Sword Art Online Anime [Half Recommendation... but some of it is Full Recommendation]
2 posters
Page 3 of 6
Page 3 of 6 • 
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Re: Sword Art Online Anime [Half Recommendation... but some of it is Full Recommendation]
by Enail Sun Jan 27, 2019 6:14 pm
S1E15
Just from this episode's worth of the spoilered problems, my level of interest is way into the negatives, can I get by with just looking up a synopsis for 16 and just skip to whenever it's done with that stuff?
- Spoiler:
-sad music to a scene of them peacefully rocking in a chair in their former home
-the apple falling and she's gone and the world starts falling apart
-the NerveGear sitting on the desk
-"I've turned into such a crybaby, Asuna" he says to the mirror, oh no, if he'd found her he wouldn't be talking to himself like she's there
-all that time practicing while waiting for him to come back, and now she's startled that he's sitting there
-he's comparing the bamboo kendo sword to his swords in the game, they're doing a good job of making him feel unfamiliar and out of sync with familiar things, like an extreme version of the way everything looks a little wrong when you come home from being away a while
-Though, you'd actually think he should be finding everything heavy, it's been so long since he had to pick things up without the advantage of an insanely high strength score
-Of course his in-game awesomeness translates to being able to compete with his well-trained sister at kendo even though he's still in recovery from two years in a coma and hasn't done kendo for years before that and a good portion of the game combat is done for you
-at least she did beat him in the end, I might have died of Gary Stuness otherwise
-he tries to sheath his sword
-Asuna's still in the hospital!? So Kaiba was just lying last episode when he said they'd all wake up? what a douche!
-oh god, this guy's going to be her arranged fiance or be expecting to be someday or something isn't he
-Yup, there it is. "I want to see my comatose, underaged fiancee in her dress while she's still beautiful" is impressively icky, ugh, I knew this show was the type that would go this way given the warnings you gave and just the vibe it has, but this is so dumb and unnecessary
-oh ffs, the hair sniffing and the lip-licking and "truth be told, she's always hated me," and "I'm the one keeping her alive," my eyes just rolled so hard they fell out of my head and now I think they're under the couch but I can't find them because I don't have any eyes and I'm scared to get off the couch in case I step on them
-feeling bad for falling apart in front of his sister It's particularly annoying that they're doing the sleazy villain going after the damsel in distress thing when there's more interesting stuff they could be focusing on, I'm really liking the interactions with his sister, and just him trying to recover and dealing with Asuna being still in a coma could absolutely stand alone for motivation at this point, no need for a blatant villain
-"I have to stop lying to myself" noo, don't let this be what it sounds like it's going to be, I was liking this part!
-yup, he's adopted, there it is. Never mind siblings awkwardly trying to reconnect across the distance from living in different worlds for years and the damage from a traumatic event, we're going to do the incestuous-but-it's-okay-cause-he's-not-my-biological-sibling crush, that's totally fresh and different. Sigh.
-a middle-schooler got into videogames, this is totally an unexpected and weird event that needs a deep psychological explanation?
-of course he's been building computers since he was six, it's been at least two scenes since they let us know that Kirito's awesome
-Agil comes through again!
Just from this episode's worth of the spoilered problems, my level of interest is way into the negatives, can I get by with just looking up a synopsis for 16 and just skip to whenever it's done with that stuff?
Enail- Admin
- Posts : 4873
Reputation : 2878
Join date : 2014-09-22
Re: Sword Art Online Anime [Half Recommendation... but some of it is Full Recommendation]
by bomaye Mon Jan 28, 2019 4:50 am
Aight
The general synopsis as I remember it
The general synopsis as I remember it
- Spoiler:
- I forget the bad-guy's name, but we'll call him "Oberon" because that's the character he ends up pretending to be in-game.
- Oberon's sinister plan is that when Kirito beat SAO and the game was shutting down, Oberon as part of the tech-team that originally had designed the game shunted aside about 300 SAO players before they could be logged out, including underage-fiancee Asuna and kept them trapped in their Nervgear. The original NervGears were mostly recalled (Kirito never returned his, as Yui's AI is still inside it), but the technology was altered and had safeguards put in and it was re-released and people are back to gaming on it.
- Oberon's company released a game called "Alfheim Online", which is actually the beta version of Aincrad/the original SAO
- In this game, everyone plays some kind of Fairy spirit or Elf, most of whom have the ability to fly, and the point of the game is similar to World of Warcraft Player-vs-Player modes, where various Fairy tribes compete to see who can gather up enough resources, open up the tower in the middle of the world and climb to the top of it. There isn't levels, it mostly emphasizes skills, and Kirito's SAO character more or less translates into the game (with pointy elf ears)
- The thing about Alfheim Online is that it's actually a front. There is no way to climb the tower programmed into the game, Oberon's using it as an online base. He keeps Asuna in a cage while he tries to convince her to marry him and come around, and the other 299 OG SAO players are kept in a kind of stasis and fed artificial feelings (some good, but mostly things like "fear" and "anger" and the like) in order to figure out how to brainwash people and rewrite memories using the full-dive technology. I forget if Oberon says it outright or if it's implied, but if Asuna doesn't come around, once the process is finished, he's going to rewrite Asuna's brain so that she'll accept him.
- In Alfheim, some players got clever and five of them stood on each other's backs, blasted off into the sky as high as they could go, and then when one player reached their limit, the next player jumped off their shoulder and just boosted themselves as high as they could go. Near the top is where they caught the sneaky screenshot of Asuna in the birdcage. The screenshot was released on the internet and that's how Agil found it.
- One of the big-time negatives of this part is that there's not really any stakes. Horrible shit is happening to people via the attempted brainwashing and human experimentation, but there's no death game, no one can actually die in-game, and once or twice even Kirito gets killed in-game and just rez'es fine and he doesn't really react to it even though he'd just spent two years knowing that he could die if he fucked up. Everything's just designed to prevent Asuna and Kirito from being together again.
- Kirito's little-sister-chan Sugu had started playing full-dive video games just to see what her onii-chan saw in them, and then ended up getting into them herself.
- When Kirito pops into Alfheim to try to rescue Asuna, he runs into an Elf girl who helps him get his bearings in the game and go with him to take him to the tower in the middle of the world. Unbeknownst to either of them, it's Sugu, who starts developing a crush for the online player because she more or less knows she's lost Kirito IRL. She doesn't take it well when she finds out that Kirito who she's starting to love is her brother who she also loves.
- Yui, still inside Kirito's Nervgear, takes over a tutorial fairy in-game and comes back to life.
- At one point Asuna breaks out of her cage and finds the room where the other SAO players are being held in stasis and experimented on. Oberon's IRL helpers catch her, they're for some reason playing as freaky alien squid things, and they almost tentacle rape her before they realize who she is and get her back to her cage. She manages to steal a key-card and drops it out of her cage to the world below which Kirito eventually finds.
- Kirito and the in-game allies he's made figure out how to activate the last quest of the game and he figures out how to hack/crash through into the tower above. Oberon uses his ability to control the game's systems to stab Kirito through with his own sword and then hold him down with gravity. He displays a chained Asuna in front of Kirito, rips open her shirt, says he's going to rape her here in the game (he never does get that far), and then go do it in real life. A set-up very reminiscent of Guts/Griffith/Casca, but not done well at all.
- Kirito "gives up" and an image of Dr Kayaba seems to appear in his mind, wondering where the Kirito who overcame the limits of SAO was and why he was disgracing his battle with Heathcliff by allowing Oberon to get away with things so easily. Kirito powers up and his feelings for some reason allow him to override Oberon's administrator level of power and Kirito easily kills his avatar. Asuna and the other SAO players are released, they hug and she tells him to hurry to her because he's the first face she wants to see when she wakes up. She finally is logged out.
- The 18:10ihs time-stamp I have for Episode 24 picks up here. It's important to the overall meta-story of the rest of the series and should be watched.
- The first 4 minutes and 10 seconds of the 25th episode involve Kirito being jumped by Oberon IRL in the parking lot of hospital. He attacks Kirito with a knife. Kirito manages to take it from him, and holds the knife to his throat and thinks and killing him. Kirito lets him go and the guy passes out. Kirito enters the hospital and from here, the rest of the episode should be watched.
bomaye- Posts : 3079
Reputation : 1334
Join date : 2015-01-29
Re: Sword Art Online Anime [Half Recommendation... but some of it is Full Recommendation]
by Enail Mon Jan 28, 2019 3:29 pm
Wow, I definitely didn't need to see any of that, it sounds terrible! And adds in another storyline cliche I hate:
- Spoiler:
- The whole "stuff happens just for the purpose of keeping the couple apart" thing bores me to death.
Enail- Admin
- Posts : 4873
Reputation : 2878
Join date : 2014-09-22
Re: Sword Art Online Anime [Half Recommendation... but some of it is Full Recommendation]
by bomaye Mon Jan 28, 2019 4:25 pm
It was pretty baffling seeing it go from something that had such a great setting and in a way where most of it was decently well-thought out to something where basically everything that made it originally cool was gone.
(Did add Sugu though, and she might be best waifu)
(Did add Sugu though, and she might be best waifu)
bomaye- Posts : 3079
Reputation : 1334
Join date : 2015-01-29
Re: Sword Art Online Anime [Half Recommendation... but some of it is Full Recommendation]
by bomaye Fri Feb 01, 2019 2:15 pm
Episode 24 18:10-End
Episode 25 04:11-End
- Spoiler:
- Kirito still calls him Heathcliff
- ZA SEEDOH. It was really just important for this little bit about the Seed.
- Sugu-chwannnn
Episode 25 04:11-End
- Spoiler:
- Oh man, Asuna and Kirito locking fingers for real ;_;
- "I still can't hear properly." God damn
- "It's nice to meet you" AGHHGHHGHGHHGHG MY HEART
- AGHHHH SEEING THEIR PLAYER AVATARS IN THE REFLECTION
- SAO school, because the minors who got trapped are now behind their peers through no fault of their own
- Smooth move, Kirito, right in front of the cafeteria and now you getting no lunch
- The villains in SAO are literally the worst, destroying the video game industry
- Kayaba suicide'd... but maybe became the internet too.
- LISBETH-CHWANNNNNN
- The harem is jealous
- "Kirito! Congratulations On Clearing SAO!" Unexpected emotional moment in the Fairy Dance Arc. I'd be lulled into a false sense of the original game being cleared, but the incident itself hadn't been, so there wasn't yet a celebration by his friends and the Clearing Party
- Implying Agil was going to give a fucking minor alcohol, get the fuck out Kirito
- Kayaba had a dream to build an online castle in the sky, and then left behind the building blocks for anyone else to do it. He's simultaneously a monstrous uncaring villain and a dreaming child
- They throw a party IRL and then throw the after party on the internet. Fucking NERDS
- Kirito won't go back to his SAO avatar
- The Floating Castle Aincrad
- Unfinished business, because they never beat the 100th floor.
bomaye- Posts : 3079
Reputation : 1334
Join date : 2015-01-29
Re: Sword Art Online Anime [Half Recommendation... but some of it is Full Recommendation]
by Enail Mon Feb 04, 2019 4:14 pm
E24 18:10-End
E25 4:11-end
- Spoiler:
-the elf ears really don't suit him. The elf style in general doesn't, actually, his old look was better.
-roping him into growing what I assume is going to be some kind of "new VR world"-plant, because he knows Kirito doesn't hate Aincrad and can't help wanting impossible worlds to exist. I feel like this show kind of fanboys over Kayaba when he's on screen almost as much as it does Kirito, which is kind of eye-rolling, but I love that aspect of his character/their interactions, because the show's made you want those impossible worlds to exist in spite of everything too (if you weren't the sort of person who would anyway, in which case, would you really get anything out of this kind of show?)
-Yui being happy they're going back to the real world, but with tears in her eyes
-I still find it weird that a couple of ~15-yr-olds have a ~10-yr-old adopted child
Also, not related to what I just watched, but it occurred to me that it's particularly much a waste how they're doing a cliched Rescue The Girl with everything existing to keep them apart, because the first arc was actually an extremely rare example of a show where the main couple get together before the last minute, no one becomes useless, and it uses their relationship to create stakes and emotions in ways beyond just killing them off/keeping them apart or damsel-ing the girl. Like, the bit where they're going back into the front lines for the first time after getting married, and it's suddenly terrifying because now they've got something that they desperately don't want to lose and have to think about their impacts on each other, I'm not sure I've ever seen that before in a show. So this show had a start towards doing something rarer and more interesting with a couple and they just drop it so quickly for lazy cliches
E25 4:11-end
- Spoiler:
-he looked like absolute hell when he woke up, she doesn't even look like she forgot to brush her hair
-"I'm home"/"welcome home"
-their game selves looking on, smiling and then disappearing into the snow holding hands
-they go to the same school? That's a hell of a coincidence, or did someone transfer?
-oh, a special catch-up school for the SAO survivors, I guess. Out of 6000 people, would there really be enough teenagers in the same grade and at least a commute-able distance away to be able to make up a school? Well, as long as it's not just be a way to make them still be seen as the super-cool gods of the game, I can accept it
-the real-world version of her game sandwiches!
-The other girls!
-everyone comes to RL meetups, that plus all the kids being at the same school really makes it a soft transition between game and RL
-And of course everyone treats him as the protagonist and cheers him (and this doesn't seem to be the first day most of them are re-meeting each other, so are they cheering for him every day?) If it were just some clip scenes at the end establishing a happy ending, this would be right, but when they're giving you almost a whole episode of it, it's a little much "don't worry, you're still the special hero, you don't have to struggle with being ordinary or having to fit in the people from your game life with your pre-existing life and figure out how to stay connected with them when your lives aren't the same as what you connected based on."
-he expected he could just order alcohol at a bar
-why does Agil still have the appraisal skill IRL?
-Wtf? Even though no one wanted to play the VR MMOs that existed to the point they all shut down, everyone feels perfectly safe to play the ones random people make using the Seed?? Do they know it's made by the guy who held them all captive and killed several thousand people in the original one???
-After all this time and they're still like "hey, I never cleared the final levels of that game, better go finish that"
-I hate that they change people's appearances for the elf-versions, the whole fucking point of anime is that you can easily recognize the characters by their hair colour and style unlike live-action actors who expect you to be able to recognize their faces, those assholes!
-Yui as a fairy is cute, though
Ignoring the fact that they didn't explain why everyone feels safe to play VR games with the Seed, this was a nice, happy ending.
Enail- Admin
- Posts : 4873
Reputation : 2878
Join date : 2014-09-22
Re: Sword Art Online Anime [Half Recommendation... but some of it is Full Recommendation]
by bomaye Mon Feb 04, 2019 5:15 pm
Enail wrote:E24 18:10-End
- Spoiler:
Also, not related to what I just watched, but it occurred to me that it's particularly much a waste how they're doing a cliched Rescue The Girl with everything existing to keep them apart, because the first arc was actually an extremely rare example of a show where the main couple get together before the last minute, no one becomes useless, and it uses their relationship to create stakes and emotions in ways beyond just killing them off/keeping them apart or damsel-ing the girl. Like, the bit where they're going back into the front lines for the first time after getting married, and it's suddenly terrifying because now they've got something that they desperately don't want to lose and have to think about their impacts on each other, I'm not sure I've ever seen that before in a show. So this show had a start towards doing something rarer and more interesting with a couple and they just drop it so quickly for lazy cliches
- Spoiler:
This was a pretty universal gripe. I think even most of the people who like damsel-in-distress type things were sorta like "ehhhh, not her, man."
E25 4:11-end
- Spoiler:
-everyone comes to RL meetups, that plus all the kids being at the same school really makes it a soft transition between game and RL
-And of course everyone treats him as the protagonist and cheers him (and this doesn't seem to be the first day most of them are re-meeting each other, so are they cheering for him every day?)
- Spoiler:
I saw it somewhat as a show of solidarity among the survivors, and especially among the core group of friends/clearing party. 300 of them were still trapped, the incident was not yet over. They had not yet celebrated escaping SAO with their lives, this was finally them celebrating it.
Also part of that ep that we skipped that I said we probably should've watched was Kirito going to see Agil IRL in his bar about the screenshot of caged Asuna. He didn't obsessively congratulate him, they just acted mostly like their in-game relationship (Kirito razzing him over "business being bad as usual" and Agil being like "You smart-mouthed little shit, it gets busy in here at night.") Agil sort of explains Alfheim Online to him, they piece together the situation as they understand it, and then Agil prompts him to "bring her home, until then, our fight isn't over."
bomaye- Posts : 3079
Reputation : 1334
Join date : 2015-01-29
Re: Sword Art Online Anime [Half Recommendation... but some of it is Full Recommendation]
by Enail Mon Feb 04, 2019 6:30 pm
Oh, okay, that makes that last bit better, I'm just automatically being too harsh on Mary Sues.
Enail- Admin
- Posts : 4873
Reputation : 2878
Join date : 2014-09-22
Re: Sword Art Online Anime [Half Recommendation... but some of it is Full Recommendation]
by bomaye Thu Feb 07, 2019 3:08 am
Season 2 Ep 1
- Spoiler:
- My condolences, speed freaks
- BULLET ZA BULLET
- I like how VRMMOs have turned what would basically be a reddit thread into an in-game talkshow
- DEATH GUN
- The separation between the real and virtual worlds is just in the amount of data
- She keeps calling Kirito by his online name IRL
- They unconsciously dress the same way they did online
- Kirito musing that the Japanese Imperial Palace is an isolated world within the real world setting.
- Kirito wants to go into VR development. Sort of you said before about the strange hero worship of Dr Kayaba, he's both the biggest villain and also the biggest inspiration in a roundabout way. He gave Kirito the Seed because he knew Kirito would "get it", because despite the horror of so many people dying, Kirito and people like him recognized that existing in other worlds and bridging the gap between reality and fantasy might not be impossible
- Imagine being a high schooler and walking into a fancy restaurant in your greaser leather jacket
- Kirito's tough-guy exterior starts melting when he sees the sweets on offer
- Imagine being an adult in serious infrastructure department and being assigned to the video game task force
- Death Gun killed him for real, death game back on
- Maybe stop talking about dead bodies over lunch in public, guys
- "... You're sure there wasn't any brain damage, right?" And Task Force-kun gets the look like "Oh good, he's starting to understand why we're talking about this."
- "You're telling me to get shot by him, aren't you?" "Well..." :rotfl:
- If you owned this restaurant, wouldn't you throw them out by now
- No prob gamers in the video game task force, it's all up to you Kirito
- The pro gamers are actually pros, because they earn real money in GGO, which means they practice 24/7, even Kirito's not that Gary Stu... OR IS HE?
- They want the facts before the law catches up with them, eh?
- Shady Americans
- It beckons as he's trying to forget, as if it doesn't want him to...
- Good job Kirito, you didn't see the game through the end
- He doesn't tell her that he's going to go chase an MMO murderer
- Sinon and the Sniping
Welcome to the Phantom Bullet Arc
bomaye- Posts : 3079
Reputation : 1334
Join date : 2015-01-29
Re: Sword Art Online Anime [Half Recommendation... but some of it is Full Recommendation]
by Enail Sat Feb 16, 2019 3:35 pm
S2E1
- Spoiler:
-Aww, this season's game is a shooter, that's way less fun and magical
-I like that all the texts scrolling behind him as he's dying just say stuff like "AAAAAA ??!? AAAAAAHH??!"
-OMG, new deathgame villain is even more self-important than the last one! (also, it kind of made me LOL that he and his gun have the same name, because it comes off like he couldn't think of a second cool name)
-a year later and she's still off-kilter at being in the real world
-they're both nostalgically wearing clothes in their Aincrad colours
-he's talking about the imperial palace grounds like it's an unusual area in a game (are we going to get an Imperial Palace level in the game where you can actually go into the palace itself? )
-did she just propose real-world marriage!?
-all he does is explain things to her and doesn't ask her a single question, he's a terrible date!
-it's weird to think all that time they were living in the game world, they were only halfway feeling anything without mentioning that, like two years of ghostly existence the viewer didn't know was that ghostly.
-wanting to merge real and VR worlds so they can live with Yui, they may be only a few years older than their child, but that's some serious parental dedication!
-Kirito is horrified at the prices but goes ahead and orders three things since the other guy is paying
-oh no, nobody who saw that guy getting shot thought to try and find out who he was to make sure if he was okay IRL? Even if they didn't think getting shot in the game was dangerous in any way, that sure looked like he suddenly was having a heart attack or stroke or something IRL, you'd think people would try and track him down!
-Actually, I wonder if people in danger in VR games would be at risk of heart attacks just from the stress of their brain feeling like they're genuinely getting shot at or drowning or whatever
-well, it's nice to know that they've at least made an attempt to make the new VR devices less deadly, if people are going to happily go back to their potential death-games
-doesn't want to go back into death games, good call, Kirito
-who the fuck is funding turning game money into real cash? How are they making money on this???
-I see we're getting back into Gary Stu-ing, that Kirito is so fantastic that they want to pay him to be as good as the pros in a totally different game type (and of course he will be)
-I still don't get why we're supposed to buy that people would be fine with playing VR games run by shady unknown companies after the Aincrad slaughter just because of The Seed. You'd think at minimum there'd be aggressive regulation of the industry and a ton of public scrutiny.
-Asuna's thoughts connecting real-world castle that is at the center of their world in Japan but untouchable to the virtual world and the virtual castle that's at the center of the virtual worlds but is now untouchable to it, aaaalmost make sense, in an interesting way
-don't tell me he's going to go find the death-game serial killer without telling Asuna
The grim shooter world and "hunting a self-important serial killer who goes on about justice" seem a lot less appealing than "trapped in a wonderful but terrible world, how do we survive and how do we live?" We'll see.
Enail- Admin
- Posts : 4873
Reputation : 2878
Join date : 2014-09-22
Re: Sword Art Online Anime [Half Recommendation... but some of it is Full Recommendation]
by Enail Sat Feb 16, 2019 3:38 pm
bomaye wrote:
- Spoiler:
As if we don't all know he is
Enail- Admin
- Posts : 4873
Reputation : 2878
Join date : 2014-09-22
Re: Sword Art Online Anime [Half Recommendation... but some of it is Full Recommendation]
by bomaye Sat Feb 16, 2019 3:50 pm
Enail wrote:S2E1
- Spoiler:
-I see we're getting back into Gary Stu-ing, that Kirito is so fantastic that they want to pay him to be as good as the pros in a totally different game type (and of course he will be)
Quite seriously, the height of Kirito's Gary Stu-ness probably occurs in this arc
- Spoiler:
-I still don't get why we're supposed to buy that people would be fine with playing VR games run by shady unknown companies after the Aincrad slaughter just because of The Seed. You'd think at minimum there'd be aggressive regulation of the industry and a ton of public scrutiny.
- Spoiler:
It feels like an underground internet-led indie movement sort of like Bitcoin. The government agent guy did mention that the technology hasn't been regulated yet (somehow...) so there's still a lot of gray-areas with it.
bomaye- Posts : 3079
Reputation : 1334
Join date : 2015-01-29
Re: Sword Art Online Anime [Half Recommendation... but some of it is Full Recommendation]
by Enail Sat Feb 16, 2019 4:01 pm
bomaye wrote:
- Spoiler:
It feels like an underground internet-led indie movement sort of like Bitcoin. The government agent guy did mention that the technology hasn't been regulated yet (somehow...) so there's still a lot of gray-areas with it.
- Spoiler:
- But it just doesn't make sense to me that people would be on board with it! Everyone abandoned VR gaming after the Aincrad thing to the point where the industry collapsed, but then as soon as the Seed appeared and more random people could make their own worlds, everyone's like "yeah, let's all play this even though now we know it's potentially incredibly dangerous and it's now not only unregulated but run by random strangers and shady shell companies, which seem even less likely to be subject to the bounds of safety and non-evilness than highly visible, well-known game companies (but presumably we also still have the highly visible, well-known game companies involved in the hardware, since there seems to be one widely used type, so even if people just felt more safe with an indie movement in spite of all the shadiness, they're still trusting the same kind of companies they decided they didn't trust after Aincrad) .
Enail- Admin
- Posts : 4873
Reputation : 2878
Join date : 2014-09-22
Re: Sword Art Online Anime [Half Recommendation... but some of it is Full Recommendation]
by bomaye Sat Feb 16, 2019 4:21 pm
- Spoiler:
The one guy at the end of the Alfheim Arc mentioned working for a VRMMO magazine but also mentioning that it was still small-time because there still wasn't a lot of action happening in the industry, and that's after Alfheim Online proved that the technology was safe and after the Seed had been released. I don't take it as everyone trusts them, but more that gamers will be gamers despite industry crashes.
And in particular, where money can be made, people will show up regardless of shadiness, though I do get the sense that the author just made it a far-off American company just so he didn't have to explain anything in intricate detail.
bomaye- Posts : 3079
Reputation : 1334
Join date : 2015-01-29
Re: Sword Art Online Anime [Half Recommendation... but some of it is Full Recommendation]
by Enail Sat Feb 16, 2019 5:15 pm
- Spoiler:
- It still doesn't feel quite plausible to me how big and mainstream they're making out like VR gaming is, one game being safe doesn't prove anything (I don't really buy that Alfheim would have been embraced that much at that point), and the massive level of risk to benefit doesn't seem high enough for mass acceptance. And I mean, just look how slow uptake has been on real-world non-immersive VR games, it's taken years for the trickle of early adopters to start building up to anything, and that's a technology that didn't kidnap and murder thousands of people one year ago.
I think it'd work better if they made it more seriously like the industry wasn't built up again, was still veryheavily underground and just barely legal to even play them let alone host one, widely mistrusted enough that there'd be serious regulation and investigation and public pressure damping down any kind of mainstream presence or industry, and didn't have many people interested/reckless enough to take the risk - except then you've got 6000 people who spent two years living in Aincrad and getting accustomed to both the wonder and the danger of it, and still dealing with the trauma and the aftermath of living in the normal world, and some of them can't help being drawn to the Seed and gradually start building worlds of their own that spread by word of mouth, and start bringing others in enough that the premise of this arc could work. Like the impact, the trauma and the freedom and the intense shared experience with other survivors, on the people who experienced all of it, instead of just knowing "this game killed 4000 people," is the only thing that would start drawing people back to it this soon.
Enail- Admin
- Posts : 4873
Reputation : 2878
Join date : 2014-09-22
Re: Sword Art Online Anime [Half Recommendation... but some of it is Full Recommendation]
by bomaye Sat Feb 16, 2019 6:19 pm
- Spoiler:
The fatal flaw of the original Nervgear was the microwave system that was rejiggered to cook people's brains when they died in-game. The SAO incident was resolved a year ago at this point but it had been over three since it started, which is half the length of a console video game cycle IRL, and more than enough time to go "Hey, we didn't install things that can melt your brain in these anymore." I could believe people just not being able to go back to "last-gen technology" the same way we struggle to play last-gen video games today. But yeah, the economic and regulatory set-up is a bit of a stretch but extrapolated on somewhat a bit later too.
Also keep in mind re: comparing IRL VR to SAO, the original SAO was written in 2002 and set in 2022, this arc was released in 2010 and the Oculus Rift was released in 2016.
bomaye- Posts : 3079
Reputation : 1334
Join date : 2015-01-29
Re: Sword Art Online Anime [Half Recommendation... but some of it is Full Recommendation]
by Enail Sat Feb 16, 2019 6:56 pm
- Spoiler:
But wasn't that the first big VR game? The only people who would have experienced it to not be able to go back to last gen would be the ones who were stuck in it! And I think peoples' trust/reactions would start again from 0 from when everyone returned, not from when they first noticed the problem (especially since not everyone even came back when they were supposed to, the issue would have stayed in the news very prominently).
Re comparing to IRL, I just meant in terms of the patterns of uptake of game technology, not in terms of tecnhological development/presence.
Anyway, it doesn't really affect anything with the show going forward, it's just a nagging irritant for me, especially since the workings of "society" are one of the things that interest me about the premise.
Enail- Admin
- Posts : 4873
Reputation : 2878
Join date : 2014-09-22
Re: Sword Art Online Anime [Half Recommendation... but some of it is Full Recommendation]
by bomaye Sun Feb 17, 2019 5:11 pm
Enail wrote:
- Spoiler:
But wasn't that the first big VR game? The only people who would have experienced it to not be able to go back to last gen would be the ones who were stuck in it! And I think peoples' trust/reactions would start again from 0 from when everyone returned, not from when they first noticed the problem (especially since not everyone even came back when they were supposed to, the issue would have stayed in the news very prominently).
- Spoiler:
Hrmmm, now I'm not sure. It was definitely the first full-dive game where they feed things directly into your brain synapses to replicate some physical senses but I'm not sure if it was the first VR game.
- Spoiler:
Re comparing to IRL, I just meant in terms of the patterns of uptake of game technology, not in terms of tecnhological development/presence.
Anyway, it doesn't really affect anything with the show going forward, it's just a nagging irritant for me, especially since the workings of "society" are one of the things that interest me about the premise.
- Spoiler:
Ah yeah. The ball was somewhat dropped in the aftermath when it comes to the psychological and rehabilitation ramifications of living in a video game. They do a bit but they left a lot more on the table.
bomaye- Posts : 3079
Reputation : 1334
Join date : 2015-01-29
Re: Sword Art Online Anime [Half Recommendation... but some of it is Full Recommendation]
by Enail Sun Feb 17, 2019 6:04 pm
bomaye wrote:
- Spoiler:
Hrmmm, now I'm not sure. It was definitely the first full-dive game where they feed things directly into your brain synapses to replicate some physical senses but I'm not sure if it was the first VR game.
- Spoiler:
- Yeah, sorry, that's what I meant. I'd expect people to be massively more wary about the direct brain feed, not current real world-type VR.
Enail- Admin
- Posts : 4873
Reputation : 2878
Join date : 2014-09-22
Re: Sword Art Online Anime [Half Recommendation... but some of it is Full Recommendation]
by Enail Thu Feb 21, 2019 2:44 pm
S2E2
- Spoiler:
-at least they have monsters in this game, but just lying there and shooting them doesn't seem as fun or interactive as fantasy swordfights.
- Cool sniper girl aiming through the smoke
-monster hunters being like monsters moving by algorithm
-huh, killing monsters or humans takes different weapons so people basically specialize in one or the other
-gets scolded for asking about the real world, even though they're not stuck there anymore, it seems like some of the etiquette has held on
-I know, let's dismiss the unexpected, important-looking guy in the back whose weapon you can't see, what could possibly go wrong?
-didn't we see this part last week??
-maybe she should radio her team about the (presumably ironically named)minigun?
-"does that mean he's strong enough to smile on the battlefield" that line belongs in a poem written by an edgy twelve-year-old
-Cool sniper talks pretty dramatically about a virtual battlefield, she's totally 12
-cowboy sacrifices himself to get a grenade on them. I keep finding myself confused about how to react to things emotionally, it's presented the same as in the first arc, but now that the regular game aspects aren't deadly, they're trivial but I'm used to taking them seriously
-she's cool enough to get chant-y music, he should have expected she's cool enough to get her leg blown off and emerge from the smoke, dodge bullets in mid-air and shoot him at close range with a sniper rifle, gotta watch out for that music.
-God damn you anime for changing people's haircolour and style
-Silica still can't handle plant monsters picking her up
-it's hilarious that all the girls Kirito knows are partying together now, obviously they want the existing characters to be gathered together story-wise, but it makes it seem like they have no other existence or other people to team up with but other girls who know him, even though Liz and Silica spent two years in Aincrad and only hung out with him once each (though it also has a sad implication, that the party in that photo of Liz's are dead )
-they think Asuna and Kirito are flirting, but really they're just wholesomely hanging out with their miniature daughter
-Glad he's telling Asuna about the job, that'd be a real stupid move to keep it from her, and it's refreshing that they're not pulling the "create artificial drama in the relationship through an idiotic lack of communication" thing that writers tend to fall back on when there's an established couple
Enail- Admin
- Posts : 4873
Reputation : 2878
Join date : 2014-09-22
Re: Sword Art Online Anime [Half Recommendation... but some of it is Full Recommendation]
by bomaye Thu Feb 21, 2019 4:04 pm
Aghhhhh I was just about to sit down for this and you beat me to it 
S2E2
S2E2
- Spoiler:
- Musiccccc. Phantom Bullet is strong with the music
- Kind of interesting that a competitive for-money game also has dungeons
- The "Hecate" sniper rifle, so cool
- So putting waifus aside for the second (fav waifu is a hard choice), Sinon is my favourite female character in the mainline SAO series
- So I have a friend who's a gun-nut and generally the regular gun types/names, how they work and even some of the sounds used in GGO are actually true-to-life
- Monster Hunters are fine with having some of their loot stolen by PKers as long as they're making it faster
- Nerds ragging on other nerds for creeping on qtpi waifus
- The Death Gun rumours have spread
- Sinon doing the smart thing and targeting the guy who's hiding his weapons
- Whoops, a hidden minigun
- Fosbury Flopping over the red aiming bullet trail
- "THEN DIE" Sinon-chwannnn <3
- Thattttt shoulder shot screwing up his aim
- NICE GUTS, DYNE
- Musicccccc while she's running up the tower
- SHOT HER LEG OFF
- ZE ENDOH as she dives into him with her sniper rifle
- It seems Silica's lot in life is to be faux-tentacle-raped in online VR games
-
Enail wrote:S2E2
- Spoiler:
-gets scolded for asking about the real world, even though they're not stuck there anymore, it seems like some of the etiquette has held on
- Spoiler:
I somewhat wonder if that's just Japanese politeness but was taken to the NTH degree in Aincrad because it reminds them of what they may have lost
- Spoiler:
-it's hilarious that all the girls Kirito knows are partying together now, obviously they want the existing characters to be gathered together story-wise, but it makes it seem like they have no other existence or other people to team up with but other girls who know him, even though Liz and Silica spent two years in Aincrad and only hung out with him once each (though it also has a sad implication, that the party in that photo of Liz's are dead
- Spoiler:
You forget, they're his harem. Keep your friends close and your husbando competition closer (though Lisbeth did mention she's still running a store so presumably she has other customers)
bomaye- Posts : 3079
Reputation : 1334
Join date : 2015-01-29
Re: Sword Art Online Anime [Half Recommendation... but some of it is Full Recommendation]
by bomaye Fri Mar 01, 2019 8:17 am
S2E3
- Spoiler:
- Japanese bullying is something I'll kind of never get. Yeah I get it if they're bigger and stronger than you are and there's implied violence, but a lot of the depictions of it involve smaller kids, kids with glasses and literally nothing to worry about.
- Jealous friend isn't entering the next competition
- You need a bit better moves for Sinon-chan, guy
- Her gun almost looks an NES Zapper
- The fucking SAO battle beat happening while Sinon's biting the dude's hand IRL
- MANNNNN, seeing him in the drawer, I forgot about that
- Telling Asuna at the last minute :nono:
- Please touch me inappropriately too, Nurse-chwannnnn
- This asshole doesn't even move his hair before putting on the visor
- Seriously guys, your hair will get all sweaty and stuff
- Cactuar reference from Final Fantasy
- "Come kill me, Death Gun-kun!"
bomaye- Posts : 3079
Reputation : 1334
Join date : 2015-01-29
Re: Sword Art Online Anime [Half Recommendation... but some of it is Full Recommendation]
by Enail Sun Mar 03, 2019 5:19 pm
S2E3
- Spoiler:
-it feels kind of weird that we go back and forth to the real world now
-Re: the bullying, I assume this wouldn't be scarier than normal social bullying if it weren't for whatever's up with Sinon (not that social bullying can't be deeply harmful, but this is coming off like it's physically threatening when they're not really a physically threatening-seeming bunch)
-she plays a badass assassin in a shooting game but has some kind of massive trauma about guns IRL to the point where finger-guns panic her, I guess VR is cheaper than therapy?
-almost says "kill"
-he messed up his build This game seems pretty crappy if it encourages one build to the point where people think it's crazy to put points into anything else, and then switches it so the former desirable build can't even advance beyond a certain ceiling, and there's apparently no way to respec your character? That's just meanspirited game design!
-real life involves just living up to his parents wishes, I guess that's why he's so dispirited about the game
-the glasses going blank when she says maybe he can try her cooking when she improves
-I like that she has a certain kind of directness while still being a soft-spoken character, like "genuinely thanks for helping me, you were really cool," and asking about what's up with him being online so much. She seems to just come out and say things in a way that I feel like anime characters rarely do unless they're obnoxious/loud-mouthed or oblivious, it's a more genuine-feeling character-ness that she doesn't necessarily say everything she's thinking but she also doesn't dance around things as ridiculously much as a lot of quiet-type characters do.
-announcing "tadaima" to a dark, empty house so much more conveys emptiness than here where you just wouldn't say anything
-keeps a trauma-related gun in with her highlighters and paperclips
-she runs up and bites the gunman, she's awesome! It's simultaneously such a weird kid-way to try and intervene in a gun attack and yet brave and pretty badass
-this is a super-sad reason to be so afraid of being weak and wanting to be stronger with guns when the trauma involved her actually being incredibly strong to fight and shoot an attacker, what more could she have done
-and then her mother looking at her in horror
-back to present where she's panicking - and it looked like she was holding the gun to her mouth
-lying on her bed and wishing for someone to help
-"come back to your harem, Kirito"
-he just danced around the possible murders part to her, didn't he?
-"Death Gun" seems particularly pathetic as a cool name choice when in Japanese pronunciation it sounds more like he's saying "Deaf Gun," are any guns not deaf?
-APPROPRIATE PHYSIOTHERAPY CHECKUPS DO NOT INVOLVE SUDDEN GROPING OF TEENAGERS!!
-and creepily talking about how she'll be watching his body, hahaha, sexual assault of incapacitated patients is hilarious
-pretending to be someone else makes real-feeling gunfights fine when even finger-guns are too much IRL
-for some reasons the cactuar icon and the silly voices of the people discussing the missing players made me LOL weirdly much
-Noo, don't go after Sinon!
Not loving the comedy sexual harassment nurse, but I really like Sinon, the combo of cute badass plus interesting backstory plus feeling a little more genuine and less a type than most characters on this show is starting her off highly ranked on the waifu chart
Enail- Admin
- Posts : 4873
Reputation : 2878
Join date : 2014-09-22
Re: Sword Art Online Anime [Half Recommendation... but some of it is Full Recommendation]
by bomaye Fri Mar 08, 2019 11:52 pm
S2E4
- Spoiler:
- "I'll buy your whole account, Miss." Poor Kirito
- A vicious epidemic of cat-calling in VRMMO's these days
- Eyyyy, that looks like a main character
- That scumbag Kirito playing up his waifu cuteness to trick unsuspecting female players to help him :nono:
- English speaking Cowboy Robots
- The red prediction lines are one of my favourite things in the GGO segment of SAO and the GGO Alternative. It's such a useful narrative tool for building drama and tension and cool moments
- And for showing off Gary Stu's freakish agility (though tbh I do like how the SAO death-game experience has kind of stuck with him, you probably play very differently when your life is on the line)
- Wants to bringKnivesLaser Swords to a Gun Fight
- And makes sure the colour is Black
- And it's too light
- And he's still used to putting it on his back
- Sword Jock can't follow Gun Nerd's explanations
- Kirito aiming like it's a movie but Sinon teaches him how to fire a gun for real
- Bullet circle's really good for the same things as the red lines too
- "There aren't many female players." Kirito :nono:
bomaye- Posts : 3079
Reputation : 1334
Join date : 2015-01-29
Re: Sword Art Online Anime [Half Recommendation... but some of it is Full Recommendation]
by Enail Sun Mar 10, 2019 5:16 pm
S2E4
- Spoiler:
-this world seems so much less fun than SAO
-He's so pretty! And here the intro made me think this season would involve characters having significant interactions with someone other than Kirito, and we could get into more interesting character dynamics than "everyone falls in love with and revolves around Kirito" I should have figured they wouldn't let anyone look that cool for that long who wasn't Kirito
-someone wants to buy his rare avatar
-catcalling, this is why there's almost no women in this game.
-oh god, his pretending-to-be-a-girl acting
-Also, if for some reason people always use avatars of their own gender in this games, it's pretty creepy of him to actively pretend to be a girl to her. And if they do, why would she even assume he's female IRL? (And if they don't, why not?? There's no way people wouldn't want to, especially given that we've seen that there's a demand for rare and cute avatars)
-It can't be that dull a game that smells of oil if it's popular enough that people can make real money at it!
-"agility as a second, I guess?!" You guess? Kirito, you were the fastest player in the whole of SAO, you fucking Gary Stu!
-the casino game cowboy
-Let me guess, Kirito's going to beat the impossible, rigged game
-He did it, what a surprise. God, this show would be a million times more interesting without Kirito. Or at least with a less overpowered Kirito. You can skip entire scenes because you know all they'll be is everyone being amazed at how awesome he is in spite of having never tried whatever-it-is before, and you could practically skip his plotlines with any new girl because you know it's just going to be him solving their problems/unhappiness and them falling in love with him. There's no risk, nothing to care about in any scene where he's the focus.
-They had to let him bring a sword to a gun-fight. And beat everyone with it. (I mean, don't get me wrong, I'd pick the lightsaber too, but I wouldn't play a shooter 
)
-I like the little store robot's smiley face
-he tries to sheath it SAO style
-I'm with Kirito, I space out every time they start talking about ammo
-the aiming circle size corresponds to your heartrate, that's a neat detail of how the game mechanics would work with the deep dive VR
-She helped him because there aren't many female players (and there aren't many female players because they didn't want to play a game where the other female characters are actually male players pretending to be female to get them to trust them under false pretenses )
-no teleport, no duel-like system for in-town damage
-only someone as awesome as Kirito would think of renting a motorbike to get across town quickly (lucky someone thought to make motorbike rentals available just in case someone that awesome showed up)
-oh my godddddd, he's the only person skilled enough to drive them, too (lucky someone thought to make impossible motorbike rentals available just in case someone awesome enough to drive one someday showed up)
The Mary Sue-ness is kind of killing me here, I can't even describe how much better this show would be if they'd let him be less awesome or at least spend less time on how awesome he is, and let the characters get beyond harem into having more complexity and diverse interactions, I was looking forward to Sinon and "that other girl" in the intro having some kind of complicated former-enemies-having-to-team up or friendship-betrayal or whatever relationship the intro seemed to be suggesting, instead of just everyone having one simple, one-to-one relationship with Kirito that all end in the same place (except for Asuna who actually gets her love reciprocated). Hopefully now that they've established that he's so awesome in this game too, they'll let it rest for a few episodes until they get deep enough into the plot that he needs to awesomely beat people no one else can beat.
Kind of disappointing too that it doesn't seem like Asuna and the other characters are going to play much or any role in the game part of this season. I guess if she was there he couldn't collect as many new harem members. And they'd probably end up damsel-ing Asuna again, so it's probably for the best, I guess.
Enail- Admin
- Posts : 4873
Reputation : 2878
Join date : 2014-09-22
Re: Sword Art Online Anime [Half Recommendation... but some of it is Full Recommendation]
by Sponsored content
Sponsored content
Page 3 of 6 • 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Page 3 of 6
Permissions in this forum:
You cannot reply to topics in this forum