Sword Art Online... What sorcery is this?

[emeraldrafael]

I enjoy the idea of it, and honestly its more like what I thought the movie Gamer (with gerard Butler) should have been than the movie actually was. I think they should have left off after season 1 because
This whole cousin incest thing is creepy and honestly, I get it, you love the girl but trust me you're like 15, there are way more women to drown your sorrows in than her, including the previous mentioned cousin who seems to be doing everything except strapping you to a bed misery style and just raping you there.

Plus the revelation of why they're doing it and just saying "well, the US government is all for it" rubs me the wrong way. Not in the sense I'm patriotic enough to be bothered or think the US history is spotlessly clean, but in that it feels so generic and Japanese xenophobic that they just want to pass blame off so that even though the antagonist is Japanese there's really higher FOREIGN powers who are encouraging him.

I can see why some people wouldn't enjoy, and though I've never seen Attack on Titan or Kill La Kill, from what both sound they sound either really generic in the sense they're flavor of the month and once something new comes out they'll be put back on a backburner for the larger general public (like how avatar was in the wake of Attack on Titan) and I dont really have the interest to get into either

I will say that final battle though is pretty bullshit.
Kirito died, his health hit zero, but he's going ot push and kill the game master. No, he died. and then the whole "well,t hey're not really dead I just said you died forever cause this is my world and that seemed right" took the piss and wind out of the sails for me at that point.

but overall, I enjoy it, and I like the idea of the second season as a game itself or even if it was something new and one of those more slice of life type ones that takes place in cyberspace so that they can have the excuse for action and magic/special abilities. I just feel like putting it on the end of the first season is robbing the first season more of what it is.

EDIT:

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I don't know how to do spoiler tags, so I'll place my warning here: a handful of Attack on Titan spoilers follow.

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Not that this is against you personally or anyhting, but I feel either there should a thread put together that has all these short cuts (I'm sure there is one, I recently had my favorites cleared in a computer house cleaning or I'd probably be able to link it or something that was remarkably similar that said what each tag does and showed a visual example so if anyone knows what Im talking about it I'd be nice to have it again) and/or every person before making their first post should be put through a test so they know what each is, or at least the common ones. or at the very least made available so someone could have it in their favorites or message box for easy access.

... anyway, back to what I wanted this originally to be (which was positive and helpful) spoiler tags are pretty easy. It's just:
[spoiler*][*/spoiler]
or
<*/spoiler>

without the *s. if you want your spoiler to be titled something, you just put spoiler=______. Just make sure you dont mix up the two borders and use and [ with ]

EDIT2: conversely you could always quote someone who's done somethign you dont recognize how to do and see what they did. that's how I learned a lot of my tags on this site.

 

[MisterGobbles]

But... your previous comment said that the motivations were believable. It's really just lazy writing to make the main antagonist go "Why did I do it... uh... I forgot." And Ryuk does have a reason: He's bored and has a lack of care for human lives, being a god of death and all. Couldn't Kayaba at least have that reason?

He's not really supposed to be a character, per se. He's more of a plot device, a MacGuffin to get the characters into the situation they're supposed to be in.

IMO, it would actually be lazier writing to have him say that he was bored or something like that. "I forgot" seems something a psychopath would be more likely to say (although the series seems to have differing opinions on the sanity of the character in the second arc).

Not that any of the characters have believable motivations aside from surviving. Can you give me an actual reason for every female character wanting to bone Kirito five minutes after meeting him? And it's main flaw is not that it is rushed, it's that they waste most of their 14 episodes on terrible otaku-pandering side stories instead of actual plot and character development. I count 6 episodes that actually move the plot forward (taking away one episode because 2 of 7 episodes that move the plot forward waste half of their time on cooking and fishing) not that the story is any good after the first three episodes anyway.

The in-universe defense for this is that Kirito is a strong character in a dog-eat-dog world, and that they are attracted to his strength and such, but if we're being honest, it's really just an anime cliche (it's really only three woman that do this in the course of the show though, to my knowledge).

The rest of what you said is completely subjective and not something I can argue against, because especially in the first arc the "plot" doesn't really kick in until the love interest starts - everything prior to that is world building, character development, and related things. Different strokes for different folks.

 

[MrGonzales]

He's not really supposed to be a character, per se. He's more of a plot device, a MacGuffin to get the characters into the situation they're supposed to be in.

You're not wrong on that one, which makes it sad for SAO that he makes for a more entertaining plot device than Kayaba, who doesn't do anything other than kick off the plot and then end it with a fight.

IMO, it would actually be lazier writing to have him say that he was bored or something like that. "I forgot" seems something a psychopath would be more likely to say (although the series seems to have differing opinions on the sanity of the character in the second arc).

You don't know much about psychopaths do you? Most of them are simply lacking in empathy and emotion, without any sadism or malicious intent, but the ones who do messed up stuff like go on serial killing sprees do so because they are bored and they find such acts the only things that really stimulate them. All are quite intelligent, and while they do sometimes suffer from bad memory (due to the boredom) they would certainly never forget their entire reason for killing thousands of people in a video game.

The in-universe defense for this is that Kirito is a strong character in a dog-eat-dog world, and that they are attracted to his strength and such, but if we're being honest, it's really just an anime cliche (it's really only three woman that do this in the course of the show though, to my knowledge).

That in-universe defense sounds pretty sexist... I didn't even think of it that way until you just now put it like that, I just thought it was stupid wish-fulfillment crap. Well, the show loses even more points now! Oh, and counting the females who want to bone him, there's Silica (a loli girl... wtf) Lisbeth (who has no notable personality) Asuna (textbook tsundere) his sister/cousin (how the flying fuck would his own sister/cousin fall for him when all he does is sit on his ass playing video games?! I mean, at least the other girls don't know that he's such a bloody loser, she has full knowledge of it) and in Gun Gale Online there's Sinon (haven't actually read that so can't actually judge...)

The rest of what you said is completely subjective and not something I can argue against, because especially in the first arc the "plot" doesn't really kick in until the love interest starts - everything prior to that is world building, character development, and related things. Different strokes for different folks.

Well, I suppose the last part is subjective, though I don't really see how anyone can stand boring stories like helping the loli girl revive her dead virtual pet, or cooking, or fishing, or adopting a kid one day after getting married when there are more interesting things to see in a series about living in a video game (I could understand if the side stories were good, and not blatant otaku-bait). Particularly when a pivotal part of it, the romance, is so contrived, rushed, and generic that it could have been made using a chart with bullet points on "How to make a romance resonate with otaku/gamers".

 

[waj9876]

A lot of people don't seem to realize that Sword Art Online is a good decade old. It was a series of light novels before the anime was produced.

The first season was pretty good, and the second...yeah. It's pretty bad. The main complaint about his sister/cousin being in love with him...cultural differences. In Japan, it's not seen as that weird to marry your cousin. So I was able to overlook it for the most part. (Still kind of creepy in that they were raised as siblings, though.)

Here's the thing, the second season? Pretty fucking rushed. In the light novels the pacing was much better. And they even go beyong ALFheim and go into a few other games. Something about an underworld (I've yet to read.), and another that's about guns. (Kirito uses the only melee weapon in the game, of course. Not as bullshit as it sounds. It IS kind of bullshit, but yeah. Not as bad as it sounds.

I seriously recommend reading the light novels. Suffers some of the same problems, but it isn't nearly as rushed as the anime.