So far SAO is a bad series not that no one could enjoy it, its just badly written. I still somewhat enjoyed it for its silly moments and had my fair share of fun watching it. Sword Art Online Alicization - War of Underworld tho is by many people regarded as the Season were SAO finally gets good. Well i disagree a whole lot with that statement and here is why.
Its time to beat a dead horse i guess.
I will maybe write some things some say are spoilers so here is a warning.
This Season trys some new things disregarding its all to familiar protagonist Kirito and choosing Alice as its new one. While i would give the author credit for at least trying he ultimately made many of the same mistakes and that is the reason why he in my eyes failed at truly changing the series for the better.
At the end of the last Season the big bad Pontifex was defeated and Kirito fell in some kind of coma. Now the "dark territory" is set to attack and the Integrity Knights are trying to build up some kind of defense against them.
Alice is our new main character and she has some real writing issues in my humble opinion.She makes some really dumb decisions to protect Kirito wich she does above all else, after seeing some dudes arguing to kill Kirito cause he killed their god she decides to leave. Instead of staying by the side of the people that 1. have influence and 2. know about Kirito and the bad things the Pontifex did she decides to go back to her home city. Why not ask some other Integrity knights to help her hide why go alone? This is just and example of how stupid and impulsive it gets.
Furthermore her biggest character trait is her love for Kirito, i know she questions some things after being treated like trash but this is never explored in any way. The reason for almost everything she does is that she wants to protect him, wich can be fine in a Adventure type setting but not if the reason she is the main character is that the series wants to distance itself from Kirito. Thus Kirito seems yet again as the main reason for almost everything a big chunk of the cast does anything.
Every other cast member is not really noteworthy tbh.
The new big bad that wants to take Alice Fluctlight comes from the outside world. He gets access to the emperor "account" of the dark territory, he does that in a spectacular easy way given that project Alicization is supposed to be the next new still steamy way of war. The amount of security is basically non existent. His and the character of his bro are both complete garbage they are the typical bad guys with no development or even exposition to why they do the things they do in the way they do it. I mean there is literally nothing. We get 2 names and a profit orientated goal....thats it. In the Underworld the worldbuilding gets expanded in a horrendous way, we get a big introduction of maybe all the races that live there. This introduction is the typical "giv em some text for the minimum of information", i mean come the fuck on thats so god damn lazy. All the races we got have the most generic underdeveloped leaders ever, we again get name and 1 over exaggerated personality trait. Ok....1 of them that gets some more spotlight in the later episodes but he never had any kind of character arc he just snapped and in the span of some minutes changes sides.
On the side of the Human empire we have some more spotlight on the characters but again everything feels lazy and rushed. Every Integrity Knight either is a tool for info dumping us, in the last episode some characters where in a pickle and one of the Integrity Knights appeared out of nowhere and gave them the solution that we as a watcher couldnt answer because we never got the amount of worldbuilding required to answer that question. As for the Integrity Knights themselves we got every typical character present the quiet but strong one, the anxious but overcoming it one, the charismatic leader one, the 2 lolis, the overly annoying apprentice one. Every character gets the development that is to be expected after seeing them for the first time most of them overcome their issues in the most predictable and anti climactic way possible.
We also got some characters from the first season that return now and that in probably the most fun but ultimately worst episode of SAO, i am of course talking about episode 5 and its only purpose to show Kiritos Harem wich he build throughout the first Season. Each and every Girl he helped in some kind of way comes to cry at his chair and thats 99% of the episode.
Almost every scene that is not in the Underworld is there to give explanation about the absurd story, its just characterless characters reading some scientific stuff that explains "everything". Present the information in a way anyone could care about and it maybe be decent. But this is for sure not the way my lovely A1 team.
One last little point about the story is that this is supposed to be a war right? I highly doubt that there is only one war front each when the only 2 known empires are at war. The tactics are also questionable if the big daddy emperor is such a great allmighty being why not directly fight then? Why not surround the enemy if you are so much stronger? Why not investigate on the Integrity Knights powers and then search for a solution against those powers?
Thats about all my really major issues, of course there are some more things on the terrible worldbuilding etc. But that would be a waste of time since it should be clear that the Underworld is not the best explored world there is.
The Sound is good but nothing groundbreaking, that is to be expected since SAO is A1s baby and they probably spent a lot of god damn money on it. The overall soundtrack is also not bad but also nothing outstanding, Lisa did the OP if ya like her voice you'll probably enjoy it. The animation/art section is the one that ones again shows how god damn lazy this show is, the overall animation feels smooth most of the time but oh my lord jesus fucking chris EVERY and i mean EVERY soldier from every army looks 100% the same, are they clones mhhhhhh i highly doubt it. The shot composition is as basic and generic as it gets, not a single shot tells us anything about the world or characters, the everything thats not animated in the foreground is done in a lazy (copy and paste soldiers) and generic way that shows that the show once again goes full "lets make our animation look good on a superficial way but with 0 depth or thought put into it".
In the end this Season changes little about the series be it for worse or for better it still is somewhat entertaining and good to laugh at.....maybe not as entertaining as the last Season since edge lord Kirito is cosplaying the sleeping beauty.If you enjoy and legitimately think its good....you do you i guess. Go hate or debate all you want and maybe just maybe we can agree to disagree.
