Anime Sword Art Online

This arc mainly emphasises Sinon and death gun rather than kirito himself, I can't promise anything but it's a good arc, better than ALO but personally I'm just sticking around for the arc after this because the underworld arc is really amazing. I just hope they do this arc of the anime decently so far it's been okay, if I'm correct there will be more action in the next episode because it'll focus on introducing sinon[DOUBLEPOST=1404763029][/DOUBLEPOST]

also as this is a double merge; the moment that the deadfish and horrible subs versions came out I guarantee that most anime sites would have had it up in less than half an hour after these versions came out on nyaa. you were probably just not looking hard enough.

 

What part of "legal" did you not understand? As much I dislike SAO, I'm not going to pirate it because I have a legal option like Crunchyroll that's just as easy as fansubs. If I was going to watch it anywhere else, I'd just torrent it.

 

Have fun waiting a week to watch it then.

 

Oh no, I have to wait a week, whatever shall I do? It's almost like I could do something else for that week and have to wait a week between episodes even if I wasn't delayed a week!

Seriously, the only stipulations to getting FREE and LEGAL content are waiting a week and sitting through two minutes of ads. If you can't do that, you're an impatient ass.

 

FYI I have CR premium, I just choose to torrent cause I feel better knowing that if I have to go without internet atleast I have something to watch. and of course you'd be an impatient ass if you've been waiting already a while for the damn episodes to air and quite frankly even if streaming anime is technically illegal so many people do it off anime sites that it doesn't even matter anymore so I don't know what sort of morality you're trying to hold as your pride but whatever. I've lost interest.

 

Excuse me for caring enough about the anime industry to make sure things I watch get paid for when the option is there and not just leeching like all of the people downloading fansubs for dubious reasons, at best. You pay for Crunchyroll? Cool, then you're doing your part, even if it is still piracy to torrent, but you've missed two very important things: 1) folks like you aren't under my scorn and 2) a week really isn't a big deal. We used to have to wait until the Japanese DVDs were out before shows could even be licensed. Now, we've got simulcasts for free and multiple legal options for free. Anime is far more accessible today than it has ever been and people are still taking everything while giving nothing back because it's still somehow not good enough. For those pirates, it won't be good enough until they can freely download everything with no ads and no other catch and they'll probably STILL find something to ***** about.

 

It has good points:
1) I liked how the couple was made, even though there were some "harem-like-situations" , It wasn't much.
2) Even though Kirito is too powerful Asuna has great skills and a major role in her guild, so they are "equals".
----
The bad:
1) Simple premise, the "good" from season one is taken away in season 2, Asuna becomes a damsel in distress
2)That MMO is too much broken! How can a single character be so OP? Though I understand that because there are no magic there must be less roles to fulfill, but even than there should be at least Tank/DPS/Healer.
---
I've much prefered Log Horizon!

 

I'm going to address this point and show why, no, Asuna isn't Kirito's equal.

You can find a more in depth examination of the show earlier in the thread, but Asuna is actually a very weak part of the show. We never see her have any character development, instead, all we're told is that she was inspired by Kirito. Her change in character was not to flesh out her character, but to make Kirito look good. It breaks down her character to the point where the only part of it that matters is her relationship with Kirito. And that's not even getting into the disgusting treatment of her in the Fairy Dance arc.

 

I have now seen the first episode of season 2. Please note that I am looking at it with an open mind and judging it fairly.

I don't have a lot to say about it. It's harmless enough and sets up the new story arc. While this won't do any favors to new viewers, there isn't much to object to in terms of the actual story so far. That said, I've still got things to criticize. Most of the questions I have will be ignored for now as it is only the first episode, but a few still stick out:

First of all, why does Asuna still refer to Kazuto by his in-game name? He even expresses dislike of it, so why does she do it? There is no reason to do this and without an explanation, it is awkward and forced.

Why are the police contacting Kazuto, a civilian, about a classified investigation? This raises serious privacy concerns and is most definitely against police procedure. Relatedly, it is a huge conflict of interest for the officer who contacted Kazuto to be his friend. If it was explained that he came to Kazuto under the table, that would be one thing, but there is nothing to indicate this. Alternatively, you could argue that the Tokyo police may have deputized Kazuto to assist in VRMMO matters after his role in the Aincrad and Fairy Dance arcs, but, again, there is nothing to indicate this and it still raises the issue of the conflict of interest, as well as issues of how they would be allowed to let a minor assist them. Remember that Kazuto is only around 17 at this point and legal adulthood in Japan is 20.

Why does Kazuto simply write off Death Gun as an "Internet horror story?" Not only are the police involved with the two incidents we're told about, but he himself was at the center of not one, but two similar incidents. It stands to reason that there might be some truth to this.

Gun Gale is the only game that has professional players in Japan? I think this one might just be poorly worded. I think it was trying to point out that top-level Gun Gale players are able to make a living off the game and it is the only VRMMO to do this. It is completely inconceivable that there are no other e-sports in Japan.

Speaking of players playing Gun Gale for a living, how? It is explained that in-game currency can be exchanged for real-life currency. Where does the developer get the money to pay these players? What is the game's subscription model? How does the developer make money off the game if they're giving their profit back to the players? Is it an e-sport thing where sponsors pay the players? If so, why do they go through the game and trade coins for money? Why not just pay their players directly? Do the players play for ante? If so, how do they get the coins to play for ante in the first place? Can you play if you run out of coins? If not, how do you get more coins?

There are two things I actually rather like, the first is Asuna musing about the nature and relationship of reality and virtual reality. The second is talking about the park in the middle of Tokyo with the closed security system. In a good story, these would tie into the show somehow, but I highly doubt these concepts will go anywhere.

 

My reaction to episode 2:

Can we please have a spin off of SAO that follows this blue haired chick and ditch Kirito and The Harem Brigade?

 

I haven't seen the second episode and I'm already on board with that plan.

 

Watching S2 EP2 right now, really like the voice they've chosen for Sinon and they played out her sniping moment perfectly this was the scene I was heavily hoping they'd focus on and get right for the first part.I'm typing this post in real time of watching the episode so this might sound a bit choppy.

I'm really suprised as to my negative expectation on how they would have portrayed Sinon in character it's a lot better than my expectations on it they actually added a twist on her with her team mates and included the few humorous moments in that short scene. (Though they didn't include Sinon's original wishes on wanting to have originally been a heavy built male character rather than female because of the fact the full dive detects the build of the person her avatar's physique was decided already)

personally I had hoped they would have just cut out the scene of switching to ALO I really dislike alot of ALO and especially the avatars for most of the characters in it. Moving on from here I had hoped to have included Sinon's past in here to give us a better feel of her but that'll probably be left for a later episode possibly the next one because that's a vital part of her character and I really respect her for what she's been putting herself through for it. Obviously from the title I believe the next episode will most likely be about Shino and the real her and all about her school life an past which I'm looking forward to. So far I'm happy with what they've done with Sinon even if it's not much yet they've given a good feel for her character already though what this show really needs is small bits of thought narration at times though some people probably wouldn't want that so eh.

that's my thoughts for ep2 looking forward to ep 3

 

So I've seen the second episode now and it's filler! But it was actually pretty good filler! It's not a perfect episode. I've got a list of questions that, while not as bad as the list I had for the first episode, still need to be addressed.

However, this episode is filler. There is no story development until literally the last 10 seconds (and, hey, the harem is back. Of course we couldn't give them an appearance without them lamenting that they lost. Someone needs to alert the author to the existence of the Bechdel test because I don't think there is a single conversation between any two women in the show that doesn't involve Kirito), but that's OK. Not only was it an enjoyable episode, but it did serve the purpose of actually SHOWING us that Sinon is awesome. If you recall, I railed on the first season for having issues with actually showing character development. I can honestly say that season 2 is already better about character development than season 1. No, I'm not kidding. Season 1 was that bad.

However, I still have to address a few things:

Why does Sinon need to put on a headset to communicate with her squadron? Is it a game mechanic? Or did the writers forget that this is supposed to be a video game, which is something that kept coming back to me as I wrote my notes (yes, I'm taking notes as I watch the episodes. I'm too much of a critic to not take this seriously).

Why does Sinon and her squadron act like this is a serious military operation? No one talks like that when playing a video game. Even professional players taking the fight dead seriously aren't going to talk like that. However, mohawk guy did act like I would expect someone playing a game to act like immediately afterward, so points there.

Related, why is is noteworthy to see Behemoth smile while fighting? This is a video game. You know, something people play for FUN.

Also related, why does Cowboy Hat freak out about dying when it's been established that death isn't a big deal and, with this supposedly being a highly competitive game, is just par for course. Sure you don't want to die, especially against a group of lower skilled players that they were expecting to easily wipe, but he acts like death is a much bigger deal than it is.

So, how the hell does Gun Gale work in the first place? We've seen realistic guns that shoot physical ammunition, but now we've seen energy weapons and we'll soon be seeing lightsabers (why does a game that is ostensibly about gunplay include lightsabers? If it were a combat knife as a backup weapon, sure, but a sword length lightsaber?). We see in this episode that characters have energy shields and that it is demonstrated that bullets outright ignore them. Do all characters get energy shields or is it a piece of special equipment? Either way, as we can assume all of the hardcore players have them even if they are exceedingly rare items, doesn't that render physical weapons completely broken?

We see that energy weapons fire shots that are slow enough to be dodged and have to get past the energy shields before they can hurt another player. This suggests that physical weapons are objectively better. Are there any upsides to using energy weapons? Are there any downsides to using physical weapons? Are physical weapons particularly rare?

How does this game's stat system work? Or any game based on The Seed for that matter? We heard a character talk about Agility based characters in the last episode and now we have Sinon mentioning a movement penalty for wielding a heavy weapon (which makes sense), but what does that actually mean? And wouldn't it be logical that a sniper rifle would carry a similar penalty, possibly rendering Sinon dodging like she did impossible?

 

The episode wasn't filler, don't get mad at me for this but use the term "filler" properly. Filler means to not follow the canon plot or make much progress with the original plot in anyway but the Sinon's past is a big part of her character and what makes her interesting, there is a reason it was shown you'll see in the next episode.

Honest to god I'm sick of people thinking filler is a term for flash back episodes or character past episodes when it's not, filler comes into play mostly when a long term manga is being caught up by the Anime so the anime makes filler episodes which do not cover the canon storyline where as sinon's past is within the light novel.

Within a VR game where your conciousness is taken within the game , you don't think you'd want to communicate like that especially under the circumstances they were in? in any type of group work communication is vital and needs to be to the point so of course anyone within GGO would talk like that. this isn't your average day cod/battlefield game where you have a controller in your hand and the map is so damn small it doesn't matter if you get killed it's a MMO which means if you die you go back possibly ages away from the location you were at.

Most physical/handheld and combat weapons are made redundant by most of the players within ggo because of the fact everyone thinks guns are the best. hell it's even stated that there are guns in the game which the strongest man in the world couldn't shoot without having such a recoil that it'd be a burden more than advantage but in GGO these limitations are not there as long as you have a certain stat increased to a point.

stats work with what you particularly do in the game the most, kirito wants a strength agility type character as he's used to fantasy games so if he focus's on a agility within battle (Dodgin bullets and I guess ducking and cover) he'll be focusing on that particular stat which will level up the more he does things such as dodgin bullets and ducking for cover and etc

Sinon's sniper rifle is actually comes under one of the near to impossible to use atleast for a person of her size but so long as she's got a certain stat leveled up enough she can use that weapon easily dodging rarely comes into sinon's battle plan obviously she's a sniper so she'll keep some distance but if she comes into head on combat she'll use a secondary weapon which I think is a handgun I can't remember right now
energy weapons deal more of a severe blow if hit on impact you'll see in the next episode or episode after (Whichever covers the preliminary for BoB) that even just kirito's laser saber (mind you he's the only user in all of ggo to even think of using it) can be very powerful when used properly.

Hope I was able to answer your questions

Anyways me personally I'm happy with this episode and everything on how they portrayed sinon and they even included her past thank god and did it right though I wish Sinon had narrated the start of this episode with the 3 girls and that she had explained her connection with the three because since you guys might not know this but those three girls were her first friends when she moved to where she is now but as you can see they are now enemies, them guys had become friends with her but basically they had used her apartment room as their personal wardrobe and after they threw a small party sinon called the cops and got them arrested and not too long after that they found out about sinon's past and how she's got a phobia of guns now and even though it is a bit redundant I found it a nice addition to show her relationships with the other students.

Next episode I'm hoping for a more comedic approach of what's to come next.

 

What did it add to the plot? All it did was introduce Sinon, then spend almost the entire episode in an extended action scene. Filler or not, it is still a good episode and it's nice to actually SEE some character development for once. I can already tell that you could cut the episode with no loss in the story, but it at least plays a role, unlike the first season's filler.

Filler is not a term for when the source material needs time to make more content, it's a term for content that is just there to fill time and could be cut from the work with nothing major lost because it's purpose was to kill time before anything else. It has become synonymous with those cases because that is the most prevalent reason anime filler exists.

Episode 2, despite what you claim, doesn't show us Sinon's past or build her personality in any way. It's purpose, outside of filling time, is to show that she is damn good at the game. This is still character development, but it can still be skipped with no issue.

Unless you think I'm also referring to the third episode, which I'm not. I have no seen that episode as I'm lagging a week because I don't pay for Crunchyroll and I don't pirate anime if I can help it.

It is arguable whether episode 2 is filler or not. I think it is. It can be cut out of the show and the story is still completely intact, but it is an example of good filler because it shows us who Sinon is.

No they wouldn't.There's a difference between communication and, as I said, treating it like a serious military operation. I've played plenty of MMOs. I've done raids in World of Warcraft with serious players and I have never heard anyone talk like that. The tone is always going to be at least somewhat casual because it's a game. Like I said, in real gaming competitions, even professional players, who are playing for a living, don't act like that.

Never explained in the context of the episode. Also doesn't answer my questions. Why are slug throwers considered better than energy weapons?

Also doesn't answer my questions. What do the stats do? What does focusing on one stat over another do? And yes, this is something that should be shown, not told.

Well, she did use an SMG, which is why I never made any comment about her using a sniper rifle in any situation that it wouldn't be appropriate. The reason I mention the encumbrance thing is the part where she dodges the bullet while carrying the rifle that's ALMOST AS BIG AS SHE IS.

Stats can explain some things, but, again, how the stats work is never explained or demonstrated.

Ah, good to hear that I'll be getting an answer to that.

Also, Kirito is the only one who uses the lightsabers? Not liking the sound of that as it could further show him to be the May Sue he was in the last two arcs, but, if written well enough, I can believe it as similar things happen with real life competitive games. Also, don't answer this one, but I hope to see either he doesn't have time to become a prolific player or, if he does, people start copycatting because that's what happens in real competitive gaming. People will scoff at a game mechanic that looks unbalanced, but then try copying someone who figured out how to use that mechanic successfully.

Well, it answered one, but here's the thing, the show should be able to explain things without needing someone else to explain. I understand some things are explained more in-depth in the novels, but if the novels have to be read for these things to make sense, then the anime has failed as an adaptation. As with any adaptation of any work, the anime should be able to stand on its own as its own work. Reading the novels can add to it and make things make more sense, but they should never be relied on to understand the adaptation, which is why having these questions and leaving things unexplained is a problem.

In regards to the stats issue, this is something that should have been explained all the way back during the Aincrad arc. It is established that ALO is based on SAO and that The Seed is also based on SAO, so it is to be expected that stats in GGO (or any game based on The Seed for that matter) work similarly, if not almost identically (emphasis on the "almost" as SAO and ALO didn't have guns). I shouldn't be having to ask how stats work now, 26 episodes in.

 

Spoiler warning; I'm on the current season and caught up fully.

I'm not going to read the above debates/review (???) too in-depth here so this isn't in reply to anything, just my thoughts on the new season so far.

Overall, SAO was fun to watch but not amazing in my opinion. SAO II? I'm honestly pretty bored. I'm watching it with a friend and he wants to stop watching despite the initial hype, haha. I guess it's mostly because I don't care about Sinon at all and hearing that this arc is basically all about her is really disappointing because I just don't care. I don't have any reason to.

And I don't understand why the players of Gun Gale are crazy. I think I skimmed something about it above, but I don't understand why they're so into the game either. It's a game. In SAO it made sense because if you died you actually died, but in Gun Gale they are really really out of touch with reality and I just keep thinking 'this is a game oh my god calm down'.

Sinon's past was ... interesting. It's kind of dramatic but hey, it's an anime. It didn't really make me care for her character anymore though. I don't know what her archetype would be off the top of my head but she's pretty generic so far. Hoping to see more depth.

I feel like the anime will get better as they get deeper into what's actually happening, so meh. Hangin' in there.

 

Just burned through the first three episodes of SAO II. Eh, its alright so far I guess. Hope it gets better as it goes.

I found Sinon's past interesting enough, though I'll admit I did a little research afterwards on it and apparently her classmates and her mother shunned her for being a murderer. Now I understand the classmates doing it because kids can be monsters (like teasing someone with PTSD by saying you are going to show them a model gun. Dicks.), but the mother? That makes no sense what so ever. What self-respecting parent shuns their child way for killing a man, whether intentionally or not, in self defense/in the defense of others?

"You killed the man who killed one guy and would have killed me and probably someone else! YOU'RE A HORRIBLE MURDERING MONSTER, MY SEVEN YEAR OLD CHILD!!"

 

some of the players don't come out of the game for nearly weeks at a time that might add to it but also the heated battle they're in most of the time I guess it said stuff in the light novel about how rough and hardcore GGO is anyways so these are probably the factors that push them to that sort of state of mind.

 

I actually enjoyed a lot about this past episode. It feels like that this season is trying to separate itself from the first season. I mean, they've sidelined Kirito's story two weeks in a row, and there wasn't a lot of action in this episode either. Plus, while Sinon's backstory is kinda cliche, at least she's given some characteristics and is not just a female version of Kirito.

The only thing that pulled me out of it was using Gun Gale Online to get her over her thing with guns, and the fact that it worked as well and as quick as it did seemed pretty...stupid. But, beside that, I didn't find much to complain about.

I guess I'm the odd man out saying that this season is not boring for me. It's not anything special, but I feel that it's actually picking up the potential that the first season was supposed to have.

 

What it bother me about the guild talk before the hunt was that they needed to put a "Dumb guy", like "We do this every week, but I am scared we may fail"
"Pft.. Dumb character! We got THE SKILLZ!!!! because of A and B, we can't lose even if C happens..."
"Oh.. great! Almost forgot about it! " ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
That could be easily fixed with "Ok guys, lets review our plan!" , It would sound more organic, and not something that they took out their assess 3 seconds ago and the dumb character forgot his memo.

---
Other than that, I didn't like the reaction from the mother, and I do not see the necessity for her to overcome her fear of guns.. they are hard to come by in Japan, but sure is her only fobia so she got stick to it, but she could as well invest her time learning a second language or finding a job.