Amazing, isn't it? Somehow this new season of Sword Art Online was supposed to be the season where SaO finally became good again. I was seriously hopeful, yet it managed to not just let me down, but make me watch 12 episodes of pure brain torture. Never in my life have I forced myself through an anime which I didn't like, and never in my life have I felt so completely let down and honestly angry at how terrible the writing could be from what is supposed to be one of the most anticipated shows ever.
Spoilers all the way through.
I'll start with some good. The
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sound effects within the Underworld are surprisingly cool. Whenever Sword Skills are used you're met with this interesting electronic glitchy bass-boosted sound effect, and honestly? I was seriously impressed. It gave the visual effects more power for sure. The ending song by LiSa of course was a complete banger, but I can't expect much else from her.
The art of course has always been great when it comes to SaO. I do however have to say that there was absolutely nothing truly interesting about it. It kind of seemed like they dumbed down a lot from the previous seasons. This is not how I remember SaO, the art seemed too lazy for this.
The only character I actually really loved in this one is the leader of the pugilist's guild. I honestly have high hopes for him in part 2, and really feel like he could play an impactful role. However, I'm not convinced that he will live through the first few episodes. I wouldnt even be surprised if they mercilessly killed him off early on.
Anyway, that's all the good I'm even willing to write, onto the bad. I think the worst part of the season was the incredibly horrid writing of characters. Never again was I so furious at the decisions made by major characters and their emotional ways of reaching their goals, I even wrote a word document where I allowed myself to rant over dumb decisions made by characters.
Through the entire season the writing was already very sub-par. I think we can all agree that the Kirito harem is fun and all, but just becomes an incredible annoyance throughout the season (cough cough episode 5). However, where it truly all went down the gutter for me was in Episode 7.
In terms of worldbuilding, we've learned that the people of the human realm are unable to murder other humans due to the rules of the pontifex.. which Asuna somehow later instantly assumes to be work from a mole in Rath, which makes absolutely no sense but we'll get to that later.
So, from this we know that Alice is not a murderer of humans. Throughout the arc we even see her turn from a cold integrity knight to a girl with love and empathy. Before she is able to create a nuke of souls, she monologues about how terrible war really is, as she discovers that all the souls of the people from the dark territory are just like their own. It's almost like she's starting to build sympathy for the people in the dark territory, since they're all just like her.
However, this is INSTANTLY thrown out of the window when Alice suddenly is able to commit GENOCIDE by wiping out hundreds of mages, all with human-like attributes. Slaying goblins I could understand, but she's literally killing hundreds of her own kind while they're screaming of pain from the burns. How is she able to mentally handle this, and how are there no lingering effects of having committed such an insane war crime?
It's unrealistic character building and extremely frustrating to see how there's an insane lack of depth in the character's and their actions. Nothing they do have consequences. Hearing her annoying apprentice suddenly coming out to then talk about his regrets of not doing his duty and all that is just extremely unrealistic. Yes, it's a fantasy world, but that doesn't mean the characters should have the emotional depth of a bloody children's bath.
The war as well seems extremely onesided. Every threat is completely nullified by minimal actions of a single person. When the dark territory mages create a huge nuke to try and take down Alice, it's COMPLETELY nullified when mister apprentice comes in after he has already flagged his death multiple times. The fact that the dark territory was RELYING ON THIS BOMB to win the entire war from the start and it being nullified by a single minor character is extremely stupid. Suddenly the entire dark territory is not even a threat anymore.
One integrity knight is able to stop the advance of an entire pugilist's guild as well, how does this happen? Why are the small stupid vanguard goblins more of a threat to humanity than the MAIN FORCES of the dark territory? It creates an atmosphere where you never fear for the life of a protagonist, because you know how weak the dark territory really is.
It's also hilarious that even though this dark territory was considered an insane threat over hundreds of years and that their invasion would mean the downfall of humanity, a SEVERELY reduced group of integrity knights WITHOUT the pontifex were enough to win the war, even though their tactical choices were terrible (from both sides of course, but why the hell are the integrity knights and Alice entering the dark territory when there is no conceivable rush to counterattack? They could've just waited for the dark territory to kill themselves again walking into the canyon).
Then there's all kinds of dumb moments that just make me laugh out loud. Not because of the good humor, but because of how ridiculous they are. Like how Asuna decides to jump inside of a meteor crater with her horse, which is stupid already, but then we see the carriages have safely made it down a 5 meter drop as well somehow. I have never seen a horse jump with carriages, but I'm not expert I guess.
Or when Asuna activates her ability and stands there like a soulless child mage while there's an entire choir that sounds NOTHING like her singing some kind of heavenly christian song. It's not that it's unrealistic or anything, it just looked stupid.
The troops of the dark territory are laughable. Why are all the piggy troops suddenly COMPLETELY fine with being EXECUTED, and how is there only ONE piggy that even remotely questions the morals of the sacrifice? I haven't even mentioned how the antagonists are some really depthless cold shits. The main antagonist is apparently some genius commander in gun gale online, but isn't even able to manage simple tactics in the underworld. It's like he lost all his brain in the dive, it's incredibly stupid.
Also, the way he was able to just swoop in on a big old dragon and take Alice away within the span of 5 seconds is so anticlimactic. How Alice allows this to happen so easily is beyond me. The main antagonist makes it look so easy I wonder if Alice secretly has Stockholm Syndrome and a fetish for brainless antagonists.
Anyway, all emotional cry moments are extremely hard to relate to. I haven't felt bad for a single character other than the pugilist's guild's leader.
The way the writers solve problems is also really disgusting. There's a very simple way to write SaO scenes. Start by creating a sudden and out of nowhere problem, have someone fix it with some weird ass technique you've never seen before, then create a flashback to when this someone was taught this technique that's somehow PERFECTLY made for the situation.
Example: Pugilist guild is running at Alice and Co. They suddenly THEN realise that there's no way to handle them, since using arts is impossible without natural resources, and their swords apparently literally can't cut through a pugilist's skin since they're trained for it. Bam, suddenly there's an integrity knight who start slashing through pugilists like their skin is made of paper. Flashback to the past, where the Pontifex gives said knight a sword that can supposedly "cut through anything". Oddly convenient, isn't it?
It's almost like they forget about the problem and suddenly think of a solution even though it doesn't fit at all. The story goes from problem to problem and solution to solution. There is only 1 problem that keeps popping up and that's the problem of what's going on in the outside world, where there is pretty much no direct development happening.
Next up are the extremely dumb moments concerning the American red troops. They come in and expect it's a game and all, but they don't know they're cutting down "actual human beings", which SUDDENLY BECOMES A PROBLEM AGAIN even though we saw a couple episodes ago that it's TOTALLY FINE to commit genocide when it's convenient for the plot. Also, one of the main issues for the Japanese to not log in in the final episode is that the pain suppression is off in the Underworld, but this is totally forgotten when the Americans WILLINGLY go and log back into the realm even though they probably experienced the horrific pains of being sliced into pieces by sharp bloody swords.
I don't know, Sword Art Online is a complete mess of writing where I only come for the action scenes, because that's all they've got going for them. You literally have to turn off your brain to be able to even remotely enjoy this, but for me that's just simply impossible. The characters' motivations are laughable and their decisions unrealistic, there's more plot holes than actual story, and we didn't even get to see Kirito being badass.
Great job wasting my time SaO, 2/10.
Jul 28, 2020
Amazing, isn't it? Somehow this new season of Sword Art Online was supposed to be the season where SaO finally became good again. I was seriously hopeful, yet it managed to not just let me down, but make me watch 12 episodes of pure brain torture. Never in my life have I forced myself through an anime which I didn't like, and never in my life have I felt so completely let down and honestly angry at how terrible the writing could be from what is supposed to be one of the most anticipated shows ever.
Spoilers all the way through. I'll start with some good. The ... |
