Wednesday, April 8, 2015

Sword Art Online review

I'm sure that if you watch anime then you've heard of Sword Art Online. I'm sure would have heard people say that the show sucks, it's a waste of your time, the story is bad, etc. Having watched the show twice and having been reading the light novels as they get in published in English, it's not that bad of a show. For those of you that don't know what SAO is about, well I'll tell you. It takes place in the year 2022 when the first VRMMORPG along with nerve gear comes out. The main character Kirito was a beta tester for the game Sword Art Online(SAO) and was one the first people to get the game. Once you logged on there was no going back. Once you were in the game you couldn't log out. "This may be a game but it's not something you play" - Kirito. Over like 100,000 players were trapped in the game. Cause if you died in the game you died in real life. If someone tried to remove your nerve gear than the nerve gear would fry your brain. The only way to escape was to beat all 100 floors and not die. That about sums it up.
I first watched a couple episodes of this show dubbed on toonami and than I watched the whole thing subbed. The sub is way better just saying. This show gets really bad reviews because they either haven't read the light novels or they look at the second half as if the first half never happened. I don't like the second half as much but it does help the story out. Yes this show is kind of like a harem and the first couple episodes are filler, but without them the show could have been a lot worse. The first light novel takes place on floor 74 and you don't know what happened on the lower floors. In the second light novel it has the stories that the filler episodes are based off of. Than there's SAO Progressive which focuses on the first floor I believe. I haven't read those novels yet.
The first half of the show is very powerful. There's a lot of action and some romance because it's an anime. I really loved the idea behind SAO and I loved the game. If that game came out in real life I would actually play it. I just don't want to get trapped in a game for two years. When I first watched SAO and I got to the second half I hated it. I didn't really like ALO(Alfheim Online). I also hated the fairy king. The last time I hated a character with a burning passion was when I watched Bleach. (Oh how I loathed Aizen!) Yes, Asuna had to have Kirito come and save her, but that wasn't her fault. She tried to escape but that failed and she couldn't leave her bird cage because of something to do with the bar. It all makes sense if you read volumes 3-4. Asuna never really got a lot of time as a character. We didn't get a lot of her background information as we did with Kirito.
What I like is that the second season foucses on Asuna a little more. We get to see more of her character. In the second season we also have the game Gun Gale Online(GGO). I really loved that game too. I wouldn't play it but it was really interesting. We also were introduced to Sinon and we get to see as she over comes her problems in the real world through the game. You can tell that as the series goes on the author is getting better at development.
I could go one and on about SAO and way I like it and what I didn't like so much but I am not going to. If you do watch this show just keep in mind that the light novels are much better and that the second season might be better than the first. Keep an open mind when you watch this show, you should also read the books too, you might think of the show in a different light after reading them. SAO does have flaws but as it goes on it does get better. There are a lot of female characters, but that's something you have to live with.  Now stare at this adorable picture of Yui. You can not say that she doesn't melt your heart.



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