avatar.
(Source: Crunchyroll)
Warning this review may contain spoilers. First impressions, so let's get back into my favorite train wreck anime And see what's that hook this time. What mystery and guns hmm this sounds interesting. Also quick side note this review was made with the help of a few ideas that a Skype friend named zeph brought up. Story, 4/10 Side note I am going to brake the story parts into arcs so i am going to talk about the story in detail arc by arc. first arc which I call the (The death gun menace) So one year after the kirito Escaped and freed the people from the death game of Aincrad and the defeat of darth rape fairy. Kirito and his girlfriend Asuna Decide in Taking some much needed down time after There PTSD inducing adventure. But while that is happening a new evil is starting to take root that threatens the balance of his Harem and video gaming life. So Kirito is then called into action By the high gaming council. Who order for him To investigate a string Of mysterious deaths On a new game Knowing as gun gale online. That seems to be Cause by a mysterious Player named death gun Who has the power to kill you in real life. So while investigating the incidents He comes across a lone sniper named simon Who decides to help him On His quest to bring down death gun or darth gun. And solve the mystery behind these deaths. So the first arc pretty much try's to play out like some sort of video game murder mystery with psychological elements with kirito getting the temptation to join the dark side with the whole Laughing Coffin incident which gets quickly rec-con and Simon back story where she killed a bank robber which was played in probably the most hammy way possible. One thing Which was kind of interesting in some way Was the whole mystery of is it possible to kill some one in a game without a real gun and is better writing wise because there was no Random time skips. And it was this arc that had the most going for it. In turn of something of interest. Like with kirito being in a game where they use a different game mechanic with guns and not just fantasy swords and magic . Which would have lead him to learn a new style of fighting or exploreing a new game mechanic, wouldn't it be more interesting to see kirito as a rookie learning how to use guns. Then why the fuck is he using A lightsaber in a game thats all about gun fights. I thought this game was called gun gale online, And the mystery element of the show pretty much solved it's self because kirito has actually meet death gun before and the only reason that he didn't solved the mystery quicker is that he forgot death game actual name. So after defeating death gun. simon is then welcomed into kirito harem club and the arc ends. Second arc ( attack of the really bad filler) So a few months after the events of Gun gale online Kirito finds out the location of a powerful Sword, He then gatherers a small team in order to get Back a powerful sword known as Excalibur. After batting powerful monsters they then retrieve the Excalibur. And I am thinking to myself why those this arc exist exactly. I mean why dose kirito need Excalibur. He doesn't need to get any stronger he will win any way. It doesn't Matter what sword he using. So what's the point exactly of This arc. Third arc (Revenge of the sick-th) So while the winter break is going down Very one is chilling together in game and doing home work Together because way the fuck not. And while that going down Asuna Is having problems with her home life With her "not one dimensional" rich mother Who doesn't want her to marry into poor aka kirito even though he is smart and saved your child from the gay fairy rapist Because that's not good Enough. (free will and love what the fuck is That if worse comes to Worse we could always Marry her to someone while She in a coma like we did with that First guy that seemed to work) And is basically forcing Asuna To meet all these quote on quote Of course not rapists. So while this shit is going down Asuna comes across a powerful player Who is that leader of a group of Players that want To be the first To clear a boss room. So I am like thinking to Myself. Well this is quite nice. It better the evil Mother crap We getting. Of course the show then Decided to take a turn for the Worse. So after they finish the boss. And the group sadly brakes up. We find out that the leader of the Group Has AIDS and is close to Death and that the rest of her group Are also in the similar boat. So basically this entire arc is this show Poor excuse to try and milk emotions Out of you. Now I know that some found this pretty Sad and heart braking. But I personally couldn't find a reason to care About any of these characters. And before you people in the comments say oh your so Heartless biogundam why don't you care. well let me just say that for one Have been in a similar situation That these characters have been in. And if they presented it properly then Maybe I could have cared a little About what was happening. But what really bothers me about how They did it. Is that is seems like that this was just Added in because they couldn't think up any more interesting storylines At the time and so they just wrote it up this mallow Dramatic bullshit And hoped that most people would bye into it. So after the AIDS girl dies things go back to normal And that Asuna mother is now fine with her Dating kirito. Characters, 4/10 So the mian character kirito Is pretty generic he is basically Jesus-kun. But one thing which they tried With his character which was kind of interesting Was for him to Get PTSD which he should have got last season. But never mind he got in now. And what do they do with it. Nothing basically what happened is that he gets over his PTSD in about one episode. And then he back to kicking ass again. Wait what shouldn't it take more than one episode to Get over PTSD. Well I am sorry but this is sword art online Where one thing is bought up to be ended by the next episode. The side characters are pretty basic. Yet again. With the old cast coming back And the only ones who seems to stand out was The new characters Simon and the ADIS girl. That where I wouldn't say better but I would say More interesting. And they could have been even more interesting If they where presented properly. And the quote on quote bad guy death gun was probably The most dispontment I have felt in my life when it comes to anime. Because they build him up as some sort of bad ass and then it turns out he is a rapist. Art, 7/10 Animation looks pretty nice. The animation has a lot of polish it. Now there are a few inconsistencies Here and there. There also some very good use of color scheme. The art style is generic it's pretty much standard light novel fare. The character designs are also pretty generic. I think that only thing that stood out was probably the Designs because it was like a mix of post apocalyptic mixed with Japanese RPGs Sound, 7/10 The first op song and ending song where quite good and nice to Listen to at least for me. I thought the second op and ending wasn't as good as the first op and ending It just that the second op and ending didn't really click with me personally. But I do think it worth a listen. The ost was quite nice as well to listen to as well. Enjoyment, 6/10 So what I enjoyed about this show is pretty much what I liked about it in season one So basically I enjoy the fight scenes even though it would have been nice to see more gun action instead of kirito using a lightsaber, but in retrospect it was pretty cool to watch Him flip around and do cool shit. I also enjoyed the ost. So pretty much What I enjoyed about this show are all for superficial reasons. Overall, 4/10 So if your looking for an anime and you just want entertainment them sword art online is for you. It is nothing more nothing less. But if your looking for more than just entertainment then probably look for something else then.
Sword Art Online is a controversial anime, and while it is heavily flawed (especially the Alfeim arc), it has certain appeal and has plenty of entertainment value, as long as expectations are managed. Unfortunately, none of the positives from the first season of Sword Art Online transfer to the second season. Where the first season of Sword Art Online failed, the second season manages to exacerbate the failures, and where the first season succeeded, the second season does not succeed. For the sake of brevity and simplicity, the season can be divided into three arcs, all of which are completely and utterly unrelated except for their title (more on that later); Death Gun, Excalibur, and Mother's Rosario. Death Gun as an arc is "okay" for those that enjoyed the first season, but the rest of the show lacks anything positive, entertaining, or interesting, unless the watcher is a very, very dedicated fan. The Death Gun arc is by a unspeakably large margin the best part of the season, with a sense of urgency, danger and simple mystery that goes well with the first season. To put the arc into simple terms, a VRMMO game called Gun Gale Online has a problem, people are dying by a player's hand in the game. In real life. But no worries, this arc is ended with a grand total of __ three__ player deaths with an unsatisfying and predictable ending with Kirito basically forgetting the events two episodes later. Be that as it may, seeing Kirito be Kirito again is fun, even if it is quite bland, and we see plenty of character development for him as a person post the events of season one and the psychological issues that come with what happened. Sinon's character is also decent if cookie cutter, with a conflict and a goal of resolution. Does that resolution come? Partially, and she as a character is almost entirely forgotten the minute the arc ends. The Excalibur arc has no place outside of a 2 OVA side story series. It can be summed up as such: A part of Alfeim has a nice shiny sword, here's some lore about the game, and here's some lazy fight scenes. Some nice feel-good scenes with Kirito, Asuna and Yui to transition into mother's rosario. Done. The entirety of the arc is insultingly simple and boring. Some nice art of the Alfeim landscape isn't enough to tame the boredom that is produced by any watcher other than the most die-hard fans of Sword Art Online as a franchise. Mother's Rosario is based around Asuna (or a character that looks like Asuna with the same name, that is) making a friend followed by a needlessly depressing ending to the season. Add in some frustrating and angering exposition with Asuna's mother and the other inconsequential characters doing nothing on the sidelines. Each arc could potentially be completed in two episodes, maybe three, each. Instead, we are greeted with 24 episodes of almost entirely pointless story telling that contains shells of Sword Art Online characters. Elaborating on the point about the arcs being unrelated, that goes for the season and season one as well. For almost the entire season, it's almost like Kirito and Asuna don't even know each other, saying nothing about them supposedly being in love. Every other character is along for the ride of whatever poorly written short story has been shoved into the mouth of the viewer. The characters featured in Sword Art Online II are nothing more than drawings with the same names and appearances of the characters from season one. Any of the character and depth they had before is almost entirely missing spare for Kirito in the Death Gun arc. This dry, flavorless cake is topped by a cherry of recycled music, perfectly average art, and a obvious and painful lack of love, effort, and soul put into the production of the anime. Sword Art Online II is an unfortunate victim to almost every single thing that can be done wrong in an anime, and short of helplessly obsessed fans of the first season, provides very little entertainment value past the lackluster at best first arc, because everything that follows is boring to the point of being inflammatory and frustrating. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Covering the dub: The dub is just as bad as it was in the first season, with the same extreme over enthusiasm as the first season. Somehow though this season manages to be worse, especially accounting for the lack of emotion in the characters as a whole. Best watched subbed.
*spoilers for a show you’ve likely seen by now* Prologue There are a plethora reasons to lament the current reputation of Sword Art Online. For fans, it's because they often have to be on their back foot when talking about the series. Even if they aren't ridiculed by casual and veteran snobs who claim that to be a fan of SAO is to have shit taste, they're likely put in a defensive position by default. SAO's perceived flaws are as well-documented as Sonic 06, after all. For others, the reputation keeps the conversation alive years after many wish for it to end. Even when the Ordinal Scale film aired in 2017, people were lamenting the ubiquity of the franchise and so they couldn't shut up about its flaws just as fans couldn't shut up about defending it. For me, it's because I'm left thinking SAO II is an improvement when its reception is somehow the worst of the entire series barring a fucking recap film! The reception of SAO II has always been puzzling to me. Despite not being very good --this is SAO we're referring to-- it's a far cry from the dumpster fire that was the first season. None of its arcs are as widely despised as the latter half of S1, otherwise known as the infamous Alphein arc. In fact, the Mother's Rosario arc which makes up the last 7 episodes of this show is widely considered to be one of if not the best arc of the series. Then I remember: despite the improvements it made, not only is it still SAO at the end of the day with a terrible first arc, but it doesn't contain a lot of what made people invested in this series in the first place. There's a reason some still claim the franchise peaked in the Aincrad arc and that it should have ended there. The idea of being trapped in an expansive death game MMORPG is as fascinating as it is ripe with opportunities for exploration and worldbuilding. You'd get to see how it takes a toll on countless individuals' psyches. You could witness people come to terms with this new reality and make their own societies to indulge in the escapism the game promised. The idea of watching someone overcome their own reclusive tendencies as they open up to other people despite watching some of whom they care about die in front of them is as if not more compelling than watching people find love in this digital hellscape. That can't carry over to other arcs on principle, so the magic that catapulted the series to the mainstream can't be recaptured by a continuation. The time to really explore the immediate fallout of being trapped and exploring the kinds of IRL drama that led to people fleeing to such a world has long since passed. Even if SAO II had significantly better writing than its predecessor, it would need to have a brand new main draw for the series. That's a much harder sell when the first season exhausted and wasted those main points of interest in the first place. That doesn't mean this show didn't try, lord help me, it tried. Unfortunately, it may have done so in perhaps the worst way imaginable. Part 1: The Gun Gale Online arc is about as bad as Aincrad Around ⅓ of the way into the Gun Gale Online arc, Kirito is visited by a Laughing Coffin member. He then recalls an event in which he, Asuna, Klein, and a bunch of guilds got together to get ambushed by Laughing Coffin, resulting in a battle that killed several of the dark guild’s members and arrested the survivors. While Kirito has killed a Laughing Coffin member before in self defense, this battle results in him taking down 2 more. He has never thought about any of them until now, and that’s for one reason: this entire flashback was never in SAO 1. This event is an instance of SAO II performing retroactive storytelling just so we would be given a “compelling” reason for Kirito to feel even a modicum of the trauma that the Alphein arc in S1 should have explored. It’s also done so that Kirito could expound onto Sinon, the deuteragonist of this arc, thematic relatability. I don’t have to tell you why this unnatural form of storytelling is a bad idea, right? We should all be able to look at this and go “ok but why didn’t Reki think of this before and why should we care now?”, right? We’ve long since passed the point where one should even care about exploring the direct effects escaping from Aincrad would have on any of the characters given that season 1 didn’t even try to do so. Kirito himself is still an odd character. He is almost certainly overpowered with how he immediately accomplishes feats no GGO player has done before. However, it feels like they’re trying to scale it back more and more as the arc progresses as the tactics he uses start endangering him or otherwise not working once he fights more opponents. In fact, the only reason he wins the final fight in the arc is because he figures out exactly who Death Gun was back in SAO when he refused to let the man tell Kirito who he was. Additionally, Kirito’s smarmier, more teasing, and more beleaguered sides have all been expanded on in this arc. As a result, he’s certainly more entertaining to watch than he was before. However, the handling of his trauma is incredibly clunky for aforementioned reasons. As such, his attempts at relating to Sinon and her struggles are rather dodgy. Speaking of Sinon, she starts off as one of the few bright spots in the arc. While she initially comes off as stoic, battle-hungry badass and hardass, we begin learning of her traumas and why she wants to become stronger through exposure therapy to a game she finds herself getting good at. While the moment of her shooting and killing a drugged-up armed robber was laughably overplayed, the idea still gives us a reason to care about her. The most interesting scene in the entire arc is when she’s talking with her friend, Kyouji, who is in love with her. In it, she responds to his query of becoming lovers with how she wants to work on her emotional and psychological baggage before diving into a relationship, and that she hopes he’ll wait for her until then. It’s a genuinely mature and interesting decision that one wouldn’t expect SAO of all franchises to write. Unfortunately, this is not the story of how Sinon is the one good character in SAO. While the arc of her being traumatized and effectively utilizing exposure therapy at the suggestion of a friend sounds neat, the devil is in the details. This is Sword Art Online, after all. Sinon’s major problem is the terror that incident caused, as she remembers the blood spilled by the crazy guy who effectively haunts her to this day. As a result, she fears guns, and I assume she doesn’t fear blood because it’s not written to be relevant to the arc in any way. Unfortunately, they start adding the idea that she was constantly being bullied by being called a murderer. You’d think that being bullied and effectively guilted over your traumatic experience would create even more psychological problems like depression or suicidal tendencies, or at least cause her to feel awful for saving people’s lives by taking down the burglar. However, that doesn’t come about. If it did, then what Kirito does at the end of the arc would make perfect sense. Throughout the arc, Kirito finds himself relating to her struggles over killing someone to save others as his past comes to haunt him. Setting aside the horrid catalyst for this, it’s a neat idea in theory. She offers him reassurance, he does the same for her later on. We’ll cycle back to how they handle that, but it all culminates in him and his friends tracking down the post office lady she saved that day so she and the daughter she was able to have due to surviving, could thank her. Midway through the arc, Kirito was reassured that his actions saved the lives that were about to be taken, so he uses this opportunity to give that lesson to Sinon. If Sinon was wrapped up with any kind of guilt instead of solely being ruled by fear and trauma, this would have been the logical next step once Sinon was out in the real world and she dealt with some random bullies that kept triggering her PTSD. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case, so it comes off as a bit emotionally manipulative considering she had already taken her first steps to compat her PTSD in the real world, and she was seemingly never looked at by her family and friends outside of a certain rapey guy we’ll get to, as some kind of hero or brave kid for stopping an armed robbery. By the 2nd half, all of Sinon’s agency is effectively stripped from her as she finds herself paralyzed by her traumas as Kirito rescues her and gives her a shoulder to cry on for multiple episodes while generally coming off as better put together in the situation. While he still harbors his PTSD over what happened, he does all of the counseling and reassuring to Sinon as he’s the big strong man who has to save the day while she’s the less strong woman who has to be helped. Considering that she initially found him somewhat of a sexist asswipe, you’d think the show would have more self-awareness regarding the kinds of situations its characters are put in, and what the implications of those scenarios might be. The 2nd half of the arc is dragged on and on by these kinds of scenes as Sinon’s character and agency are further diminished amidst the constant repetitive monologues of her wanting to become stronger because of her PTSD. Sure, Kirito was petrified in the first half and got a pep talk by someone else, but it would have been better if their traumas affected them simultaneously and we got to see them both try to push through it and get each other to snap out of it together, creating an ebb and flow of desperation. Alas, Kirito lets her talk first about her trauma before opening up about his, long after she already figured out what was going on. Actually, it’s odd that a character who quickly opened up to anyone and everyone in the first season is so hesitant to reveal why he’s here and what’s troubling him to someone when it would benefit the two of them to learn about each other and why Kirito is investigating the Death Gun situation sooner rather than later. There are a bunch of directions I can go in, meaning we’ll need to circle back to this a few times, so for now let’s head in the direction of Death Gun making no sense on any level. In the beginning, we are treated to one vengeful edgelord entity using a “Death Gun” to shoot people so they somehow die in real life. As a result, Kirito reluctantly goes in to find out who Death Gun is and how their actions tie in with the seemingly coincidental deaths of the players he shot in-game. A few episodes later, Death Gun intimidates him because he’s a Laughing Coffin player who wants to torment him. This incites his PTSD and causes him to go ballistic in future matches before eventually logging out halfway into the arc. We have a visual on what Death Gun looks like and that he’s from the biggest murder guild in SAO, so why doesn’t Kirito inform the guy who hired him and ask him for a list of all the surviving Laughing Coffin members so they can search to see if any are playing GGO? Why they never tried to track them down IRL and try to get them imprisoned for murder is its own, less relevant query. If Kirito did this, he would have the knowledge necessary for him to know who went into GGO and what their name is now that they know what he looks like. This entire arc could have potentially ended halfway through the length it ended up actually being. On top of that, the reasoning for why no one talked about this in GGO is beyond aggravating. At the end of the arc, it’s revealed everyone thought it was a hoax...except for Sinon who didn’t even seem to know about Death Gun much. You’d think some people would be discouraged and that rumors would be floating around all over both the playerbase and the internet at large. Even if the Japanese had no way of contacting the American game company or devs, this would still be a scandal in its own right and people would almost certainly keep track of what Death Gun looked like. The fact that it doesn’t means that somehow Death Gun is this mysterious nobody that no one cares about except for Kirito, who eventually comes to the realization that there must be co-conspirators watching a livestream of the game somehow --on their smartphones I guess-- while they break into people’s houses and wait for their cue to poison them with medical serums they stole from a hospital that can cause heart failure at lethal doses. There are so many questions that have to be asked here, so here are some of them before we tackle two more major aspects of why this arc is horrible. If Death Gun misses, do they just stand there, waiting patiently for their target to get shot, or do they just leave and fuck off to the next target? There are 2 IRL guys waiting, so that must mean they stay at their post, correct? What kind of coordination must happen for them to absolutely make sure they don’t apply the syringe until they know for sure the bullet has made contact so they don’t kill a target that avoided getting shot? Since these are all regular break-ins where unfamiliar people just let themselves in, wouldn’t that be remotely suspicious? Actually, it turns out that Sinon’s friend who was in love with her, just so happened to be one of them, explaining how he could let himself in her home without it coming off as suspicious. He gave off red flags in terms of being unstable about wanting Sinon, which coupled with a shot of the mysterious Death Gun player caressing a photo of Sinon and the OP spoiling it for everyone, should clue the audience in on the obvious. Already, the mystery is a joke, and this is until we learn that there are co-conspirators we never heard of because Reki Kawahara must’ve realized too late that “oh shit, I only have one suspect so my mystery is ruined!” It turns out that one of them was the guy Kirito didn’t let tell him his name after he was arrested post-Laughing Coffin ambush. His motivation of wanting to keep his identity as a murderer thanks to the role he played in Aincrad is interesting, especially compared to that of Sinon’s friend, Kyoyji, who poured too much time into GGO only to get pissed off once the metagame seemed to lean away from his kind of build. That has nothing to do with his love for Sinon other than the fact that he’s a deranged lunatic, so of course he comes on too strong regarding Sinon. He then tries to rape her and pull a double suicide. Ah, yes: the albatross around the franchise’s neck has returned in a far more laughable incarnation. It’s somewhat less sexually exploitative than before in terms of cinematography, but Kyouji’s frothing of the mouth as he screams “ASADA-SAN ASADA-SAN ASADA-SAN” while trying to rape her turns a potentially upsetting and vomit-inducing scene into unfortunate comedy gold. It is an absolute dumpster fire of a scene at the end of episode 13, and the beginning of episode 14 doesn’t resolve it in a way that’s any better. Kirito busts in, fights the dude, then gets injected only to be saved by a spare electrode that didn’t come off from when he played GGO in the hospital with a heart monitor, just in time for Sinon --or Sino Asada, whichever you prefer-- to slam a boombox on Kyouji’s head to knock him out. It’s such an over the top, hilariously metal way to defeat the rapist and it would have been way better if that was done before any of this absolutely contrived nonsense about Kirito’s deus ex electrode occurred. Then again, the arc is over and we’ll never see these guys play this game again. Good. The game fucking sucks. Why is there an SAO type boss in a Virtual Reality Massive Multiplayer Online First-Person Shooter Role Playing Game? Is this like a separate story campaign thing divorced from PVP multiplayer? I get this is basically the Aincrad source code, but still. In fact, why is a VRMMORPG also an FPS? Why are there randomized avatars with their own rarities when they seem to effectively determine your build in a VRMMOFPSRPG? What kind of sense does that make on any level? How is such a game capable of being popular enough to have pros that make money off an in-game to real-life currency system? How is such a system allowed? How is it the only VRMMO with pro players? With all the damning questions consistently raised in this arc and how badly it fucks up several key aspects on fundamental levels, GGO proves to be no better than season 1’s Aincrad arc. Keep in mind, that was also an arc that required tons of suspension of disbelief in order to accept anything long before the game itself turned out to be utter nonsense and the 2nd half fell off a cliff. It’s slightly better than the Alphein arc that made up S1’s latter half, as is Aincrad, but that’s a miserably low bar. So, does SAO II get better from here? Yes, but that doesn’t exactly happen for a while… Part 2: SAO II’s Alphein arc --i.e the Excaliber arc-- is a waste of time with only 2 minor purposes, so let’s make this quick The Calibur arc is an neo-Alphein side story that SAO II decided to cram in because the Mother’s Rosario arc alone would probably not have been long enough for the show to reach 24 episodes. As such, it could be considered canon filler in the truest sense as all it really serves outside of this is to make sure Sinon isn’t completely written out of the show’s 2nd half, and to give Kirito a sword he will use in a big damn heroes scene in the Mother’s Rosario arc. It’s relatively inoffensive in a vacuum, but it represents just how much SAO II feels like a bunch of random arcs stitched together with little in the way of decent structuring or pacing. It’s also the point where they’ve entirely given up trying to set significant stakes for now, given that we’ve lost all reasonable and earned sense of tension since midway through the first arc of season 1. It’s certainly better than SAO 1’s Aincrad arc, and is probably better than the other arcs by virtue of not being as broken. However, it’s even more of a dull, annoying waste of time. The main problems come down to how boring it is and how the main SAO cast does not make for a fun group dynamic. Sure, Lisbeth gives Kirito enough shit while being bubbly, but she’s really the only one providing chemistry. What, do you think Klein ‘s capable of doing that now that he’s been reduced to a comic relief character who goes after any and all women? God, no! Even Sinon has been reduced to a somewhat stoic groupie who still has time to flirt with Kirito in front of his girlfriend and the other girls who never had a chance with him. Of course, with absolutely no tension or chemistry, it’s hard to really be engaged when they dick around with a quest that pretends like “oh no, we’re on a time limit” when at the start of the 2nd episode, the pendant they’re carrying has almost entirely faded in color despite being fully green at the end of the previous episode. It also tries to pretend Kirito isn’t absurdly overpowered by saying he technically can’t dual wield since he can only use one of his two swords at a time, but then he blocks with and uses magic spells with both. With an excuse this flimsy and easily contradicted, they should just give up all pretenses and let him do whatever he wants. He does have a cool golden sword he’s been wanting now, and that’ll come in handy later. Part 3: Mother’s Rosario is the best arc in the series, not that it says much The first episode of Mother’s Rosario is on par with the cave portion of Gun Gale. It’s a tedious mess where characters talk endlessly about things that could easily be cut down while also providing flashbacks that aren’t telegraphed in the slightest. It’s legitimately annoying to keep track of time in this episode as we only get the flashback date and not that of the current events in the episode. I never thought SAO would fuck that up, but here we are. The only positive was when Kirito and Asuna are having a date in Agil’s cafe while the former riffs on Agil, agitating him. It also introduced a new issue where Kirito and Asuna are receiving bits of characterization that should have been present in Aincrad. Kirito says that the need to get back to his family helped motivate him to clear the game, which was never once indicated in the art itself. Meanwhile, Asuna brings up a sense of disdain for her immediate family, which you’d think we’d have seen Kirito and Asuna talk about back when they were married in SAO. The latter ends up being the start of Asuna’s character arc this season. That’s right, Asuna has her own personal storyline in this arc, as she’s arguably the main character for the last 7 episodes of SAO II. The initial deuteragonist of the series gets more focus, agency, and exploration than she ever got in Aincrad, let alone the arcs she was basically absent for. For once, she isn’t just some generic tsundere or a boring nice girl who happens to be Kirito’s girlfriend. Much like Kirito, who starts realizing his own personal ambitions as a technological innovator blending the real and virtual world together, Asuna finally reveals herself as a person with insecurities. Specifically, she’s angsting over the lack of real agency she has over her life compared to her time in SAO thanks to her parents effectively trying to control her life because they supposedly think that’s what’s best for her. Suddenly, her VRMMO gaming is shown to be an escape for her as it allows her to be a badass who is truly in control of what she does. It's not exactly much, and the lack of real chemistry or affection she and Kirito share in their long-standing romance is lame. However, it's something, and that's infinitely more than I can say about the show and its treatment of Asuna most of the time. The entire conflict with Asuna's controlling mother who may or may not be resentful of her parents not birthing her into a higher class she ended up having to work for is rather underdeveloped and one of the weakest aspects of the arc. Nonetheless, it’s refreshing to see Asuna finally come into her own as a character as she meets up with Yuuki and her guild known as the “Sleeping Knights”. Yuuki is by far the best character in the series. While Asuna coming into her own was interesting and somewhat satisfying, Yuuki is the heart and soul of the final ⅓ of the show. She’s a rather striking character for how genuine she comes off. She’s both bubbly and cavalier, yet simultaneously reserved to the point of guilt. She’s innocent, youthful, and generally direct while still being one of the most layered and likable characters to date. There are other aspects about her character that we learn of over time, such as how she became a stepford smiler to appease her parents for so long that she effectively made herself happy and energized to smile for herself. The relationship she forms with Asuna is perhaps the most solid in the show as well, as in this short span of time, we’re already given enough reason to care about her. That makes it all the more impactful when we and Asuna both learn that she’s dying of AIDS. It’s a rather difficult subject matter to tackle given that it could come off as obvious emotional manipulation centered around a boring waifu-bait character the story is forcing the viewer to care about on the sole basis that they’re going to die and that has to make you sad. However, SAO handles it with infinitely more tact than it has with any other subject matter it has focused on, partially because we’ve seen the reservations Yuuki and her guild had with Asuna throughout the arc. We knew they were hiding something that could devastate Asuna, though like her, we didn’t know exactly what was preventing them from getting closer to her. This actually serves as a mark against the show as well as a strength for the arc. Yuuki herself was handled surprisingly well given the awkward pacing of the arc and the subject matter on display. However, said pacing made it so we only got to learn about her while the rest of the guild remained largely unexplored and came off as relatively blank nice guys with at most, one personality trait to differentiate some of them. There’s the shy guy, the cute and spunky girl, the almost big sister-like figure, and some other dude. Until the penultimate scene of the show, that is all we know about them, and what we do learn is that one of them felt like she had no purpose in life thanks to her Leukemia before meeting Yuuki, a 15 year old girl, and realizing that she should buck up like the young one before her was doing. Contrast this with what was said about Yuuki and how we learn of her borderline self-loathing regarding being born to die while strapped to an expensive VR medicine machine, and it’s night and day. If we got another episode or two to explore the rest of the guildmates, then learning that most of them are next on the chopping block would further add devastation to the news of what’s going to happen to Yuuki. At the same time, it would probably make it more maddening when we learn all of them ended up being fine sometime after Yuuki’s death. Yuuki’s death scene is perhaps the most powerful moment in the entire series. Surrounded by her friends who swore not to see her off or cry while doing so, she’s met with the sight of hundreds of fairies in the sky as the waves of people who have come to know her as a legendary swordsman in the new Alphein game. The lot of them provide a gorgeous sendoff for her as she dies in Asuna’s arms, handing her a parting gift before succumbing to her disease. It's a genuinely moving scene, far beyond what the franchise was even conceivably capable of before this arc came around. It’s serene, tranquil, beautiful, and most importantly, earned. Sword Art Online has never truly earned a moment like this before, so it’s staggering in its own right. Hell, even in this moment, Yuuki lets us and Asuna in on another secret, that being how she felt like she was born to die, causing her to feel guilt and some semblance of self-loathing over using the expensive medical VR prototype and worrying so many such as the girl she’s dying in the arms of. In fact, she’s finally learned to let go of all of that as her sendoff gives her some semblance of closure to her life and worries, now that she’s surrounded by all the people she’s touched without realizing how much she means to so many people. It’s at this moment where the arc and the character who embodies it solidify SAO II as a substantially better show than its predecessor. Part 4: Minor audiovisual improvements and major directorial negatives Yuki Kajiura returns as composer, and her work is about as good as before. Unlike season 1, no track gets annoyingly overused or awkwardly misused, and there are several standouts just like before. “Crooked Mind”, while playing in one of the worst scenes of the show, is a strong dread piece that uses its guitars and violins perhaps better than any other track in the show. “This Psychedelic World” may contain some less than stellar techno passages, but still makes an interesting, somewhat eerie futuristic tonesetter with digital bell-like chimes. All 3 versions of “You Are Not Alone” are either very quaint, relaxing pieces, or some of the most somber tunes in the series. They all capture the bittersweet nature of the Mother’s Rosario arc quite well. Lastly, there’s “Desolate Landscape”, a mesmerizing tone piece that really helps the frost-ridden locale from the Excalibur arc really shine. There are more tracks that are memorable compared to last time, especially in the second half of the season. As far as OPs and EDs go, this show might also be a bit of an improvement. "IGNITE" by Eir Aoi is a solid first opening to the season, capturing some of the dread and danger the arc fails to properly instill before transitioning to the chorus. "courage" by Haruka Tomatsu is perhaps the weakest OP of the first two seasons, but is a solid sentimental piece. The ED are where things get more interesting, as "Startear" by Luna Haruna is perhaps the most emotionally resonant and heartwarming ED of the bunch, while feeling somewhat bittersweet. The 2nd ED, "No More Time Machine" by LiSA, is my favorite song of hers, with its incredibly upbeat energy, though the edits this TV version makes are somewhat awkward. The last ED, "Shirushi” by LiSA, is a far more melodramatic piece befitting the Mother’s Rosario arc, and is a solid song as well. A-1 Pictures has returned as the chief animation studio behind SAO II and it’s about as mediocre and volatile as before. The one unequivocally good thing about the show’s visuals which I never really noticed in season 1 is the texturing. The environments in the sci-fi cityscape of Gun Gale Online stand out in ways that combine with the almost cyberpunk neo noir lighting to make that digital setting come to life as the most gorgeous location in the franchise. SAO can be really good with environment texturing, such as with pavements in daily life or in some of the medieval-esque locations of the new Alphein Online’s SAO maps. Compare this to a lot of other anime like Hero Academia which have hideous indoor textures, or shows like Bunny Girl senpai which have fugly CG gradients, and it’s no contest. The fight scenes are typically about as mediocre, or at least slightly better than before. There is still a fair amount of reused animation, such as when Death Gun’s myriad of stabs on Kirito are identical to Asuna’s rapier attacks from season 1. Most sword clashes have almost no weight to them, either. However, there is a fair amount of fluidity behind Kirito blocking bullets with a laser sword or cutting people in half, making for a couple of really solid animation cuts. Almost nothing is quite as fancy as some of the cuts in Alphein where magical fire and explosions are thrown in, but SAO II’s action does feel a little more weighty than before. There’s no better example of this than the fight between Asuna and Yuuki in episode 19, where the sword clashes finally convey a sense of impact instead of looking like largely limp pieces of metal tapping each other while sparks fly all over the place. Sparks don’t feel so cartoonishly spilled out anymore, either. Unfortunately, SAO’s production is still middling for a variety of reasons. The CGI work is about as bad as before, and far more persistent in the first half of the show, to boot. The artwork was never the most stable aspect of season 1 but might actually be even more inconsistent here regarding characters’ faces. Most importantly, Tomohiko Itou’s directing is not much better than it was before. SAO 1 had some baffling shots and usage of shortcuts, even outside of reused animation, but here, things are sometimes even worse. The Mother’s Rosario arc does have a few decently shot scenes that are a tad more attention-grabbing than most scenes in the show, but the Gun Gale Online arc might be Itou’s worst work on the show to date. This is where we circle back to problems with tone and how Sinon is handled. Any time she is scared, we get shots of CGI blood cells to suggest that she’s pertirifed and her blood pressure has gone up. Could they not have used a more natural or interesting way of showing her feeling terrified, like watching her facial expression go from normal to horrified? Even more distressingly, outside of the constant flashbacks both major arcs pull, is how the camera treats Sinon. SAO has always been one of the more heavily criticized shows in terms of being obvious with its male gaze, as the camera points to girls’ asses during dramatic or comedic scenes for no real reason. The GGO arc takes this negative and runs wild with it, as there are about 30 shots squarely focused on SInon’s “assets”. Hell, that’s how she’s introduced before we even get to see her face, and sometimes the camera swivels to get a view before panning back up. It’s almost comical in how wrong this whole thing is, and it makes it much harder to take Sinon or her emotional trauma seriously. Keep in mind, SAO II, while still being a teen-marketed crowd-pleaser kind of title, is generally more self-serious than its predecessor. That’s why we need to pan to Sinon’s buttcheeks every few minutes and hilariously oversell senses of fear with Death Gun’s presence or the arc’s main duo’s terror. It’s kind of funny how Death Gun is an overly theatrical loon who uses an edgy persona and phrases from different languages as his catchphrase and moniker to look more intimidating, and the director just treats it 100% seriously. I’m not even sure if Reki Kawahara wanted us to take Death Gun as seriously as Tomohiko Itou does. Epilogue Sword Art Online II is only really an improvement in so much as it actually has something going for it outside of Yuki Kajiura's score. If you were to remove the last arc, the show would be only marginally better than the first season, as the show has barely learned a thing since Aincrad while containing problems unique to itself. The pacing is as terrible as the narrative's structure and lack of believability. It continues to shaft key characters it brings back or introduces. Even the lukewarm and inconsistent production values haven't improved much. For the most part, SAO II is every bit the erratic mess the first season was for similar and different reasons. That being said, the final arc is what makes all the difference. The first time the show tries to tackle escapism in interesting ways that affect the characters and setting is the first time the protagonist baton shifts for a while. It's the first time we get a fully-realized character and deuteragonist on Yuuki, and she's too dead for a subsequent arc to try to ruin her later like Alphein did with Asuna and the 2nd half of GGO did with Sinon. While rushed and inelegant in execution, this arc lets the show have a moment of sincerity where emotional moments are earned. SAO II is not a good show by any means, and it's not worth trudging through 42 terrible episodes across 2 seasons just to get here. It also barely contains much of what seems to have brought people to SAO in the first place, so it being better doesn’t mean much when it can’t completely reinvent itself for the better and keep everyone hooked. However, the last arc proves that this second season is at least not as bad as what came before it.
I’m one of those people who never did see Sword Art Online when it came out, and years later it didn’t seem interesting enough to be worth a watch. The thing is, thanks to some horrible person @kayx I ended up watching it recently, and after finishing season 2 I definitely have some things to say about BOTH seasons so, spoilers ahead, not that it really matters though. Now stay with me for a sec and i’ll say my hot take, but first let me say what I've been hearing all these years from people I know about SAO. I’ve always been told Aincrad was great, but then in Alfheim it all went to shit; and then SAO2 came and took a big dump on what little was good about the first season. And here’s my hot take, Aincrad is a mess with a couple of decent episodes, Alfheim is a mess with some funny moments. And in my honest to god opinion, SAO2 is way better than the first season by quite a wide margin. Gun Gale is okay, maybe a little bit dumb at times; Excalibur is… what was that again? But Sleeping Knights was pretty good honestly despite the memes. If you want some further elaboration, well, stick with me, otherwise that’s my hot take and you can make with that what you will. By the way, haven’t watched Alicization yet so I’m not going to comment on it. Before I begin I have to say, music is great, Yuki Kajiura always comes through for me, and animation is nice and pretty fluid where it matters, so no problems there for me. ~~~img620(https://imgur.com/KNHuHxa.png)~~~ ---------------- So let’s jump right into it and see why I think Aincrad is possibly the worst arc of them all, and let me say, it’s still got a couple of great moments. For example the first episode is alright, sets up the world and the stakes pretty okay, but after that, half the arc is pure episodic filler which adds literally nothing to the main plot, introducing random characters that end up having nothing relevant to do for the rest of the whole series. The episode about that random guild that they all end up dying just to remind you of the stakes and set Kirito up to be one of those edgy MCs is just really boring and uninteresting, I can’t care about some random people i’ve just met for less than 5 minutes. Then there’s dragon loli girl, just an episode for Kirito to flex that he can tank 5 randos at the same time without his health even dropping, okay. Then there’s Rem, I mean blacksmith girl, I guess she crafts the second sword for the “reveal” later in the arc, but she’s just so dull that I don’t know what else to say. Then there’s a couple of random episodes to introduce that guild where they like to kill people or whatever, at least this is kinda relevant later in the second season. My favourite episode gotta be the one where that creepy dude tries to rape Asuna or something and then Kirito comes and literally kills him, I thought that was neat, and added if only a little of character depth to Kirito, who just killed a person in order to defend one he really cared about. Whatever, in short Aincrad could have lasted for half its length and it only would have been better. I don’t know if people speak purely out of nostalgia when they say Aincrad is great, or maybe they only remember the two good episodes it had, but having it watched kinda recently, it’s nonsensical, it’s way too long, and really just kinda dumb. Now let me say i was still entertained and honestly, I think Aincrad has the gameworld and aesthetic i like the most out of them all, but above all, it’s pretty funny, the same way a series like Valvrave or Cross Ange is funny. When the bonkers shit starts to happen it’s great, I mean Kirito entering the admin console and extracting all data from an AI that is indistinguishable from a human in a matter of seconds, i mean, get hacked; or the ending where they ask the main baddie why he did all that he did and he says “I don’t remember”, that was really funny. 5/10 ~~~img620(https://imgur.com/fNO0uLw.gif)~~~ ~~~Kirito Modo Diablo~~~ ---------- Anyway, Alfheim. It’s still way too long, just like Aincrad. I feel they could have taken a couple of episodes and characters out and it would have literally not mattered at all. I don’t care about the tribes, I don’t care about their wars, and above all, I don’t care about fucking Recon, god i want to punch him, that annoying reddit nice guy. Luckily he gets his ass beat by Leafa near the ending, and then he explodes himself, to which I cried tears of joy. So yeah, Kirito wants to rescue Asuna, which is about to get kinda raped *again* smh, by one of the creepiest and dumbest villains ever, voiced by Dio. Then Kirito meets Leafa in Alfheim and they set out on rescuing Asuna or something, then Kirito kills one dude in a duel so hard he explodes and meanwhile Leafa starts falling in love with Kirito. Because he’s just that much of a Sigma, Kirito doesn’t care but then Leafa discovers she’s Kirito’s sister; you dumb bitch, you fell in love with your brother! and he loves Asuna! damn girl you fucked up. Anyway they get to the bad guy, and Kirito literally hacks him dead, gg clapped. The stakes are also kept decently high, with the risk that Asuna might get brainwashed into liking creepy Dio, but as I said it would be better if the arc was shorter, as it would seem more urgent. Alfheim is still funny in the same ridiculous way Aincrad was, but in my opinion is a little bit less nonsensical, yeah, let that sink in. But much to all of humanity’s despair, fucking Recon is in it, god how much I hate him. He even kinda gets the girl despite being a little bitch for 10 episodes straight, fucking Recon. 5/10 ~~~img620(https://imgur.com/SbxXJdL.png)~~~ ----- Now, Gun Gale is alright. The episode where they introduce Sinon could have been cut in half, but honestly the rest gets to the point pretty quickly and doesn’t really make any detours. Sinon is alright, probably the first character in the whole series that is an actual character. She’s got some problems, and works towards solving them; she’s fine. Kirito also shows some kind of depth, and deals with having actually killed people when he was in Aincrad, because now he’s seeing it happen all over again in GGO or something. Hell i’ll take what little I can get, finding character development for Kirito is like fucking finding Atlantis. That said, Kirito is also at his flexiest this arc, dude literally slices sniper bullets in half no problem, so that’s great fun. Hiroshi Kamiya, my man, makes a cameo as Zexceed, who gets killed in a matter of seconds, that was pretty funny too. Death Gun’s appearance is campy edgy shit, so that’s great; unfortunately his methods and motivations are kinda really dumb, still like him better than “don’t remember” and “rapey Dio”. 6/10 ~~~img620(https://imgur.com/SaqQ5jQ.png)~~~ ~~~_Attention all epic gamers, Zexceed needs your help, he has no likes! Be the first to show him your love!_~~~ ----- Excali-who? ----- In my opinion the best arc yet is Sleeping Knights, and honestly I did not expect it with all the memes surrounding it; it’s short, it’s kinda sweet, and it honestly feels like an actual series, not one you laugh at. So, AIDS-chan and her terminally-ill friends want to leave their mark on the world before they pass away, and I think that’s great, but they are struggling; they are not enough people to confidently beat bosses on their own, and the turbo-tryhard guilds keep stealing the world-first kills. So they recruit Asuna to help them, because she did kinda well in a duel or something. Anyway, Asuna helps them no prob, she flips her turbo-gamer switch on, and rushes them through the dungeon and boss mechanics. Unfortunately they are only 7 members in a boss battle designed for 49 people, so they die. The tryhard guild was stream sniping them so they know the pro strats now and they start to gather their guild members to take on the boss and steal the first kill. But our main guys decide to rush back to the boss room and since the other guild won’t let them pass, they slaughter them all with the help of our overlord Kirito who randomly appears for just that scene to flex on all of them. Obviously the raiders fall like flies, i mean pve players doing pvp am i right; and our main party gets the kill because they discover a weak point or something and they get their names immortalised in the hall of fame. Mission accomplished. Meanwhile Asuna has to deal with the stereotypical japanese parents that decide everything for her, like which school to go or who to marry and so on. But with encouragement from Yuuki she ends up confronting her mother because she wants to spend the rest of her life supporting someone… okay. At least she shows determination and growth, and I guess if that someone is our lord and saviour Kirito… Anyway, Yuuki dies and everyone is sad, but she got what she wanted, she left a legacy, she was validated for fighting for so long, it’s pretty sweet; Asuna and Yuuki help and complement each other pretty well during this arc and I like it. 7/10 maybe even 8/10 call me crazy. ~~~img620(https://imgur.com/u7JjVh3.png)~~~ ~~~Aoi Yuuki does a great job here~~~ ----- Now let’s talk about the Klein in the room. Is he a good character? Erm… No. Is he a character? Also no. They could have done something with him yeah, he had potential. If instead of those random girls they introduced in Aincrad they spent some time developing Klein or his relationship with Kirito or something, I think I would have liked it way more. But unfortunately he’s just kinda there and does nothing, to be honest seeing him after Aincrad is a little weird. Seeing a fully grown adult, a literal salaryman hanging out with teenage girls aged like 15 or 16 is a tiiiny bit weird. The black dude is a different story, first off, he’s an absolute chad, he’s the best. And second off, he just owns a bar where the rest of the gang hangs out, he interacts with them like a normal person would, and helps them if necessary. ~~~img420(https://imgur.com/lzAjlqy.gif)~~~ Overall, sao is great fun and pretty entertaining, even when it’s a walking disaster like the first season, except fucking Recon, I hate him with all my heart and soul dude. Sao is alright, not as bad as some people like to paint it, not a masterpiece either, god no; but it’s a fun ride, I wouldn’t watch it alone though, I’d say it’s a couple of times better when watched with friends, so you all laugh together at the insane shit present on screen. I understand that for some people it may be hard to watch, since its plot is pretty garbage and doesn’t really make sense most of the time, but if you get into that brain-off Unga Bunga mindset it’s quite enjoyable. Feel free to disagree with me of course, but know that if you do, you’re wrong and have no taste, this rating is only for season 2.
Sword Art Online 2 capitalises on the new real estate of the franchise to bring us a narrative, born from a vastly undersold VRMMO-based world, that is far more integral to the characters we know and love. This sequel ignores countless distractions and presents us with a real narrative that takes advantage of the greater world, characters actual motivations, and brings us a real tear-jerker that hits some really high notes and dedicates time to some real lows. I expected a lot less from Sword Art Online giving the, while really fun, the shallow exterior of its predecessor. Given its regular criticism since its debut, the world of Gun Gale Online is only as strong as the other VRMMOs we've seen; though actually creating a richer experience. I'd anticipated this interesting mix of faux-Call of Duty and Star Wars iconography to fall flat, yet I appreciate that much to its credit, it never claims to be more than it actually is. The first thing I have to give this show credit for is the narrative. This show has a plot the writers can be truly proud of - one that covers some really deep topics. There is real pride in the sense that the writers acknowledged Kirito's experience as actually traumatic rather than essentially glossing past it, and witnessing this plot follow through after the previous season gives me greater faith in the writers as I move on to Ordinal Scale. I'm glad they're not just brushing this all off with Kirito screaming into view and suddenly becoming impossible to defeat, and follows a cardinal rule of all storytelling: if you give a character power, you must also give them a limitation. I also enjoy watching Kirito utterly mince any opponent, but the narrative becomes predictable and I see no reason to continue consuming the franchise if I know what deal I'm getting each time. Controversially, this story doesn't even start with Kirito -- a refreshing direction, though one that I feel highlights Kirito's weaknesses and I hope they bring more strength to his character in the future to cement the experiences he's had so far. Sinon is the first character we're introduced to and instantly became a favourite. Her parallel to Kirito is really important to the grander story, and she fit in nicely without really taking any focus away from the direction Kirito was going in, complementing him along the way and becoming a strong character in her own right. Honourable mention for this series too: Asuna gets the focus she deserves and really hit a nerve to end the series, which brings to light how every cour in this series is well worth a watch. We're still welcomed back to the SAO-verse through Kirito. I feel the writers have done this for familiarity really and to warm us up with a character we love before he becomes secondary. Having survived SAO and ELO, Kirito's experience in the real world with the family he's created from fellow survivors (and his self-established sense of belonging, an important theme in the show) is short-lived when he's dragged into an investigation by an employee of a big technology firm concerned about some suspicious events in Gun Gale Online; asking Kirito to investigate. While I feel they could've done Kirito more justice by dwelling on his anxiety and triggers upon this invitation, they do still identify reluctance to get involved. There are benefits and drawbacks Kirito as a character suffers which as an older become more evident for me. The implication that Kirito has to have a sword everywhere it goes, despite the insanely cool scenes this makes way for, is tiring and makes Kirito feel unadaptable -- this is Gun Gale Online, and the writers failed to even make hand-held weapon load-outs even seem like a respectable choice in the world, and creates a level of disbelief that fortunately doesn't become impossible to suspend but increasingly difficult the more you see Kirito perform unrealistic feats in a completely different world. They make up for it of course, but no spoilers. Furthermore, the insistence to keep Kirito joyful despite the emotional distress he's experiencing rather than establishing some sense of comic relief elsewhere in this vast narrative is disappointing. That aside, Kirito undergoes some real change in this story, coming to terms with some of that trauma over the entire first cour -- a change that is even respected in the further cours -- and seeing him hit a limitation finally was grossly rewarding. Of cours, I don't want to see him in actual danger and his powers not being godlike for a change, but this created room for a challenge Kirito had to think differently about. Running at someone with an angry face won't solve his problems, and I hope the writers continue to challenge Kirito in this way in future seasons. There's also Sinon, the second most important character and the real star of the first cour, who I have to admit (by the point of growing tired of Asuna and Kirito's magical romance I've grown accustomed to now) is my favourite character on lots of her own merits. We know that SAO has failed female characters so far, with many of them breaking through the Bechdel Test like a train through a tunnel. The writers go to massive effort to show how traumatic experience, mirroring Kirito's own, she goes through, and how it affects on a regular basis. Sinon is utilised by the writers to again return back to this concept of belonging. If we really scrape beneath the surface of the presentation, how society has conditioned us to think that killing in self-defence is incidentally as unforgivable as killing with malicious intent. While they never really dwell on the societal, political or cultural impact of this, they do a great job of showing us how Sinon helps Kirito come to terms with his own experience through her own. Asuna, the final character I want to talk about, gets her very own cour this season. There was bound to be a tear-jerker somewhere in the series to really send us off with the post-series blues. There's a mysterious swordsman who beats Kirito in a challenge, a shock to the gang, who convince Asuna to challenge too. This leads Asuna on a journey of sellf discovery about her own belonging, and the relationship she shares with the people around you. There's some massively raw and human scenes in Asuna's cour, and I have to admit it's probably the favourite of the whole season; Asuna's change being so relatable but also Konno's place in both worlds is a real compliment to the strength of the writing now. This story was so beautifully woven, and I would place this story somewhere in the middle of the first series instead of one of those distractions. We also get a fan-service cour of emotional relief after Kirito and Sinon's cour and before Asuna's where the gang are all together and enjoying ELO, and go on an adventure that honestly inspires me into believing that SAO could really do well with a spin-off (if they could keep up the character development along the way) where the gang go on adventures much like this. This season of SAO is the best one yet, and I'm looking forward to Ordinal Scale. I expected it to live up to criticism, it exceeded all expectations.
img1000(https://gonzonyan.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/http___wall-anonforge-com_wp-content_uploads_anime_sao_d_sword-art-online-2-wallpaper-high-definition-1920x1080-bullet-screen-crack.jpg) It was the Fall of 2012, and it almost seemed as though the world was in a bleak, dark place of temper tantrums and violent outbursts. These were formed due to the nature of a straightforward question: Is/Was Sword Art Online that good or bad? Both sides had convincing arguments for their reasons for disliking or liking the show. But, ultimately, it has now become a staple of how every year, there is that one over-hyped show that defines anime of that year. Now it’s 2014, and we finally have its sequel under the cheers and groans that look forward to or dread it. The one question remains amidst its conclusion: Is Sword Art Online II better than Sword Art Online? The answer is: yes, kind of? img1000(https://gonzonyan.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/horriblesubs-sword-art-online-ii-02-720p-mkv_snapshot_00-33_2014-07-12_13-52-27.jpg) Please make no mistake I was, and am, of the camp that did not see the general appeal to Sword Art Online. With its sometimes flashy action sequences, the brilliant score became a general mess of incoherent pacing, god awful 2nd half, and atrocious character development. As we advance with Sword Art Online II, all but one of these negatives that I had with its prequel are officially gone: character development. Of course, this is because the prequel introduced these characters, albeit for a short while, so now, with the sequel, we can get to know these supporting characters a fair bit more than at first glance. This, in turn, makes them a little bit more relatable and likable in that scenario. Some characters are new to the series that make their debut in this sequel. Sinon being the most notable and excited character, it is poignant to see how she holds up as a character all her own. From her standout arc, Gun Gale Online, there are some positives to her that I can see clearly, but other times I see plenty of negatives that keep her from being great. To put it more into perspective, Sinon has a likable presence and personality that is easily relatable, but her character arcs involving her psychological trauma are, suffice to say, hokey. Her unwillingness to shoot a gun and yet can shoot at most enemies in the game without hesitation comes across as a bit counter-intuitive. img1000(https://gonzonyan.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/angry-sinon-sword-art-online.jpg) This hokey logic can be applied to the story at large. However, I will say that the story is, by far, the one thing that they didn’t make even worse from the prequel. There are hiccups in leaps of logic, and there are some. Most of them don’t come close to how badly they were beforehand. There is, of course, the unfortunate illness to the series where the 2nd half of Sword Art Online becomes weaker as it goes along. It was messy storytelling throughout the 2nd half of the previous season. Here it's just flat-out dull and meandering. All it is just an uneventful, sappy melodrama involving Asuna and one other character whose backstory I won’t spoil. And really, the less Asuna in any season, the better. Even with the problematic story elements aside, there are certainly a few moments in Sword Art Online 2 that seem almost laughable in their attempt to be serious. One instance is one of the antagonists going on a full-on psychopathic meltdown on our hero Sinon for nearly five minutes. I almost felt as though the voice actor couldn’t do the script justice and tried his best to make it dire but failed to do so. What went on was this overacting scene that felt way longer than it needed to be; at the same time, it did give me one of the hilarious moments in anime this year. img1000(https://gonzonyan.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/sao2_13_3.jpg) Now we have what many come for Sword Art Online for the butts. Er, I mean, the animation and sound! Seriously though, unanimously, everyone can make the case that this series has outstanding production values. It does have some nice slick backgrounds with immaculate lighting to make the world feel vibrant and alive. With this, we have the fighting scenes to go with it, which I seem to be of the minority that the fight scenes in Sword Art Online are pretty mediocre at best. Compared to other shounen shows that do their action scenes well, here in Sword Art Online 2, most of the fight scenes are pretty tame. The first one had way more quality action, and even then, it didn’t hold a candle to other better fighting shows out there. This entails how the characters’ actions seem disjointed, and their movements feel rough around the edges at specific points. Nevertheless, when it’s not going for fast-paced action, the art and animation are stunning for the eyes to see and gander. It would be far-pressed to express some sort of relief that the sequel brought us something that’s not unwatchable, even if it still wasn’t a great final product in the long run. I could see myself watching this again, insomuch how I would prefer it over the prequel if I had a choice. It still can’t be given a passing grade of the story’s pacing and writing problems that lower its quality amongst other shows that deserve it more. As if that wasn’t enough for over-hyped shows, to begin with. Grade: C-
I watched the GGO part of SAO II because I was in middle school, but I watched the Mother's Rosario arc last year (2021) because I heard it was pretty good and let Asuna shine and didn't have Kirito in it at all. I really love Asuna, and I think this arc does her the justice that the rest of the series was unable to so this is a review of JUST the Mother's Rosario arc because that's the only part of SAO I actually care about even a little bit. In SAO original, we're repeatedly told that Asuna is Kirito's equal in battle, but we're never shown this and there's never been an opportunity for their skills to really be compared. The arrival of Yuuki, someone who was able to _beat_ Kirito, gives Asuna an opportunity to show these skills that we've been promised, and she absolutely delivers and it was the highlight of my month. Mother's Rosario is a redemption arc for the SAO writers. Where SAO original fails to adhere to its theme of digital relationships and experiences being just as important and meaningful as real world ones, Mother's Rosario is the perfect plot for it. Yuuki feels like the character Kirito could've been if he was written well. She's the same kind of overpowered, way-too-good-at-video-games, obviously an introvert and a social outcast character that Kirito is, but this time with heart and purpose. She has a goal that's more than "I wanna play video games because society SUCKS and I don't get along with people" and for her especially, that goal means something more than being able to say you're really good at a video game. Yuuki also works because she has friends. If you want to write a story about digital relationships being important, why would you make your main character stop caring about people, and why would you make the relationships they do eventually have exist under the pretense of them all being girls that have a crush on him but just follow him around because he's dating Asuna. Emotionally, Kirito is so disconnected from the entire cast, but Yuuki actually cares about her friends and is able to connect with them because they share a struggle. ~!The entire cast being physically disabled people is incredibly important for the theme, as it makes it hit home that much harder. For Yuuki, the only relationships she can have _at all_ are digital ones. It's her entire world, and it's just as important for her as real life relationships are for other people, and having her guild's name on that plaque is a way that she can leave a mark on the world that's means something to _her._ It has meaning because _she gave it meaning_, not because it's just inherently important because it's not. It's a video game, why would it be all that important? But then the whole point of the story is showing the audience that these things can have meaning for some people and shouldn't be written off just because it's in a video game.!~ Other than Yuuki being a great character and the plot being one of the best vehicles for a theme I've ever seen, you also get to see Asuna actually fight for the first time since *checks notes* she met Kirito. I can't actually remember a single time other than that first bull fight that we get to see Asuna do more than walk into a dungeon with the rest of the cast and then watch Kirito beat up a monster. If SAO disappointed you and you wished it was better, just watch the Mother's Rosario arc.
Every time I revisit the Phantom Bullet arc of Sword Art Online in both larger and smaller capacities, I find myself increasingly adoring it more and more. In a way, it's a microcosm of everything I love about SAO and the way that it writes its characters with far more depth than most people care to give it credit for. I want take a moment to talk about one of the most prevalent themes of SAO, that being trauma and the ways people cope with it, and highlight particularly how the Phantom Bullet arc tackles the subject. I feel the most natural place to begin with this discussion is with the arc's main deuteragonist, Asada Shino. The thing I find most interesting about Sinon is how her method of coping with her trauma from the incident where she killed a robber at a post office as a kid, that being to take on the persona of a badass sniper in GGO, is done in a way that makes her act as an inverse to Kirito. While Kirito sees his Black Swordsman persona from his Aincrad days as a symbol of everything he hates about himself, and something that he wants to distance himself from, Asada sees her "Sinon" persona as the only version of her that's worth existing. Sinon continually refers to her IRL sef as though she's a completely different person, someone she sees as weak compared to the Sinon that roams through GGO. Her playing GGO is her own way of not having to be herself, hoping to use it as a way for her to get strong enough to be able to be acknowledge herself. However, her method of completely rejecting that side of her is a mentality that proves to be ineffective and unhealthy, and the facade cracks when she's directly reminded of her trauma in her encounter with Death Gun and can't bring herself to fire a bullet even as Sinon. Her preconceived notions of the best way to deal with her trauma being ineffective in a game that she sees as her only chance to be strong is what makes Kirito get under her skin, someone who she sees as treating all of this like an ordinary game, someone strong enough to power through anything he might be going through. However, as Sinon, and us, take a look at Kirito, it's apparent how that couldn't be further from the truth... There seems to be a widespread misconception about the nature of Kirito's trauma. Kirito being traumatized from the SAO incident doesn't really have to do with VR itself, by his own admission he still deeply loves the technology and wants to see where it's headed. Rather, Kirito's trauma stems from the lives that were lost by what he sees as his own hand, whether it be the people he failed to save like the Moonlit Black Cats and Asuna in the battle with Heathcliff or the Laughing Coffin members who were actually killed by his hand. Kirito's someone who heavily internalizes his failures more than anything else, being racked with intense survivor's guilt over the incident, which manifests in him taking an approach in situations to protect or save people that's reckless and borderline suicidal. He's not too unlike Sinon with how moments he sees as failures are ones that dominate his outlook. When Sinon asks how he was able to leave the trauma of killing people behind and move forward with his own strength, Kirito's answer is that he can't. Those are moments that'll stick with him for the rest of his life, moments of weakness that have and will continue to haunt him for the rest of his life. However, the main lesson has to learn in this arc is not to fixate on the people he's failed, but to think about the people he's saved or impacted positively. That's what he tries to help Sinon understand, and how he's able to find the strength to face Death Gun head-on, and a way of thinking that lets Sinon accept Asada Shino as a part of her and take the steps to overcome her trauma and move forward with the strength she always had inside of her. And those are the key words right there, _taking the steps._ The show understands that trauma like this isn't something that can be flipped off like a lightswitch. After she shows up the bullies that have been tormenting her by shooting a BB gun at a can with pinpoint accuracy, she's seen afterwards struggling to find her breath after doing so. And Kirito doesn't just completely get over all of the deaths he experienced in SAO now that he has an altered outlook. (In fact, that guilt is compounded even further in Alicization to the point where he falls deeper into his old mindset). However, SAO recognizes that these are major steps to moving forward, even if the harrowing feelings of trauma haven't gone away. When Sinon is greeted at Agil's pub with a family that she saved during the bank robbery, it's an incredibly moving display of her gaining the outlook of being able to focus on the people she's impacted for the better, not hyperfixating on what she sees as the worst of herself. Sinon, through both her time with Kirito and being thanked by the family, has living, undeniable proof... ...that Asada Shino is strong.