Ah Sword Art Online, you've been my companion this last week. Is it weird that I'm only blogging and tweeting to myself so far? I guess I'll have to find someway to attract people to watch anime with me and pay attention. This #latenightotaku is going to be a thing, by my will. You heard it here first.
In any event, on to the review. And for that I really need to split season 1 of this anime into two parts. Episode 1-14, and Episodes 15-25. I already gave you my impressions of Episodes 1-14 in my last two blogs; however, let be brief. If you watch nothing else, Episodes 1-14 are concise, poignant, and accomplish what they set out to do. Asuna is a heroine worth falling in love with and Kirito grows into a hero you can respect and root for. The ending makes sense within the world, and the very final scene closes curtain perfectly. I still have my gripes about it not quite being punchy enough, but you know for what it is, the first 14 episodes especially, I'd have to give this Anime a 4/5 star review.
Lets do a brief plot summary so I'm not just throwing out episode numbers at you and you can decide if its at least something that catches your attention. Sword Art Online is a new MMO that sells some 10,000 copies - and that's it. That's all they wanted to sell. Everyone logs on for the opening ceremonies of the game only to discover that they are stuck. That's right, the game creator tells them, its not a glitch - you can't log out. And if you die in this world, you die in the real world. Kirito, the lead character and veteran MMO player, resigns himself to living in this new world, survive and clear the game. Each episode, or at least the first 14, build on this theme. Kirito and the fellow victims all do their best to adjust. In Lord of the Flies fashion, some go crazy, while others become violent and still others just give up. Episode after episode, you see the higher values of humanity win out and are thankful the artist doesn't quite share Goldman's distrust of human nature.
Now what really pushes the series to hit all the notes that matter is Asuna. Not your typical damsel in distress... In fact there was no boy meets girl boy loses girl boy gets girl back in that first story arc. And that was refreshing. In everyway Asuna represented an idea that when someone is worthy of being loved, you give it to them without holding back.
After episode 14, it gets wishy washy. Like, hey this series is successful, so lets keep it going. The original story is a ライトノベル (sp? Light Novel) or at least a series of them, and I'm not sure if maybe the themes held tighter or not, but in the anime incarnation the plot does fall pray to cliché and you don't get the statements the show starts with. Still they were entertaining I suppose.
It's late, and I think I'm repeating myself, so I'm going to sign out here. Its a good show overall, and if you at least just watch the first 14, you'll be good to go. Its got fantasy, well animated fights and a worthy romance arc. So go for it and watch.
The next series I'll be picking up... I haven't decided. If anyone sees this and wants to weigh in, leave a comment. Have anything to add you think I left out about SAO? Leave that in the comments too. This has been the ramblings of a late night otaku, about to get to bed. We'll start the next series... Tuesday perhaps? Until then またね！
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