SAO my Re-Review

[Empire]

This is going to be my thread about SAO season 1 and my review of it.

This is a SPOILER thread, so talk about it all you want. If you want a "review" without spoilers just look at the wikipedia or animelist, sheesh.
=======================
[The Good]

1. The attention to detail.
A lot of the game icons, the interface, and the actions are very similar to what actual video games are like.
-Healthbars
-Regeneration
-How leveling works
-Skills.

2. Action
While the action is PG13, it is done very well into the lore and relation to how games work. I won't give it points for choreography, but I will for the animation quality.
-SAO-the original world, was a lot better than alfheim in this regard.
-Most of the action is true to the "classic" rpg style.


3. Animation.
Now i'm not gonna lie, the animation isn't top quality or stylized. This isn't SNK or KLK or whatever else I could list out(seriously i love animationt). BUT the animation is solid for most of the show and is well done in most of the fights. There are some pretty obvious dips in quality, but it's to be expected.

The animation quality in alfheim just divebombed though.
====================================
[The Weird]


/SAO
1. The idea of traps wouldn't be much fun tbh.

/After SAO
-First off no action was taken against a company/device that killed hundreds of people
-Second, kirito is weak but asuna's fine?

/Alfheim
1. Racism.
There is an absurd amount of implied racism in Alfheim. Literally every non-same race person is commenting on the other person's race in an insulting manner. Why is this even a thing? they both look exactly alike too.

2. Parties.
So in Alfheim escorting a noobie to a main area is "betraying the guild". I'm not sure how but this seems like a pointless hate. I mean that's like saying "oh you are escorting a newbie to a raid in a horde territory? YOU CLEARLY ARE BETRAYING THE ALLIANCE".
-It just caught me as really stupid.

3. Marriage
The whole thing with Asuna marrying some guy while in a coma. Yeah....that was kinda stupid.

=======================================

[The Bad]

1. Game Design
I could make a whole thread on this alone but it boils down to three major things.
-No tutorial
-Meaning SAO is designed as a Trial-and-Error.(meaning you are SUPPOSED to die).
-Even in normal mmorpg's you are usually led to die at least once so that you don't reach max level not knowing what happens after you die.

+ This is just SAO. Alfheim was such a shitty game It would take me a whole page to explain how awful it was in basic game design.


2. Inconsistency.
-Kirito can move at instantaneous speeds, but then he can't later.
A) He runs up this huge wall at a ridiculous speed in SAO, then he's slow as balls everywhere else.
B) In Alfheim he literally teleports in the start, but then in a later fight he has trouble with a 3-shield group who can be avoided since the area is rather large, but he charges straight at them and fails.

-Kirito is super powerful, now he's not.
A) Kirito can regen hp in a pvp fight, but the next pvp fight he can't.
B) In alfheim kirito transforms into a giant beast, but then can't do it again.
C) Kirito can get stabbed in the face and be fine, but depending upon the guy, it could be life-threatening.

3. Plot.
-It's all awful. From SAO to Alfheim everything is pretty overdone.

4. Overhype.
-The anime barely beats other mediocre shows but it's hyped to be this great anime. Don't understand why, since the anime as-is doesn't beat anything THIS season, much less does it contend with the "best of" in any of the season's prior.

-I'm not joking. Black bullet, Jojo's, whatever comes out that is mid-popular blows SAO away in every regard, and that's not even counting the "best of" the season's.

5. Half the Anime was terrible.
-Alheim takes up half the season, which makes the show a lot worse than just dropping it at SAO.

6. Asuna with the whole "i'm going to rape you" thing in Alfheim. I can deal with a single scene of this but the same guy for like 5+ episodes? Come on, that's just insensitive.


7. Players don't act like gamers but like NPC's.
=================================================

Final thoughts

SAO isn't terrible. It's not great either. It's just mediocre. It doesn't have any aspirations to present original ideas, but it does have good animation and a good design.

"A decent looking virtual reality with sword fighting" would sum up all the positives.
"A video game anime made by someone who doesn't play video games" would sum up all the complaints I have with it.


I give it a 5/10.

[Color]

mediocre hyped piece of shit* hue.

[Empire]

mediocre hyped piece of shit* hue.

Yeah pretty much. It's not awful like GC, but it's not really something I see as worth the hype at all.

I mean it doesn't have any "special" quality about it. ya'know?


Also kinda tired of people misrepresenting video games. We get it, you don't play them and you think this is what they are like, it's fine, just call it a "simulation" or something.

[Rance-Sama]

The soundtrack is definitely a plus as Yuki Kaijura did a glorious job.


The only anime I've seen that did the video game concept right was .hack and the greed island arc in HxH.

[Kodoku]

Im not going to lie i actually think s1 was done really well and its one of the few shows i have re-watched more then 3 times. Through the plot holes and all the hype i just can't say i hate it (except s2. That was literal shit). Asuna was the first thing in the world i called a waifu and till this day i respect her as the first and best.

[Empire]

Im not going to lie i actually think s1 was done really well and its one of the few shows i have re-watched more then 3 times. Through the plot holes and all the hype i just can't say i hate it (except s2. That was literal shit). Asuna was the first thing in the world i called a waifu and till this day i respect her as the first and best.

The start(SAO) was decent. The pacing was off, but the presentation and everything was ok.


Alfheim from start to end was shit. He's op at the start and wins by hacking not skill. It's got a thousand things wrong with it and I could devote an entire thread just to that.



Problem is that ALfheim is just like all the other arcs after SAO.

[Synchromanica]

I think what happened in SAO was they figured out how to do the first eight episodes in a certain span nicely for a 25 episode anime IF the entire set of episodes was set in SAO. They amount of detail and story they missed from the light novel was not too bad, then they fucked everything up really badly after that. Alfheim honestly felt like most of it was filler because they were indecisive about how to pace the story and the inconsistencies just multiplied. The light novels aren't great either, but they're better than what the anime gave us at least.

[Kodoku]

The start(SAO) was decent. The pacing was off, but the presentation and everything was ok.


Alfheim from start to end was shit. He's op at the start and wins by hacking not skill. It's got a thousand things wrong with it and I could devote an entire thread just to that.



Problem is that ALfheim is just like all the other arcs after SAO.

I've actually thought a lot about what could of been done instead of that while time skip and couldn't really think of anything too big. If they stretched out every world level we'd be getting 10 arcs of things exactly like that "how was he murdered in a town" arc.

I think what happened in SAO was they figured out how to do the first eight episodes in a certain span nicely for a 25 episode anime IF the entire set of episodes was set in SAO. They amount of detail and story they missed from the light novel was not too bad, then they fucked everything up really badly after that. Alfheim honestly felt like most of it was filler because they were indecisive about how to pace the story and the inconsistencies just multiplied. The light novels aren't great either, but they're better than what the anime gave us at least.

I feel like they wanted to make Alfheim feel like Kirito had little to no time to get Asuna back (thanks to all that IRL stuff going on) so like Empire said, they made Kirito pretty much a GM. There's just too much they rushed through for both arcs and i honestly could of seen both having a 25 episode arc to get a comfortable pacing.

[Empire]

I've actually thought a lot about what could of been done instead of that while time skip and couldn't really think of anything too big. If they stretched out every world level we'd be getting 10 arcs of things exactly like that "how was he murdered in a town" arc.
I feel like they wanted to make Alfheim feel like Kirito had little to no time to get Asuna back (thanks to all that IRL stuff going on) so like Empire said, they made Kirito pretty much a GM. There's just too much they rushed through for both arcs and i honestly could of seen both having a 25 episode arc to get a comfortable pacing.

The problem was that the pacing wasn't really solid. I mean he goes off with Asuna, he does that town thing, he kills a dragon, and this is all in the "climb the tower" part. Seems more like he's just randomly playing the game tbh.

Alfheim's main problem is how every character is basically an npc. In SAO the human presence was higher, in Alfheim, everyone is your standard video game character.
-Then the story, consistency, kirito's utter 180* character flipping all the time.(he gets mad at npc-enemies a lot).

They couldn't have done Alfheim in a 26 episode arc, because alfheim screams "low animation budget" already.

I think what happened in SAO was they figured out how to do the first eight episodes in a certain span nicely for a 25 episode anime IF the entire set of episodes was set in SAO. They amount of detail and story they missed from the light novel was not too bad, then they fucked everything up really badly after that. Alfheim honestly felt like most of it was filler because they were indecisive about how to pace the story and the inconsistencies just multiplied. The light novels aren't great either, but they're better than what the anime gave us at least.

TBH both the Light Novels and the Anime are pretty damn average.

The pacing or story could have been done better, but the characters themselves are so weak that they become the main problem.

[Empire]

RELEVANT

[Rance-Sama]

RELEVANT

#13 huehuehue

That video accurately summarizes my opinion.

[Synchromanica]

The problem was that the pacing wasn't really solid. I mean he goes off with Asuna, he does that town thing, he kills a dragon, and this is all in the "climb the tower" part. Seems more like he's just randomly playing the game tbh.

Alfheim's main problem is how every character is basically an npc. In SAO the human presence was higher, in Alfheim, everyone is your standard video game character.
-Then the story, consistency, kirito's utter 180* character flipping all the time.(he gets mad at npc-enemies a lot).

They couldn't have done Alfheim in a 26 episode arc, because alfheim screams "low animation budget" already.



TBH both the Light Novels and the Anime are pretty damn average.

The pacing or story could have been done better, but the characters themselves are so weak that they become the main problem.

The light novel was a better average though.
And yeah, at first the characters seemed like they would be really good, but then they're just bland and uninteresting.

[Empire]

The light novel was a better average though.
And yeah, at first the characters seemed like they would be really good, but then they're just bland and uninteresting.

Eh....not really? I mean LN's have a problem of being very crappy. They have no substance like a manga, they can't compete with books, MOST of them are not better than a VN.

SAO's LN was rather...poorly written? I mean it's about the same quality as the thousand of teenage literature you'll see in your average bookstore.
-----------------------------------------------

Well again, SAO is fine, anything after that is just milking it.

[Synchromanica]

Eh....not really? I mean LN's have a problem of being very crappy. They have no substance like a manga, they can't compete with books, MOST of them are not better than a VN.

SAO's LN was rather...poorly written? I mean it's about the same quality as the thousand of teenage literature you'll see in your average bookstore.
-----------------------------------------------

Well again, SAO is fine, anything after that is just milking it.

Ahh, my poor phrasing lol. I meant the SAO arc in the LN's was at least better than the anime in that it actually went through more floors and thus had more going for it. It was like the upper lower middle class of light novel writing. It's better than the bad ones, but still below good.

[Empire]

Ahh, my poor phrasing lol. I meant the SAO arc in the LN's was at least better than the anime in that it actually went through more floors and thus had more going for it. It was like the upper lower middle class of light novel writing. It's better than the bad ones, but still below good.

I don't doubt it. The SAO-world has a lot more in the LN and even in the anime, and a lot of focus was put into that storytelling. Which again, if the author was decent, the first season would be just about that.

But he's not. His other works already prove that, but more so is how much SAO is milked in Japan. It's not even "rock lee's springtime" milking, it's like gundam. They just put out LN or game after game just to sell copies.

But LN's suffer from oversimplification. Even the monogatari series isn't too great in LN form.(it's still pretty good though).


LN as a medium doesn't provide enough.