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| Oh! Are these the two main characters? Wee! or Wee? |
* MMORPG Fans, especially maniacs~
* Those who like Medival era Fantasy stories.
* Similar Genre Examples: Tales of the Abyss, A Certain Magical Index, A Certain Scientific Railgun, etc.
Intro
The first impression of SAO (as in this picture) is the main characters is the girl (Asuna) and the boy (Kirito). But nevertheless, this is actually a story which features ON THE BOY ONLY!! *sob* *I want Asuna...*
This is a 25 episode long anime, but surprisingly, the storytelling is divided into 2 parts. The "Sword Art Online" part and the "Alfheim" online.
The first part is very comprehensive. It is as thought one is brought into the MMO world just by watching this anime!! Too bad that the second part doesn't make any sense. But why?
MAJOR SPOILERS~
You still have the chance to turn back before reading it!
Turn now or regret~
Answer:
The first half is life threatening. Die there and you'll die... forever~
Although the second half is about saving someone in coma, but... the story line makes me feel like its all just a game~ You know, game... Secondly, it also focus more on Kirito saving Asuna than the other fellow players in coma. It feels... a bit of selfish...
Must Watch Rating: (7/10)
This is the rating for those who did not play MMORPG. For MMO players, the rating is 10/10 ! Weee!
Storytelling Technique
Settings: (9/10)
Complexity of Storyline: (3/10)
Unexpected Events: (3/10)
Characters' Development: (4/10)
Characters' Characteristics: (3/10)
Characters' Fame: (5/10)
Actions: (7/10)
*Ever wonder what these vocabulary mean? Find out more here
The Good
It is very relaxing, especially when you see when the characters interact in each other, in this beautifully enhanced fantasy world. The MMO theme (gaming system) is fully expressed, which include Guilds, Party, Bosses, etc.
The Bad
The side characters, Silica and Lisbeth only appear only once, I mean it, ONCE! (In terms of episode). But they seemed to be portrayed as the main side characters. Leafa which had more appearance than both of them doesn't seem more important than those two.
The "Kirito X Asuna" story also seem to be so sudden. Asuna appeared much more less than Leafa, but was still the main heroine. Plus, Asuna just.. OMG !@#$% in just less than 10 episodes! (I think? But it was around 10-13, I have forgotten the actual episode.) LOL, too sudden...
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| Beautiful place, ain't it? |
Settings
This story took place in a artificial fantasy world, which was a VRMMO world, where players can control their game characters by just inserting a helmet-like machine onto their heads. What makes a story interesting is that it allows you to imagine that it might one day happen in the real life world, and SAO did the job. That was why a "fantasy X reality" story is always much more interesting than all other just pure fantasy stories.
As said above, this story brings watchers into the world of MMO. Since I believe, majority of anime fans / Otaku played MMO at least once, so SAO did bring back memories in the MMO world. But I think, if one NEVER PLAYED MMO, it would be hard to catch up to the story. For example, in episode 1, it mentioned about keywords "Beta testers". For those who never played MMO would most likely wonder, "What's that? Maths equation? My breakfast?? " In the later episodes, for the mentioning about "Guild", if one never plays MMO, one could not fully admire the beauty of MMO. What a pity... I thought that SAO should at least give a brief explanation on these terms.
For example, the story of Silica portrayed the wonder of higher level 'senpai' bringing the lower level newbies to a higher level, helping them to level up, share experience, assisting them in quest, etc. For Sachi case, it portrayed the beauty of joining a small yet friendly Guild. It does not mean joining a bigger Guild will be much more better than a tiny Guild.
Although my bad comments on setting exceeded the good ones, the pro in settings actually outweighs the cons a tons more! The setting is actually the main attraction of SAO!
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| Didn't it happened too fast? LOL? In just 13 episodes? |
Story
Since this anime had 2 parts of storytelling, there would be, of course, 2 beginnings, 2 climaxes, and 2 endings.
For the first part (1-15 episodes), it had a very boring beginning... (Come on man, climb up to the 100th floor and beat the boss? Is this a game or something? ITS AN ANIME!) In the middle of the beginning and climax, things are getting more and more interesting. It was really unexpected that the players will spend 2 years plus in this whole MMO game. This was the part which I loved the most. But I sense a flaw here. Since the time in SAO has passed for quite some time, I suspected they make viewers assume Kirito and Asuna has spent much time together and skipped this part of character development. What a pity... How could they skip this most interesting part of all! The climax and ending took place around episode 14-15. I think some viewers predicted that they would not reach the 100th floor after all, and yea, of course. If they really did reach there, the story would have ended in a pretty dull way. The climax and ending took place almost simultaneously, causing an illusion that the climax didn't even existed! There were only mentioning in Kirito and Asuna's speech that they wanted to live peacefully. So finally, the team just found out who's the game master and BAM BAAM! KO~ Victory! With some sacrifices, the main hero and heroine was lost forever, AS IF! The ending is beautiful, showing Kirito and Asuna spending their so called "last meeting" under the sunset~ What I was not satisfied was that they... (In this part more to Kirito), suddenly woke up, without any proper explaination (Well, I do not know wheather the novel said anything about it, but in the anime case, no)
For the second half part, Alfheim online, it doesn't make any single sense at all. But weirdly, the appearance of Alfheim heroine, Leafa aka Kirito's sister, exceeds Asuna a tons more! This part of the story, both beginning and climax, are quite boring. The ending is a little bit more interesting as wow, someone wanted to assassinate Kirito (What's his real name already?? lol) in real life.
So, the overall complexity of story line is not that impressive compared to other anime.
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| There there, happy family. |
Characters' Developments:
The character interactions between each other flowed moderately smoothly in SAO. It could have been better if those side characters appeared more than once or had larger role in the story.
Characters' Fame
Sort of high, which is not necessary a good thing. Kirito and Asuna both make a wonderful couple, so some people will watch this anime just because Kirito's handsome and Asuna's elegant. But I had to admit, Asuna sure is elegant~
The first impression on Asuna was indeed, very accurate. By just one look at her face, I sensed that she is sort of the "oh help me help me" kind of person, and bingo! It was portrayed in the second part of the story.
Actions:
It could also be considered as an action packed anime. Almost every episodes had battle scenes.
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Despite being a great anime, my reviews on it seemed to be more on the negative side than positive side. Ever wonder why? It was not like this is a lousy anime, its just that I personally thought SAO do not deserve the popularity it has now.
To me, this was just an averagely great anime. But I'm not satisfied with its popularity. Actually there were other much better animes out there, but most of them do not get the popularity they deserved.
The current trend was this: If you do not watch SAO, you do not deserve to be called an otaku fans, or you are an outcast in the anime kingdom. Unfair, wasn't it?
This was similar with the Angry Bird trend. You don't use some special technique, you won't be popular.
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