Sword Art Online is an anime based on Reki Kawahara's original web novel series turned light novel series. The series is about a beta tester named Kazuto Kirigaya aka Kirito who ends up getting stuck in an MMO called "Sword Art Online". The only way to log out in this game is to finish the game and death means death in this one. Can Kirito survive in this game? Also, is this series good? All I can say is, it is entertaining.
The anime adapted the first four volumes of the light novel series written by Reki Kawahara. These four volumes can be divided into two arcs: Aincrad and Fairy Dance arcs or those who haven't read the light novel nor check the Wikipedia, it's the Sword Art Online and ALfheim Online arcs. The problem with the anime adaptation is that these two arcs can last for at least 25 anime episodes but instead, we have 14 episodes for Aincrad and 11 episodes for Fairy Dance, causing the anime to cut some corners just for the series to last 25 episodes.
There is nothing wrong with compressing 4 light novel volumes into 25 episodes, the only time it is considered wrong is that the setting of both arcs requires a lot of world building in it. Cutting corners will lose the aspect that Kirito is in some massive MMO and that some important technical terms that made the online game unique is lost during the process. I will go into detail about it once I will talk each arc individually.
The Aincrad arc is what makes Sword Art Online, Sword Art Online. The danger of getting stuck in some virtual MMO and the only way to escape from it is to finish the game has this kind of danger in it that makes the series engrossing to watch. It didn't help that once you die in the game, you will die for real. The problem with the anime is that it is too focused on building the world of Aincrad that it forgot to build the world outside of the game. The only time they remembered it was when this arc is on its last two episodes. Thus in the process, there are some instances that I forgot that they will die for real once they die in the game.
Making us remember about it are the player killers in the game who thinks otherwise. For starters, these guys have a point, I mean, we are not sure if the game's creator, Akihiko Kayaba is just messing around when he made the announcement. In addition, the news articles might be shopped just to convince the ones stuck in the game that they will die if they die in game. Aside from PKers, players who decided to live their peaceful lives in the game is a reminder that there are some players who are afraid to die, they rather wait for someone to finish the game for them.
The protagonist of the series, Kirito is the standard smart shonen anime protagonist, he will do what it takes to survive this "death game". It didn't help that he is the game's beta tester and thus, he has the knowledge on the best hunting spots to level up, earning him the "Beater" nickname. As the series progressed, he meets other players that made him learn more that there is nothing different with the virtual world and the real world. The pinnacle of it is when he joined a guild for the first time and not being honest with his skills end up causing the death of most of the party members, including the girl he promised to protect.
Asuna is one tough female protagonist who is hiding her true feelings for most of the time. She is scared in the inside but thanks to Kirito, she starts to loosen up a bit. At the end, she fell in love with Kirito and got married. She then becomes more motherly after her meeting with Yui and less tomboyish. But for some reason, it becomes a low point of her character since she ends up becoming powerless in some occasions. Guess I am seeing it like that because we don't have an episode focused on Asuna, on why she was given the nickname of Asuna of the Flash.
Technical wise, like I said in my first episode review of the series, the concept of a world without magic, only weapons in an MMO is really unique. The leveling system and the Sword Skill system of the game is one thing that other MMOs have. As for the additional extra skills such as Dual Wielding and maximum defense and offense, it is something that other online games have but the way to obtain these skills is something unique. I mean, the need to acquire some game conditions to earn a special skill? That is something unique.
More on the technical aspects of this arc, the compression of this arc in 14 episodes affected this arc. The 3rd episode felt like it should lasted for 2 episodes and that the 13th episode should at least last for 2 or 3 more episodes with the first episode focused on the preparations and the explanation on what happened to the players and two episodes focused on the battle with the 75th floor boss. If the show's 14th episode is an indication, the major highlights of the boss fight were cut off just to focus on the final battle between Kirito and Heathcliff.
Where are my answers?!
Lastly, how the arc ended, it left a lot of questions like Kayaba's motivation in trapping 10,000 players inside the MMO that he created. Though he vaguely answered it by saying that he forgot about it, it's one of those aspects in this arc that made me scratch my head. Guess the only closest theory that I can think of behind Kayaba's motivation is the same motivation every player of The Sims games have, to build a world and see it evolve in front of his eyes while tweaking some things in the process. Trying to kill your Sims in the process can make things a lot more interesting for a player and I guess that's what is running on Kayaba's mind when he remove the logout button.
The Fairy Dance arc is just an extension of the Aincrad arc and if I were the producer of this series, I want this arc to be the second season. I mean, ALfheim Online is a different MMO and that the story is more focused on rescuing Asuna from an online game were PK is encouraged and that you can respawn as many times as you want, it has a different feel in it compared to SAO. To put it simply, having this arc as the second arc of the anime made it inferior to the first arc, even though it features magic, respawning, flying, fairies and all of the good stuff your average MMO has.
But what made Fairy Dance a bad arc is that the strengths of the first arc, such as world building and focus on the technical aspects of the game are watered down just to focus on the Kirito and Asuna love story. Some of the viewers eat it all up but for me, I am not buying it. I am watching a shonen anime, not some shojo anime. If I want a love story anime, I can just rewatch Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge because I am a sucker for romantic comedy, heck, even Toradora! whose love story almost made me cry when I watched it years ago!
Asuna's character in the second arc in a nutshell.
Granted, shonen anime has some love stories, but it is not the main focus of the series, it's the action. Speaking of the action, this arc has the most number of bad animated action frames in the entire duration of the series. It's so noticeable it hurts. Heck, Eugene's death scene is the main highlight on how bad the animation of this arc is! The only thing good about this arc is how they made us feel that even though Kirito has a stat boost thanks to his data from SAO mixing with his ALO data, he can't defeat the World Tree Guardians alone.
More on the love story aspect, what irritated me in this one is that Asuna was reduced to a damsel in distress kind of character who waits for his prince to save her from the evil king. The only time Asuna has her own spotlight in this arc is when she attempted to escape and discovered Sugou's secret human experiments. Speaking of which, it's the one of the interesting in this arc aside from flying, the concept that each race has its own set of pros and cons and Leafa.
The friendzoned fairy dance.
Leafa is one interesting companion and making her Kirito's sister made it more interesting. To begin with, Kirito's sister is someone who doesn't play video games according to Kirito but I guess Kirito's experience in playing SAO made Suguha (Leafa's real name) curious on why his brother loves playing video games so much. What's more, he got addicted into it in the process! The only thing bad about Suguha's character is her crush with Kirito. It's a bad thing because it is the cause of a lot of bad drama in the series. It is so bad that I want to scratch my head out of frustration! Thankfully, she got over it later on.
Even though she died in the previous arc, Yui played a pivotal role in this arc. She is a great support character that helped Kirito when he is the tight spots of the game. She is one pivotal character as her program made it easier for Kirito to access high level admin security that is necessary to save Asuna. Sugou is just that crazy and insane villain. He is pure evil and you can easily hate the guy, also he is creepy. All I can say is, he is one bland villain compared to Kayaba since I can just describe him in just two sentences.
Technical wise, the concept of having multiple races to choose from before playing the game is something that other games did. That being said, ALO is not a unique MMO since they just get concepts from other games. Heck, even the leveling system is the same leveling system Final Fantasy II has! The weakest of the technical aspect of the series is the world building. I mean, the game has at least 9 races and they only explored one territory and focused on 4 races in the story! Heck, we only learned only the general concepts of at least 3 races! The magic concept is interesting since the players need to chant their spells, which required memorizing if they want to cast the correct spells. It's interesting and something I see game developers will do in the future.
Lastly, how the arc ended, it is satisfactory compared to the previous one. It is satisfactory and it didn't left any unanswered questions and instead, answered the questions left in the previous arc. As for Kayaba, he redeemed himself at the end of this arc by giving Kirito the item called "The Seed", which basically revived the dying MMO genre. The epilogue scene is something that I expected and that closing the series with the Aincrad castle made the finale really good and put the series into full circle.
Overall, Sword Art Online is just one entertaining series to watch. It is not the best anime of 2012 but it has some interesting concepts that I feel like some other show will do it better. The music in this series is fantastic since it feels like I am listening to video game music and not your standard anime music. The animation, the characters and the story are the weakest parts of the series. Yes, these aspects have their own moments but overall, these aspects can range from worse to great in terms of quality.
There are a lot of better shows based on an MMO like Ragnarok the Animation and shows that featured people playing an MMO such as the .hack franchise (which I want to watch). If you like this anime, I should recommend that you try these titles if you have the time. SAO is not the only MMO anime around for starters.
