What are those reasons? Well simply put, A-1 have chosen to focus on style over substance for the arc’s conclusion. Yes, the art, animation and OST are all top notch as we’ve come to expect from SAO as of late. But, I can’t help but be disappointed at the quality of the adaptation as a whole. There are crucial bits of information and scenes left out of the cour, pointless fan-service and A-1’s patented sexual assault vibes return (Leafa’s scene). Now, granted no anime adaptation is going to capture EVERYTHING from the light novels, and the point of the anime is to promote the source material, I still could not help but feel disappointed at A-1’s omission of somethings and their needless inclusion of others. Kirito’s wings having a different design for example.
Overall, the average person will probably really enjoy this cour of SAO. There is a lot of action, there’s very emotional scenes that debunk the narrative of Kirito being “Jesus-kun” or having no characterisation, there’s Alice, although not enough for me, etc. But, I can only write reviews based on how I as a person feel, and I can’t help but be underwhelmed at this finale to the Alicization arc. Very regretfully, War of Underworld II gets 5 Fluctlights out of 10.
TL;DR: As with ALL LN adapations, I highly encourage anyone interested in SAO or the story at all to read the Light Novels. Alicization is my favourite arc in history, bar none. I love SAO. Despite being entertaining, I just dislike how this final portion was adapted by A-1.
