Anime Sword Art Online

I can't believe I didn't think to put it this way. Not only is them talking like the attack is some sort of military operation awkward, the attack is routine for them. They know what they're doing and while I would assume that they're going to review their plan of action, the way they do it is awkward and forced.

 

So... episode 3. Well. I've certainly seen worse flashback scenes? At least this wasn't boring, but ****ing hilarious is probably not what they were going for.

However, in all fairness, it's a fantastic back story. While I don't get why Shino is able to play GGO when even seeing pictures of guns makes her freak out, the idea that she accidentally killed someone at such a young age makes her far more fascinating than Kirito ever was (and don't get me started on why Kirito's supposed flaws are complete bullshit) and gives her real flaws and room for real character growth.

However, that flashback was awful. It is one of the few things I can legitimately call so bad it's good. From the start, it's silly. We have the cliche of "something tragic happens to family in routine day," but that's just the start. The moment the robber walks into the bank, the ham is already there. He's shambling like a zombie with a crazed look on his face, DROOLING with the camera FOCUSING on the drool dripping on the floor.

Then he shambles up and shoves Shino's mother out of the way, points the gun at the teller and demands the money. From here until Shino gets the gun from him, it's a pretty tense scene, but the goofiness of what surrounds it kills all of the tension.

After Shino shoots him is when it switches from goofy to HILARIOUS. I actually had to stop the video and take the time to laugh because of how ridiculous it was. ****ing Yakety Sax would have been a more fitting soundtrack to use than the sappy music, which added to the comedy in its own way.

You can argue realism all you want when it comes to the robber needing to be shot multiple times to die, but in a dramatic moment like this, LESS IS MORE. The robber's expressions were ridiculous and hilarious, especially the bug eyed look after Shino shoots him the third time.

Apparently, Kawahara has no idea how to be subtle. As I said, in this situation, less is more. I can't take what is otherwise a great backstory seriously because of how completely ridiculous the scene is. Any tension that should have been there (IE, a lot) is gone from the start because of how goofy everything is played out as.

Beyond that, we're still getting references to stats, which I'm pretty much about to resign myself to the fact that we're never going to get any sort of explanation on how those work. As I said earlier in the thread, this is something that should have been explained from the start and since every game featured in the show is based on SAO, the stats should work similarly across the board.

And then we have a character (whose name escapes me at the moment) lamenting that his Agility based character can't compete. This has several major problems. Obviously, we have the fact that stats are never explained, so we don't know what an Agility based character even IS. Beyond that, we have no explanation or demonstration of WHY Agility based characters are at a disadvantage. What makes other kinds of characters better? Because they can use heavier weapons? As we already have it established that heavier weapons give a movement penalty (and they flatout say that miniguns are useless in one on one fights), wouldn't that imply that Agility based characters have far better movement?

Then we have the problem with the fact that characters can be imported from other games. This implies that if you import an Agility based character from another game, you're stuck with it. With this and the implications that GGO has bad weapon balance, it raises a serious question of HOW THE HELL DID ZASKAR GET ANYONE TO PLAY THEIR GAME?!?!

To explain the implications of poor balance, we've seen two weapons referred to as "cheat weapons," Behemoth's minigun (never mind the colossal weakness the show have given in the same damn scene) and Sinon's Hecate II. If these weapons are so overpowered, then it stands to reason that there are other, equally broken weapons, which throws any semblance of a balanced game into question, at least in terms of competitive balance and, as established, GGO is an extremely competitive game.

Think of it like the competitive difference between Super Smash Bros. Melee and Super Smash Bros. Brawl. While both games are perfectly OK and balanced for casual players, the competitive scene greatly prefers Melee because they see it as a far more balanced and competitive game. I can believe that GGO would be popular among a more casual audience, I can't buy that it would become an e-sport or practically an e-sport if the competitive balance is so bad that certain character builds are useless and that certain weapons break the game.

Also, what the hell is B.o.B.? I know it stands for Bullet of Bullets because that's been explained to me elsewhere, however, someone watching without doing any outside research is going to hear characters mention the B.o.B. and have no idea what it is because THEY NEVER EVEN SAY WHAT IT STANDS FOR.

We also see Kazuto getting ready to enter GGO to assist the police investigation of Death Gun. We're told that he gets paid for this service. Let's review the problems with this: 1, why are the police using Kazuto? It would take five seconds to mention "yeah, you were the hero of the last two VRMMO incidents, so we're going to hire you." 2, why is Kazuto's contact a friend? This is a serious conflict of interest as it risks information that Kazuto doesn't need getting leaked or information that he does need, but isn't pleasant from getting to him. 3, a new issue, it is implied that this isn't the first time they've had Kazuto help with an investigation. As he was a victim of the SAO incident and voluntarily got involved in the ALO incident, this suggests that there are other incidents between the ALO incident and the GGO incident. What other incidents has Kazuto assisted with? 4, Kazuto is a minor. What does his aunt, you know, his LEGAL GUARDIAN, have to say about him helping with police investigations that are potentially lethal?

We get mention of "connection fees." What are these fees? Are they service fees for the AmuSphere? For the Internet connection? For the game? If its for the game (as I suspect), what is the subscription model? Is it monthly? Time based? Free with premium service? It is suggested that players can play the game to pay for the service, as real-life EVE Online players do, but how feasible this is is unknown due to the lack of explanation of the subscription model.

Related to the earlier mention of imported characters, why can't Kazuto maintain his ALO account if he's importing his character into GGO? If the police are paying him, it's obviously not an issue of subscription fees. Also, I vaguely remember mentions of Kirito being Agility based, but I'm possibly remembering wrong. If anyone has some clarification on that, that would be great.

----
List of things Reki Kawahara needs to learn about before he writes anything else:
Character development
The Bechdel Test
Subtlety

 

@Cloud3514 :
Yeah that totaly bother me as well! All the stats and mechanics of all the games in SAO are poorly explained, since SAO when Kirito was able to take the full DEATH GAME solo and such. In this aspect I prefer LOG HORIZON, much more explained.
About why GGO is a pro game and not a casual field, I guess the thing is: They attracted "Hardcore gamers by paying then" other than using a well established game as an e-sport scenario. The "balance" of the game is due to the atualizations, in previous version of the game a character that was all speed was the best (probably they added those physical damaging weapons after, since they are heavier). If you only plan for one situation your character will be rendered useless in the next atualization forcing you do make a new acc. A pro gamer would do it anyway because they can continue to gain money from the game, and a casual will drop it because of the pain of replaying.
About the converting the problem is that when you go to a new game all your itens "do not exist" (like Kirito from Sao->LAO), he had no choice , but to delete his corrupted "Itens", probably nowdays the system does it automaticaly and everytime you change games you lose all your itens and money (but keep your stats), in previous episode Azuna mentioned that as well that Kirito would lose his itens (so he can't keep changing back because that would reset his itens and money). We have to think that his "Daughter" is a iten from his inventory as well so maybe she is stuck in ALO never being able to shift to another game.
ps.: I am impressed that no one uses swords, and they have so many downsides and are expensive.

 

It makes sense that his items don't transfer between games, especially seeing as he's switching from a fantasy game with swords and magic to a sci-fi game with guns and lighsabers. However, my criticism isn't about that. Why is not able to have the same active character on both games? Why does he have to quit ALO to go play GGO?

Also, another thing, he's quite well known for his role in the SAO incident, so why does he use the same character in GGO? At the very least, you'd think he'd be given a character by the police, who, again, are paying him to investigate, so he doesn't have to worry about being recognized. If being recognized is the point, then it isn't explained anywhere.

 

I have some theories. Maybe they figured that if Death Gun found out it was Kirito they would be more inclined to try and kill him, after all he is a serial killer after high profile players. Maybe the police figured it would be far more productive to allow Kirito to transfer his character that he is far more comfortable using, and has been using for quite some time, over creating a character and grinding it to have stats that may or may not be compatible to Kirito's play style.

 

Before I begin, I have seen episode 4 because Hulu has the show for free without lagging a week. Annoying since they use four times as many ads and I prefer Crunchyroll, but hey, at least I don't have to wait a week.

There are reasons to have Kazuto transfer his character. It is established that Zaskar is based in the United States, so I'd say it's reasonable that they declined to assist in the investigation, otherwise, they could have created a character for Kazuto that was, skills and stats-wise, identical to his ALO character. As for a lack of international authorities getting involved, it's reasonable that Interpol could feel that there isn't enough evidence of Death Gun being real to warrant an investigation.

However, episode 4 establishes that he IS trying to make a name for himself to try to attract Death Gun, so that's probably the reason he transferred his character. So I'm going to count that question as answered.

Of course, this still leaves the question of why he has to quit one game to play another.

As for episode 4, I actually rather enjoyed it. On a technical level, I think it might be the best episode yet. On a personal level, I do prefer episode 2 because, for one, the action was good and, for two, it was the first time IN THE ENTIRE SHOW that we actually saw character development. As for notes, I only have five things to say:

1: I didn't mention it in the last episode as it was a footnote, but why in the holy hell does Kazuto think Death Gun is just a rumor? Like I said, it is reasonable for Interpol to not believe it, but the Tokyo police have an open investigation involving him and Kazuto was, AGAIN, at the center of two similar incidents. There is no reason he should think Death Gun is a rumor.

2: What's with the other player demanding Kirito sell his character's body to him? I understand the appeal of having a more aesthetically pleasing character, but this scene was just weird.

3: Why does Sinon make a note of how rare female players are? It is established that SAO allowed players to use avatars of the opposite sex. Is this something not allowed in GGO? I doubt it as the player wanting to buy Kirito's character initially thought the character was female, so it stands to reason that playing as the opposite sex is possible. Her assumption that Kirito was a girl is a bit silly.

And please don't mention that the books say that Sinon wanted to play as a large male character as that is not touched upon in the show and, as I said, an adaptation should never rely on the source material to be understood.

4: Why wasn't Kirito able to customize his own character? If GGO is supposed to use the player's actual appearance, why doesn't he look like his real-life appearance?

5: As I usually skip the opener due to hating Japanese pop music, I didn't think about it before, but seeing the lightsaber fighting in the opener makes me want a Star Wars anime.

 

1. That's a good point.

2. Well random character generation and such, maybe there is some sort of odd in-universe niche market for rare randomly generated appearances? Yeah, I pulled that out of my ass, why do you ask?

3. Maybe she meant female player characters?

4. Maybe he assumed his ALO appearance would be transferred over as well and decided to skip over character creation?

5. "Vader-chan why didn't you do your math homework?!" "Oh I'm sorry I was just too busy being a Sith Lord Scout and I ran late and had to eat my toast on the way to school."

 

I... have no words.

 

Yay~

Also in light of the recent episode:

 

Sometimes I question whether or not I'm overthinking this stupid show. Other times I remember that we went from Kazuto not sure if he wants to decide to help the police to him about to be plugged in with no briefing on what he's supposed to be doing in GGO. That's really something that should have been explained before he goes in.

It really makes episode 2 quite jarring. While it's still my favorite episode of the ENTIRE SHOW, it really didn't DO anything. Instead of using all of that time for an extended action sequence, we could have spent some of it exploring Kazuto's motivation and decision to assist the police. It's easy to theorize that he's still using the Kirito character to attract Death Gun, but that's all we can do until episode 4 rolls around.

That said, this is very much nitpicking and the way they did it is only minorly odd and only sticks out because of wasting episode 2 on an extended action sequence. At least it was a really good extended action sequence.

 

Alright, episode 5 because I'm a lazy ass and didn't feel like watching until now. So far so good. The harem idiocy is gone, Kirito isn't quite as much of a Mary Sue as he was last season and the story is actually getting a few interesting terms.

However, while Kirito isn't as much of a Mary Sue this time around, I'm still wondering how he was able to tell where his opponent was going to be. Is it a skill? If so, this is left completely unexplained.

Related, if it IS a skill and considering the free character transfer, wouldn't min/maxing power gamers already explore this idea? Find a different game, study up the skills and find some that will transfer over to GGO to make your character better. We know it's possible as it was said that Kirito still has his skills from ALO.

Why is Sinon so angry with Kirito for not telling her that he's male? She only assumed he was female and he simply rolled with it. He never lied to her because she never actually asked.

Why does it matter that players can put their personal information into the system for prizes when they can just skip that step and opt out of getting them? The idea of prizes is fine, but this is something that I seriously doubt will be touched upon later. Again, see Chekov's Gun.

If GGO is so popular in Japan, why doesn't Zaskar have a Japanese website set up for it? How do non-English speaking players get access to customer support? I can't imagine that World of Warcraft would go without a Japanese site, so why would GGO?

There is mention that trading in-game currency for real money is a legal grey area. Why is this? If the company wants to give their profit to their players, what's stopping them? Not to mention the issues I've mentioned before on HOW this is done.

The lightsaber sound effects are identical to the ones in Star Wars. Not a complaint, I just still want a Star Wars anime.

The show actually remembered Asuna's musing about reality and virtual reality. Bravo. I never would have expected that. Hopefully we get some pay off.

I like the twist that Death Gun is survivor of SAO. This was an unexpected twist that works, especially seeing as he is a Laughing Coffin member (surprised we actually got mention of them again, too). What I don't like is that they just reveal that he was a member of Laughing Coffin so readily, though. I would have much preferred the mystery on his identity keep that a secret. Then again, this is better than had they just said "he's this dude from Laughing Coffin!" when revealing his identity, but a good mystery would have kept that as a major hint to be revealed later on.

Still need to watch episode 6, but for now, I have to work in the morning.

 

What do you mean exactly? I don't remember him knowing where someone was going to be. Of course I could just not be remembering right. Can you describe the scene?

I want to say maybe she has issues with men given her childhood trauma but that doesn't exactly make much sense given she has a male friend. Unless something happened between the two that her issues with men were more or less put aside for him.

Or maybe she thought Kirito was just another guy following after her because "gurlz are h0t lol" like that one weird guy who she was part of party with back in episode 2. But that's just guessing. :\

Yeah, that doesn't make sense now that I think about it. :\

"Obi Wan-san, taught you well Luke-kun. But you are not a Jedi Scout yet. N-n-not that I care! Baka!" -Vader-chan.

Surprised they would mention them again. Just sort of thought they would be this one time sort of thing. :\

 

Okay so, a little late here but I wanted to talk about the latest episode. *inhale*

Spoiler

How. Fucking. Convenient is it that Kirito managed to not only recall the name of one of the Laughing Coffin's leaders when he is getting is candy ass kicked but also said leader would go on to become a serial killer in another game and wear another skull mask with red eyes like he did in SAO?

Or that he was the sole member to use the same fighting style as Asuna so that she can vaguely recall him? Which I guess introducing that little factoid means fuck all now doesn't it?

And how convenient is it that Sinon's male friend was not only a cohort in this whole mess but that he was also the Laughing Coffin leader's brother and that their dad owns a hospital that happens to hold of their heart stopping drug?

Or how about Sinon being near the route Kirito likes to take?

Sword Art Online? More like Mass Convenience Online.

 

I lost this topic, so I couldn't discuss it anymore!

Spoiler: FInal toughts

For the most time I really tought Death Gun was Agil ,his voice sounded the same and it would be great that an old friend could be the culprit... I could even see that he liked to help the noobs only to kill them after like a Hisoka cernario (from Hunter X Hunter). But it was a random guy that we never saw before ;(... Kirito could somehow win 1x1 all SAO, but has difficulties with some player that should be many levels behind him.. guess he didn't gain that much XP in the break from SAO and ALO, having to manage his family and such..
Though I liked the end, It is far inferior than the original season. I am much more excited about Log Horizon.

 

Okay, I'll give credit to the new episode.

Spoiler

I rather liked Sinon meeting the lady and her kid.

It was nice.

 

Alright, I got bored and figured, hey, let's watch a couple episodes of SAO so I can see just how far this rabbit hole goes. So, let's talk about episode six because I am comically behind, which is actually quite normal for me because I tend to fall behind on shows I actually like, too (see: Kamen Rider Gaim).

Anyway, I like the episode. It's actually really strange to me that so far, I've liked most of the episodes. Did Kawahara actually learn from the many, MANY, problems the first two arcs had? Or did the animators just rewrite or cut out most of them? Still, so far so good, season 2.

I was kinda expecting this to be a several episode tournament arc, but the pacing is actually pretty good. I would have liked to see some more coverage of Sinon's matches, though. Speaking of which, was it ever shown or explained that the game has vehicles outside of the main city area?

Anyway, my notes:

* Kirito has PTSD from the events of the SAO incident. He has a character flaw. Do you guys realize how big of a deal this is? A character flaw that's not just told about and immediately contradicted, but a real, legitimate one that actually adds some depth to the character. It came out of nowhere being more or less completely untouched upon in the last arc, but it's still an actual character flaw.

Granted, if Kawahara knew what he was doing, he would have foreshadowed this, but I think I've long since established that Kawahara doesn't know what foreshadowing even is. It would be logical for psychiatrists to be at the ready for SAO survivors because it's almost like they were locked in a death game for two years or something and it would be logical that Kazuto would see one because of even potential PTSD.

Now let's count the number of episodes that it takes before the PTSD character trait is dropped entirely (which in a good story, it would never be. As someone who rooms with a Gulf War vet, PTSD is not something you exactly get over).

* In the flashback to the Laughing Coffin raid, we're shown Kirito kill one person and we're told that ten raiders were killed and twenty members of Laughing Coffin wouldn't surrender. It then says that only two of them were killed. So, were the other 18 captured? Is this a continuity error? Or just ****** writing?

However, I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt to the show and say it was ****** writing. Seeing the scale of the battle, I find it hard to believe that only two Laughing Coffin members were killed, especially since it was established that twenty wouldn't surrender. I'd have believed as few as maybe eight, but two?

* Seeing how Kirito acts during his SAO flashback is actually extremely believable. PTSD does some serious **** to your mind and it's not a stretch of the imagination to see how Kirito acts. Similarly, Sinon's panic from her own PTSD triggering was quite tense and believable.

* ****ing BULLSHIT on how Kirito blocked Sinon's bullet. Even if I could believe such a thing in ALO, he's never experienced a game with guns, so the movements are totally different to what he's used to.

* There are some interesting parallels drawn between Kirito and Sinon. I hope we get to see these continued to be explored.

EDIT: Because I forgot about the list when posting this:

----
List of things Reki Kawahara needs to learn about before he writes anything else:
Character development
The Bechdel Test
Subtlety
Foreshadowing

 

if people are interest in this, maplestory had this update where you get to play as kirito. you can also get the costumes of kirito, asuna, and more in the cash shop. i haven't logged on in a while, so if you don't see it don't kill the messenger.

 

You actually may have misread. Kirito only killed two during the raid. Not just two were killed in general.


On a some what related note, Kirito is fudging his kill count a bit seeing how he also technically killed Kayaba. This would bring his murder list to four rather then three.

 

I recall seeing somewhere that he killed 6, but I neither remember where that is, nor do I really care.

 

Okay, so I’ve been trying to catch up and just got finished with episode 13. I’ve been on the fence about just quitting the show, but this episode showed me that it was a good idea to keep going.

Spoiler

This was probably the hardest I’ve laughed at anything SAO related, it’s done some pretty dumb stuff. All the parts that were supposed to be dramatic were unintentionally hilarious. Granted, I haven’t bought into the drama of the show for a while now.

And the Yui thing? Man...that just rubs me the wrong way. It is just absolutely awkward, and it’s hard to buy that it’s being treated so seriously.

And the ending. How far did they dig for an ass-pull that the best friend is a psycho and that his brother is Death Gun. I love how they give a little flashback to try and say “no, guys, seriously! We didn’t come up with this on the spot”. I couldn’t hold in laughter at the whole brother reveal.

Honestly, I thought episode 24 of the first season couldn’t be beat for its absurdity, but we have a winner.