that statement came up when i was in the middle of watching this movie in the theater.
Why you may ask ? let me tell you why.
SAO has always have a special place in my heart. I remembered when the first season came up back in 2012, i was still in first grade of junior high school. Being the first anime that got me into this rabbit hole, i was astonished of how the world of anime has portrayed stories. At that time, i always find myself imagining being transported into fantasy world and being the main character and doing all of those OP stuff. It was a fun childhood memory.
Looking back at it and revisiting SAO now, it was clear to me that the thing that got me hooked really, really hard was not only the premise of being transported into a fantasy world and being OP, it was also the world building. You see, SAO has lots of arc, we have Alfheim, Gun Gale, Underworld, and possibly more. Deriving from an anime only watcher, i always hated the other arcs beside SAO itself for some reason, and now it came up pretty clear of why it is what it is.
The Aincrad Arc was the best, because it only has one goal, to beat the game. By focusing on that one goal, you explore myriad of aspects of the game, you train, you grind, you meet new people, you explore new places, you have fun. And those very reasons is why i really love this part of SAO. The concept of fantasy world mixed with MMO features of games, this is what my 12 years old self loved. Yes, all the other games in SAO has this concept, but one thing that differs SAO from the other is, it was fun. I know it sounds funny knowing that if you die in SAO you die in real life, but that's why it's different from the other. We have real people, trying their best to beat the game, working with other real people, to achieve the very same goal, to escape death. And doing so, we explore so many people with various backgrounds, various personality. They all know what they're going to die if they die in this world, but they still can have fun. That very reason is why i love SAO.
And of course, there's the world of Aincrad. I love the concept of 100 floors with each floor having their own theme. We have floors that only has winter, summer, one that has the theme of a lake, castle, and more. With this being the base concept of the world, we have beautiful surroundings and the possibility of discovering new environment is endless!
I really could go on and make an essay out of explaining the world of SAO but i midway realized that this was a review on SAO Progressive lmao.
This movie is basically a recap of the first two episodes of SAO but with Asuna's perspective. There are some minor changes from the original scene but it wasn't really that major. Upon reading some explanation of what progressive series is, this movie focuses on the details of Aincrad and what they fail to portray in the original anime.
In my opinion, they could've done much more with this first movie but they didn't. All they did was just reanimate the first two episodes and added some new stuff and thats it. Albeit we have new characters, and different perspective, it's still feels like i'm watching the same thing. And that is why i'm giving it a 7.
Other than that, it feels good to experience SAO again and i'm really looking forward for the second movie. I really hope they do more new things with the second one.
I'm writing this review while putting LiSA - Yuke on repeat. and i must say, nothing is more iconic than LiSA doing a song on SAO. She never fails to deliver!
