a5c7b9f00b The year is 2022, and gamers have lined up on launch day for Sword Art Online, a hotly-anticipated MMORPG that lets players connect to an immersive virtual reality world with special helmets called Nerve Gear. Kirito is one such gamer who&#39;s eager to jump back into action, having spent a great deal of timea beta tester, and quickly becomes friends with newbie warrior Klein. But soon, Sword Art Online&#39;s 10,000 players discover that not only are they unable to log out, the only way they can return to their physical bodies is by beating the 100-level tower&#39;s final boss - death in the game means death in the real world. Now, with no one else to turn to, Kirito and the other participants must survive the gamebest they can. The continuation of Sword Art Online. This continuation focuses on the Gun Gale Online arc, otherwise knownGGO. Kirito receives a call from a government worker who wants Kirito to investigate a player named Death Gun. This player appears to have the ability to kill players in real life, by simply shooting them in game. One of the biggest strengths in SwordArt: Online (or SAO for short) is its basic premise: Thousands of virtual reality gamers are trapped in a video game where the stakes are too high to ignore; If you die in the game, you die in real life. There are other precautions that have been taken to make sure that those in the real world don&#39;t try and get you out manually. A microwave signal will fry your brain should you tamper with the system.<br/><br/>There are so many great things about SAO, like the visuals, character design, original soundtrack, and character development but it&#39;s difficult to overcome blatantly negative aspects. For instance, the fan service is extremely hard to ignore. It focuses on the fourteen year old boy&#39;s fantasy of beautiful fourteen year old girls and not much else. The female characters are readily placed in nothing but their underwear throughout the show while the male characters are there to watch. Likewise, the male characters exist to advance the plot while the female characters functiondamsels in distress even though they get a chance to shine every now and then.<br/><br/>When you get past the show&#39;s chauvinistic tendencies though, a very rich story awaits you. We follow the journey of Kirito, a young boy who is thrust into the world of SAO with more experience than most players (he is 1 out of 1000 beta testers) but will it be enough to overcome the 100 floors that the population of SAO is being forced to conquer? Kirito meets the competent and beautiful Asuna. A swordswoman (girl, actually) who is just one of about 5 choices for Kirito to fall in love with throughout the series. She&#39;s a good choice too. When I said she was competent, it means that she is able to match Kirito in both reputation and skill during the big fights. But she does have girlish tendencies which seem out of place since she isn&#39;t a foil to Kirito or a polar opposite. Both characters are remarkably similar with Asuna being slightly more optmistic and energetic.<br/><br/>The rest of the characters in SAO are memorable but since the series is cut in half during the middle of season 1, and we essentially lose most of the original cast (which doesn&#39;t mean they are dead. Those who watch the show will see what I mean), we hardly get a chance to see those who we have become attached to, shine. Watching SAO beyond the first half of season 1 is like getting halfway through a delicious dinner and being forced to eat something completely different when the chef switches out the plates. The second half is extremely disappointing and wildly different and some might find this to be a turn off. It can work though.<br/><br/>The backgrounds, atmosphere, dialogue, story lines, and costume designs are some of the strongest an anime can have in SAO. The visuals are always gorgeous, even when the animation switches from drawn art to rendered from a computer. The boss battles are amazing and extremely believable since they are in a video game. And that&#39;s what works in SAO so well is the video game aspect.<br/><br/>When SAO explores the intricacies of itself (the video game I mean) the results can be enervating. When Kirito and Asuna cook their first S class meal, or Lizbeth (a blacksmith) is gathering materials for swordmaking, it&#39;s extremely interesting and enjoyable. My only gripe is how quickly these story lines go. In fact, that&#39;s my biggest gripe. The first half of the season is endearing and yet too rapid. The second half slows down way too much in a remarkable switch of gears it&#39;s like you can hear the engine grind against itself. I wish the showrunners would have made the decision to stick with the first half and not switch gears; this may have made the show a 10 out of 10 instead of a lower grade. As most of you know there are light novels for this series, all of which I have read. And this has been perhaps the best read I&#39;ve had in ages. The storyline, characters, vastness of the world and romance between Asuna and Kirito are perfect, and the twists will leave you dying for more. If you&#39;re here for an anime with a great storyline, have played any RPGS or enjoy a little romance mixed with action and suspense, then this is the anime for you. Although there has only been 4 episodes (at the time of this review), the anime has covered a substantial part of volume 2 in the sword art series, so from here on out the main and incredible storyline will be followed. The animation is beautiful to say the least, and will no doubt accurately represent the amazing setting from the light novelswellthe character models. The voice acting for the main characters Asuna and Kirito have been spot on (of course), and the sound quality is overall, like the animation, perfect.<br/><br/>As I hinted at above, the story will have you hooked from the beginning , I&#39;m sure many of you have played RPGS, and if you died in those RPGS, you&#39;d respawn and try again of course. But in this anime, the RPG becomes real life, if you health bar drops you&#39;re killed almost instantly in real life. With that kind of premise, this anime will be very suspenseful and engaging. I&#39;ll focus on the main characters for now because most of the others haven&#39;t been fairly introduced yet. Off the bat you can tell Kirito isn&#39;t the average anime protagonist, he chooses to go solo for the sake of his own survival rather than stay with his &quot;noob&quot; friend and protecting him in the VRMMORPG. This might seem like a shortcoming, but in the novels he quickly changes upon meeting Asuna (his main love interest+party member), and becomes a character you&#39;ll love. Asuna is very strong willed and at first seems to contrast with the anti-social and awkward Kirito, but we later find out how similar they are, and their relationship is perhaps the best I&#39;ve seen in any other anime or Manga. This anime will only be about 25 or 26 episodes long, covering just volumes 1,2, and perhaps some of 8 in the process, if it does well enough movies and ova&#39;s or even another season could be launched, allowing us to further immerse in this incredible universe. <br/><br/>And I&#39;m sure by the time this anime is finished (or long before), everyone will be rushing to read the novels, and they won&#39;t be disappointed!
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346 weeks ago