Sword Art Online Movie: Ordinal Scale

Nearing the end of the Summer of 2014, SAO’s Gun Gale Online Arc finally draws to a close. Dumbfounded and genuinely surprised at the story arc’s terrible writing, characters and overall aesthetic, I sat back and assessed Sword Art Online up to that point in time, and concluded there and then, that, for me at least anyway, the Gun Gale Online arc was the absolute lowest point the series had fallen, and, surely, for how incredibly awful that arc was, there would be nothing else that could possibly be as bad, and as I witnessed the next two story arcs the series had to offer, ... was content in the assumption I had made. As such, when the announcement for the latest addition to the series arrived, a film of the Ordinal Scale arc, while not expecting too much, was, at the very least, hoping for something that was entertaining. For me, something that is "bad" is not inherently a game breaker as long as I can derive some kind of entertainment from the piece I am consuming (it's the same reason I kept watching Hand Shakers after all!). However, when I finally got a chance to see the film at my local cinema I was immediately transported back to Gun Gale Online, and all of the problems I had with that arc. It was like a World War II survivor being shown film of the war again. It was horrifying. To put it bluntly, Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale, is awful, and may be the most illogical and poorly written entry in the series thus far, and that’s saying a lot when taking into account the franchise's now seemingly unanimous hatred from much of the community! There are so many things that this movie does wrong, and of course, keeping in style with previous entries into the series, is essentially the living embodiment of wasted potential, and I think that's what annoys me most about SAO in general. The series has interesting ideas from time to time, and in some instances, such as in Gun Gale, when given the opportunity to develop Kirito, it's unfortunately glossed over. And that's the impression I get of Ordinal Scale. It feels like everything that could have been interesting got pushed to the side.

To properly discuss the various elements at fault in the narrative, a quick summary of its contents:

A new game in the world of Sword Art Online has gained insane popularity, using a cutting-edge piece of technology called the "Augma". Wearing such a device creates a virtual world out of the real one, in which players can interact with, as well as play games within this world in order to earn in-game currency. This currency can then be used to, for example, purchase cakes at local shops or be used to earn discounts on over goods (be it clothing, or gadgets), which results in the game becoming insanely popular. However, the bosses from Sword Art Online begin to appear and battle against the players, whereupon the viewer learns that, if one who is defeated by said boss just so happens to be a surviving member of the aforementioned game, then their memories will be completely wiped! As is the case with our main girl, Asuna! Now, with a basic narrative, which is inherently fine on its own, there is a lot to discuss. Firstly, let's discuss the impracticality of the Augma as a piece of technology.

For starters, the game requires you to play with this device outside and to utilise your own body in order to fight off against the monsters you see before you, as you place the technology over your face (much like the Nerve Gear in SAO). The idea is that the players, with this technology equipped, can see the virtual world and monsters presented within it, and those without, cannot, and since the game requires the players to be running around and swinging their arms about, then your average person would just be seeing a bunch of man-children screaming as they fight off against seemingly nothing! It's an image I had while watching the film that made me laugh as it is quite frankly, silly. In addition to this, while playing the game, the player is not aware of the physical world around them, and, let's say if they go to punch an enemy in the game (in which only they can see!), in the real world they could easily punch a random pedestrian without even being aware! Thankfully, in this world, it seems nobody travels outside, as this problem never seemed to be brought into fruition. It seems everyone in the real world disappears once the players begin their flailing. Even more problems arise when you think about the dangers the players themselves are in while in the game. What about if they think they’re running to a dragon or something, a good sixty meters in front of them but instead they proceed to run into open traffic and get run over? And I know the writer even thought of this possibility himself because during the scene in which Kirito goes to a university lecture and remarks to the lecturer that there are problems with the technology, the lecturer responds by asking him, “Is this an issue with the road accidents?” or something along those lines. As such, it leaves me to believe that there have been plenty of incidents while wearing and playing this game, and the fact that the player is completely unaware of his or her surroundings makes me wonder why anyone would willingly want to play the game out of fear of an incident occurring. Hell, a random passer-by could easily steal items out of their pockets, or even worse since they’re practically undefended!

"LIQ, you always nitpick these small little things. Why does it even matter?"
Perhaps you're right, imaginary voice in my head in which thinks of counter-arguments to my points so I can provide justification against them. Perhaps I am being pedantic in my criticisms, and just looking for stuff to complain about because indeed I am talking about SAO. A series so overtly hated at this point, that people begin groaning when they see another video on YouTube criticising the series. However, the reason why I was so distracted by such little effort in creating something that feels "real" or "believable" was because the film bored me to death, and when I'm bored, my mind thinks of such things.

Boredom. There in lies my main problem with the film, and the main reason in which every element felt so contrived to me. As a result of this boredom, another problem with the technology that bugged me began to arise: there was no clear limitations of what it could or couldn't do. For example, when attacked by an enemy in the game, some people are perfectly okay, while others are thrown back or respond to pain when being hit by an enemy. They’re nothing more than CPUs, right...? How can they issue any pain whatsoever, more so have any ability to physically move a person? When a player is hurt by these enemies and is thrown through the air, does their real-life body also fly back? The character in the digital world's movements are dictated by the actions of the player in the real world, so it doesn't make any sense. It’s just incredibly inconsistent.

This lack of clear limitations regarding the mechanics of the game also extends to the abilities of the players. For example, one of the antagonists in the film was capable of pulling off all of these amazing manoeuvres by bouncing off the walls at great speeds, which, if this were a video game in which a player used some kind of gaming peripheral such as a controller would be understandable, this element begins to make less sense when you remember that this game is controlled by the player physically moving their bodies! It's just silly to imagine that anyone could realistically be able to do such a thing, and it ends up pulling me out of the film because my suspension of disbelief shatters.

Moving along to Kirito, one thing I always praised about Gun Gale Online, despite my obvious disdain for that arc, was that they attempted to do something new with Kirto's character. His short battle with PTSD was, in my opinion, the most interesting thing to ever happen to his character, and while the pay off for this is incredibly weak, at least there was an attempt! A gold star for effort, if you will. In Ordinal Scale however, Kirito is perhaps at his most bland, and that's saying something for an already bland character. Kirito's purpose in this narrative is simple: he is the hero who saves the day and that's it. We never learn anything new about him as a person nor are there any attempts at trying to give him any more of a personality. He feels like an empty shell. While initially I was ready to throw Ordinal Scale some praise as it presented Kirito as the weakest player of this new game, thereby placing him in a position in which he is not the strongest at all times, and even resulting in a somewhat charming scene in which he falls flat on his face in an attempt to be cool, unfortunately this element is only used for comedic purposes.

Kirito’s lack of strength means nothing in the grand scheme of things since he gains power pretty quickly, becoming the number one player with little to no effort, and is used more so to pad out the story otherwise Kirito would have defeated the antagonist in their first encounter. Having Kirito be the weakest, and having him struggle and work hard to gain power in order to save his girlfriend would have given the narrative a greater sense of sincerity and heart as well. I may have found myself rooting for Kirito, as he is the underdog in this tale for once, but unfortunately the narrative opts for its roots of having him be overpowered and that's all. Watching the film, I can somewhat understand where I believe the script was going regarding his character: that of a directionless guy who has to finally decide what to do with his life. This is evident by the fact that he seems even more melancholic than what we are used to, and by the fact that he is taking a while in choosing a college course to attend. I really want to find the pieces here, and I really want to like Kirito, but I simply can't, as, even with these tiny details, Kirito feels more so like a robot than a character.

Asuna’s character in the film acts as the focal point of interest for the audience, being that she loses her memory of her time in Sword Art Online. Their relationship is pivotal in holding together much of the emotional weight of the narrative, due to the fact that we see both of them at the beginning of the film promise to each other that they’ll see the stars together; something that is shattered as a result of this loss of memory. Asuna's struggle with her memory loss is honestly the only element that kind of held my interest. Seeing her experience some form of PTSD when being cut down by the antagonist, or when she breaks down and cries alone after losing her memories, adds some layers of depth onto her character, and while it is nothing extraordinary, it also adds some kind of drama to the narrative.

Perhaps my biggest gripe with the narrative was the use of exposition. Exposition is inherently not a bad thing, and, in fact, is a pivotal element in every narrative to allow the viewer to understand the world they are presented with. However, what's important is the way in which the exposition is delivered. Have the exposition be delivered in such a way to naturally allow the viewer to learn and gauge things by themselves. Perhaps use the cinematography and framing to convey ideas. Perhaps slip small pieces of information in conversations between characters that build on our established knowledge of the context of the world. There is an infinite number of ways to handle exposition, but the one most common, as it requires little effort, is when simply a character monologues, or flat out tells the viewer everything! And indeed, SAO: Ordinal Scale opts for this kind of delivery. As such, it makes the script come across as lazy and not very well thought out, as the viewer is subjected to large sections dedicated to simply telling us what is happening. While certainly not as prevalent in Gun Gale, Ordinal Scale makes use of plenty of cafe scenes in order to deliver such exposition, which, as previously mentioned, not only makes these scenes drag on, but the inherent framing that comes with a cafe scene is visually boring too.

The villains of this film are also incredibly poor. Both antagonists, Eiji, a surviving member of SAO, and Tetsuhiro Shigemura, a professor and father to a girl called Yuna, wish to bring this girl back to life. They believe the way in which to resurrect her is by extracting memories of the SAO survivors through the technology already discussed. While this is indeed a fine motivation, its ultimately undercut by how little emotional weight this carries. As a viewer, we have no reason to care for these people, or the deceased girl, as we know nothing about them. Who cares if they do not succeed? We are given no reason to do so, nor are their characters well-written enough to elicit such emotions of sympathy in me.

Moreover, as their targets are specifically that of SAO survivors, it doesn't make much sense to have the bosses be that from the game as a means to attract them. Perhaps it may act as a deterrent and stop people from even going as it brings along memories of that time in which they witnessed thousands of people die, and thus, be fruitless. However, I am willing to accept the possibility that, of course, some SAO survivors perhaps may have gotten over such trauma, as it has been four years, and will use such opportunities as a means of getting over their past nightmares, which I believe could have been an interesting angle, but is unfortunately never used.

As Kirito believes it be wrong for the survivors of SAO to forget their memories, as it would mean they're also forgetting the people that they lost, perhaps an interesting narrative thread would have been to have the antagonist play a direct contrasting ideology to Kirito's. Perhaps the antagonist could argue that it's in fact great for the SAO players to forget as they can move on with their lives. This would have given Kirito a greater sense of purpose in this narrative, and allowed the viewer to see the advantages of two ideologies. As such, we are not subjected to Kirito's stance, which the film propagates as the morally "correct" one, rather that the film allows the viewer to think for themselves, and would have given Kirito's rivalry towards the villain a greater sense of authenticity. It's not only about physically besting the villain, but also a journey of understanding them too, making each party all the more human.

I've talked at length about what this film "could have been", and offered many ways in which I think it could have been made interesting, but in doing so, I don't mean to suggest that I am a good writer, or my ideas are of any greater value than those presented. Simply, all my own interpretations of how Ordinal Scale could be good stem from my frustration with it: mainly its wasted potential.

Hell, even Kayiba makes an appearance in the film, and just like every encounter we’ve had up with him up to this point, all he does is spout off some random vague existential nothingness and off he goes! While it does add some introspection into his character, as he remarks that he too used to think like the father whom is trying to revive his daughter, suggesting some kind of growth or awakening, we don’t learn anything else. Ultimately Ordinal Scale’s narrative and character fails due to a lack of focus, and I believe that's the keyword here. "Focus". Ordinal Scale feels as if a team of over twenty writers had ideas for a story, and instead of choosing one or two concrete ideas and developing them, chose to use every single unique idea. The result is a rather confusing mess of ideas and concepts that never really mesh together, nor play out in any interesting way.

Now, that’s not to say that the film is ultimately worthless however. There were a few moments I kind of liked in fact! SAO’s visuals and music has always been pretty strong (for the most part anyway) and this is where the film excels best at. The film looks good from a visual perspective, and the final action sequence was one I certainly did enjoy! Another small detail I liked was a short two second visual in which we see Asuna fly up in the air to get ready for an attack. Overlayed on her stance, one can see an image of Yuuki, who then aids Asuna in her fight. It’s a sweet little exchange, and while it was mainly included for some forced manipulation of the FEEELS I’d imagine, it works on me anyway since these two are the only two characters with some semblance of actual emotional investment; I admit I smiled when I saw that! You know what other moment made me smile? An uncensored shot of Asuna’s nipples while she was bathing. Now THAT was worth the price! I did notice a few instances of CGI however, which did kind of break my immersion in a couple of places, used mainly in the final scene of the film with some of the designs of the monsters, and in a shot where Kirito is on the phone to Asuna on his bike, where CGI pedestrians are used in the background, but it’s nowhere near the worst case of CGI I’ve seen before. The music is also good too (albeit somewhat generic and forgettable in my opinion), and I honestly really do like Yuna’s character design as well!

In conclusion, Ordinal Scale was a massive mess of ideas and concepts thrown into a blender. While, upon reflection, I wouldn’t consider Ordinal Scale to be as bad as Gun Gale Online (for that was not only much longer, filled with more plot convenience and didn’t have nearly as good animation) it was certainly nothing to raise the bar for the series, and at this point my expectations are so low that they’re right next to Dinosaur bones! It’s essentially a movie for the fans of the series, with constant call backs to earlier instalments in the franchise and the such, which is not inherently a bad thing to be, but it doesn’t excuse all of the problems I had in regards to the script. Now, I'm not here to degrade anyone who likes Sword Art Online. I believe doing such a thing anyway is dumb, and rather counter-intuitive if we all want to be open to different perspectives. Like previous instalments, the reason why I feel such irritation towards Ordinal Scale is, again, the wasted potential. The ingredients are here. It's just a shame a chef who doesn't know how to cook made the meal.

I'm going to analyze this movie with pros and cons in bullet point. THIS RA- REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.

+Fantastic action in the first boss raid. There were gunners on the balconies, melee dps fighters taking shots, tanks tanking shots, sufficient logic of boss moves and specials, and they formulated a strategy towards the end of the fight considering they were ragtag players and not an actual raid party. Very fun!
+Good environmental destruction animation throughout. The flames, the rocks flying, the smoke, and all that stuff was well animated. I especially liked that scene where Klein jobbed, with the integration of his HUD heightening our emotional connection ... with his despair.
+The final boss' design met my expectations of what a final boss should look like: graceful yet menacing, a sense of beauty as she is the guardian of her garden and temple.
+I love the soundtrack and insert songs. They are right up my alley from upbeat j-pop idol songs to slower ballads; the volume dynamics used with a few noise tracks to create tension and boding.
+The background art and CGI of the AR transformation are pretty slick. This is easy mode, though; the weather is sunny for the week of this movie's timeline; and the fantasy setting is standard medieval meets magic with a blood-red colour pallete.
+Kirito and Asuna's romance moves forward in a meaningful way. The set-up is that they planned an outing into the countryside, but the plot kicks in and the trip is in danger of being cancelled! In addition, the memories they made together is being endangered! I genuinely felt for their relationship at all points throughout the movie, and I got a satisfying payoff.
+There are a few standout cinematography moments sprinkled throughout. I liked Asuna's nightmare where the faces got blurred out to represent loss of memory, and when she woke up with the camera blurry as if we were waking up back to reality; a few POV camera shots when Kirito was looking around for the AR ghost were utilized as needed; and I liked the seemless integration of the HUD into several POV shots to visualize how cool the Augma is.
+Drones are a thing!
+Asuna's hair was amazing!
+Nice foreshadowing in this one scene where Kirito visits a future site of conflict. Very beautiful place fitting of the fantasy setting.
+I was invested in the mystery during the first half of the movie, before it falls apart as we try to piece the given answers together.

-The prologue before the title card is just recap using TV footage.
-The AR exposition is boring and unimaginative. They choose to use a news segment to explain the various functions of the Augma and how it got popular; the clips used to highlight its functions are generic and uninspiring as if the audience was the mainstream instead of fans of the franchise. (It is implied that you should watch the first 50 episodes of SAO first before this movie... otherwise you'd have no interest or you're watching in the wrong order.)
-Um... idols! She comes in, buffs the players, and sings music... because the producers needed to sell some music! It felt very silly, but I guess that's why they did it.
-It feels lazy when most of the bosses were recycling SAO monster designs. "Hey, we worked very hard on these boss designs, so let's use them in the movie instead of coming up with original monsters!" The excuse is that SAO and Ordinal Scale are doing a collab. I also really hate the plant venus-fly-trap monster; that thing just really irritates me.

-The entirety of act 2 is boring.
-Heavy exposition is dumped using dialogue in uninteresting areas. Kirito and Asuna would meet up, then awkward silence would ensue whenever they weren't talking about the plot. They'd sit in their Aincrad house, or at a cafe (that's outside!), or at a restaurant, or on the street.
-On that point, whenever there is dialogue, the animation comes to a stand still. There is a basic camera encomposing two characters at opposite ends of the frame and they have a standoff with only their mouths moving for a whole minute. Often, the director would cut to scenery where background characters and butterflies would move for no reason other than looking pretty while you listened to people talking.
-For almost 40 minutes, it feels like nothing important happened. There is a lot of waiting around transitioning to the next scene and "tension-building" pauses to elongate scene time.
-How many times have I got to see Kirito cook? Slice of life can have it's moments, but not three times of the exact same animation loop with nothing in between.
-As much as I like how Kirito depended on his connections to get to the bottom of this mystery, it is still uninspiring to have plot points dumped onto him via phone calls and using the internet. I like the few times he had to physically confront certain characters, but others do work for him and I didn't feel like he earned every new information.
-There are about 4 boss raids in total before the finale, and each one diminshes in importance and entertainment. They got repetitive (using stock footage of the AR transformation of the city) and gets less impressive quickly.

-Plotholes, a whole lot of them. It's like trying to drive on a road where any pothole will lead to instant death.
-Okay, so in order to obtain the memories of SAO survivors playing Ordinal Scale, the victims had to be cut down during the collab boss raids because the SAO monsters would remind them of their time in the death game and trigger an emotional response, letting the Augma calculate the location of those memories inside the brain, scan them, and extract them. Instead of being able to copy them (because why not? high-tech can mean anything), extraction leads to (ir)reversible damage to those sections of the brain. You would think that this would be permanent, until the main villains say they can give them back by reverse scanning..... this does not make any physical sense so I'm going to pretend this is all magic (or fictional science, or whatever).
-"We need solid evidence before we can sue the company that makes Augma." Can't we just reverse engineer the Augma and find out that it's just the Nervegear but with certain functions replaced? You can wear them and still full-dive? Isn't full-diving dangerous as lectured by the professor? It can perform a radiation scan to the brain just like the Nervegear, but instead of killing you, it just extracts (and destroys your) memories. All this thinking of how it works is mindwrecking and I'm just going to call this plot technology magic.
-You expect me to believe that Kirito does a training montage, that in the course of 24 hours, will increase his physical abilities and Ordinal Scale level so that he can be on even footing with Eiji? What the fuck.
-Let's go to an idol concert, she only plays one song, then you all must do a boss raid but this time they will overpower you while the exits are locked. They're not even indestructible because they get destroyed later on! You have to fight the final boss by full-diving back into ALO just because! Earn this special weapon that one-hits anything! WHY DOES THIS NUMBER NEEDS TO REACH 10000 TO TRIGGER A THING (THAN JUST TRIGGERING IT EVERY TIME SOMEBODY GETS 0 HP'D)? WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?

-Terrible use of villians.
-Eiji was the perfect foil to Kirito: a fellow SAO survivor who didn't get put down in history because he did jack in Asuna's guild so he carries around a "bible", so to speak, a reminder that he was insignificant and also as a revenge list containing the names of who he hates; in the two years between SAO and Ordinal Scale, he trained his body and grew quite a bit taller so that when he lays the smackdown, I believe he can easily overpower Kazuto in real life; he lost his only (female) friend in the game and wishes nothing but despair for everybody involved. There was potential for an ideological dialogue between the two where their values could be tested as they try to one-up each other. There was none, then he got his ass handed to him because the plot said so.
-The professor guy had a believable motivation of bringing back his deceased daughter through constructing an AI and inserting memories of her time in SAO. I mean, this would result in a totally different person but at least she'd be a bit more human. This idea was okay, until the very end of the movie when he decides to betray Eiji because he had the most memories of her. So I get that to construct her he needs memories of all the SAO survivors who ever had contact with her, and this leads to using a blanket strategy with total disregard. This is totally evil, but it turned an otherwise potentially morally gray character to just a one-dimensional black villian who, at the end of the day, needs have his plans be ruined by Kirito.

-Act 3 is ridiculous and stupid.
-So Kirito goes up to Eiji, confronts him, and smacks his ass. I have two problems with this scene: I already mentioned the stretch of disbelief with Kirito buffing himself up overnight; instead of a fistfight like what I would have done, they activate Ordinal Scale and perform a terribly choreographied swordfight. I get that this scene is happening concurrently with the idol concert upstairs, but then the backstory of the professor also gets interspersed in this fight. Yes, you should definitely talk during the fight so he knows where you are and parry your attacks! All tension is lost as the fight is resolved rather quickly. There's also this unneccessary augmentation device that gets destroyed by Kirito and lets him get the upper hand... Eiji is already an atheletic guy in real life, so why the fuck is this plot device ruining this fight for???
-The adult government enforcers are also dumb as bricks. "Let's just let Kirito handle this." Bitch no, people are trapped in the stadium and would like to be let out. Maybe the doors are soundproof or something. They even go up to the balcony and open the door with a bullet to the control panel (stupid cliche), then they can see down into the situation. They could have opened the doors on their way down to the lower floors!
-I don't have a problem with the AR ghost that led Kirito around throughout act 2, but then she shows up via deus ex machina and tells Kirito what to do in order to save the day, and he just does it without question because he trusts her just because.
-The final boss fight is not as hyped as I thought it would be. I would think it's because it is obvious that Kirito and co would defeat it, but it also feels short and unimpactful due to repetitiveness from previous fights. The boss lady herself is fun and exciting, but the way they defeat it is predictable and cheesy. Basically, they dive into ALO and everybody (whose function is to be a cameo) are able to come together and defeat it. Also to note is that the action happens too fast and everybody only has less than 2 seconds to show off. No strategy involved, just keep attacking it is over.
-I mentioned that the boss monsters are not indestructible. I would have programmed them to be and I'd get that special number 10000 to trigger my brain melt attack, but the hack weapon for some hack reason turns that flag off and I wouldn't be able to drain memories from my despairing victims. Bad logic.

Quick explanation of scores:
Animation 7 - Beautiful background art and action choregraphy, but terrible directing and cinematics for most of the runtime.
Sound 8 - Lovely OST, catchy insert songs, and I like LiSA. Good volume dynamics in certain scenes, and good sound effects work make the action passable.
Characters 3 - Kirito and Asuna's relationship was meaningful. Other than that, nothing of interest worth mentioning. Klein gets jobbed really hard.
Story 2 - Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Enjoyment 6 - Fun, fun, fun!
Overall 4 - Because MAL makes me assign numbers to categories even though they should not be weighed equally.

I don't hate this movie. It just falls apart by itself if you start thinking about it. I don't care about recommending it. I just wanted to ra- review it.

As someone who got into anime thanks to SAO I couldn't help myself but to watch this movie. I didn't really want to expect much but the rating and many positive reviews got my hopes up, yet it disappointed quite a lot.

Story 2/10

The begining of the movie is promising but the rest of the story is a big downfall. The concept of mixed reality with VR is unique and there are a lot of paths the anime could continue from but it becomes your typical cliché where main protagonist gets from zero to hero in only 24 hours, is extremly overpowered and adults just let ... him handle everything even though there are many lives at stake.


The plot feels really empty, there many filler scenes like Kirito's cooking, Asuna's bath scene, when they were in café and played pacman to win a cake or singing Rika. There is no progress whatsoever, not even in characters. It's also dump how Kirito always ignores Yuna when she points somewhere.


Unfortunatly fights get repetive and you have already seen them in first two seasons just in different colours. If you had deja vú in at least one fight then it's because the choreography was already used before. The final fight has no impact at all because of how poorly was the story developed and how there were trown many side characters that were shown only maybe once or twice in the story and on top of it only in TV. The final deus ex machima sword fighting isn't even worth mentioning in my opinion.
(Also my friend loved how everyone always dies in one hit but the final boss apparently isn't that strong)

Characters 3/10

Don't expect much of character development here and characters stay one-dimensional. But the concept of new characters is reasonable, interesting but as with the story, wasted. The idea of Eiji's backstory and motive is well made, but that's probably it. What i did like though is the white design for Yuna. Kirito hasn't changed a bit same as his harem.

Visuals 7,5/10

Clean and bright colours are nice to watch and the animation of final fight was outstanding, together with good music being only reason not to drop it. Unfortunatly, good visuals are not enough for a show to be good. It's really hard to enjoy it, when there's so little of story and characters acts sometimes unnaturally.

Overall 4/10

If you want to see Kirito cooks or waving his sword in the air to IK monsters, you can probably enjoy, but if you expect some progress in the series, don't watch it, by the end of the week I already forgot almost everything that happend, there's no other coffee soda stucked in your head or some memorable fight scene as with Gleam Eye. I give it 4/10 only because I liked the first seasons when I started with anime but it probably deserves less.

Im not the biggest SAO fan but i went into this with an open mind. Where to begin. The plot for this is so convoluted and over the top that its hilarious. Every problem in this movie can be solved with just taking off the headset. This series cant seem to get away from people who played SAO who want revenge on other people for something and are just so one dimensional. The dialogue and witty banter between the characters is so cringy you would think the writers never had a conversation with another person their whole lives. Overall the art was good but the ... story and characters seem so stale and unrealistic that all revolves around a really bland plot.

*vague and mild spoilers for Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale*

Things aren't always as they seem.

Back when Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale first made the rounds back in 2017, it was lauded as a massive improvement over the first two seasons. Sure, SAO II received some of said treatment for the first couple of weeks and Alicization would eventually be given this reception almost wholesale, but this film is the first time it stuck. Then again, there is a subsect of viewers who consider this the worst major entry to date. Even many who praise the film's improvements won't come out and say it's good, ... given the franchise it's a part of.

A lot of the “improvements” seem rather basic, which does paint a damning picture of the franchise. Kirito is a consistently active protagonist this time…just like in the infamously dire Alphein arc. Klein isn't primarily treated as an absolute joke for the first time in several arcs…even though his ephebophile wannabe casanova tendencies are on full display this time. Asuna gets some active time to shine again like in Mother's Rosario…for the first 55% of the movie. The diner scenes have been phased out almost entirely…in favor of cabin exposition scenes. Kirito is finally being challenged by forces that give him a run for his money…until 1 strange 5-sec training session later, he's back to plowing through damn near everything before reaching the last two fights which do bring that back. The antagonists finally have sympathetic motivations for the first time since arguably Aincrad…except the impetus for everything and how asinine the plan is make it difficult to really care. Hell, the romance between Kirito and Asuna gets a decent amount of focus like in Mother's Rosario and the back half of Aincrad, and it even ties into the back half of the film…where the movie falls apart.

Yeah, there's this one aspect of the film that kills it so hard that a lot of what people praise it for either isn't enough to salvage it, or gets cancelled out completely. The more you learn about the plot, the stupider it gets. Each and every reveal is as dumb or dumber than the last ro the point where we're dealing with inexplicable digital ghosts, asspull functuonalities and hacks galore, and several nonsensical game mechanics like how nobody is #1 on the Ordinal Scale game's leaderboards until a certain endgame boss is defeated and how that stops a field everyone is trapped in from having enough power to microwave everyone's brains.

A lot of the major problems with the series also rear their ugly head here, too. Sure, there’s no rape or sexual assault attempt scene like in previous seasons, but there are still two big problems. Several characters in the ensemble cast don't get to do jack outside of one or two fights in the back half of a combat heavy film, with retroactive explanations around the halfway mark being given that feel tenuous at best as to why they couldn't do anything earlier. Hell, when Suguha finally gets to be relevant, the film quickly zooms in on her tits to let Yui pop out for a giant asspull...because priorities. Hey, it's still better than how the new characters are written.

Remember how in SAO II, Kirito undergoes PTSD due to a flashback to a raid that presumably took place during Aincrad even though we never knew about it or how important it was before? Ordinal Scale does that but for its antagonists, one of whom was apparently presumably one of the Knights of Blood who we never saw even as a tertiary or even background character in S1. They’re motivated by the death of someone who was apparently a really important bard who kept everyone's spirits up everywhere in Aincrad to the point where they wanna bring her back and we get to see pictures of her playing near the SAO cast. Even if it means potentially flying everyone's brains Akihiko Kayaba style.(because of course we need that old Ainxrad type "die in the game die IRL" threat back for the 3rd time), if it somehow means bringing her back to life -somehow being the operative word– then so be it. Do you see the issue with how hard they're reaching to justify such ridiculous retroactive storytelling?

Apart from the motivations being borked, the new characters are either there, annoyingly flat hate sinks, or incredibly jittery and difficult to comprehend like Yuna. Shrouding your characters in mystery and tying them to oddball circumstances only works if you can still see a throughline for their actions but mysterious digital idol Yuna is as erratic as the main antagonists are undercooked. It's a shame since there was some potential with them, and the old cast, while mismanaged, still had some cute moments and scenes where non-Kirito Aincrad characters could show off what they're made of. Even worse is that whenever Kirito does engage with these new antagonists and learn of their motivations, he doesn't bring in his similar experiences to relate to and challenge them. Just imagine how much more intense the battle between him and SAO survivor hunter Eiji would have been if he pulled the Sachi/Moonlight Black Cats guild card on a dude who only saw one girl close to him die. Just like that, the flimsy conflict is given more weight to substantiate its severe overreliance on retroactive storytelling. As it is now, it's hard to call a shitty antagonist with sympathetic motivations a serious improvement over SAO's previous antagonists which were just as shitty but weren't meant to be sympathized with for the most part.

There are some other improvements that actually do matter, those being with the visuals. For the first 2 seasons, SAO was saddled with what would later become the stock A-1 face you'd see in future projects like Aldnoah.Zero and The Asterisk War, and it was rough. This film, however, found a compromise between BUNBUN's LN art style and that of the first two seasons, giving the series a new, stronger sense of visual identity that will carry over into future seasons. Furthermore, even with the final battle being ridiculously difficult to follow, the particle effects and general animation have been boosted to match the standards expected of an anime film. The bolder colors and shading have increased as well, and while there is the occasional CG background rando, the film generally looks gorgeous, as Tomohiko Itou gets to do more in terms of presentation with more dynamic camera movements. The only uniquely terrible aspect of the visuals is when in the climax, they start using the postcard memories still frame technique multiple times in a row, and even worse, one of the frames contains the ugly CG skeleton boss from S1. Still, this film set new standards for the franchise in terms of visuals.

The same cannot be said about the music. Yuki Kajiura's work is still solid, though there aren't any new standouts barring the compositions for most of Yuna's insert songs performed by Sayaka Kanda. "Break Beat Bark!" and "delete" are the highlights, with the former being a franetic, upbeat battle song while the former is ominous in a way that falls perfectly in line with Kajiura's signature style. It's hard to even determine if there are any new BGM tracks without looking them up, however, given that they don't stand out compared to some of S1 and II's best pieces. Worse yet, the ED, "Catch the Moment", is one of LiSA's blandest anisongs to date, making it a far cry from any of her previous songs for the series.

Is this what every SAO entry will be from now on? One step forward, one stumble back into a sprained ankle? It’s been like this since SAO II back in 2014. Every improvement this film offers is either littered with asterisks or counterbalanced entirely by poor writing. The film is perhaps the most entertaining entry so far, barring the Mother's Rosario arc, but that's partially thanks to the final act being a top to bottom trainwreck that's up there with the stupidest moments from the first 3 arcs that make up SAO 1 and half of SAO II. Alas, this anime-only entry is yet another dud in a series that struggles to reach decency or even mediocrity most of the time, close as it came. It's been 5 years since Ordinal Scale combined Google Glasses and Pokemon Go, and while Alicization is widely heralded as the best arc, will that even hold up after this film didn’t, and is it even worth it anymore?

First of all, I did not hate Ordinal Scale, I just want to clear that up. SAO as a series has always been accompanied by great music. OS definitely lives up to that in my mind. OS also kept up the amazing dungeon designs that SAO does well. (As a person that is being a GM for D&D, I enjoy that)

It also was interesting to see how they dealt with the switch from VR to AR, and the problems that the VR community would deal with by having most of their people spend their time in AR.

And my final comment for what it did well, ... it didn't leave the villain's intentions ambiguous...

Continuing on to my critiques, while watching, I felt more obligated to watch it than actually enjoying it. The story felt rushed. Having written scripts for shows before, they did a lot of "Telling" (there is a technique called "Show don't Tell" where you explain back story and motivations through the story occurring rather than saying it out loud.)

There were attempts at foreshadowing, with the robots, but they didn't develop it enough and focus on the symbols enough to give the viewer enough time to be able to recognize it

OS also had some problems with their characters, primarily, their villains.
Despite them being intelligent, they are naive. This doesn't make them interesting.
Also, although it was cool to watch, Kirito was too OP at the end. Seriously.

For anyone that actually read my review of Ordinal Scale, thank you for your time.
-Silver King

Sword Art Online Movie: Ordinal Scale is not a good movie by any definition of the word "good"

the story it a train wreak makes no sense if you think about it for more then .10 seconds and you honestly end up siding more with the villain and speaking of villains

characters are the same they grow in no way change in no way the only person i seemed to care about was the villain who might i add it the most obvious villain in the history of anything ever and nobody seems to notice or care for that matter except kirito and spoilers what ... he is doing for the more part is fine and he could fix the other thing very quickly so it does not matter in the long run

but i liked the music so i guess thats something

So. They made more Sao. Yay.
The story: 5/10
There is actually a coherent story with an actual "Villain" with a motivation. The story is fairly predictable, it seems fairly good at first but completely crashes down at the finale. If you think about anything for longer than 5 seconds you realise it makes absolutely no sense. How are they fighting with virtual swords in the real world? How are they able to travel at inhumane speeds IN THE REAL WORLD? That right there is the problem with this movie. Ordinal scale is set in the real world, and that completely ruins the plot(SPOILERS) since it ... revolves around Sao bosses apperaing in ordinal scale, and the ex Sao players killed by them will lose their memories of sao.(WHY DO THEY NEED TO DIE? WHO KNOWS.) All the tension is gone since you realise, that to prevent this, the maincgarcters could just remove the Augma or log out. But I guess nobody ever thought of that huh. And why does everyone seem soooo terrifed of the bosses since no pain or injury can be caused in their mind. At least in Sword art online you could actually die.(SPOILERS END HERE) The antagonist is one of the "Something kinda bad happened to me and its your fault and I will do everything in my power to correct it" types, which just comes off as annoying and lackluster.

Music and animation: 8/10
Music and animation have alwasy been good in Sao, the animation flows nicely, music is epic, but the fight scenes lack impact, like in the original series.

Characters:3/10
I love me some character development. Too bad thismovie has bsloutely none. The characters are still empty shells who lack goals or purpose. Their relationshipes,outlook on life, opinions or percption of viryal games stays the same as always.

Enjoyment:3/10
This movie is absolutely filled with tropes, inconsitencies and just plain stupidity, with a little fanservice as a cherry on the top. If you just mindlessly watch the movie without questoning anything you might even enjoy it, or if youre a massive Sao fan.

Overall. 4.5/10
It was better than the original Sao, or the S**tshow of a season 2, but that isnt saying much. I youre die hard fan of Sao, you might (and probably will) end up liking it. It takes all that was good about Sao adn adds plot on top of it. IF you arent a big fan of Sao, dont spend money of this clusterf*** of movie.

Same conflict as SAO S1 condensed into a different setting, however this time our hero starts off rock bottom before rising.

The Black Swordsman Rises.

Now for the villain.

The villain's motivation are flawed in the sense that their very actions are insanely contracting.

Claims to be at fault, claims to be willing to do anything to fulfill their objective.

... Committing the same misdeeds as a previous villain, the same villain that has backed SAO:OS's villain into a corner.

With the given technological setting, the only choice for the villain is to sacrifice himself for his own objective. After all they were willing to do anything, and he is the most genuine source of "data" for his motive. No, he needs to commit himself to inhumane and illegal acts that will ruin any chance for him to reach his goal. When he can go into a dark corner and sacrifice his own "data" and have an accomplice see to it his intentions are carried out at the cost of only 1 potential casualty if it can even be called that.

Far too many holes where the Villain's flawed script ruins the story. Sometimes a silent villain makes the best villain while having environmental and interactions between the main chars and victims do all the exposition. Which is certainly ascertainable for the astute viewer.


Spoiler Warning:


Can scan, extract and return "memories," but can't make copies (or record either, or there would be a record of the main victim's memories stored somewhere after the SAO incident).

Careful! Spoiler free review!

Definitely the biggest pile of garbage I've ever watched (spoiler, sry). Great watch with friends though! We laughed so hard we shat our pants! Thanks Reki Kawahara! I was feeling depressed and now the only thing I feel is incredible hopelessness for the future of humanity! My only issue with this fantastic movie is that the audio levels were poorly mixed, but I guess that's okay! Now I can't hear my girlfriend bitch about how I "forgot our anniversary" and "dropped the baby" and how she "wants to break up with me"! Btw, T-Fizzle Best Waifu.

Btw, how tf did they mess up ... pac-man so much? It is impossible...

WARNING: This is a review of the first half of the movie only. Minor spoilers ahead.

TL;DR: The first half of the movie is an awful cringefest that made me not want to watch the second half. Nothing makes any sense.

This movie is so bad that it made me login on MAL after a long time, just to write this mini review.
It actually took me two days to watch 1 hour of the movie and I still haven't finished it. It's that horrible.


Pros:
1. Pretty artwork.
...
Cons:

1. It's never really explained how Ordinal Scale works, probably because it doesn't make any sense, so it would be hard to. It's alright, it's not that big of a deal

2.The antagonist of the story is so edgy that I cut my wrists. And I usually like edgy shit...
[Antagonist's pespective]"Yeah dude, I was a total loser in Aincard and I was made fun of, so it's totally fine to physically assault (with my imaginary OS sword that somehow touches them in real life) SAO players while they are minding their own business playing OS, to redeem myself."

He is literally a weirdo loser that's now physically strong and knows martial arts and shit, apparently. But he is still stuck in the past and for some stupid ass reason wants to get revenge on SAO players and I'm assuming more specifically Kirito since he is the protagonist (Even though Kirito got them out of SAO)

At least that's what I got from the 2 scenes the antagonist was in.


2. The way the characters act, doesn't make any sense at all.
[Kirito's perspective]"Oh you just physically assaulted my friend in real life while wearing the Ordinal Scale thingy on your head? Well, I can't do anything about it, I'm scared of your imaginary pixel sword and I'm too retarded to call the police"

3.The fights really aren't anything special like I read in some other reviews. Maybe they get better later? I don't know.

4. Yui still exists.

5. Ghosts????(?)

In conclusion, I'm sure the AI ghost thing is explained later on, and the villains motives become clearer but if you have to force yourself to sit through 1 hour of terrible content for things to make sense, then it's not worth it.

(No spoilers) OK, I had never ever written a review on MAL before, but after I saw how Ordinal Scale currently (4/26) has a 8.40/10 I had to say something... IT WAS TERRIBLE!

Sword Art Online season 1 will always hold a special place in my heart (season 2 was okay), and it hurts me when I think that those same characters that I loved so much are in this abomination.

I'll start off with the good:

Art: 8
The animation is VERY polished. Throughout the entire movie it was very smooth. The art style was generic A-1 Pictures. (That final fight scene was great)

Sound: 7
It was decent. ... There is not much to say. Nothing really stood out to me as extremely good or bad.

Characters: 5
I gave this a five because you got a lot of character development between Kirito and Asuna. The rest of the "gang" was there and those moments were enjoyable. HOWEVER, the new characters introduced to the story, in my opinion, were absolute garbage. They were 1 dimensional, boring, generic characters that you see in every bad show. The antagonist(s) is someone with a tragic backstory and is just doing evil things for his own selfish reasons. The new supporting characters are just as bland.

Enjoyment: 3
I also gave this a five because the movie wasn't all bad. The begging was boring but once you got toward the end, it really ramped up. Now I'm not saying the whole movie was bad (If you look past the story it was actually pretty decent).

Story: 1
Jesus christ where to begin. The story is boring and predictable. Just the same rinse and repeat SAO story we always get. The plot armor is just terrible. SO SO SO many plot holes. It's a simple idea but I have no idea how they messed it up this badly.

Overall: 4
It is a waste of time. IF YOU MUST, don't watch it for the story, just look at the action scenes.

Conclusion:
It's always nice to see characters that you adore, but don't watch this. Just rewatch season one or something.

Sword Art Online isn't going to be any better than a 5. I'm sorry, but I've been giving it chances, I have sat through the first and second season of Sword Art Online, and I didn't enjoy it for almost the same reasons as the movie.

You could have amazing art talent, but if you can't produce a good story and good characters, you are bound to fail miserably. The amount of potential this anime film had felt so high, but it fails to acknowledge its mistakes it had from the 2 seasons.

The characters didn't serve much of a purpose. Sure, it showed scenes of ... characters doing something to contribute to the story, but was any of them remarkable? Did you felt that you gotten a new idea of that one character is? You should say no because they didn't serve much of a part, instead, you are left to know that Kirito will always manage to solve everyone's problem by first saving his Girlfriend's. None of them really don't do anything, it's like the story is only depending on Kirito, and a story like this shouldn't just depend on just ONE character. Expand from it, have other characters contribute and not let the one character have the full glory. We already know what Kirito is going to do, so let other people DO SOMETHING.

-Minor Spoilers-
The Story is just "KIRITO X ASUNA, KILL ALL THE BADDIES! SAVE PEOPLE FROM VIDEO GAME! STOP BADDIE HURTING EVERYONE!" Type of deal. I couldn't stand the fact the the "Original Scale" can be used as a VR simulator in Public at NIGHT TIME. Does A-1 Pictures not know what happens in night time and why we send our children to bed at 8 o'clock? Criminals and other bad influenced people start to come out and god knows what happens next. I was just left dumbfounded how a VR headset can be so deadly that you could lose a memory, end up in a hospital, or even worse, simulate a body to be in public that can harm people. Don't forget the fact that it looks silly to think outside the box of VR and see what people look like with their swords, guns, axes, or whatever. They just look loopy. If I put ALL OF THAT NONSENSE behind me, the story still wouldn't be good. It's basically a hero saving people's memories from a bad guy reviving a dead daughters memory. The antagonist edge lord skinny young adult doesn't seem fit to win a fight against a dude in his mid 20's, and apparently that happened. In conclusion for the story, this was better than the latest season of Sword Art Online, but it doesn't improve my thought's about the whole Adaptation.

I'm done having high hopes for Sword Art Online, every time a new season comes out, I am going to watch guaranteed, but to point out to people that it was terrible. A-1 Pictures have to improve someway for this to be better, and it's not going to grow out of it's baby steps until it does something logical. Enough of fan service already, just bring out characters that we can enjoy to watch that isn't just Kirito.

A 4/10, they didn't have sexual intercourse.

Okay, let's begin with the fact that I watched this in a big room together with 100+ other people and a friend who is a big SAO fan. Some ratings may be a bit higher than what i would actually give due to my friend, but I'm not going through this monstrosity again just to correct that.

The story of this movie didn't have a lot of new mechanics at all. The gang is back in the real world and play a game there, that isn't life-threatening itself. But of course there's some guy who needs to kill SAO-survivors through stealing their memories through a headset ... or something. What bummed me out were the low expectations I went in with, thought if I set them low enough maybe it'll be an alright experience. Boy, did they surprise me. I admit there were parts that had great potential had they just exploited them. But I'll get into that with the characters.
The motivations of the villains came close to the end and didn't feel real. Especially the guy that attacked Klein's group. The villain kid was in a relationship with dead motivation girl and that revelation didn't have an impact at all because of the way the scene was potrayed. I don't know if it was just me but I heard these reasons so often I just can't hear it anymore. And considering how long ago SAO happened in the movie it just didn't make sense for motivation girl's father to do it so late.

The Art was pretty, like always, but that's really all it is. It isn't unique or made me want to watch this any more than anything else. Scenes where characters were just sitting and talking were very still, but hey this is SAO with endless sitting exposition, so I suppose this is alright.

I barely paid attention to the sound so to be fair I'll give it the middleground of a 5.

The Characters. Some parts of the characters were a lot better, while others were a lot worse.
Asuna finally gets some of her spunk back, proving to be a good fighter and strategist even in RL. The story of course needs Kirito to be the hero and so she eventually loses her memories. But. We get to see how bad she is handling this as well. We don't just see Kirito despairing over losing most of their time together, but also how devastated Asuna is to lose so much of a life she considers to be almost more important than anything else. The scene where Asuna goes to get tea and breaks down really shows this. So, Asuna was finally actually handled okay.
Kirito, of course, still boring and lackluster. Still no attachment to him at all. Didn't get any development except for suddenly being really badass in RL after tripping and falling on his stupid generic face. Which was a problem I had with the face-off between him and boyfriend-guy over here.
The guy was aided by a little device, and Kirito sees through that almost immediately and suddenly they're on even ground, which they shouldn't be. Kirito may be the shit in virtual reality, but he ain't shit in RL. It just pisses me off that Kirito gets a power boost in every series adaption of SAO to exist ever and get away with it, without any explanation whatsoever.
All the other characters were either unimportant, for example the whole gang who were just there to be obliterated, or just sucked like the villains.
Still gave this point a five because of Asunas okay handling. Good on you A-1 Pictures. Good on you.

My enjoyment was... limited. I laughed three times in the two hours. Once because everyone was laughing and I have a reflex to laugh with others, and twice because of Kirito suddenly kicking ass, as well as Silica being a stupid little goober. I enjoyed the movie in a 'I had to watch it to judge it' kind of way.
My friend enjoyed it. I hated it and told her what I didn't like, but that I enjoyed seeing that they're actually capable of doing things right, if they tried. If they had properly resolved Asuna's whole arc, given Kirito time to be an actual good character and maybe given the other characters a chance to be a friend to their friends, this could've been good.
But they continue their trend of never truly caring, because someone will like it.

I'm sure there are lots of points I missed, but I've been concentrating on a lot of stuff at the same time. Overall the movie is as good as you'd expect. Which is to say it isn't good and why are we even surprised anymore. I'll give this a 3 overall because the presence of other people enjoying it made it bearable, as well as me actually liking Asuna, bumping the score from 2 to 3.

This probably sucks as review, but I had to get this off my chest. I hope you somehow enjoyed this movie. I sure didn't, but I like it when people like stuff.

As a rabbid SAO fan I couldn't wait until "Ordinal Scale" dropped so I could watch it. My mouth was watering, my heart palpitating with anticipation and then the day arrived, and like a kid with an early Christmas I popped it into the tray, closed it and began to watch excited and nervous.

The movie opened and I was stunned with the visuals, the crisp lines, beautiful deep and rich color pallet and my favorite two characters beginning to appear. The story opens and I'm pulled in immediately, lost in my favorite anime, SAO.

Then it happens, the unforgivable sin. Fan service rears its ... ugly head on the screen and a picture of a naked Asuna appears. There isn't the problem with fan service in a show/movie. I'm not prude by any stretch of the imagination but there are shows that this is expected of and shows that its not. However when she climbs out of the bath there it is, ass and nipple my disappointment shook the foundations of the world.

Yep, my whole being trembled and I fell into a fit of rage. "How [Censored] dare they do this! How dare they corrupt a wonderful, rich and deep story with characters that I actually connect to for a cheap five second thrill."

With that being said, let me tell you what the movie did get right first, as they always say the bitterest pill can taste like honey if a bee is near.

Again, the colors, line, art and animation were top notch. Definitely didn't cheap the budget on that aspect, which should be the benchmark set for any studio that does a major motion picture if its name isn't "Ghibili."

The story itself was a little generic but done in a way that made the viewer feel as though they were still within the original story parameters and was done in a way that was extremely engaging.

Character development was outstanding, not for the growth of the characters within the movie, but for the fact that Kirito and Asuna's relationship grew, and their feelings for one another solidified. Something that makes even the coldest heart warm to even if they're not into romantic shows/movies.

However, with that being said, that five seconds in the beginning of the show with Asuna's nudity (Unnecessary mind you since the same scene could have been done much more tasteful) ruined everything. From that point on I couldn't see the character outside of that. A betrayal because those of use who enjoy the characters and their purity, their ideal being kept on a mature level, was reduced to this juvenile moment.

That's what the entire movie did wrong.

Overall, the movie was awesome. Great action, great romance, great concept and story. But just hard to swallow everything good about it because of the studio and the directors lapse of reason. Would I recommend it, yeah, but I would suggest skipping that scene because if your pure and idealistic with SAO and have a deep connection to the MC Asuna, you'll greatly be disappointed. If you have always had a wet dream of seeing her naked, enjoy the butt and nipple and make sure you have a box of Kleenex nearby because your probably going to be fapping a lot!

As for me, this skewed my thoughts on SAO and I will try very hard to wipe that memory out of my head, return the DVD to the store and attempt to enjoy S3 (Upcoming from the time this was written) without that five seconds ruining it for me. It will be a long, long, long process to heal. And for those that did this, the studio, the director: "Shame on you, and may you never direct another episode of SAO again!" [Coughs: Assholes].

Sword Art Online is a divisive topic in the anime community. Some love it, some hate it. As you can probably tell from the score I have it, I fall in the latter category. The two seasons of SAO (that are out as of this writing) are garbage and I hate them, however we're not here to talk about the two seasons. Does the Sword Art Online Movie redeem the series, or is it just as shit as the previous two seasons? Let's find out!

Story: The story of Ordinal Scale is just like the previous two seasons, meaning that its full of plotholes and nonsensical ... stuff. I can't say too much without spoiling the entire movie, however I will just give one thing as an example. One of the bad guys in the movie physically assaults several people in the real world, including breaking one of their arms and pushing a little girl down in the street in front of a large group of people. This person is never punished for assaulting people nor is this ever brought up again after the scenes in which these happens. Also, there is a completely pointless scene in which Silica just sings karaoke for a few seconds. That's it. It's not funny. It's not important to the plot. It's just "hey, we got this loli. Let's make her sing". And the movie is full of this type of stuff. I'm only bringing up the bare minimum. As for what is actually in the movie, the villains are boring, barely motivated and the little motivation they do have is spouted out through forced in exposition. There is a scene in which the main villain plainly states his motives and his entire plan to a person who I will not spoil, but is completely irrelevant to the entire movie. The movie's pacing is awful. Things happen way too fast, and the things the characters do never feel earned. The climax to the movie is also very unsatisfying, but I won't spoil that. 2/10.

Art: Okay, I'll admit it, the art in this movie is good. The new-ish character outfits for everyone look better than their old ones, the new bosses they introduce also look really interesting (would've loved to see them back in the actual SAO, but this is not the place for that rant), and I wish we got to see more of them in greater detail. The character designs don't really say what the character is about from a glance like some other really great character designs do, however I won't count that against this movie too much. 7/10.

Sound: Also, pretty good. There was a lot of music in this movie, and not all of them were great, but I did find myself enjoying a few of the songs from this movie. I'd even say that I might listen to a couple of these songs outside of the movie. Pretty solid, 6/10.

Characters: Oh boy, back on the hate train. God, the characters in this movie are awful. As I've already said, the villains are boring and their motivations is spelled out through exposition dumps (although, these are sadly the best villains this series has to offer, which is not saying much). Kirito is just as he is in SAO, unrealistic and OP. I will say that I hate him less in this movie that I do in the two actual seasons of SAO, though that might just be because I don't have to listen Bryce Papenbrook's voice. Most of the other characters are one-dimensional and/or don't have enough screen time to even matter. There is Asuna and Yui, who are both featured prominently. Asuna is....passable in this movie, but Yui is as awful and annoying as she is in the main series. I'll give this a 2/10.

Enjoyment: As strange as it is to say it, I actually enjoyed watching this movie. Not because it's good, not at all. I watched this with some friends and we had a great time laughing at it. So, if you hate SAO and got some friends who hate it just like you, you'll find a movie that is so bad that is fun to laugh at. So, I'll give this a 4 for enjoyment.

Overall: No matter the fun I had laughing at Ordinal Scale, I would not recommend this for anything other than a laughing stock. I suppose that if you are a fan of the original SAO series, this movie will appeal to you, but as someone who has hated the first two seasons, I cannot legitimately recommend this movie. Since I watched the first season, I kept thinking that maybe this show could one day use its great concept to make an actually good show, and I've kept that hope for two seasons and now a movie. However, after this, I've given up hope. I will not be sticking around hoping that SAO can get better. Ordinal Scale is a mess and is the straw that broke the camel's back for me. Unless by some miracle, season 3 is actually good, this will be the last time I watch SAO. 3/10. Terrible movie.

I'm actually a big fan of the SAO series but wow was this movie bad...

I never thought SAO would sink to such a low... this was just bad all around... there were so many better ways to use the new tech that even if they really "had to" make this an "everything is at stake" movie instead of a simple daily life movie, there's just no justifying how horribly written the script to this movie was...

Honestly the only good thing about how this anime was handled was that the side characters were given more character development than usual and that the combat animation/art/music was good, ... but the script was leagues bellow the norm...

The plot holes rather than residing in how things get resolved, reside more so in how the MC's even got the chance to do anything about it, unlike the first time the villain wasn't being arbitrary, unlike the second time the villain wasn't caught by surprise through a backdoor in the system left by the original creator, unlike the third time the person wasn't just a lucky psycho that could've failed at any moment, this time it was only via a stoppable and reversible(there's no reason for it to have been reversible, aside from the fact that the creators would've screwed themselves over if main characters lost their memories permanently) method because it was necessary for the movie... plus just the message being delivered so heavy highhandedly, ugh... definitely the worst SAO animation thus far...

This is without even mentioning how bad the story gets in terms of plot holes when the time comes for him to finally face Eiji and onward... there are simply too many simple common sense solutions the villains could've used to win and render the protagonists' side unable to do anything aside from avoiding the new tech... not that Kirito should've even been able to beat Eiji(huge real world boost in ability practically out of nowhere by kirito) or been able to get info out of him in the first place(what's up with the silent/secretive natured Eiji suddenly turning into a blabber mouth...)

You know, its just dawned on me. Sword Art Online, a series targeted at the teen demographic staring a self-insert blank space as a protagonist that is constantly surrounded by members of the opposite sex, all of whom could be potential partners, that is hugely popular despite having about the same critical acclaim as a slightly unclean and unflushed public toilet from everybody that isn’t a huge fan, having a reputation for being watched by people who hate it just to take the piss to the point that the series now has more negative things said about it than the series itself is probably worth ... getting, receiving so much hate that at this point that most of it is probably unwarranted, but will inevitably continue so long as it remains popular.

The point I’m getting at here is that Sword Art Online is Twilight for the anime community (something that I didn’t think of myself, but I’m stealing from my brother considering it’s an excellent comparison).

Also, there is a moment at the start of the film in which Kirito asks if him and his friends are playing too much video games. Don’t be fooled into thinking this is him showing any self-awareness or character development, because its not.

Anyway, with those little gripes out of my system, I’m going to write the review now.

I wanted to like this. I honestly did. So many of the ideas here have to potential to go somewhere interesting, but then they just don’t. The AR and its gear is an interesting idea, creating something that could be a commentary into technology entering our everyday lives (a path we are already on looking something similar), and how this would affect the SAO survivors etc. Although it doesn’t explore any of this.

Making Kirito bad at the game because, realistically, somebody who would be good in VR would be unfit as shit and therefore bad in real life. This makes sense from a realistic, storytelling and tension-creating perspective. Potentially interesting? Yep. Utilized? Nope, lets just make him OP again after, like, a 2-minute montage.

Villains that are sympathetic and not just generic evil-dudes? Definitely! Explore them in an effective way at all? No can do!

And don’t even get me started on how little the plot and mechanics of this universe don’t make sense – something I’d be a little more forgiving on if any of the potential that this had to be a good movie was lived up to.
I think it’s this potential that really drags this down for me. What should have been my favourite SAO content instead almost ends up being my least favourite. I enjoyed SAO II more than the first one because I seen more effort put into the story and characters. I don’t enjoy this more because you would have to be trying to fuck this up to ruin such a potentially good premise with lots of the elements of an interesting movie at least.

Either way this concludes my SAO binge for now. I’ll maybe watch SAO III or even the GGO spin-off when these shows are completed, but it will have to be in a while because all the alcohol in the world wouldn’t convince me to spend another second of my precious-little free time watching any more Sword Art Online content for now.

I know a lot of anime movies dont have anything to do with the anime itself and a lot arent even cannon, but this movie is so fucking boring and lame i genenly had to watch it 3 times because i kept falling asleep, and even when I finally finished it I was so confused, it had literally ZERO correlation to the show, most anime movies that dont have anything to do with the original anime at least make sense, but at the end all i could think was “so why did they add this new headset bullshit just for this movie???” The only good ... thing to come out of this movies creation is the music, absolute bangers and i still listen to them sometimes.

SAO Ordinal Scale is one of the best comedies ever made, especially when you put on the chicken dance for the fight scenes. Its story is god awful and takes itself wayyy too seriously when it is both laughable and embarrassing. The dialogue ranges from ridiculously mundane info dumps to skin-crawlingly humiliating lines to self-important monologues and discussions to my favorite: downright stupid, over the top, and fucking hilarious matters that are supposed to cause tension. SAO has never had good dialogue, and the dialogue here is only a step up from shit. Everything ... is too hamfisted to be interesting and if you pay enough attention, you'll know what's going to happen before the movie's over. The villans are caricatures that swapped places with Kirito in the original SAO and have edgy overly-dramatic lines. There's no tension because the main gimmick of this movie, AR, is too poorly implemented for anything to be enthralling.

It's really nice to look at even if the animation sometimes cuts corners and is kind of jarring; then again, it serves no greater purpose, so I wish I was smoking something while watching this; light shows and pretty colors going boom. Would've made the experience better. But the fight choreography is still only passable to sometimes good, which is a letdown.

This is only a slight step up for me above SAO

If you like SAO, you're going to love this

If you think SAO is mediocre, you'll think this is fine.

and, If you think SAO sucks, you'll think that it's a slight improvement...

Maybe. That's just the impression I got from watching this. It's not good, but if you like SAO, I highly recommend it. And if you hate SAO, I highly recommend watching the fight scenes while listening to the chicken dance song; it's hilarious.

There isn't really much to say about SAO ordinal scale. It suffers from the exact same problems that its predecessors did and it only is marginally better than them.

So then, have a nice day and I wish you the best in your SAO endeavors; I know I'm learning a lot about the don'ts of writing.

From, yours, SAOHater9001