Reviews

GENERAL - Okay so I won't cover season 2 as in depth. Much like the season 1 we see 2 major story arcs. With SAO II i'd say that its first arc is somewhat in between the 1st and 2nd arc of SAO. We see Kirito enter a new game that has a new form of death that are going on. When someone gets shot by our villain of the arc they will die in real life as well. Kirito enters the game in hopes to solve this mystery and to figure out how he is doing it and tries to put a stop to it.

Next up is this sort of filler arc which serves next to no purpose its just them going on a random quest.

So SAO II is different in 1 HUGE way. The 2nd main arc. In many ways this is what SAO should be. We follow Asuna and we leave Kirito to a supporting roll.
(Again this is something that's a normal thing in SAO Progressive).

In many was i feel inclined to say this doesn't even feel like SAO. You could watch only this arc and very likely find it to be great. As a stand alone story this arc would rank fairly high for me. It has so many great aspects to it that I like to see out of an anime. Character development, emotional moments it does a great job and would be great to see more arcs like this its a refreshment to the series.

CHARACTERS - Okay so for characters... there isn't much to say beyond season 1.

Kirito doesn't grow as a character at all and still sticks to the kind of character that wins all battles.

Asuna however in the 2nd arc gets MAJOR character development and makes her a much more interesting character as we learn more about her.

SOUND - Is just as great as ever. Has some very emotional soundtracks that fit perfectly in some of the emotional moments of the show. Also something I can't mention often is the sound effects. SaO takes time and care with its sound to make it seem more like real life. In games you may get 1 soundffect per attack or movement etc. In this we get sounds with such as slightly moving your weapon and more lastign clanging sounds to make it feel more real. it has great attention to detail in this sense.

ART / ANIMATION - The animation only gets better in season 2. It has a very appealing art style and in fights it stands out so much more then most series. There is so much movement in them where they could've done more siimple l still battles.

OVERALL - SAO II does its job of both following season 1's format and also adding something completely new for the series. If not anything else the 2nd arc is EASILY worth a watch and I would highly suggest it.

SCORE - 8.1
PERSONAL ENJOYMENT - 8.9