Tag Archives: SWORD ART ONLINE

SWORD ART ONLINE (Ep. 10-15)

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(spoilers galore)

Ep. 10-12

Kirito fights another guy over Asuna.  This time, it’s the leader of her guild, Heathcliff.  Heathcliff wins and Kirito joins the guild.  He even has to wear their not-black uniform.  But there’s a traitor in their midst (the bodyguard guy who fought Kirito over Asuna in the earlier episode), and he’s trying to kill Kirito.  Asuna and Kirito take him down.  Kirito and Asuna take time off, get married, pick up a stray kid.  Mindnumbing.

Said stray kid, Yui, dies in episode 12, but not before giving Kirito some interesting information about Sword Art Online’s program.  Her grieving “parents” manage to save her core data before she’s fully deleted, and hope to re-create her later.

Ep. 13-14

Kirito goes fishing.  Then Kirito and Asuna get summoned to a big boss battle.  After the battle, Kirito takes a chance and figures out the in-game identity of SAO’s mastermind.  They fight.  Kirito and Asuna die.  Except they don’t die.  Of course.

Although there are plenty, plenty of things I could gripe about, in all fairness, these 2 episodes are not bad.  There’s fighting!  There’s action!  Things happen!  Best of all, Sword Art Online ends!  Well, at least the game is over.

Ep. 15

Regrettably, SWORD ART ONLINE, the anime, is not over.

Now, we’re being introduced to an extreme one-dimensional villain as a romantic rival for Kirito (I laughed at the stupidity).  First, there’s the absurdity that they are fighting over who gets to marry a comatose girl.  Then, Asuna X Kirito is already so well established that I don’t think there’s any risk that anyone would root for the other guy, even if he was flawless; there’s just no need to make him such an unbelievable dick.  I guess I should give the character designers some credit for making his appearance not completely butt-ugly.

But that’s not all.  It turns out Kirito’s own sister is in love with him (I facepalmed so hard).  The show goes to great lengths to emphasize that they are actually cousins, not brother and sister.  Of course.

Lately, it seems as if there’s one or two new imouto/onii-ai (ie, incest) anime series every season.  God knows why.  Anyway, SAO wasn’t shitty enough already, it had to get on the imouto-fetish bandwagon too.

I won’t be watching this anymore.  Stick a fork in me; I’m done.

 

SWORD ART ONLINE (Ep. 1-9)

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Instead of SWORD ART ONLINE, I’d rather be watching…

DARKER THAN BLACK. While the basic premises of the two series are completely different, they do share some similarities, which I’ll elaborate on.

First of all, I’ll state that I’m one of those complainers who has no experience with MMOs. So I admit that I have difficulty comprehending things like why a player would need to have the option to level-up their cooking skills in an action game, but I guess that’s just how it is. Point being: I am not the target audience for SWORD ART ONLINE.

SWORD ART ONLINE and DARKER THAN BLACK each feature an incredibly powerful male protagonist who has dark hair and likes to wear a long black coat. Both guys inadvertently accumulate a harem as they move through their respective shows, since the girls they encounter can’t help falling for them, even though they themselves seem to have no interest in romance.

So why does it work for Hei in DTB and not for SAO’s Kirito? Personally, I appreciate that Hei is an adult. His maturity, skill, and intelligence are portrayed in a convincing manner. And unlike Kirito, Hei actually has faults. His gluttony is played for laughs; and his comrades find him peculiar because he doesn’t always behave in the logical way that a contractor is expected to. Kirito, on the other hand, is just perfect and all-powerful. Supposedly, he’s battling bosses on the front lines in his spare time, but we never see it.

Both series progress in a meandering fashion, where the things that happen in most of the episodes have little bearing on the overall plot. This doesn’t have to be a bad thing. If handled effectively, the mini story arcs can accomplish world-building, show character development and be thought-provoking. Needless to say, DARKER THAN BLACK does it right, in my opinion, while SWORD ART ONLINE fails.

Instead of SWORD ART ONLINE, I’d rather be watching…

La storia della Arcana Famiglia. Like SAO, Arcana Famiglia is another currently-airing anime series on CrunchyRoll. Both start with a promising first episode before heading directly to filler-like material in episode two. Both are finally starting to maybe address their original storyline now, in episode 9.

The difference? I have very low expectations of Arcana. The animation is low- budget and it looks like some crappy reverse-haremy anime about an Italian family whose members are contracted to tarot cards. SAO is the opposite: slick and high-budget with promises of action and adventure. However, it is SAO that manages to offend. Female lead Asuna is supposed to be one of the strongest players in the game, and yet she needs a bodyguard? Wouldn’t she be protecting him? It would be more believable to me if the two characters had simply made a pact to watch each other’s backs instead. And then, she allows two guys to fight over her. At least in Arcana, the heroine intends to fight for herself!

Instead of SWORD ART ONLINE, I’d rather be watching…

GUILTY CROWN. Okay, no I wouldn’t. Nothing’s gonna make me want to watch that piece of crap show over again. But certainly SAO is becoming this season’s GUILTY CROWN for me. It’s nice to look at, but the story is deeply disappointing and the random fanservice shots are always gratuitous and inappropriate.

I’m in too deep to stop now, so I’ll keep watching. As with GUILTY CROWN, I will be hoping that the show will redeem itself somehow, even if I fully expect a train wreck. At least SAO is an adaptation, not an anime-original story, so there’s some reason to hope, right??