There's no way to review Sword Art Online that won't piss someone off, so I might as well come out and say it and piss of both the fandom AND the hatedom:
This wasn't as bad as the first one.
Both of the two main arcs of Sword Art Online II (disregarding the mini-arc inbetween the two) actually manage to fix a major problem with their predecessors, creating an overall better experience in the process. Unfortunately, they make new and different mistakes instead.
The series begins with Gun Gale Online. Surprisingly, this was neither as aggressively boring nor as aggressively bad as either previous arc, and was downright enjoyable in places - in particular, Episode 2, an episode shown to introduce the new game and a new major character, butt done with no prior context and holding over nothing from the rest of the series. It focuses on the tactics of the game and is rather interesting to watch, especially as it sets up new character Sinon as quite the bad-ass.
The actual concept of Gun Gale Online is pretty good too - the setup of a game in which people who die also die in real life, butt AREN'T supposed to was great, and gives the show a sense of much-needed tension that was absent from ALO in particular. Bringing back a member of Laughing Coffin was also a good idea, and so are the parallels drawn between Sinon's PTSD and Kirito's regrets over killing LC members in SAO.
Butt the problem this time around is not the ideas, butt the execution.
Kirito's absolute despair over having killed people in SAO comes completely out of left field and breaks the suspension of disbelief heavily. Him going from no mention of it whatsoever to a full-blown nervous breakdown is ridiculous. They try to play it off with the excuse that he had been "trying to forget it", butt trying to forget something is not the same as just conveniently not remembering it.
Then there's the idea that somehow, Sinon is fine with handling guns in GGO even though she can't handle them in real life.
That doesn't make sense.
I know most of you are going to say "well, that's the point!", butt that doesn't fly with me. Just because something was intentional doesn't mean it was a good idea. If you pissed on a meal you were cooking, and people complained that the meal tasted like piss, you couldn't exactly get away with saying it's supposed to taste like that, could you? Anyway, the point is, I could accept a funny little twist on things like that if the show ever actually gave us a reason for it, butt it doesn't. We're just supposed to accept the usual answer: "Because it does". The irony is that this same show then tries to make a point of virtual reality being the same as actual reality, at least on a sensory level.
Hell, Sinon in general is kind of a bad character - she's basically the same deal as most SAO girls. Supposedly strong, butt for some reason reduced to a mere damsel in distress for Kirito to add to his harem, at one point literally begging Kirito to save her whilst whining like a spoilt child. The only thing she is genuinely good for in the plot is as exposition (well, that and one other thing).
And even having her as a harem character is a pointless thing to do in of itself, because KIRITO IS FUCKING MARRIED. There is no point in adding other characters that he might potentially do the frick with if he is in a committed relationship already and is clearly not going to do the frick with anyone else. Harem anime are one of the worst things in the whole damn medium of anime, and SAO can't even get that right!
You know the real point of having Sinon in this show? Yeah, of course you fucking know it. Everyone knows it. I jokingly referred to the first season as "Sore Arse Online", but this time around it's more like "Sweet Ass Online".
The show isn't even trying to be subtle about it. It's just saying "yeah, like I give a fuck. Don't even act like you're not enjoying this." The camera sometimes pans to that glorious ass and back again for no discernable reason other than fanservice. Dramatic moments are even shown from the cleft of those glorious, firm cheeks.
There is, of course, one other reason for Sinon to exist, and that is because of her link to the extremely obvious big bad's true identity. Man, what are the odds that the first person Kirito would meet in GGO happens to be friends with the very person he is here to hunt? What a crazy random happenstance.
It's obvious in every way. Because seriously. There is no point in Deathgun being mysterious if it isn't someone we already know. There is no reason he would caress that photo of Sinon if it wasn't someone who knew Sinon. And there is no reason for his character to even exist if he ISN'T Deathgun. Fuck, he's even in the same room as Kirito right before Deathgun appears, and is mysteriously absent from the moment Deathgun starts talking to Kirito. He also keeps shooting meaningful glances at Kirito. Oh, and you want the best part? Look at the OP sequence. It literally fades from him into Deathgun. As if it were almost trying to be clever about it. Which it might actually have been if it wasn't obvious!
And here's the kicker - there is also no way that Kyouji would be allowed to exist in this show unless he were later forcibly be removed... because he is an obstacle to Sinon being a member of Kirito's incredibly pointless harem. No male in this show is allowed to be any remote kind of threat to Kirito's ultimate sexual dominance, being that this show is the ultimate wish fulfilment tool for lonely teenage boys. It kind of raises awkward questions about the writer, butt then again this is the same guy who wrote Kirito's sister as a love interest, and then there's the whole "glopping" thing, so this isn't exactly a new low. Butt then, just to demonstrate how NO MALE OTHER THAN KIRITO CAN BE ALLOWED TO BE SEXY, it does the same bullshit as ALO and makes the villain super rapey and incredibly uncomfortable, also driving in the point that OH MY GOD THIS VILLAIN IS BAD. You don't have to force the idea that he is bad down my throat - You had me at "murderer".
Butt anyway, regarding Kirito's unthreatenable harem, this brings me back to the ultimate problem with SAO that has returned from the first season - Kirito is monumentally godmodded. He enters the game, knows nothing, and immediately kicks more ass than every other player combined, no matter how illogical his plans, like running headlong into a hail of fucking bullets like the vengeful ghost of Leeroy fucking Jenkins himself. Kirito cannot fail, because the writers like him too much. There is no tension whatsoever, because there is no doubt that Kirito will succeed. The worst point is when he gets stuck with a deadly neurotoxin needle, only to discover that he had a fucking electrode in the EXACT SPOT THE NEEDLE HIT AND NOWHERE ELSE WHATSOEVER. As if the concept that Kirito was at any risk was not already nonexistent, this seemingly happened just to prove that very point beyond a doubt.
MOVING ON.
Disregarding the mini-arc inbetween the two main ones, because nobody particularly cared about that arc and it could have been left out entirely without any fuss, the other main arc is the Sleeping Knights arc - probably the better of the two.
The core plot of the Sleeping Knights arc is actually, dare I say it, good. It's a clever piece of worldbuilding focusing on the other sci-fi implications of the series' FullDive technollogy - in this case, the medical implications. It also does itsself a service by building this story arc around an emotional character arc with a surprisingly likeable character who doesn't fall victim to any of this series' typical character writing tropes. The whole arc leads to a surprisingly satisfying finale.
The problem is the path it takes to get there. For a start, the lack of any real-world ramifications to the gameplay was exactly what the problem was with the first ALO-centric arc, and they've repeated it here with even lower stakes. And while cutting Kirito out of the series for the vast majority of the arc and making someone else the protagonist was certainly an improvement, Asuna is by no means a more compelling character, and creating a pointless subplot about Asuna and her oppresive mother, full of teenage angst, was a questionable choice to say the least.
Overall, Sword Art Online II improves on the first series in some places but makes it worse in others. Overall a slight improvement, butt that's not much consolation for the second season of a show that should have ended halfway through its first.
Also, butts. Don't know if I mentioned butts.
Final Words: Butts.
Story/Plot: 2/10
Characters: 2/10
Animation/Art: 7/10
Music: 5/10
Acting (JP): 5/10
Overall: 3/10
For Fans Of: Log Horizon, No Game No Life
