In both defence and critique of Sword Art Online II's GGO arc.
My first review on MAL and I'm attempting to find ways to defend Sword Art Online. Whatever has my life come to?
I want to begin this review by saying that I really did not enjoy the first season of this anime. There are already hundreds of opinionated reviews and arguments as to why someone would consider the first season to be hot trash so I don't see the point in going over them here. I'll only be looking at the first 13 episodes in any depth during this review too as I believe there were things that were done right in this section of the plot.
There were two major problems that needed to be dealt with in order for season 2 to not also crash and burn like a zeppelin filled with crushed dreams and despair. Hell there were hundreds of problems overall but lets focus on the two largest ones. Our lord and saviour Kirito and character consistency. Did they manage to salvage these aspects of the show?
Short answer: Sadly, no.
Long answer: I can't say they at least didn't try.
Kirito is still portrayed as daddy jesus-kun however there is an attempt, in a really shoehorned way, to make it look like he can somehow do something wrong and regrettable. This is presented in the form of a raid that was carried out during the events of the first season against a guild awkwardly named "Laughing Coffin" whose sole intent was to murder simply because they could. As righteous an endeavour as this was for Kirito (praise be) he ends up having to kill some of its members and thus their real world counterparts. I understand that this was the writer trying to show that Kirito is not perfect and yeah it does become relevant later in the plot but it's just so lazily shoehorned in it's hard to really appreciate. He's still an invincible Mary Sue with no real grounding or proper inner dialogue. While at least they tried to actually characterise him and it doesn't hurt, it's not massively effective either. Although I may be crucified for saying this there are some moments that actually make him seem rather badass while also showing him as having vulnerabilities, although being the second coming of christ you know he is never really in any danger.
We are introduced to a new character, a sniper class in the gun focused MMO Gun Gale Online (who names these?), named Sinon. This is where the first arc of SAOII shines in my opinion. We're shown a character with a genuinely tragic backstory, a character with motives and shortcomings who seeks to overcome her problems. Sinon is the character that an anime like SAO needed to make it enjoyable. While top of her class she still has flaws and isn't able to pull Deus-ex-Machinas out of a magic hat like the one true lord Kirito. She has moments of true badassery and is built up as someone who can take care of themselves within the online world. I would have loved if they'd somehow managed to exclude Kirito from the first arc and have it entirely focused on her with a decent cast of supporting characters but this is SAO and we can't proceed without our master Kirito. For this first arc as well there is little to no romantic interest between her and the chosen one Kirito. Instead they develop a relationship as rivals who grow to have a mutual respect for one another which is a refreshing change of pace.
Sinon has an intense fear of guns due to an event that happened during her child hood and seeks to, by playing a game devoted to firearms, put that fear behind her. Confronting a fear head on, although it may seem illogical at first, is a proven method to tackling a deeply nested trauma. Albeit it is a very slow and painful process which is not shown here due to this being a primarily action focused anime but it does bare some semblance of sense. Her childhood trauma also makes her moments of weakness more believable.
Unfortunately we must remind ourselves that this is SAO and we will see close ups of her ass in at least 20 or so shots because being a character with some depth does not exclude you from being exploited as fanservice, later becoming part of Jesus-kun's rampant Harem train and losing said depth. By the time the second arc begins we seem to completely forget about Sinon's struggles and see her demoted from a strong, badass heroin to just another piece of ass that follows Kirito around. He also does the "let me impart thine wisdom and save you my child" thing during one of her biggest moments of despair which is to be expected by this stage but still very eye rolling none the less. As the ass shots ramp up towards the end of the GGO arc we begin to see SAO's latent sexism shining through in all its ugly glory. A girl who has been shown to be of keen whit and was once capable of developing her tactics on the go will inevitably require Kirito's help. I sadly don't see that changing any time soon either. Needless to say this all made me incredibly annoyed and had the effect of making the entire first half of this season utterly pointless.
Looking more at the positives the plot of the first arc is set up very nicely. There is the "IF YOU DIE IN THE GAME YOU DIE IN REAL LIFE" cliché but this time there seems to be only one player capable of enacting this vengeance in the form of our main villain. Kirito's reason for deciding to enter GGO is out of curiosity as to whether or not this villain exists and a desire to find affirmation that a player cannot be killed from within a game. While others have complained that this reason is contrived I can sort of understand why this might be all the motivation Kirito (praise be his name) needs. He survived a similar scenario and most likely feels it's his duty to put a stop to anything similar that would arise. It's not the most original plot but the narrative stays focused and delivers where it is supposed to
What I mentioned prior also makes the villain actually somewhat threatening and intimidating. We are also are left in the dark about who he is for most of this story arc making him all the more frightening when he seems to recognise Kirito. Unfortunately he has the craptastic name "Death Gun" which takes away slightly from his menacing aura. As for design, it may be a little goofy (scary skeleton man in a cape, see He-Man) the way his dialogue is delivered along with considering what he is capable of do make him a menacing presence.
Moving on to the more visual side of things It looks fantastic as did the first SAO. The cryberpunk, gritty nature of GGO makes for a welcome change of scenery from what we would have gotten used to in the first season. The animation is also very well done, especially during the fight scenes, as is to be expected. The dialogue is pretty awful but does have some rather rare high points.
While the story is told far more coherently than in the prior season, like I have said many times in this review already, this is SAO and
the plot does leave itself with many gaping holes. Anyone who plays MMORPGs will immediately notice the flaws and logic gaps in GGO's design. Most of these have been glazed over with lazy writing which was a huge issue with the franchises first iteration. The villain's motives are made overly complex and Kirito's brief confrontation with his morals is quickly swept aside and only used as a way for him to have some sort of convenient emotional connection to Sinon for the purpose of driving the plot forward. However if you don't include the amount of pointless exposition then you can at least say that it's mostly devoid of filler. The goal is stop Death Gun from committing any more murders and what this story arc shows are the steps that our main characters go through in order to achieve that goal. Not too much more and nothing less.
In summery within the first arc we get a reasonably well developed heroin whom we (or at least I) find ourselves caring for, an awesome setting very different from the prior season, a genuinely intimidating villain, great visuals, animation and the believably high stakes of capturing a murderer before he is able to strike again. I honestly believe that the first half of this anime is worth watching. Is it a masterpiece? Hello no. Is it good? Not as consistently as I would like but it has some moments that are gratifying. I really want there to come a time when I no longer find myself using "after all this is SAO" to excuse the franchise's many short comings. It's as frustrating to me as it is to many others that something with so much potential makes so many bad decisions. This season was better than the first but the franchise still has a long way to go before it could be considered great.
Not a must watch but a decent enough story to keep you interested for 13 episodes.
