07-11-2012, 01:25 PM | #1 |
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Sword Art Online
"In the year 2022, the virtual reality MMORPG Sword Art Online (SAO) is released. A virtual reality helmet called a Nerve Gear which sends signals to their brain allows players to experience and control their in-game characters with their minds. But an unexpected event occurs on November 6, 2022 when the creator of SAO prevents the players from logging out. He issues them a challenge: if they wish to be free and log out of the game, they must reach the 100th floor of the game's tower and defeat the final boss. However, should their avatars die in-game, so too will their bodies in the real world. As the game's 10,000 players try to accept their new deadly predicament, Kirito, a skilled player who tested the beta version of the game, is determined to reach the 100th floor and earn his freedom. Along with Asuna, his partner and love interest, and their friends, Kirito and his allies will face many obstacles and discover the true purpose of SAO." - adapted from Wikipedia |
07-11-2012, 01:25 PM | #2 |
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07-11-2012, 02:06 PM | #3 |
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Disclaimer: not putting any of this inside of a spoiler box. If you don't want the first episode spoiled for you and already planned on watching this, then please do go ahead and check it out before reading this post. Thanks.
Just watched the first episode of this today. I was afraid it wasn't going to be very good given the misgivings both Doppelganger and bbb have had about Accel World, the other of this author's two bestsellers, but so far the story looks promising ... though I do have misgivings of my own as to whether or not I should watch this one now or wait until it's all or mostly done airing. ^^; Let's get one thing out of the way early on: Sword Art Online is not terribly original. In fact, you can sum it up pretty nicely as the merger of two earlier franchises. The first, less famous franchise SAO takes inspiration from is .hack//SIGN. Like the ambitious Bee Train anime of the early 2000s, SAO is a story about the terror of being locked inside of an MMORPG with no way of logging out. Sure, there are differences regarding the specifics -- for instance, in .hack//SIGN Tsukasa quite frankly doesn't know how to log out or if he even can whereas in SAO the knowledge of how to log out is there but is coupled with the added knowledge that attempting to log out will fry the player's brain in the real world -- but at its core this is a "oh shit I can't log out of the MMO ;_;" story. The second, more famous franchise from which SAO derives is none other than Battle Royale. Yes, ladies and gents: this is yet another entry into the ever-growing list of animes which take inspiration from the story of a group of 30 classmates stranded on a tropical island who must kill or be killed if they hope to win the game and escape the island with their lives. Again, the specifics are somewhat changed here -- in SAO, for example, there's no explicit mandate to kill or be killed, it's simply something that you know players are going to start doing as they realize that the most efficient way to ensure more resources for their own end-game attempts to grind in order to beat the Level 100 endgame boss is to off one's fellow players -- but at its core this is a Battle Royale series. Before the antagonist has even finished explaining the situation to the players, he reports that already over 200 of the 10,000 players have died due to their families attempting to remove the NerveGears from their heads back on the outside world. This sets things in motion / this primes the audience to expect the deaths to continue to pile up as we press on through the series. So if SAO is not original, then what is it? It's entertaining, for starters. I enjoyed .hack//SIGN and I enjoy a good battle royale so the combination of the two ideas is certainly like the combination of lime and peanut sauce on noodles as far as I'm concerned. While it borrows heavily from earlier works of science fiction and fantasy, Sword Art Online sets us up by the end of the episode to expect a former ally to possibly become a future enemy not because he's a bad person but because dem's da brakes -- you gotta do what you can to stay alive in this world and we only hung out together for one day and have now spent the past x weeks apart. This is an idea I know I've seen many times before, though strangely I can't really point to any one of them in particular , but the point I'm trying to make by bringing this up is not that SAO is completely derivative of older writings (which it well may be!) but that what it does it does anywhere from a grade of C - Average on up. What else is SAO? Well, it's both pretty and not pretty. To be honest, the poster up top is the prettiest you're ever going to see these characters. It's deceitfully well-drawn compared with the actual character animations waiting for you inside, something we don't normally have happen to us in the world of regular anime (so I'm kinda startled and bummed out to have it happen here). Without looking things up and if I had to bet money, I would place $50 down that the studio handling SAO is the same studio who did THE iDOLM@STER anime last year. Just like iM@S, SAO has this bizarro juxtaposition of high-budget backgrounds with low-budget foregrounds (i.e. characters and the items they immediately interact with). The world of SAO is really gorgeous, like the very sort of thing you'd expect .hack//SIGN to have been were it animated in 2012 instead of 2002. It's not quite as artistically beautiful as .hack//SIGN yet but it also hasn't gotten a chance to show us much outside of the town square. However, the people are ridiculously low budget in terms of how they've been animated. Reminds me a lot of iM@S. Which is a real shame considering that characters are going to be as omnipresent onscreen as are beautiful environs in a story such as this. Perhaps rather than being an anime Sword Art Online ought to have been a series of OAVs, one for each novel just like Kara no Kyoukai. Oh well though. Can't take it back now. Aside from that, there isn't much to say yet. We've only met three important characters -- Kirito, Klein, and Kayaba Akihiko (the game's creator) -- and we've only heard the most basic aspects of the premise so far. We still haven't met the girl in the picture up top, Asuna, nor has Kirito really formulated anything more of a plan than "try to always stay one step ahead of the pack." That takes us to my main concern for this series: pacing. I feel like this show is going to be a colossal tease to watch in a weekly format. Especially if Episode 01 is any indication, each week's episode isn't going to be enough to sate my appetite. So I'm torn between putting this one off until October and watching it now with you guys and discussing it weekly. If I see weekly discussions, then sure, we can all watch it weekly together. Otherwise, I may just hold off on this one for now. We'll see. |
07-11-2012, 04:08 PM | #4 |
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You, sir, have just earned yourself $22.5. The rest was taken by the IRS.
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07-15-2012, 04:20 PM | #5 |
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Watched Episode 02 just now. Honestly, I found it to be pretty darn disappointing. The episode was a highly-flawed poor man's Kaiji. The author of this book seems to be struggling to weave a narrative which compellingly examines human nature. Whereas Fukumoto's Kaiji is a masterpiece of human behavioral analysis, the Sword Art Online guy's writing is very unsatisfying, pock-marked with plot holes and other internal inconsistencies throughout. To explain some of what I mean, we'll have to go into spoiler specifics for Episode 02:
Spoiler: show There were lots more but I think those examples are good enough for now. My point, pretty simply, is that the episode's human dynamics were both hard to follow at times and also incongruous with how real people would behave when put in similar circumstances. I hesitate to say I'm very disappointed in this episode but I'm certainly at least disappointed in it. Not fond of the end-of-episode development for Kirito. Not fond of the episode plot overall. Just blah, blah, blah. Here's hoping the third episode, which will likely cap off the introductory stuff, is much stronger than this episode was. The episode's one saving grace? Good lord is Asuna beautiful.
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07-15-2012, 08:16 PM | #6 | ||||
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The major non-anime comparison I'm going to make with SAO is Diablo. I played the original in 1999 on Battle.net and remember the feeling of being on the edge of new world, that of multiplayer. Diablo had an infamously strong boss on its second level called The Butcher, who was iconic and terrifying for new players. The lower levels of the game were too tough for weak players to take on, and The Butcher's items would help a lot with that, meaning players would be tempted to challenge him, but he'd often kill the players and violently so. The rudimentary team-work players incorporated to try and beat The Butcher while not dying and incurring penalties reminded me strongly of these first few floors in SAO. The only chance is for players to work together, but without any rules in place to govern them, until a leader emerges. I didn't find the boss fight all that impressive because it lacked this tension.
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ふたりの想いが見つけだす希望 今 信じあえる あきらめない 心かさね 永遠を抱きしめて Last edited by Doppleganger; 07-16-2012 at 12:46 AM. |
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07-15-2012, 11:37 PM | #7 |
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I watched episode 2 as well. My complaints for the episode are pretty much in Suigin's spoiler box, especially Link's (I can't be assed to remember the guy's name) part. While the Asuna thing didn't bother me that much, I did kinda see it as a cheap attempt at making her seem approachable but badass.
The saving grace of the episode for me was the boss fight itself. I thought it was exciting as hell. The teamwork all used to take the boss down and the main guy's experience being what saved everyone |
07-16-2012, 12:37 AM | #8 |
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I watched the SAO episode after Smile 23, maybe that's why the boss fight didn't impress me? =3=
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07-22-2012, 12:48 AM | #9 |
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I wasn't really trying to defend SAO last week...my experience was just different from Talon's, as I noted in the Diablo anecdote. I've been through that scrappy experience of struggling through a multiplayer game when the limits of the story hadn't been established yet.
But SAO Episode 03 really makes me want to tear into it. Poor characterization marred by something even more troubling, I went from high anticipation (Episode 01) to modestly put-off (Episode 02) to outright frustrated and pessimistic. Spoiler: show I'd give this a 3/10. Strategically, a poorly directed episode. Weak writing, and I saw some off-model art. Bad, bad, bad.
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07-22-2012, 09:33 AM | #10 | |
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Quote:
Now, let's get to the nitty-gritty. Spoiler: show
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07-22-2012, 04:21 PM | #11 |
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Just finished Episode 03 for myself. I'm going to write up my thoughts first. Then I'm going to read Doppel's and Kaisap's spoiler boxes and write up some additional thoughts.
Initial Thoughts: Spoiler: show And now, on to your guys' posts. @Doppel: Yeah, I forgot to bring up the issue of the time jumps. Man oh man did those make me laugh. Here, a spoiler box: Spoiler: show Not much else to say. You make good points that I agree with. @Kaisap: Hey, welcome to our little neck of the woods. First things first: everyone here knows that SAO is based on a series of light novels. ^^; Second, some of your rebuttal points to Doppel to which I'd like to offer my own input: Spoiler: show
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07-22-2012, 11:46 PM | #12 |
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Sorry guys, didn't mean to sound like a smartass. ^^; I just get into my arguments too passionately.
"Phoenix Wright! You did pass the bar, didn't you?!" *health bar drops*
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07-23-2012, 01:33 AM | #13 |
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No need to apologize, we don't want to spray negativity on the walls and intimidate others from entering marked territory. It's just that we're familiar enough with how fiction (in various formats, mediums) is logically pieced together to be able to evaluate it critically.
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07-28-2012, 07:57 PM | #14 | |
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For starters I'd like to bring up that I have never taken part in an MMO. I don't follow them, I know almost nothing of the mechanics and SAO is almost as much of a learning experience for me as it is entertainment. Apologies if you find that "easy" stuff "everybody knows" hasn't made its way into my data bank yet. Alright, episode 4! Here's a very short summary of the plot. Spoiler: show Now, to the little stuff that was mentioned and will hopefully be used more later in the series. Spoiler: show Now, here are my thoughts on the episode and the mentioned points. Spoiler: show Overall this episode is far lighter than the last one. I'm okay with it, but I still like seeing how the characters act in this most unusual circumstance - the interest is similar to the one I had while watching Battle Royale. The scale is grander and the rules are different, but players are cracking nonetheless.
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Last edited by kaisap112; 07-28-2012 at 08:06 PM. |
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07-29-2012, 03:13 AM | #15 |
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This episode was much better than the last, and as kaisap insinuated it's a setting/set-up episode that explains some of the SAO mechanics. I don't think Talon will care much for that, but it was modestly interesting for me.
While the episode was entertaining on a plot level, for those of us who were lamenting SAO's feeble character development, this episode didn't do anything to absolve those complaints. Kirito's just as incomprehensible as the last time we saw him - he does a random act of charity, but why isn't explained given what we saw in Episode 2, and Episode 3. This was an OK episode for an introduction chapter, so Silica gets a pass even though she wasn't fleshed out in the slightest. I didn't care for the tentacle fanservice, especially since Kirito just got through saying how she resembled his little sister, then promptly established incest potential by claiming she was actually his cousin. Then we got to the tentacles and him staring at Silica's panties. Not cool man, not cool. Ratings: 1 - 9/10 2 - 7/10 3 - 3/10 4 - 6/10
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ふたりの想いが見つけだす希望 今 信じあえる あきらめない 心かさね 永遠を抱きしめて Last edited by Doppleganger; 07-29-2012 at 04:26 AM. |
07-29-2012, 03:32 AM | #16 | |
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What hit me more in that cousin-dialog was Spoiler: show This is probably supposed to count as fleshing out the character, although it's yet another RPG main character stereotype. I'm crossing my fingers this potential good point doesn't fall flat on its face in case writers try to go through where the fence is lowest instead of putting effort into it.
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07-30-2012, 04:56 PM | #17 |
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Episode 04. Probably the best episode yet. Enough to redeem this series from mediocrity? Sadly, no. But a solid step in the right direction? Maybe. More after the break.
Spoiler: show Current rankings: 4 > 1 > 3 > 2
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08-05-2012, 02:08 PM | #19 |
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Before Episode 05 came out, people were saying they were praying it would be a two-parter. (They were of course concerned considering that they had also hoped that what ended up becoming Episodes 02 and 03 would have each also been two-parters. ^^; ) From what I gleaned just now from a source (sans spoilers), it sounds like the fans got their wish and this is going to be a two-parter. Thus, I'll be holding off on watching Episode 05 until 06 is out. See you next week!
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08-07-2012, 12:44 PM | #20 | |||
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Spoiler: show Quote:
Spoiler: show Just thought I'd offer my view if it helps clear up the craziness of the female mind. XP Unless I'm wrong and you didn't need specification, in which case I'll feel pretty It was still a pretty dumb move though, especially given the situation. >_>; On that note... Spoiler: show Quote:
Spoiler: show
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08-09-2012, 05:46 AM | #21 |
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Just started watching this, not many episodes so I'm caught up already! I like the art. The concept isn't terribly original, but I think the elaboration/feel of the world makes SAO shine a bit more.
Mmm...the series doesn't stand out in any special way to me though, it's just a normal-level Anime so far. Not bad, not terribly good. I think it has the potential to be good though. |
08-12-2012, 04:50 AM | #22 |
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Episode 6 would be akin to swallowing several small emeralds, then retrieving them - even if they're gems, they're covered in something nasty.
Spoiler: show 5/10 -I liked the solutions to the mystery. -Didn't care for how they were presented -Didn't care for the characterization. -Hated the female behaviour dictation
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08-12-2012, 03:19 PM | #24 |
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08-12-2012, 08:14 PM | #25 |
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I read some of the manga before watching the anime. Watched the anime, moved onto the light novels, and I think (and hope) there are future episodes that'll be of higher quality.
I don't have much to say about Episode 6. I thought it was the worst episode so far. Especially in terms of feel. The buildup in the previous episode was good enough, but the follow-up was lacking. Spoiler: show 3/10. I hope this was just a weak episode (or that I was just imagining things). |
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