Sword Art Online first season from episodes 1 - 15 was good really good, mostly because it had so much action, puzzling. Earlier this year when Sword Art Online hit its halfway point, I called it the smartest anime I had seen in years because of its in-depth look at the long-term effects of being trapped in a virtual reality world. This last week Sword Art Online finished its run on Japanese TV. And while the second half of the series was still entertaining, it didn't quite manage to live up to the thematic highpoints of the first half.
When I wrote my review of the first half of SAO, I had seen up to episode twelve. The main characters were off on a series of side-stories as part of their honeymoon, and there were still 25 floors left to clear till the end of the game. Little did I know that two episodes later, the series would change completely due to the greatest plot twist ever: the hero wins early.
After discovering the creator of the game is actually one of the players—and the final boss of the game to boot—the creator gives Kirito the chance to fight a one-on-one duel. In any other anime, the hero would have lost and the villain would have escaped to await the main characters at the final dungeon. But in SAO, Kirito wins, and the villain, true to his word, sets everyone free from the online world. What's more impressive is that this doesn't happen at the halfway point of the series where you might have expected it; rather it happens two episodes after that. Moreover, it happens right after a seemingly irrelevant side-story about fishing, making it one of the most unexpected plot twists I have ever seen. But the second half reminds me a lot of Zelda?
Thanks for reading let me know what you think ;)
