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By Dakota Wiegand
So, I have a bit of a story for you. I was scrolling through Netflix and in new arrivals I saw a couple of new anime. Now I know I wrote an article on my position on anime before and I can understand why some of my readers think I am not into anime. I would like to rectify this! I do enjoy some anime, just not all. So when I was scrolling through some of the new arrivals on Netflix I came across Sword Art Online and Sword Art Online II. I read their descriptions and looked at the animation stills and I thought to myself, “Wow, this sounds exactly like .hack//Sign.” So I didn’t watch it. Later, being that .hack//Sign was still on my mind, I went in search for the opening theme song of the anime. After listening to it and having raves in my car, I was interested in watching .hack. However, I didn’t want to re-watch that series again and rehashing some of the issues that I brought up in my previous review of the show. For those of you who have not read my .hack//Sign review, I will post the link at the end of this review! Back to the story though! So, analyzing my dilemma, I decided to maybe try a different .hack series, but a lot of them are strange and cartoony. Then, it dawned on me about a series that I thought was similar: Sword Art Online! I pulled it up on Netflix, reread the description, and then made sure it was English dubbed. I was all set. So, I decided to give it a try! I hit play and 18 hours later, I finished Sword Art Online. It has been a long time since I stayed up to the early hours of the morning watching something, but I was I hooked by the show. This doesn’t mean, I thought it was great, but it wasn’t horrible. It reminded me of my feelings of .hack//Sign where I gave that a lower than average grade, but I truly enjoyed it immensely. However, maybe I liked this much more? Just read and find out!
Sword Art Online was adapted from the very successful light novel manga series of the same name. It made the transition from paper to the small screen in 2012 when the series debuted at Dengeki Bunko Autumn Festival in 2011 and then made its way to the US in July of 2013 on Adult Swim and rand for 25 episodes before wrapping up in February of 2014.
Just a quick note on the 25 episodes: you could almost split the series into two different seasons. The first 14 episodes deal with the characters playing and living in the virtual reality world called Sword Art Online, or SAO for short. In the last 11 episodes, we get a cast of new characters and the location of the show changes to the virtual reality game of Alfheim Online, or ALO for short. Essentially, you have two separate seasons in one! A two-fer, yay! Now that, I mentioned this, let me explain the scenery of the show.
So, essentially you have 3 separate locations for SAO: the real world, SAO, and ALO. The real world takes place in the year 2022 in Japan, not sure if its Tokyo because of the lack of a city. However, due to the location of some big business, I am assuming that it is in Tokyo, or on the outskirts of it. The virual reality game of Sword Art Online is a fantasy world where all the players live and venture in the floating castle known as Aincrad, which has 100 floors to it. Each floor has different towns and fields and other terrain for players to venture through. In ALO, the setting is similar but different. The world of ALO is known as Alfheim, where it is split into 10 different areas, 9 for each fairy race, and one neutral zone which harbors the Tree of Life. The whole land is loosely based off of Norse mythology, so any Marvel Thor fans would recognize the Tree of Life from the movies to the show, though it is so not the same. What is great about each world is that you can buy that these are fantasy game maps, but each one is very different in their own unique ways and keeps the viewer interested in the world, much like the main characters are. Speaking of which!
SAO has a decent amount of characters that appear in the show. However, for the sake of time and relevance we shall be talking about 5 main cgaracters: Kirito, Asuna, Suguha, Akihiko Kayaba, and Nobuyuki Sugou. Let’s get to talking about them!
Let’s start with the main character of SAO, Kirito aka Kazuto Kirigaya. He is a Beta tester who logs back onto SAO to play it on the official launch of the game and gets trapped inside the game along with the other 10,000 players. Him being a Beta Tester, Kirito knows a lot more of SAO than other players, which causes him and other Beta Testers to be alientated by the 9,000 other players who have not played before, but I’ll talk about that in a bit. Kirito is a quiet player who likes to work alone and tries to not get anyone involved, especially after teaming up with a guild only to watch them get massacred. However, as the series continues on, Kirito opens up more and more and understands that to get out of SAO, he needs to work together with the other players.
I like this character a lot and thought he was well thought out and had a very well defined character arch. He’s not all doom and gloom either, having a couple of comical moments in throughout the series. Part of this is due to his interaction with the series’ main female character, Asuna.
Asuna, also known as Asuna Yuki, is probably my favorite character of the show. She is a very strong and well determined character, willing to do whatever it takes to get her and everyone out of the world of SAO. She was inspired to act because of a floor one interaction with Kirito, who took his advice by joining the first guild she could, the Knights of the Blood guild, and quickly leveled up and gain power. However, in a second interaction with Kirito, she learns that even in their current situation, there is plenty of life to live. This helps break down her hard-ass character and opens up the real Asuna for Kirito and the audience to see.
Now, with this character development, I still thought the character was extremely interesting. That being said, her going back to the hard-ass she was is a little too infrequent. Like, her and Kirito is fine, but them battling together I feel that she needed to turn off the laid back vibe and be the known badass she is.
She was also in ALO, but as a held prisoner. Unfortunately, she wasn’t too much of a badass in that half of the season. However, though she was waiting for Kirito to come and save her, she does try break herself out. I like that she is not just the damsel in distress in the 2nd half of the series. She does try to do things on her own, even though she is ultimately saved by Kirito.
The main antagonist of the 1st half of the series is Akihiko Kayaba, who is also plays SAO under the character of Heathcliff, the leader of the Knights of the Blood. This guy is the creator of SAO and is also the one responsible for entrapping 10,000 players inside of a death game. And you want to know why he did such a thing? Well, SO DO I! The reason for what he did is never explained. He just did what he did because of _____. At the end of the SAO story arch, Kirito and Asuna talk with him as the world of SAO crumbles around them. All we know through that conversation was that he always wanted to build the world of SAO and that he really did ill almost 4,000 people in the game. That’s it. As the character of Heathcliff, well, we don’t learn much about him. Kirito figures out that Heathcliff and Kayaba were the same from some small details he spotted in a duel with the guy, but apart from that, there isn’t much character development. In the ALO story line, he makes an appearance at the end giving Kirito the World Seed, which is a program that allows for anyone to make their own Virtual World. I don’t know how evil this guy is, because there was some moments where you go, why did he even do this? I don’t know, he is not the greatest villain ever created, but the next character is a bit better.
Nobuyuki Sugou, also known as Oberon the Fairy King in ALO, is a businessman with some serious problems. His company buys out the company who created SAO to make ALO and Sugou is the one who is running the Virtual Reality Division of the company. Also, he is in high standings with Asuna’s family and he convinces them to let Asuna be his wife while she is still in a coma so that when she dies, he can be apart of the their family and will be next in line to inherit Asuna’s family fortune and business. How did Asuna’s father think this was a good idea? Next, he helped capture 300 characters from SAO to run experiments on their brains in order to profit from the military like benefits of the findings. And if that wasn’t messed up, one of the 300 characters in the game was Asuna where he imprisoned her, raped her, and dangled her in front of Kirito. Like, holy crap! Then, he increases the injury volume of the game to a higher amount to impale Kirito and to make him suffer. Not only would that effect Kirito, but everyone playing the game! However, Kirto kicks his ass and destroys the living hell out of the guy to the point Sugou tries to kill Kirito in real life! And ON TOP OF THAT, he’s living under the shadow of Kayaba and blames him for everything negative that has ever happened to him on Kayaba. I’m not sure how this guy got away with not seeing a therapist but he really should have gotten help when he was a lot younger. Maybe he wouldn’t have been this messed up.
The final character that I want to talk about is Suguha Kirigaya, aka Leafa. Sugha is Kirito’s adopted sister. She is actually his cousin, being that he was raised by his aunt and uncle for reasons unknown. Shes a fun character, obviously going through the angsts of any teenage girl. However, things do get weird at one point, at least if you’re American, and I’ll get to that in a bit. She practices kendo in real life and plays as the fiary warrior Leafa in ALO. She’s a very strong character and tries to not bring in her feelings from the real world into the game. It also thought it was a cool story that she wanted to know why her brother was so into Virtual reality games that she bought her own and started playing ALO. However! Where are her parents? ALO is a safer game than SAO, but still. You have one kid in a coma from playing a virtual reality game, you don’t need another in that same situation! In the end, I liked this character and wish there was a bit more of her, both real world and ALO versions of her.
Now this show gets romance correct, but it also gets it wrong. Let’s start with why they get it right. Kirito falls in love with a player in the game well before he and Asuna get together. Thar character only appears in one episode but they establish that the two of them got really close before she and her guild get killed in a glitch event. Kirito blames himself for that and distances himself from other guilds and individuals for a good chunk of time. Kirito is also the subject of a couple of character’s desires, but Asuna beats all the other girls to the punch. Asuna and Kirito are one of those couples that you truly end up rooting for in the show. They build off of each other, bring each other up when they are down, and they never give up on each other. Asuna sacrifices herself to prevent Kirito from dying in SAO at the very end of the story arch, and then Kirito does everything he can to save Asuna from ALO and Sugou’s imprisonment. The show establishes these characters so well that you truly believe that these two will go to the ends of the earth for each other.
On the strange side of the romance level, you have Suguha in live with Kirito. They are not really brother and sister, but they are 1st cousins still. I don’t know if its okay or not as taboo in Japan as it is here in the US to fall in love with your cousin, but its not kosher. That’s where I feel the romance was the weakest. You believe Suguha’s feelings and you end up backing her up as she goes through an emotional roller coaster. The fight between Kirito and Suguha towards the end of the series in the real world is actually really good writing and you feel for her. However, I would feel more comfortable with the whole situation if Kirito was not her cousin. Have him as an adopted brother, or a family friend’s kid, but not her cousin. Ew.
Now my biggest gripe with this show is the story. It’s a bit clunky and doesn’t flow as smooth as it could have. For one, there is no reason that is given the audience to why Kayaba trapped 10,000 people in a death match. Secondly, if you can’t unplug the people from the head gear, how were the safely transported to the hospital? You need to cut the power, even temporarily to the thing in order for them to leave the room and get to a hospital. Thirdly, the story abruptly stops at the 75th floor? I know Kirito calls out Heathcliff for who he actually is, but it was just so abrupt how they did it. Fourthly, the Japanese government couldn’t figure out how to send word into the game? They couldn’t figure out how to communicate with these people? Just hook up an internet connection with someone they know and send emails to that person! Next, Asuna’s family is willing to give their daughter away to someone who has blatant goals? The object that Kirito gets that saves the lives of a player 10 seconds after death? They never use it! They made it a point in one episode how important it is to get that item, yet we never see it. Finally, no one in SAO has a fear of being trapped in the virtual world? If they do, they don’t give a crap because everyone just hops back online and continues playing. UGH!
Do all of these points take away from the show? No, but they are blatant question marks. But overall, I really enjoyed this show. The characters are awesome and the story, even though it can slow down, can grab you and hold you. Like this show grabbed me to 3am when I finished watching the damn series! After a lot of thought, it may be one of my favorite anime series. It5 may not be Cowboy Bebop or Trigun, but it is something that I truly enjoyed.
Show rating: B
Now! I have a theory, not sure how original it is but I did my research. You can link SAO and the .hack// universe together! The events of SAO start in 2022 and after playing .hack//GU, that game takes place in 2017, 2 years after the events of the games and .hack//sign (2015.) Also, the players in the .hack// universe play with the virtual reality headset and a game controller, which is technology that would come well before the complete headgear in SAO. So! Its safe to say that The World may have been the predecessor of Sword Art Online! Boom! Mind blown! I know, you’re welcome!
P.S.
Sword Art Online II review coming soon!
Watch what I was talking about!
Sword Art Online www.netflix.com/search/sword%2…
.hack//sign review dwdrawings.deviantart.com/art/…
