Sword Art Online: Alicization - War of Underworld 2nd Season

I have to be straight with you all - I'm just floored by how many people blindly love everything SAO. I absolutely love the Aincrad arc, and Alfheim was pretty enjoyable. S2 was fine, Alicization was pretty good imo. They all have their flaws (and boy are there a lot of them). But this? My God I cannot fathom how anyone is rating this higher than a 5, which is much higher than I'm willing to rate it.

** There are some spoilers in here, so read at your own risk. No major plot spoilers, though! **

Positives of this season: There's finally a real protagonist again ... instead of switching back and forth between people no one really cares about (looking at you, Alice and Eugeo). The art is actually really good except for the EXCESSIVE amount of CGI. This series has to have one of the largest budgets of any series (speculation of course), but they have to cut corners on a metric fuck-ton of CGI? Get out. BUT the 'regular' animation is really crisp and quite good. The primary antagonist is truly hateable as well. Unfortunately, that's where the positives end.

Negatives of this season: As previously mentioned, absurd levels of CGI. Also, absolutely random powers by characters that go unexplained. "Oh wow I love Kirito too I need to protect him" [insert OP power here]. So goes the world of SAO: WoU. Callbacks to literally every character from previous seasons. Sachi? You got it. Yuuki? You got it. That shitty guy and the idol from Ordinal Scale? You got it. Kayaba? You got it. Eugeo? Oh yeah. The guy trying to rape/marry Asuna? You betcha. It's super frustrating and obnoxious - it feels like they're trying to pray upon those of us losing interest in the franchise by bringing back the 'glory days' of SAO, but it has the exact opposite effect for me. Let those people die and move on, don't bring everyone back.

There are so many things I want to say about this series in general, about the progression from Alicization to WoU, etc. but I don't want to spend hours typing it all. In the end, what you all need to know, is that this is an absolute clusterfuck of an anime that I wish I had dropped prior to WoU. Even though there are characters I really enjoy and I want to know how the Asuna/Kirito relationship ends up, I cannot continue watching the series; I refuse to subject myself to such punishment. Do so at your own risk, I suppose.

Have you ever been too scared to watch an anime when you even had it all aired and downloaded right in front of you but can't watch it? Cause you overhyped it and worried about the series messing it up? Well, that's Sword Art Online: Alicization - War of Underworld 2nd Season for me. And oh boy did mess up a considerable amount.

Well as I said previously I was very much excited for the season of SAO as the last of a crowned as the 4th ever 10/10 anime out of the 300 anime I've watched, which is quite a big thing for me. But ... all my prayers and hopes went unanswered as all my worries and fears came true. The first half is what I'm discussing here as before Kirito woke up the series was awful, with rushed scenes, childish lines/jokes, odd animation, illogical incidents and scenes that felt very out of place. I assume the reason for this been many fans complained or didn't like SAO without Kirito and they tried to get back Kirito as fast as they could. I wouldn't agree on that as the previous season didn't have Kirito yet it was pretty amazing. If this had more episodes the all the issues could've been resolved by adjusting the pacing and explaining more or adding more dialogues and whatnot. In my opinion, this adaptation did not do the series justice and could've been far far better if they were to pay a tad bit more attention to the source material. 7 - 8/10 for this partSword Art Online Alicization War of Underworld Part 2
That being said why not we talk about the second or the part where Kirito wakes up? Didn't I say if the first half had more episodes all the issues would've been fixed? That's exactly what happened in the second half. It had the perfect amount of episodes to work with and everything was paced out perfectly. Of course, when Kirito woke up it was just pure hype badass moments. With 5 episodes left they rescued the series from getting a 7-8/10 to a 9/10. Honestly, I'd still recommend people to watch this anime, not that it's a bad anime it's just I had very very high expectations and they went unanswered. Nonetheless, a very good anime that's as always only for a selected taste and if you're in that lucky few trust me when I say you're going to enjoy this quite a lot.

Review for all three parts of the show, warning, long-ish read ahead

Fast verdict : one of the worst shows i watched in 600~ titles, NOT recommended

***spoilers ahead***


Okay, let's start with the good, since there's barely any of it:

The art. Yeah, its great, sakuga is often seen too, a lot of budget was thrown toward this looking good... And yet even on this point i can and will mention that absolutely PATHETIC cgi is used at times so i cannot give full score even here.
...
Now then, what else... ... Nothing really. I'm at a loss here. The only other thing of note i can mention is that if you're at least a somewhat experienced anime watcher, this show, especially season 2 and ESPECIALLY 3, is an unbelievable feat in what i'd call the impossible - shit limit breaking.

What IS shit limit breaking? Its when you think "Wow, this part is horribly written and executed... In fact its one of the worst i ever seen. Surely it can't get worse?", and... It does. It does, and does so over and over, and it DOESN'T STOP for TWO WHOLE SEASONS!

Now that i've got the most notable things to mention out of the way, let's base what i said a little, and remind you again, dear reader, this is a review of all three parts. Now then, i'll split and quickly sum up the three seasons, and see if you can spot the problem here. Ill help a bit, just in case. Well maybe more than a bit...

***

The first (long (24 ep)) season actually starts off in a somewhat promising way, if somewhat stupid, because loopholes and logical problems from previous parts make things rather difficult, for example the ever present question of why members of laughing coffin are still on the loose when the government should have gotten the data on its members long, long ago. It starts with one too, who, after proclaiming he's the last (for the THOUSANDTH time!), idiotically enough, tries killing MC with some fancy ass drug who he no doubt had to go through some trouble to get instead of just stabbing the guy or using the millions of other far easier and surefire methods to easily kill a person. That's already quite weird, what was the point of it? Is it the same untraceable drug used in sao2 to stay hidden? Then that makes no sense since he did it in front of a witness (Asuna) and out in public too...

Whatever the reasoning for this nonsense is, the bad guy's caught, but MC's heart stops for over five minutes, and he ends up in ER. Turns out, his brain is badly damaged, but, a certain project he took part in can help him. He apparently grew up in there (well, his emotional avatar did) when testing it, a new life from zero, with two friends, but he (and they) had their memory of it wiped. They are NPC's. With a SOUL..?

That project also apparently allows for your soul and mind to enter. Yes, SOULS. Somehow..? Does it make any difference to the plot? Not really. Is it explained at all? Nope. Does it make ANY FUCKING SENSE? You guessed it - that's a 'no, fuck off' too. Well, putting that aside as well, like a couple of tens of things already, Kirito's returned there, remembering who he is in real life, as an adult now, but not knowing that he's in the project and without the ability to log out or contact the outside world. The reasoning behind it, is that the time is sped up in the digi world, and now, they SOMEHOW can LET him keep the memories he makes when he exits, unlike first time, and help his brain repair itself..?

He is thus a new character, with a low level like that of other npc's, and, he's trapped in that world for now, so, we pretty much get a reset, with a new world to explore, new rules, characters, etc. So, decent enough of a start form zero, right? Well, actually, yes. After a brief recollection of his past that he and his friend who he's now with again had another friend that they don't remember, and the constant nagging feeling their other friend is gone, he finally remembers, kind of, and reminds his friend too.

He tries free his friend of the burden of tree cutter, while they recall, re-connect, and the world history and system rules are shamelessly expo-dumped on you in illogical, unneeded abundance while they fruitlessly cut said massive tree. Some grinding and one unexpected combat encounter later, they level up and are now able to use a certain relic sword, which they use to cut the tree, free his friend from that job, and embark on a quest to become swordsmen and set Alice (their third, forgotten childhood friend) free.

This is where the half decent part ends. Now, the real world comes around much more, and, they start even more half irrelevant and overly inflated exposition dumps about how the soul system works (not that it makes much sense or explains anything! quite impressive actually how much events they can add which don't contribute much, if anything!), what happened to Kirito - the facility is secret, so, no one was told where he is now, no one can visit, but OBVIOUSLY the gang easily hacks it up and infiltrates Asuna to get in there. And the staff obviously starts slowly telling her, and us everything instead of kicking her out.

So aside the whole soul shit, which they make a big deal out of at first, and forget all about later, they reveal that this whole thing is about time accelerated AI learning from zero, with the goal of the AI learning everything on its own, in a human body, which would make its thinking human like. The goal? To create TRUE AI. Not just any AI tho - because, we have Yui, but guess she doesn't count and no one knows too, and not AI like the thousands of NPC's in this new world act pretty FULLY like actual people and could easily pass a such... Nono, special, MAGICAL true AI!

True AI can break rules. As to why, aside making war worse and possibly bringing fourth skynet, that's a whole other question, but there's the premise. Meanwhile, more exposition is dumped about the other world and its rules still, and we're approaching half point here... Now the villains show up too. Inside the system its an AI who a traitor gave administrator rights to. Outside its a terrorist group, lead by yet ANOTHER laughing coffin tard (and he has another laughing coffin underling with him too... they're all over the fucking place, i swear, what happened to being 'the last'?), who, get this, can SEE and EAT SOULS somehow.

It apparently started when he killed his childhood friend at the soft age of 6~, by scrambling her brains up through the ear with a knitting needle or something. Maybe its explained in the novel by him being either delusional or whatever (although they also said they made souls in the AI project and can translate human souls inside it, so go figure, might as well be serious with this shit), but he has said power in game too! Speaking of logic here, he should have spent the rest of his life in a correctional facility or psycho ward after a murder at such a young age, but we see no consequences of this, nor a legal system note that'd keep watch on him later in life (not over the murder and not over being a member of laughing coffin).

Also, logically, he should have had this 'gift' while sao was taking place too, and, since it gave him great power later on in this show due to the 'imagination system', it should have given it power in sao too, no? Nope. Grade school character writing, they exist in a vacuum after all, spawning only when its time, along with their backstory! No, seriously, with a power like that, and the 'imagination system' shit present both in this and sao back then, what stopped him from taking over THAT world and killing everyone back then??? Never find out on the next episode of WHAT THE FUCK SAO and other fun tales.

Kirito trains his way through sword school and comes across some ass hats that try rape the new npc waifus, his ol' pal Eugio or whatever his name kills them despite them being protected by 'the system', breaking his limiter and popping his eye (where the limiter is, physically, because code works that way lol). Then they meet the ex administrator program, who's obviously a loli and obviously starts to love MC somehow, dumps more exposition, most of it pointless, about how the new admin bitch took power, and they proceed to fight their way to her and Alice through her brainwashed knights (why is brainwashing a system and a possibility in the first place again? ah, right, the IMAGINATION system truly has no bounds!), Alice being one of the brainwashed ones too.

The admin is OBVIOUSLY fighting naked. Also is very slutty and fanservicy. And evil. Except in later seasons she's shown as NOT evil, because she's been corrupted by the power that she was given. Or something. Yes, yes, just accept it. Just like, yet again, Kayaba or whatever (you know, the asshole who killed like 4k people back in SAO) is shown as a not too bad a guy now. Oh, and the researcher that's one of the top spots in this project is also Kayaba's ex girlfriend. For some reason. Small world eh...

For some reason Alice is the chosen one, despite her memories being wiped, and NOT REALLY breaking the limiter, she just broke some rule by mistake, unlike say Eugio just did a while ago. Why was even breaking a rule SLIGHTLY = by mistake registered as an achievement as opposed to doing it by a far margin and deliberately with Eugio? Whoever programmed this world did a really shitty job it seems. And so, for this bullshit experiment to end, she needs to be delivered to a log out station... Located in the evil lands separated by impassable mountains and millions of enemies, because this place was build with logic and love and shit, yeah! Not the stuff a simple mortal like me would do which is to just log out and save any NPC that breaks rules...

All of that Kirito is told after their standoff with administrator that he loses to as his friend dies... Who doesn't DIE-die, but instead, along with ex-admin loli give their lives and 'power' (whatever that even means in this shitty-verse) for him to win, along with Alice who took MC's side after Eugio was brainwashed too (a while before)... What. And... Since he won, he was synched and contacted by the outside world (which was enabled, FOR SOME REASON) and told all about what he needs to do with Alice, and then the terrorists blew some shit up... The time jumped to overdrive again and crippled him further, turning his active mind/soul INSIDE the 'game' simulation thingy into a vegetable too! Woo-hoo! Double veggie status achieved!

So, we got a season that explained the project, the world rules, developed two main side characters, wiped the memory from one of them, KILLED the other, and MC who just got the show's objective and... Immediately went into semi vegetable coma! Isn't that grand? What was the point of all that again?! Hmm... I don't think even they know at this point...

***

Season two of this or some shit, cuz the titling makes no sense

So turns out the administrator bitch wasn't that bad, because she was corrupted and was actually that mean to prepare for war with the evil half of the world behind the mountains. Let's totally forget she was a crazy, power-hungry, sadistic, brainwashing, slutty psycho exhibitionist, and she was that way OUT OF HER OWN WILL!

And so, we get the war. No, literally. Some shit happens in the outside world, but barely, and this WHOLE SEASON, is the boring Alice (memory wipe doesn't make you too interesting you know)and other non main characters you couldn't care less about going into that war that the overlord started (overlord being the main bad guy who logged in, cuz the overlord is a PURPOUSELEY MADE USER, for SOME reason, guessing said reasoning is 'in case a bad guy needs to hack in and ruin our servers lol'), and Alice, and a whole bunch of forgettable supporting 'main' characters that get like 5-10 minutes each go at it, each breaking their limiter, because its so rare and awesome you see (if its that easy why didn't the devs make more war scenarios but peace instead??), yes, super rare, so rare you get to see it like 30 times over, awesum!

Oh and baddie succs some souls up, EVILILY!!! And that's it, season over. Amazing, i know. Nothing like 40 characters you don't know showing up for 10~ minutes, for half to either die in a fake tear jerkier moment because you don't know them and couldn't care less about, or be pretty much forgotten both in this and the next season. "Its shit, 11/10 -ign"

***

And finally, this, last and WORST season. HOW could it POSSIBLY get worse than a whole season of new, forgettable characters fighting among hordes of generic, stiffly moving CGI mobs you ask? I know, i was surprised too. Hence the 'shit limit breaking' term i made up.

So, MC is still a veggie. Fight gets desperate. Finally, Asuna decides to log her ass in. And she does, helping the 'light' side, despite the dark ones shown as ones you should have sympathy to as well. She has 3 charges of OPWARE magic earth rifter, but each use fucks her mind over, and she gets a headache, tho technically she shouldn't be linked to her mind and real body so go frigging figure how it works. She tells Alice what she must do (reach the altar), then she, Alice, and other new NPC waifus proceed to visit and drool all over mr. vegetable (because drooling mindless morons are sexy you know!) before setting off to do the grand duty.

The baddies then proceed to SOMEHOW open access to the FUCKING CLOSED SERVER, which, technically, SHOULDN'T EVEN HAVE any connection available to it to begin with, being a frigging secluded and offline island in the middle of the ocean, not to mention probably (well, logically, not that it means anything in this show) HAVING NO FUCKING SOFTWARE INFRASTRUCTURE TO SUPPORT ONLINE MULTIPLAYER INSTALLED ON SAID SERVER! Well it shouldn't at least, because i'll remind you they built this world for a specific reason and i doubt installing a net package was one of the requirements for a CLOSED SERVER AI test?? Whatever the bullshit reasoning this is based on, American (and other) players flood the server and start fighting, told the good guys are actually hackers invading one of THEIR new game experimental servers (solid gaming logic there, YES, calling in lvl 1 players TO FIGHT OFF HACKERS, yes yes, ALL GAMERS KNOW that's how its done, and its super possible and easy too, not like admins and cyber security guys are the ones who do it and deal with net security, or the ones running the server who CAN FUCKING DISCONNECT IT! big smarts~)

They also easily believe it since they have base gear and level 1 characters with base access, since high level characters are few and limited as a safety measure. These LEVEL ONE TRASH MOB players proceed to OBLITERATE both sides of the conflict, including the elite, and the GOD LEVEL ADMIN MADE characters Asuna and the main cast logs into, because, remember the system that was explained and grinded into us for 24 episodes before in s1? The one where "low level objects can't really damage high level ones at all"? Yeah, FUCK THAT, enough lvl1 mobs will destroy anything! Oh, and system call spells where a thing used often and for some reason interesting and important, remember? I don't either, nor do the makers of the show~

But two can play that game! So near defeat, all of the Kirito friend band also logs in with god tier characters that they converted to this server, because apparently its just another game server with standard rules now! And so, barely, but they save Asuna and the remnants of the 'good' and bad armies. Oh, and also, Kirito's sister who, unlike the others who know what's going on, can, and DO attack the baddies, says she "can't act rashly until she understands the situation" and attack the clearly evil bitch who attacks HER for no reason, and proceeds to tentacle rape-suck the life out of her, until there's enough rapeservice and she recovers with the power of her god tier char, and finally decides to kill her and regroup with the others. Cuz it ain't sao without random rape i guess.

After a short rest its decided Alice will r̶u̶s̶h̶ ̶B̶ .. I mean go to the shrine almost alone, despite it being exactly what the baddie wants, while the others hold the reds (the enemy players that logged in are literally unironically RED) and miniboss. The baddie npc army also forgets all about their previous motivations which they didn't even have and join up with the good guys... Alice sets off, gets confronted by main baddie, good guy general stays, exceeds his limiter too, but dies holding him off. Baddie catches up to her again, but Shinon comes to the rescue from the battlegrounds, cuz she has the power of flight, and faces off with him, losing immediately.

They both use guns by the way, summoning them at will, because again, remember all them system rules we where fed for 24 episodes in s1? FUCK IT. Through the power of friendship and shit, while falling from the sky, she shoots the main baddie's arm off before laying about uselessly, not dead but decommissioned. Meanwhile on the miniboss side, Asuna, the brainwashed synthesis knight elites, and their god tier irl friends pretty much lost before even facing the boss. Yes, TO THE TRASH LVL 1 MOB FREE ACCOUNTS. Veggie Kirito is also there. When they're all tired, Asuna and the others do a last ditch effort to face the baddie, but he cuts them down and laughs.

The reds obviously don't find it at all odd the enemy's fighting desperately to protect a cripple! Well actually they do, when Asuna tries talking to them, and while about 3 of them listen, the rest are easily persuaded by mr. miniboss because he says 'lol dey hac' and 'you have level 1 trash chars, and they OP, omg, they DEFINITELY HACCC!'. Then proceeds to beat up a cripple and the reds shrug and slaughter on. Which brings me to ask... WHY did he even take the time to persuade them? Because literally A MOMENT later he uses some plot voodo magic skill to brainwash them all into mindless berserks with the power of EEEEVVVVIIILLLL! And they start fighting the good guys, but mostly each other.

Because that's SOMEHOW beneficial to him..? Also i'll remind you again, in case you missed what i just said... This dude just fucking BRAINWASHED LIVING PEOPLE ACROSS HALF THE PLANET INTO MINDLESS BERSERKS. Because that's how things work, yeah! No limitations over the net, no program safeguards, no improved after SAO so there's no reverse feedback netgear, nope. The players who listened are magically not brainwashed tho..? And they watch in horror and talk of how evil the baddie is and are never seen again after pretending to be important characters and sucking up enough screen time...

Meanwhile IRL some smartass moron remembers he can copy pasta into Kirito's veggie avatar the memories of other people logged in and heal him, with their collective memories of him replacing his own. And so he does. And bam, Kirito's back lol! He fights off the baddie. By the way, the baddie miniboss actually LOVES him, in some weird twisted way. Yeah... And Kirito wins. Dead boi Eugio helps, obviously, somehow, he still ded. Oh, what about the reds? No worries, i'ma just log em' out real quick, i'm Kirito! Yeah, that simple. HOW? Who the FUCK knows or cares at this point? Definitely not the writers. Do the admins have that power outside? Nope. But he does. Cuz reasons.

Just like that, this particular conflict ended. Time to go save new and totally important waifu Alice. Off we march. Main soul SUCC baddie already has no arm. Does he give a fuck? No, obviously. He proceeds to rape (just figuratively, sadly) MC with the infinite power of the souls he sucked and/or plot convenience, the power of infinite power of imagination that now apparently runs this world (tho Kirito couldn't really use it against miss exhibition admin before, no limit break NPC's could use it properly too, and none of the reds or his friends could either (he also shoots some system call magic, because they remembered it exists... and its obviously useless and is yet again forgotten, now for good... i REALLY don't get what was the point of the system call magic is now, it never made much of an impact, was slow, awkward, and boring to watch, yet used up tons of time being explained... WHY??). He can't either apparently, or, not nearly as well as the baddie can, maybe he spent more time fantasizing about his crus?). Then, get this, in a final struggle, the baddie starts to SUCK HIS SOUL and/or memories out while locking swords with him! How? What? WHY? But its apparently also a thing! He doesn't even need to kill to do that now, unlike before when he could suck souls of enemies he killed... Irl too..? Wtf

But our boi may not be op (LOL, tho would be better if he was by this point honestly, make a good fight at least, but no, we don't get one, just locked swords and shouting+flashbacks), but, he has his best dead friend by his side (somehow), and, the general power of friendship! He also makes a genki ball of memories that his friends magically send to him and shit! How that works? We don't know. Can't he log the baddie out? No. Can't he imagine something stronger? No. Can't log out himself with all his friends? No. How'd he log out the reds before? Who knows. So he just stuffs the baddie full of copy pasta memories from his friends till he explodes. And dies irl. Dies so hard his soul is knocked out of his body and is dragged to hell by that little girl he killed... Why by her? Iunno, guess she was a really bad girl despite being 6yo to end up in hell lol.. ... Iunno man

And thus the day is saved! Well not quite, the baddies pull a fast one and jam the shit project into overdrive so it's gonna speed up to x2000 real time or something. And Kirito doesn't make it. Asuna stays along, and their minds and/or souls will be stuck there for 200 years. Couldn't he logout without the console before the acceleration like he did for the reds? No, obviously... As in 'plot conveniently' kind of obvious, because not i nor the people who actually liked this shit show somehow got what the fuck was going on in the past five episodes or so... And no, no amount of explaining it from the novel will clarify, set straight, nor change the fact its horrible shit writing of unreasonable and impossible proportion.

The baddies also set a bomb, but one beloved mass murderer (not that people seem to remember that last fact) to the rescue later (kayaba in a robot body), and the day's saved for good!

Kirito wakes up from the dream all broken and weak after the few months he spent in a coma in the speed-up, tells them to wipe his and Asuna's head clean of 200 years of memories, because its too much for him to handle lol, starting at the speed-up. Because apparently they can..? And they apparently do. So, they know soul computing now, can make AI, wipe memories, add or copy-paste them, make androids and android bodies, but can't keep your muscles from atrophy while in a coma or fucking log out out or make reasonable decisions, programmng, and proper net protocols? Right. Selective plot convenient shit right there.

Later, Kirito is still mentally broken from it all and no one's there for him, not his gf, not his family, well, maybe incest sister, just a bit. But hey, he recovers fast. Alice is now a real girl in a metal body, but also depressed, as expected of a pinnocio. She mails her nude (for some reason) self to Kirito (guess clothes don't travel in mail, only nude androids?), and he, OBVIOUSLY instantly washes all her trouble away via 2 minute talk+ hug + headpat.

Surprise surprise, suddenly his adoptive parents show up out of FUCKING NOWHERE, for a serious talk about his future and a scolding for shit he had no control over. Yes, after 24 episodes of SAO, 24 episodes of gun gale, 24 of Alicization, 12 of s2 and 10 of s3, a total of probably A FEW YEARS of in show time, we FINALLY get to see his fucking adoptive parents who seem to have jack all to do with his education, raising, mentoring, etc. Without an introduction. And they're just there for 2-3 minutes of 'wise scolding', despite having no moral right due to not even being in his life it seems... And that's it. NICE PARENTING! The show would have you believe its right in its fucked up Japanese and possibly post modern fashion.

And how does it end? With them getting a remote message through Alice (is she on wifi radio mode? no hacking danger or anything, just an android girl body walking free with constant intrenet access!), and follow the distress code back to rath and their shitty experiment world they seemingly can't manage at all... To find... Spaceship knights fighting space worms... What the fuck. No really, what the actual fuck. And so Kirito the space dual weilder (cuz standing open in space and swinging swords around is how things work, yes!) slays the space demon worms or whatever and the show ends. ... .... ...... What?

I really have no words for this.

Well actually, as you see i do, but there's SO FUCKING MUCH, and it requires SO MUCH FUCKING CURSING, i barely even began, even with this giant wall of text!

So yeah, overall, no fucking idea how this got any score over 6 at best, i can barely give it 2 just for the art, i'd give 3 but i'm deducting a point for cgi and the fact the art is actually OVERdone, making it clear too much budget was thrown into it to look good, while the rest of the show's aspects got near no thought, planning and proper directing or explanation (the lore and world rules that got forgotten and dumped on us but got talked about way too much though, for some reason!). Oh and have i mentioned how fucking annoying the main theme playing in each fight for FIVE FUCKING SEASONS is? Because by god, it fucking is, binge one or two seasons, let alone all five, and you start getting how the guy in groundhog day felt each morning.

Final rank: 2/10 for s3, last season(s2), as shit as it was is 2.6/10, and part 1 (jeez the names in this are confusing) is 4/10, just because in the start it actually seemed as if they still tried...

Overall rank for this trash and its three seasons is rounded up to 3/10, and i definitely don't recommend anyone to watch it for whatever reason. Unless they're a completionist reviewer, or, just a masochist. Or well, like trash i guess, either normally, or in the sense they enjoy watching dumpsterfires like this one, and boy is it a grand one!

What would i change about this to make it at least half decent? cut 60% of the characters, exposition dumps, world building and system rules, because, again, most those characters either play no relevance, aren't seen over a minute, and all the history barely contributes anything, definitely no need for it to take as long as it did, as for the rules... They barely fucking hold in the FIRST season, not to mention second and third where they're more disposable than toilet paper!

TLDR - shit of unimaginable proportion, too much budget and weirdly easy to please fans. I'm sorry, but i cannot put this any other way, nor claim its just my opinion, because really, i TRIED to enjoy it, but the plot holes, abysmal writing and time distribution just destroyed it as a story, and as an anime. Good looking trash. With glitters. Oh, and i'm not just shitting on it just cuz, because i definitely DID enjoy the first half of season 1 (the original sword art online that is , not Alicization, to the point i re-watched it three times over the years), despite everyone's hate boner for it.

This. This is a perfect show. Every aspect of this show is executed perfectly. I will go so far as to say this is the greatest anime ever created.

The enjoyment I have felt from watching Sword Art Online: Alicization - War of Underworld 2nd Season is inexplicably massive. I enjoyed every second of every minute I have poured into watching Kirito and his boyfriend's boyfriend's girlfriend; it was all way too worth it.

From the first tentacle scene to the last Star Wars scene, this show was full of action, comedy, and drama. It always kept me on the edge of my seat, and every ... turn the narrative took kept my eyes glued to my computer screen. An exciting and awesome ride this was.

Thank you, A-1 pictures, for this perfect parody. This is the greatest satire piece I have ever had the pleasure of watching. Thank you.

“Jesus shall come again in glory to judge the living and the dead; and his kingdom shall have no end."
-Corinthians 15:23

I used to be an atheist until I watched Sword Art Online: Alicization: War of Underworld Part 2. History has proven Jesus was a real man, but the second coming of Christ was merely a myth to me. I never truly believed Christ would return from the heavens to liberate us… until now. Reki Kawahara has created the final chapter of the Bible. This tale rivals Shakespeare, Dante’s Divine Comedy, and The Odyssea. It is the most spectacular writing I have seen in the entire ... franchise, maybe even of all time. War of Underworld Part 1 began this mythological story. Kirito, the holy spirit, was trapped within the vessel of a sleeping man. The fake news viciously scrutinized Kirito, causing him to fall into a coma. These blind fools, Youtubers, and MAL reviewers howled like banshees of how Kirito was overpowered, lacking any personality, and every girl illogically fell in love with him. But Kirito overcame these haters in a triumphant return that will go down in history as the most epic piece of fiction ever created.

…

*Ahem*

Sword Art Online has gained a massively negative reputation for popularizing the isekai harem power fantasy genre. Alicization: War of Underworld 2 sought to rebrand the franchise as a deep and mature survival thriller with philosophical themes, emotional character arcs, and commentary on the future of artificial intelligence. Alicization attempted to accomplish these goals, but it missed the mark. Part one was wasted on a virtual war between one-dimensional characters. It wasn’t worth caring about any of them because they were artificial intelligence. Their deaths are meaningless. There is no tension when no one can die. The AI soldiers are not real, and the nameless gamers only risk losing their in-game avatars. Why are there no police trying to save the people trapped within the game, you ask? Because the whole show works on video game logic!
(Read my review of Part 1 for more information)

Part 2 does nothing to raise the stakes. Characters from prior seasons hack their way into the video game, but they are wrapped head to toe in plot armor. What do you do when all your characters suck? Just add the old ones! With the power of deus ex machinas, every human gamer is granted superpowers. The first part focused on the one-dimensional inhabitants of the underworld. In this season, they are useless. SAO momentarily cared about humanizing these computerized soldiers. There was potential it could’ve had deep themes. But who cares about that boring shit? They threw all of that away to make room for epic battles and technobabble! Part two is surface-level action shlock for the fans who crave shock value but are not willing to seek out something deeper, or better written. Around 30% of this season takes place in the real world. And it’s all dead air. It focuses on forgettable characters monitoring the game with convoluted motives. Who cares about pseudo-scientific explanations of things that never needed to be explained? Everyone gains new abilities and weapons at random. If they’re in danger, the show will remind us they have a secret weapon or a ghost will come to rescue them. Yes, ghosts. No joke, there are characters who DON’T die after they’re killed. It’s never explained why. There’s no logic. There’s no point in explaining how the main characters get SOME powers when you can just show how they got them and how they work. But SAO is a Very Deep anime for intellectuals, so it must make sense! Now and then, we get a long-winded explanation that no one asked for. Seven years and SAO still hasn’t learned what “Show don’t tell,” means. Go back to an elementary school English class! The scientist people use technological terminology to sound smart. Fluctlights, STL, Self-image. It’s all made up bullshit! This is so intelligent! All this with some techno music in the background makes a great baby's first sci-fi show. They aimed for the Matrix but landed closer to Transformers. I don’t care about the pseudo-scientific reasons for why Leafa gets a gigantic sword. Most of the time, new powers are thrown in at will. Stop pretending like any of this makes sense! Does anyone watch SAO for the boring exposition dumps? No, they don’t. It’s just to save the animation budget.

From a critical standpoint, SAO is utter nonsense. There’s one narrative thread that ties every piece of this rancid rotting carcass of an anime together. Wish fulfillment. This is an otaku's wet dream. Beginning with the first plot point, Kirito is waking up. The best character development he’s had four seasons was becoming a vegetable. Without our God-tier main character, there was some threat of danger. Unfortunately, we need our overpowered pussy slaying MC back. Kirito is, and always has been, a hollow placeholder for all of the men in the audience to project their personalities onto—with none of his own. Once his harem entered the game and told him how much they loved him, he began to wake up. Seriously, this is what happened. One by one the girls say they love him and they cry because he’s a vegetable. Time after time, Kirito’s harem uses the power of stroking his ego to make him more powerful than God himself. Unfortunately, every girl loves Kirito. They each have their own story, but it will never be told. There’s more to know about them. In season 2, the Mother’s Rosario arc showed us Asuna could get her own story. It emphasized her friendship, rather than romance. She wasn’t overpowered. Even though it was rushed, there were actual stakes. When she’s with Kirito, she becomes a lobotomized puppet, just like all the other girls. After the girls join his harem, their personalities cease to exist. They become vacuous waifu-bait. Another cell is added to the prison–Kirito’s harem. They are no longer people with lives and goals. They are Kirito’s cheerleaders, existing to love him, to massage his ego, and to provide fan service.

In a good story, the heroes work for their powers. In SAO they are given powers. There is no tension because Kirito is so powerful, but how does his harem fare alone? While Kirito is in a vegetative state, psychopathic villains from past arcs return to torment his harem. Of course, when they feel hopeless they pray to Kirito for hope. Jesus is to Christians what Kirito is to his harem. The moment they say his name they get motivated to keep fighting. In many scenes, his girls hold each other, say how much they love Kirito, cry, and then they're filled with hope. He is the only source of hope in the entire world, despite still being a vegetable. When Kirito’s around, his harem becomes even more pathetic. They know they’re useless compared to him. Rather than helping him fight, they stand by and watch. Usually praying for his safety and help. Kirito summons ghosts, he freezes armies, and he creates healing rain. Why? Because he’s God! Even though he’s asleep, EVERYONE still relies on him. This must be female empowerment!

The women are treated as motivation for the audience to hate the villains rather than actual characters, and their pain is used to make Kirito seem godly. They’re tortured in violent gore porn scenes meant to evoke emotion, but it just bored me. Gore and rape don’t equal maturity. It’s like watching a kid’s show trying desperately to be taken seriously. Sinon and Leafa in particular are characters who embody the women as a commodity during this season. I’m going to paint you a picture, please skip to the last paragraph if sexual assault triggers you. Leafa falls from the sky in her first appearance of this season. The camera pans down her legs and her cleavage is exposed. Moments later, an evil woman with large breasts appears out of nowhere. She sexually assaults Leafa with tentacles. She cries, yells, and is choked, meanwhile the scantily clad dressed woman laughs sadistically. She is plenty capable of killing her captor, which she says clearly. Yet she chooses to endure the pain because she doesn’t want to kill anyone. Meanwhile, alluring woodwind instruments play in the background and the woman continues torturing her. I am not describing fetishistic hentai. This is a five-minute-long scene from the first episode of War of Underworld 2. I felt nothing but disgust with the show’s staff and cringe. I’m so sorry for the artists who had to animate this vile shit. I will speak directly to the fans just once: If you see someone who’s upset by the sexual assault, do not try to defend it. Even Reki Kawahara regrets writing it. Again, torture porn does not equal maturity! The anime insists on masquerading as something smarter than the average light novel adaptation. There’s nothing intelligent about making every villain a molester.

Every major villain is a one-dimensional molester with no depth. Making your villains do horrible things without challenging their ideals is awful writing. Molestation is used as a cheap way to make the villains evil. Their one motivation is being crazy molesters. This is a lazy way to get the audience to hate them. People only care about seeing Kirito kill the assholes, not because they want him to challenge their beliefs. Ridiculous plot armor everywhere. None of the victories feel deserved. Sinon is saved by Kirito’s necklace twice, Asuna is saved by her dead friend Yuuki, Alice’s Uncle gets a random power to win a fight. Kirito saves Sinon from a rapist without even being there. His necklace saves her from being smooched by a bad guy. The female characters are portrayed as weak, cowardly, and unable to succeed without the support of someone—usually a man. This is just sad.

In 2013, Sword Art Online popularized power fantasy harem isekai anime. After four seasons, it has continued to make the same mistakes. “SAO is good now,” Are you joking? It has only gotten worse. This is normally the part where I’d praise the art for being outstanding. It’s without a doubt the best of the entire franchise, but what does it matter? No amount of glitter and gold will make this piece of shit beautiful. Since SAO opened the floodgates, we’ve been blessed with titles such as Kenga no Mago, Arifureta, Master of Ragnarok, Isekai Cheat Magician, Isekai wa Smartphone tomo ni, Death March and so many more mind-numbingly generic anime. Thank you SAO. Thank you for fucking up a generation of anime.

Thank you Lord Kirito! Hail the Father, Hail Kirito! Hail the Son, Hail Kirito! Hail the Holy Spirit, HAIL KIRITO!

Sword Art Online: Alicization - War of Underworld 2nd Season


Well, the first part of this war was already a disappointment, but to bring this to a new level is something you didn't see coming.
Not sure how many times I joked about what we watched and what happened this season. If anyone has experience with Kingdom Hearts Writing and the Youtube Channel "Just a Pancake", that person will know what I'm getting at. This season is a pure definition of "Random Bullshit Go" "That's not even my Final Final Form" and "Okay I believe you" - these 3 memes represent the entire plot of this ... season. And having Simito fight the Anti-Miller at the end made me completely cry. How and why did one almost end in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann? What's with the ending of Alice? Why, why, why?

The ending of this war had the potential to deliver one of the BEST dramatic scenes there could be, but it was ruined and spat on while it was still on the floor. God's sake such potential and then just "Nah Timeskip".


Well, this season follows directly from the previous one and the war enters its final round. The season starts with the best and most epic battle of the whole season so far. Bercoulli not only had one of the most interesting skills seen in Shounen but also a good execution of it and a massively dynamic fight. Honestly, I was shocked at what I saw, every single moment of this fight was breathtaking. Not only visually, but also in terms of pure dynamics.
Unfortunately, this was the only standout performance of the entire season.
Right after this spectacle, the plot continues to revolve around some poorly written war that makes no sense whatsoever and feels more like the never wanted Digimon season where everyone goes to the Digiworld to fight a war. To make matters worse, the villains are endlessly overpowered, always having a new buff that makes them even stronger. Each character has a boss rush moment to show how cool they are, only for the boss to show that they are not yet defeated and get stronger again. And this drags on until Kirito-Kami-kun wakes up and... the cycle continues.

In the end, there is a final fight between Simon and the Anti Spiral and yes. I honestly don't even know what else to say about it.

Conclusion 3

I'm anything but a fan of this series, but Sword Art Online still entertained me well enough. We used to sit and watch 2-3 episodes every night while we had dinner. It was alright, nothing great, just an average show to enjoy. But with this season it became one of the best comedies out there. It's a shame really, but making fun of it also had a certain charm.

[Enjoyment 3]

Story: Pacing is off, like so off from the light novel. Episode 3456 I can hear the A-1 picture production studio screaming "WE CANNOT FUCKING TAKE IT ANYMORE KIRITO JUST FUCKING WAKE UP WE CANNOT DELAY ANYMORE xD". Just wtf. All of Kirito's teammate is either apparently feeding or baiting. Asuna baits, Klein feeds, Sinon feeds, Leafa baits (during the pig scene). Hell A-1 picture even included Eiji to feed thinking that not enough feeding is given. The light novel is much, much more in-depth in why they feed/bait, to the point where their demise is justified. 3/10

Art: Bro, Kirito's flashback (direct copy-paste from S1 ... S2) looks better than current drawings lmao, current drawings lack so many shadows and details and a lot of facial features are just thin lines lol. 3/10

Sound: Standard SoundFX, meh music 6/10

Character: refer to story rating. 3/10

Enjoyment: I fucking hate this season, good thing they leave out the first endgame season so they won't get as low of a rating as this does. 3/10

Overall: There are what? 6 ep left? I will read the last few via light novel. Fuck this season


Edit: Post watching review: Overall, UW Season 2 did not tell a whole story, I felt a lot of the content were cut and I was right, despite never reading the light novel for this season. The cliffhanger in EP11 just gave it away that the next season is near. If possible, please, A-1 picture, animate better, or choose another anime producer from the studio to direct the new season. Kawahara's writing skill is more supreme than what is animated.

*Spoiler free in regard to the actual plot/story*

Based on how this season starts, continues and ends, on a superficial level, it actually is a complete rip off. It feels like they blatantly used every single aspect of a show that already many people have watched and it's just as sad. 

But no comparisons shall be made right? (psst, its season 8 of a REALLY big show)

It starts off as garbage and turns into a complete dumpster fire the best thing being the visually stunning sight of that huge mountain of flames coming of of it.

This makes me very sad because the first part of Alicization ... - War of Underworld is actually pretty good. The writers recognized that and the most obvious and natural consequence came to mind. Balance. Because season one was actually good, they had to throw everything that made it good overboard and equalize the whole season with the usual standard of SAO. There are already many good reviews that point out the mistakes of this season and why the storyline is so porly written. It just gets more and more random while we reach the end. With the end being the absolute tip of the iceberg of randomness and thoughtless writing 

Whoever is responsible for this had to fecalize in the damn printer ink input,  face rolled over their keyboard while being high on crack and then printed the outcome out of said printer. That has to be the only method  that manages to create this humongous piece of trash that can bring balance to the SAO force. 

horrible writing... unless making a great plot in Alicization, just to bring back the dead repeatedly to save the day, and 20 episodes from 1st half to 2nd half being a single episode on repeat, with probably the worst ending episodes so far in SAO

It is pathetic how poor this season was, even in comparison to previous
I cannot give anything other than 3/10 for it, because it's just a 2 episode 2 part season, but the first episode being recapped for half a year's worth of time to then finish it off with the laziest I've seen so far

[English is not my first language but I hope it's understandable]

I'm still FORCING MYSELF TO WATCH THIS THING, cuz I wanna know what happens, of course, but I'm really annoyed by how things are going on.

Some of the characters, like Asuna, became pathetic. There are a LOT OF SCENES where the character just freezes when all the disgrace around it still goes on. WHAT THE HELL?

There are plots that just makes no sense.

The characters development is awful.

A lot of exaggerated and unneccesary eccchi. And with a lot of tentacles. You don't even need to open rule 34 cuz everything is already on the ... anime itself.

If anyone here is planning to watch this, I wanna say: please, don't do it. Especially for those who are fans of SAO, this season is the worst.

The art is pretty, and I don't have anything else that was good about this season.

Story:
The story is bland, predictable and full of typical shounen moments. Characters suddenly getting a powerup after remembering the past, villains staying alive just for convenient writing purposes and everyone believing the villain without any proof whatsoeverwith the excuse of 'racism' are not anything to be surprised about in this season.
One thing I can say is that this season did not have any plot holes, as that would require it to have an actual plot.

Art:
The one thing SAO did have going for it is it's art, as ... it is simply stunning. The animation is great, but it only distracts me from the question why that guy still hasn't died?! He has a giant hole in his stomach!

Sound:
The sound was good, but I found that it was often mistimed. Furthermore, they re-used the sound from previous seasons for some segments, which I think is alright, but I would rather see something new.

Character:
Kirito, the most bland-ass generic main character of all time. He hasn't matured a single bit, if you copy paste the Kirito from season 1 into this season, you would get the same anime. In fact, I think you would be able to do this with most of the characters. Although he was able to get over the death of Eugeo, I think the timing of the 'getting over it' was simply awfully timed, as it was right when he needed a power up in a fight.
The main characters were really boring to me, most villains were bland because they were evil for the purpose of being objectively evil. Some side villains were pretty cool though, like Iskahn.

Enjoyment:
I'm just watching this for the memes. My enjoyment for this mainly consists of laughing about how ridiculous some things are and enjoying the pretty animation.

If you are doubting about watching SAO, because you have watched the previous seasons and didn't enjoy the plot, you should not watch it. It's the same formula with better animation.
If you want to watch this because you truly enjoy it, good on you and I encourage you to watch further.
If you think SAO is really good and is immune to any criticism whatsoever, your taste is trash.

I've never made a MAL account until now, but I decided to do so because of how inconceivably stupid this season of SAO is. Be warned that this review is incredibly long and filled with spoilers since I get really deep into the story's inconsistencies and just generally poor writing.

While the art and sound are as usual top notch, the overall story and characters present in this season are filled with so many laughable inconsistencies and make so many poor decisions that I'm not sure if it's due to a poor adaptation of the author's source work or the author's shitty writing.

First off, let's go ... in with when Leifa is introduced into the story. She gets transported into the middle of nowhere when logging into the Underworld (for no explicit reason). Then she continuously treats an orc she just meets as a human, despite there being no logical reason for doing so. I'm not against that plot point in general, but I'm given absolutely no explanation for why Leifa would treat a demi-human AI as a human other than "Wow you can communicate with me so you must be a human right cool!?!?!?!?!"

Then following that there's a some weird softcore porn scene where Leifa pretty much gets raped by DeeEyeEll and doesn't fight back for some flimsy stupid reason of "Wow I don't know what's good and evil in this place, so I can't do anything to fight back!" Like seriously? This heavy handed and incredibly stupid plot point was shoved down our throats for the sole purpose of forcing the orc that she just met join up with her. It's literally not until this orc decides to rip out his eye and resist the system that Leifa decides to kill DeeEyeEll, and well NOT BECAUSE SHE WAS BEING RAPED.

Then there's the whole fight between Bercouli and Vecta, which while beautifully animated, just constantly leaves me with questions of "Why the Hell didn't Bercouli just run off with Alice." The battle starts off with Bercouli destroying Vecta's dragon, whereas Bercouli has three that are on standby for him to use. Anyone with half a brain should be able to understand that the top priority is getting Alice out of that situation, and Bercouli was in the perfect position to do so since unlike Vecta, he can fly away, but hurr durr knight captain just decides to have fight with Vecta lol okay. Perhaps this point was better explained in the LN, but as is it's just an incredibly incompetent decision.

Then Sinon pops into battle against Vecta, which is cool and all, but her self-confidence while fighting Vecta keeps going up and down so sporadically during the battle, that her thoughts that she'll lose feels like an artificial plot point written by the author just to add some stupid notion of drama. Like she keeps bouncing from "I'll beat you for Kirito" to "I'm going to lose, save me Kirito," over and over again that it makes me think that either she's bi-polar or just poorly written.

Then Eiji and Yuna pop in, and it's like the most nonsensical 5 minute inclusion/fight I've ever seen. Literally no consequences and nothing changes over the fight. Everyone seems to be fangasming about "Wow so cool these side characters are in this battle," but there was absolutely no point for these characters to show up aside from pointless fan service.

First off, it's not explained how these two even know that PoH is in the game at all, since it appears Yui's incredibly confused when they pop up and information surrounding PoH's presence doesn't seem to be widely advertised. Then PoH and Eiji fight while Yuna does some standard support singing stuff, but PoH for whatever reason doesn't think to take out the support? Literally I'm supposed to believe this guy is an intelligent serial killer and he doesn't take the natural action of taking out the one person who's job it is to buff? Like add in an attempt by PoH, a throwaway line or anything, but it's so laughably stupid that he'd fight so one-sidedly without making an attempt to take out the support. Then Eiji gets completely destroyed before savagely biting PoH's neck, and him and Yuna just bail. While you'd think that the neck injury would do something significant to PoH, it really seems to have no consequence for him and I'm just left wondering why the Hell did these two characters show up aside from fan service.

And over the course of that fight, there's comments by the mind controlled Chinese/American/Korean players of "WOW IS THAT REALLY YUNA? WOW SO COOL. MAYBE THIS IS A JAPANESE SERVER?" that literally gets thrown away and forgotten when Eiji loses. Seriously? You were trying to build up some notion of the non-Japanese players realizing the truth, but then you just throw that away? LITERALLY WHY THE HELL DID THESE TWO SHOW UP?

Following the completely pointless battle between Eiji and PoH, surrounding players start noticing the Laughing Coffin insignia symbol on PoH's hand and start having doubts on whether he's good or evil. PoH then uses his unexplained convenient plot device mind control ability to get all the non-Japanese players to kill each other for again, a completely unexplained and stupid reason. But a huge question that bears on my mind is why the hell LITERALLY NO ONE ON TEAM JAPAN DECIDED TO EXPLAIN POH'S LAUGHING COFFIN SYMBOL TO THE OTHER TEAM. It was evident that Asuna and her group knew who PoH was, but while captured they made absolutely no attempt to convince the non-Japanese players that they were working with a serial killer. Watching last season, it's obvious that Asuna is actually very competent and knows how to handle people with how she managed to flawlessly infiltrate the ocean turtle, so I'm suddenly supposed to believe that she wouldn't have the sense to make people realize that PoH has a Laughing Coffin insignia on his hand?

It's like the author intentionally made everyone on Team Japan deliberately stupid just so he could drag out their terrible situation and just conveniently decided to reveal that PoH was a part of Laughing Coffin just for a stupid plot point. And on that point, why would PoH leave the Laughing Coffin insignia on his hand to be observed in the first place? It's so laughably stupid that he'd leave it there if he was trying to manipulate people.

Perhaps the only realistic part of this season is how easily manipulable and susceptible the non-Japanese players are to widespread deception.

As a conclusion, this season of SAO has its usual flair of fantastic sound and visually pleasing art, but the characters and story are so laughably inconsistent and written poorly that I cannot for the life of me sit through it without thinking "Why the Hell are these characters making this stupid decision?" Maybe this is due to poorly adapted source material or just the author's poor writing, but I'm nevertheless greatly disappointed with this season of SAO.

5/10, but tbh should be lower.

OH COME ON how can you make the wake up of Kirito so boring.
He had to be the strongest because he had one of the strongest weapons in the game.

The wake up was hyped so much and then the episode was just meh. They fight, somehow the bad guy take advantage, then some friend/cousin/sister/harem girl comes and the main protagonist is the real deal again like THINGS DONT HAPPEN LIKE THIS IN REAL LIFE. When you are fucked you are fucked and thats reality.This is what i loved about first season. It make you face reality even if you are weak if you ... put hard work, you get little bit of luck or help from someone good you can be the strongest.

Also the black sword is faaaaaaaar stronger than that battle butcher knife even with many many souls. I get it they want strong plot twist but come on you did that with Asuna and many other so we can feel the "nostalgia" but it just made it worse.

What we see right now is just "nostalgia" which failed to make us feel ANYTHING because EVERYTHING FAILED and then Kirito wakes up and he is weak af but here comes Eugeo and he saves the day because thats what it should happen like it didnt happen in the 1st 2nd and the 3rd season.

Dont get me wrong i love the idea of the anime but i dont like the plot.

At first I never thought that this season can be this much amazing. Well first I thought maybe it will be the end of SAO but I know now that it's not finished yet. The last arc is coming (Unital Ring). I know SAO is hated by some people. Many they never tried to understand it. Well I am not judging them. Everyone has their own liking and disliking. I am just saying that you should not say so many bad things about an anime if you know how hard is to make an anime. I know maybe at first you will think it's very ... easy but it's not and It's not like this anime contains any kind of bad things moreover it teaches you about many good things and valuable lessons of life. If you are talking about Kirito is overpowered then I will say that there are many many animes which MC's are far far more overpowered than Kirito. But I am not saying that those animes are bad because those MC's are overpowered. It's never like that. It is the story man. If the MC is strong then what can they do if that's what the story is. Okay I won't say anything much about it. Now I will say why I like this anime and about this season.

Well SAO was always my favourite and it will always be. This anime will teach you many things --

1. Sometimes bad things happen to good people too. It's all fate which you can't change but you can't give up because of it.

2. You should never be afraid to fight for what you want. You should always believe in yourself.

3. Focus on the positive sides always not the negative sides.

4. You should always be grateful to who you are or what you are.

5. Maybe sometimes you can't save everyone that you wanted. But still you should never give up on trying.

6. Life is both beautiful and painful simultaneously. Sometimes it will give you joy and happiness too but you have to be ready for sadness too.

7. Even if you are designed to die you should never give up on trying. If you are you can even make the impossible things possible. At least by that you can leave something behind that you did something amazing in your life.

8. Most important thing it teach us about relationship. If you really love a person you will do whatever it takes to make her happy and keep her safe until the end and always be loyal to that person no matter what happens. Just like you can see in this anime that no matter how many girls you throw at Kirito he is still loyal to Asuna and I can say the same for Asuna.
This anime will teach you what is actually it means to love anyone.


Now let's talk about this season (war of underworld second season). Well this is the last part of Alicization. Alicization ends in this season. Well there was so many things we didn't know and so many mysteries that it feels like mystery genre should be added in this season. I think I really could able to see everything that I wanted. Well I won't want to give spoilers in my review. So I will say only a bit that the most important thing that everyone was waiting for that Kirito will wake up from coma and fight again like before. I can say all of their waiting is finished now. What Kirito did in this season was really more than I expected. I know many people are angry because some parts were skipped. Like when 200 years spend in underworld they didn't show us much about what happened and also romantic moments were missing a bit too. But even there was not that much romantic moments like the 1st season I can say that still there was much. If you are talking about action then this season has much more action then any other seasons of SAO.

Now about the characters development, well they improved the characters, it was better than the previous season I can say that much and the improvements were already so much from the previous season , I don't think it can be more good.

About the graphics quality I can say that they really improved it a lot. I didn't expect this much amazing graphics and they worked on every details. Animation quality was really so much good. On that episode when Kirito and Vector was fighting , my phone was lagging because of high graphics and high quality animation. The animation quality was really super high in this season.

About the sound quality and the opening and ending, I can say it was really good. The sound quality was even better than the previous season and this season opening is now really one of my favourite. I can say the same about the ending song. Both were so amazing.

Finally, I can say that this was really an amazing season of SAO. Every anime has some problems and maybe it had too but despite of it this season was really one of the best. Well Some are saying that this was the best season of SAO but some people are still saying that 1st season was the best. I will say that both are best in their own ways. Both seasons have their own storyline. I really liked this season and there was many things related from the SAO movie (Ordinal scale) too. I really didn't expect that they show Yuna and Eiji again. Also we could able to see Yuuki again. I never thought I could see them again. I will highly recommend to watch Ordinal scale before watching this season or else you may not understand many things.
Well in the end I can say that if you can understand this anime and feel it, you will like it for sure. Just watch it carefully and try to understand everything and I am sure you will love it. Well I didn't say all this because I am a fan of SAO, I like many other animes too.

Thank you so much for reading my review. I hope it was helpful for you.

“Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and a richness to life that nothing else can bring.”
“The mystery of love is greater than the mystery of death.”
— Oscar Wilde

SAO is, at heart, a love story. It encompasses all kinds of love -- romantic, familial, platonic, fraternal, compassionate -- and it is romantic in every sense of the word. “What is romanticism, after all, but a bold cry about how life should be, not about how it is?”, and SAO embodies this sentiment through ... its positive outlook on humankind and the blossoming ambiguity between the real and the virtual, as well as the power of all forms of love in changing the world for the better. But that does not mean it depicts life as all sunshine and rainbows. Memento mori -- death always lies in the shadow of life, and Alicization is especially rife with such death and destruction.

“But at last he knew that he was going to die. He had just strength to fly up to the Prince’s shoulder once more. “Good-bye, dear Prince!” he murmured, “will you let me kiss your hand?”

“I am glad that you are going to Egypt at last, little Swallow,” said the Prince, “you have stayed too long here; but you must kiss me on the lips, for I love you.”

“It is not to Egypt that I am going,” said the Swallow. “I am going to the House of Death. Death is the brother of Sleep, is he not?”

And he kissed the Happy Prince on the lips, and fell down dead at his feet.

At that moment a curious crack sounded inside the statue, as if something had broken. The fact is that the leaden heart had snapped right in two. It certainly was a dreadfully hard frost.”
— Oscar Wilde, “The Happy Prince”

The relationship between the Happy Prince and the Swallow is beautiful but tragic, and there are major parallels with the deep, inseparable friendship between Kirito and Eugeo. Kirito, like the Happy Prince, devoted and sacrificed himself for the good of everyone, but Eugeo, like the Swallow, devoted and sacrificed himself for none other than Kirito, and his death left Kirito in a comatose state for months, cutting himself off from everything in a vicious mental cycle of self-blame and self-hatred.

“Death is a great price to pay for a red rose, and Life is very dear to all. It is pleasant to sit in the green wood, and to watch the Sun in his chariot of gold, and the Moon in her chariot of pearl. Sweet is the scent of the hawthorn, and sweet are the bluebells that hide in the valley, and the heather that blows on the hill. Yet Love is better than Life, and what is the heart of a bird compared to the heart of a man?”
— Oscar Wilde, “The Nightingale and the Rose”

In “The Nightingale and the Rose”, The Nightingale sacrifices her blood and her own life in order to create a single red rose, a “Love that is perfected by Death… that dies not in the tomb.” The most vivid parallel lies with the momentary reforging of the broken Blue Rose Sword into the Red Rose Sword, stained with Eugeo’s heart-blood, as well as through the eternal, everlasting love of the single blue rose, frozen and preserved forever, that forms the essence of the sword.

“Yeah. I see it… Sparkling in the darkness, just like the stars. The stars in the sky I looked up at every night from the foot of the Gigas Cedar. They look just like your sword when it shines. That’s it. Your black sword should be named the Night-Sky Blade… This world, so full of sorrow… Envelop it as gently as the night sky.”
— Eugeo

But Alicization moves beyond the beautiful deaths present in Oscar Wilde’s stories -- the Happy Prince lives onwards, his Night Sky Sword representing his strength, his resilience and panache. In Volume 2 of the SAO light novels, Sachi likens Kirito to a star shining upon her and guiding her in the dark, but by the end of Alicization, Kirito is truly the boundless night sky, of countless stars in the darkness gently shining upon everyone and everything: “But I finally understand. Love isn’t something to be sought. It’s something to give. Alice taught me that” (Eugeo).

“The work of art is the object seen sub specie aeternitatis; and the good life is the world seen sub specie aeternitatis. This is the connection between art and ethics.”
— Ludwig Wittgenstein

Wilde’s stories and aesthetic philosophies play an important role in Sakura no Uta, but it is merely one of the ladders that is used to expound upon its own artistic ideas, one of them being how a work of art is like a beautiful corpse -- a moment captured in eternity -- but one that is constantly resurrected and reborn through the diverse eyes of different spectators, like the preserved specimens of butterflies coming back to life and taking flight again in the silent forest of sakura. SAO propounds the idea that the body is merely a vessel (Subahibi moment), and what fills that vessel is the soul and everything that it brings along with it: love, values, beauty, ethics, art, and memories, or the more poignant ‘omoide’. Like a work of art, the memory of Eugeo is always living within Kirito, and the memory of Kirito is always living within Asuna, Suguha, Sinon, and everyone he has formed connections with.

“Much on earth is hidden from us, but to make up for that we have been given a precious mystic sense of our living bond with the other world, with the higher heavenly world, and the roots of our thoughts and feelings are not here but in other worlds. That is why the philosophers say that we cannot apprehend the reality of things on earth. God took seeds from different worlds and sowed them on this earth, and His garden grew up and everything came up that could come up, but what grows lives and is alive only through the feeling of its contact with other mysterious worlds. If that feeling grows weak or is destroyed in you, the heavenly growth will die away in you. Then you will be indifferent to life and even grow to hate it. That’s what I think.”
— Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov

“But there's one thing I know! And I believe it! That reality is right here! This world, as well as the countless virtual worlds connected to it... in no way are they make-believe refuges! For me, this world is the reality where I have a real life, real friends, real encounters and partings, and real smiles and tears! Don't you all feel the same way? Aren't you all doing your best because this world is your alternate reality? And yet, if it's just a game, if you abandon it because it's nothing but a virtual fake, then tell me, what is real to us anyway? All these worlds that we've grown came together just like this World Tree and started to bud. And caused this flower called the Underworld to bloom. I want to protect it. Please! Please... help us."
— Lisbeth

The Brothers Karamazov = SAO, enough said.

“I’m sorry. I can’t tell you now. Because what I want is for Alice to see the Real World with her own eyes and then decide for herself. It’s not a land of the gods in any way, nor is it a utopia. Far from it. Compared to this world, it’s way uglier and dirtier. But that’s not all there is. There are so many people there who want to protect this world and be friends with you all. Just like Kirito.”
— Asuna

"I acknowledge and accept that you Realworlders are our creators. I am grateful to you for creating us. But as another person born in my world once said, "What if the 'Real World' were also a world created by others? What if there were even more creators outside it?" If, one day, your own creators appeared before you and ordered you into slavery, what would you do? Would you grovel on the ground, pledge your loyalty, and beg for mercy? I have already had many interactions with Realworlders. I am all alone in a strange world, but they've encouraged and supported me. They've taught me many things, and taken me to many places. I am very fond of them. And that's not all. I love one of these Realworlders. Whenever I think of this person, whom I'm unable to see now... even this steel chest of mine feels like it's about to burst. I have a right hand that I can extend to the people of the Real World. But I do not have knees that I can kneel on, or a forehead that I can grind into the dirt. That's because I am a human."
— Alice

The Real World is not so different from the Underworld in its good and its bad. Rather, it is an even uglier and dirtier place -- if there is no God, then everything is permitted -- and lacks the beautiful triumph of mind over matter that is the very foundation of the Underworld. Alice’s speech is also pretty funny in the metafictional sense considering that the ‘Real World’, along with the entire SAO universe is indeed “a world created by others”. All fiction is metafiction -- Trompe le Monde.

Alicization, and SAO as a whole, is a prescient exploration of the blurring boundaries between the real and the virtual, human and AI, and as for what I think of the whole thing, the former I discussed in my Ordinal Scale review and the latter is still something I haven’t come to a clear conclusion. Perhaps the answer lies in identity and how much you can identify with something, regardless of whether it is alive or not,

※　※　※

I first watched SAO in April of 2019, and it’s been nearly four years since then. Along with Your Lie in April, which I watched a few months later, it was the anime that got me into anime, and I’ve had a lot of fun over the years on my journey of watching a bunch of anime, getting into Japanese media as well as non-Japanese media, and learning Japanese to a decent level. But all good things must come to an end, and now’s as good a time as any for taking a step back from anime and embarking on a new journey.

Merry Christmas, hum along to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and stay cool.


Oh Everything turns to ash to ash
命は彼方を目指す
消えることない罪と痛み　抱き締めて

And everything turns to dust to dust
倒れて土に還るとき
せめて小さな花がほら　咲きますように
forget-me-not
forget-me-not
forget-me-not

Ash to ash, dust to dust
どうか忘れないで


ありがとう。
さよなら。

If you liked the previous Sword Art Online animes before Aliciation, then this season is fine for you. It becomes a generic overpower isekai protagonist doing overpowered things. If you're like me, and started watching Alicization because you heard it fixed a lot of SAO's problems, then you're not going to enjoy this season that much.

The problem is that it throws away so much of the world they built in the previous parts, in exchange for Kirito's harem getting all the screen time being useless against the villians.

So this season came down to this: Kirito's harem log in, get a dynamic entrance showing off how ... strong the character they logged in as is. Then they get easily overpowerd by people logging in with characters not from the world. The real worlder's power of "imagination" seems to just override any rules of the underworld. Every villian just comes in using powers that don't exist in the underworld.
Fights boil down to who has better cheats, the villians or Kirito and his harem.

What was the point of Kirito training for the whole first season of Alicization, if he could just imagine himself to be stupid strong?
Why are overpowered characters that the developers made as, being overpowered by the power of imagination from the villians?
Why is it that the outside wold can contact Kirito whenever they want all of a sudden without having him touch a tablet?

Objectively, War of Underworld II is probably the second best cour of SAO after WoU. However, for rather petty reasons I find myself unable to rate it as highly as I did the first cour and Alicization part 1. This really saddens me as one of the biggest SAO stans.

What are those reasons? Well simply put, A-1 have chosen to focus on style over substance for the arc’s conclusion. Yes, the art, animation and OST are all top notch as we’ve come to expect from SAO as of late. But, I can’t help but be disappointed at the quality of the adaptation as ... a whole. There are crucial bits of information and scenes left out of the cour, pointless fan-service and A-1’s patented sexual assault vibes return (Leafa’s scene). Now, granted no anime adaptation is going to capture EVERYTHING from the light novels, and the point of the anime is to promote the source material, I still could not help but feel disappointed at A-1’s omission of somethings and their needless inclusion of others. Kirito’s wings having a different design for example.

Overall, the average person will probably really enjoy this cour of SAO. There is a lot of action, there’s very emotional scenes that debunk the narrative of Kirito being “Jesus-kun” or having no characterisation, there’s Alice, although not enough for me, etc. But, I can only write reviews based on how I as a person feel, and I can’t help but be underwhelmed at this finale to the Alicization arc. Very regretfully, War of Underworld II gets 5 Fluctlights out of 10.


TL;DR: As with ALL LN adapations, I highly encourage anyone interested in SAO or the story at all to read the Light Novels. Alicization is my favourite arc in history, bar none. I love SAO. Despite being entertaining, I just dislike how this final portion was adapted by A-1.

What a Journey. From Alicization Begining back in 2018 to Alicization Lasting it's been a thrilling ride.

This tale ends here. The full story has been told.
But Kirito and Asuna and Leafa and Sinon and others will join Alice in the battle beyond this point. When next they gather, swords in hand, it will be for the final, greatest battle of all : the Inter - Intelligence War .

But as of this moment, all possibilities are merely bobbing along in flux , flickering beyond a field of fluctuating light.

From the beginning to the end, I enjoyed this season so much. It had its up and downs ... but overall the story was great. The animation was mesmerizing and the OST was amazing. I liked the first half of Alicization better than the second half because it introduced me to a whole new world full of mystery and possibility. But that doesn't mean that I didn't like the second half too. The Knightmare scene especially shows how much Kiritos Character developed throughout the entire Alicization story. But as a Light Novel reader, I was disappointed at some points of the anime, I was disappointed at how they adapted the LN story into anime form. The lack of inner monologues affected the story and the anime cut some elements which were essential to the story. And sometimes the watered-down explanations cause more questions than answers. But overall it was a solid adaptation.

The entire Alicization arc was 9.5/10 for me. ( I say this considering the original story of the LN series and how it was told in the Light novel and in the anime. If I only consider the anime It's a solid 8/10 for me because I found The story and the how it was told in the LN was far superior and the anime adaptation didn't quite capture it properly.)

Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler Spoiler

1- I really liked sword art online from the start and I liked this season but my biggest problem in this arc is Alice I mean she didn't done anything and she doesn't deserve to be a main character in the 1st season {1st 24 episodes}.
2- Plus her relationship with kirito is very weird I mean she known him for an hour only and he didn’t done anything for her to love him and after that he was in a coma for 6 month, so any romance in that situation is unnecessary. [ I know that everyone ... know that the relationship between Asuna and Kirito can't be broken but still the way they made Alice fall for Kirito was sucks]
3- I know that the other didn’t know what happened to kirito in the underworld but the way they decided that Alice is important to him felt bad and I know that they didn’t know Eugeo so they didn’t know the real reason for kirito sadness is Eugeo and not Alice.
4- They should put some scene between kirito and Asuna in the 200 years like he tell her about Eugeo and something like that but they skip it plus they didn’t show any scene with the others and focused on Alice only in the last episode.
5- The most sucks thing in the anime is the power this shitty two I mean one can control the others and the other didn’t have soul so he can't be killed plus even if they convert there accounts how could they be this power full it really didn’t felt like a game.
Over all the anime is very good but this thing really felt bad
This is my 1st time writing a review so I hope I did covert to you my true feeling correctly

I'm not going to lie, SAO is what put me on Anime. I will defend that show till the day I die. IDGAF what anybody says, not only is it a good show in my book, it's a great show ( even though I would still have it ranked as an 8). I've shown it to many a people as a starter anime, and not once has anyone came back talking smack about it ( unlike the majority of the anime community ). I say that to say, I am a borderline SAO fanboy, I've seen every series, every movie, everything ( except the books ... lol ) related to it. And I must admit, the Plot/ Plotarmor/ Plotconvience/ Plotholes in this show are absolute dog shit. And anyone that says otherwise is straight-up lying. I don't generally write reviews at all, but for this review, I'll actually do what MAL wants and go through each rating. Keep in mind, i'm using this sole review to cover both Pt's 1 and 2. This review will contain spoilers only in the Plot Section for the most part.

(I'll save the best for last aka Story)

Art - 9/10
By golly does this show look good or what. Some of the fight scenes, I wasn't sure if I was watching SAO, or Kimetsu No Yaiba, it looks that good. And it's a shame that nobody is talking about it. Absolutely stunning ( I'm thinking of 3 fight scenes in particular ), however, while a few of the fight scenes are out of this world. The rest of the show is just SAO A animation, which is great, but not excellent enough consistently to get it a 10 ( You need some Violet Evergarden or Fire Force levels of consistency to get a 10 in my book ).

Sound - 7/10
The soundtrack doesn't disappoint, as to be expected of the show that made me fall in love with my first ever piece of foreign music (aka Crossing Field ). However, I do find that it seems that a lot of the sound fx are repetitive in the fights and otherwise. For that, it gets a 7.

Character - 8/10
I love the characters, I love SAO, I LOVE KIRITO. So what do you expect from me ( My favorite protagonist is the overpowered kind)? Kirito did his best Subaru from Re: Zero Impression in one episode, I don't know why I felt the need to mention that, but I did. He didn't do nearly as good a job but it worked. All the characters old and new remain consistent to there established traits ( except for Leafa voluntarily getting molested by tentacles, but SAO has to SAO I guess ( I despise fanservice ) ).

Enjoyment - 8/10
I freaking love SAO. This show could be absolute dogshit and I'd still watch it simply because of the nametag. That said I don't let my bias completely blind me. Overall, the plot in this show was so garbage, that even I couldn't ignore it. Generally, practically all shows ( with a 7 or above score from me ) would get a 10 in enjoyment. I just enjoy watching anime a lot, if it was only for enjoyment practically everything would be a 10. So this 8 is especially important coming from someone like me. That should show you how much I despised the story in this season.

Story - 4/10
If you stuck around this long, this is what you are here for. HOO BOY, HOOOO BOYYYY, buckle up bucko, cuz this is finna be a doozy. I said it in the beginning and I'll repeat it here. I love SAO, I LOVEEEE SAO. If it wasn't for the numerous upon numerous videos of people talking shit about this series, I wouldn't even be able to tell you the plotholes in SAO S1 or S2 or anything. But this season. My God, this season, Jesus have mercy, this shit was trash. Absolute dogshit. I don't even know where to begin with my frustrations.

-DEATHS: Okay okay, let's start here. A wise man once said, "People die, when they are killed." True statement right? WRONG, COMPLETELY AND UTTERLY WRONG. I didn't write an SAO A review, but if I did I would have mentioned this. THIS MAN EUGEO HAS DIED SO MANY FREAKING TIMES AND ALWAYS COMES BACK. Like, I don't know if you like SAO or not, but if you do, you probably didn't recognize this. However I did, and I commented to a fellow SAO lover friend of mine about it then and I will comment about it now. Back in SAO A, EUGEO DIED LIKE 6 ( MAYBE I'm exaggerating, but I'm honestly not sure if I am or not ) TIMES, 6 FREAKING TIMES, IN ONE FIGHT. ONE FIGHT WITH THE ADMINISTRATOR. But that wasn't enough, no that wasn't nearly enough. How many Gosh Damn times is this man going to come back in a dream or in spirit to help Kirito out? I'll tell you, EVERY GODDAMN FIGHT, EVERY SINGLE FIGHT KIRITO FIGHTS, WHETHER MENTALLY OR PHYSICALLY THIS MAN COMES BACK. If (awake) Kirito is on the screen, you can rest assured that within every 5 minutes or so Eugeo will make an appearance. Kirito is honestly homosexual, like legit homosexual (MAL please don't take down this comment, I don't mean that offensively in any way). He goes to bed crying at night, thinking about Eugeo. When he awoke from his 200-year slumber, he no longer called Asuna by her name simply calling her "queen" before realizing his mistake and correcting himself to say Asuna ( Which he only did at a later date ) ( I feel so dedicated to this review, I went back to check this, Episode 10 11:40). I say that to say, Kirito is homosexual deal with it. Eugeo is literally immortal and will show up to perform an asspull anytime Kirito needs it. Okay, that by itself is a sin. That by itself is a huge sin in my book. BUT THEN, there is a little known character known as Kayaba Akihiko. Did you think that God is omniscient and omnipresent? Hahaha, YOU FOOL, you obviously don't know of Kayaba Akihiko. If I have to hear this man's name again, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. Before there was Eugeo to pull out asspulls, there was a little known guy known as Kayaba Akihiko. Are we sure that Kirito is the protagonist of this story? Cuz honestly, I don't even know anymore. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Would you believe that Kayaba used to be the antagonist? I wouldn't. This man has been killed physically, he has been killed mentally, he has had his memory data wiped from the code across all the games, he has been uploaded to a robot ( WHICH MANAGED TO PULL A HUGE ASSPULL, I will get to that later ) just for that robot to be killed, he has been killed from the internet, he has been killed from your mom's basement. YET, YET, HE WILL ALWAYS COME BACK IN SOME SHAPE FORM OR FASHION TO SAVE KIRITO'S ASS. Before there were cars, Kayaba Akihiko made Kirito a plane, before there were guns Kayaba Akihiko made Kirito a Canon. Before any problem that can actually defeat the protagonist arises, Kayaba Akihiko will pull out some asspull from the grave and fix everything. Need I say more, EVEN AFTER ALL THOSE DEATHS, KAYABA AKIHIKO SOMEHOW SOMEWAY HAS THE IP ADDRESS FOR THE UNDERWORLD AND WILL MANAGE TO SOMEHOW EMAIL IT TO ALICE. Like what the hell, out of anything wouldn't RAFT, you know, the people that invented the underworld, already have the IP address? NOPE, THEY DON'T. BUT GUESS WHO DOES, OMNISCIENT, OMNIPRESENT, KAYABA AKIHIKO. Need I say anymore on the subject of deaths? Now let's move on to the subject of asspulls.

-ASSPULLS: Okay there are a bunch of these, a bunch of these. But I'm going to list 3 that stood out the most to me ( also ones I can copy and paste from my Disqus account lol ). 1st: Sinon's sniper shot not instantly killing the big bad. Look, I like anime but I have other hobbies too. In particular, cars and guns. Sinon's Sniper Rifle is an antimaterial rifle, shooting big boy rounds. I'm assuming that, it's shooting the highest level of big boy 50 BMG round, aka 50 CAL High Explosive Incendiary Armor-Piercing rounds. Keep in mind, a regular 50 CAL BMG shot can blow your arm off, or blow your head off, or leg off. A regular round, without all these added effects. Naw, naw, Let's just have the big bad ( I actually can't remember his name lol ) get a little hole in his hand from stopping one of these rounds. If you don't know crap about guns, you should refrain from using them period. 2nd: Once Again we turn our attention to our lord and savior Kayaba Akihiko. As a goddamn robot, he died, he died. His circuits were fried, he was no longer connected to the wifi. All his parts were disabled. Dead, dead and gone. AS A ROBOT. NAW, hahaha, NAWWWW, YOU THOUGHT I WAS SERIOUS. NAWW, YOU SEE THAT DID HAPPEN. BUT GUESS WHAT, THE POWER OF BONERS CAN MAGICALLY MAKE A ROBOT UNABLE TO HEAR, ABLE TO HEAR AND TO TOP IT OFF, CIRCUITS RUN AGAIN JUST LONG ENOUGH TO ACCOMPLISH THE TASK THAT SAVES EVERYONE. Do you see my point about how I hate his character? You think Kirito is Jesus-kun, hahahhahahha, you uneducated fool. The real god, is Kayaba Akihiko the bringer of all the asspulls. 3rd: 🎶Du Du DuDuDu, BANAMANA, Du Du-Du Du, BANAMANA, Du Du Du-Du-Du Du-Du-Du Du-Du-Du Du-Du-Du Charging My Attack ( TFS REFERENCE) 🎶. Just when you thought, you had seen every asspull known to mankind. Just when you thought, surely it can't get any worst? Kirito pulls out a FUCKING SPIRITBOMB. A spirit bomb from DBZ to win. Not only did everyone know to magically raise there hands in the air and offer there "spirit" or whatever. He then absorbs it ( freaking DBZ Budokai 3 style ) into his sword and unleashes and absolutely gorgeous Starburst Stream? HOHO, You thought that was the end of the bullshit? HELL NAW, NAW JUST TO REMIND YOU WHO BEST BOY IS, EUGEO LITERALLY, I MEAN LITERALLY, LIKE ACTUALLY LITERALLY, COMES BACK FROM THE DEAD TO SAVE KIRITO'S ASS BY BLOCKING AN ATTACK WITH HIS SWORD.
Need I say anymore?

-PLOT HOLES: Alright now, I know the Underworld isn't technically a game. But it was well established in the beginning of SAO A, that there is an hp system, an authority system, and a level system. So tell me, WHY IN THE HELL DID IT GO FROM GAMEWORLD TO REAL LIFE? Like what? These noobs ( I believe they said all the red guys were given LVL 30 standard mob accounts ) are suddenly able to one hit like it's real life. A slash of there weak swords can take the arms of off a god account? That doesn't make any goddamn sense based on the established rules. This whole fight should've been a complete curb stomp by Kirito's Team. THEY SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO TAKE DAMAGE FROM THESE NOOBS. This whole fight, this whole arc, should have played out just like that scene on the bridge from SAO 1 all those years ago. 3 Guys slashing Kirito and his health bar regenerating so fast that the slashes have no effect. That should be the case for every single integrity knight and every single god account that took part in the fighting. Yet these red mobs of complete noobs were somehow able to overpower a multitude of both god accounts and converted LVL 99 accounts. Makes absolutely no sense. There are a multitude of other plot holes, but this comment is getting kind of long so I'll leave it at this massive one

- On To Things That Bothered Me Personally: I don't know about you guys, but I like my girlfriend to love me and me only in a romantic way. At the very least, I want her to make it clear that she's in a relationship. Maybe that's just me though. Because this girl Asuna lets people touch her man so much. Sinon Kissed him ( RIGHT IN FRONT OF HER FACE), Alice laid on top of him and slept next to him, Eugeo stole his heart, like bro what the frick. I don't like fanservice, but except for the fanservice itself, I don't mind harems. However, when the character is clearly in a relationship with another character, I expect that to be the end to the harem shenanigans. The amount of stuff Asuna allows others to get away with doing to Kirito is ridiculous. Let's not mention the fact, that after he finally came out of his comatose state, the only thing she got was a headbutt!? Like really!? I don't even like romance, but I'd expect her to run up anime style and jump on top of him or something. At the very least kiss him, naw hear's a headbutt. But that's okay though, Sinon got her kiss ( sarcasm ).

Overall Rating 7/10
Now I know that Plot Section was long as heck, and I had to purposefully stop myself to keep myself from writing even more in it. But even still SAO is SAO and I freaking love it regardless. The Overall Rating should represent a combination of the Scores. While the plot is horrendous, everything else is good or excellent. Therefore overall it's a 7/10 for me. I will say that personally, outside of SAO S2 PT2 this is my least favorite SAO part simply due to how bad the plot is. It's a shame that such good animation went to waste on this ridiculous plot. Anyway, if you actually read through all of this. Thank You So Much as it took me over an hour to organize my thoughts and type this all out. I don't plan on doing many reviews like this at all, but I appreciate you reading this rare one. Plz, send me friend request as I'm a sad little weeb with hardly any friends on this site. Thanks.