Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online II

SAO Alternative: GGO is back with its second season after an over 6 year wait. I actually just binged the first season last week, and I am now caught up to the 4 eps that are out for s2. Here are my thoughts.


Plot: Our mc is a girl named Karen Kohiruimaki. IRL, she is very self-conscious about her height as she is quite tall, so she decides to play GGO after a friend recommends it to her. She models her new in game avatar to be the "pink devil" LLENNN, a small but ruthless girl who guns down her enemies without hesitation. Eventually, she ends ... up meeting a woman named Pitohui, a sniper who has a lot of experience in GGO, and she ends up teaming with her in "Squad Jam" a team based battle royale. This was s1 more or less.

S2 starts off strong as we get thrown back immediately into the action, with bullets flying everywhere and chaos ensuing. We are now currently in the third squad jam, and in terms of the story, s2 is already more interesting than s1, with many twists and turns being thrown at every corner to keep the viewer on the edge of their seat. Personally, I never thought that the plot was the strong part of sao, but its actually good in this one.

Characters: The cast is quite enjoyable, and unlike the regular SAO series, most of the characters are actually likeable. LLENN is adorable yet strong, Pitohui is badass and hot, Miyu is energetic and has a fun personality, and M is a complete gigachad. Overall, I much prefer the cast of alternative over regular sao.

Story and characters: 7.5/10

Music: The music in this series is really solid. It keeps you locked into the intense atmosphere and engaged for every second, the placement of insert songs is well done.

Music: 8/10

Animation: While the animation is not S tier by any means, its certainly well above average. S1 already looked quite good, but with A1 pictures taking over s2, you can definitely tell that the animation leveled up. The shots are really clean and sao has always had good animation so this isn't really surprising to me.

Animation: 8/10

OP and ED:

The op by ReoNa is an absolute banger, and I've been looping it on spotify recently because it's just that good. Seriously, give it a listen. The visuals are also immaculate. The ed is alright. Not bad, but certainly a step down from the op.

OP score: 8/10
ED score: 6/10

Voice Acting: The voice acting in this show remains high quality. The entire cast did a solid job on this, and big names such as
Kusunoki Tomori, Hikasa Youko, and Akasaki Chinatsu means that the voice performances will be good.

Voice acting: 7.5/10

Overall, while I understand people's hesitation's of getting into a new SAO, trust me this one is worth it. I already preferred season 1 of SAO Alternative more than season 1 of regular SAO, and season 2 of SAO Alternative continues to do everything that season 1 did well, as well as improve upon the aspects that weren't so good. If you enjoyed season 1 of SAO Alternative even a little bit, I think you should definitely check out season 2, as you will be pleasantly surprised.

Overall score: 7.5/10

Part 1
Well, now in weight Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online II and what I can see:

1- excellent animation without any problem, an acceptable OP and ED

2- with the number of chapters that this second season has, which are 12, I can see that there will only be one tournament if it is extended or there will be two or one type of event

3- it seems very lazy to use the same teams from the last tournaments, I know that some should appear, but with the popularity that the GGO game has, it would have been interesting to include more and they only included ... 3 new characters that could be relevant or not for the plot, that will affect the following chapters and I can see why they made this decision since the tournament starts from chapter 1 and there is no time to develop new characters according to the plot

4- the action scenes do not disappoint and the logical use of weapons is maintained

5- I hope that with the remaining chapters they include some antagonist or an incentive, for example, Karen ran out of money due to a scam, she must win the tournament to recover the money because right now the plot of this second season is predictable and boring

6- And the character of Pitohui seems illogical to me that she is playing and is friends with Karen and Miyu as if nothing had ever happened, the attack in the previous tournament was very stupid that they forgave her, Pitohui should be imprisoned in a mental institution for 20 years, with the events that happened in Aincrad, the laws were toughened with the attacks in video games, the police should have caught her and the other thing that is not seen in this season is that none of the characters from the other teams that were victims of the attack are seeking revenge against her