Sword Art Online: An inconsistent mess that you can't go without hearing of. I feel most of us know what the fuck a SAO is, but the one guy that lives under a rock, the plot can be summarized as "Boy buys VR headset and gets stuck for a while".
The first arc of Sword Art Online introduces us to the trap of a virtual world know as, you'll never guess, Sword Art Online, as well as our main protagonist, his love interest, and not many other we should really care about.
Setting
Sword Art Online is a game created by Kayaba Akihiko as a trap for 10,000 owners of the NerveGear VR system. As a set-up, a trap voluntarily stepped in is kind of unique over the massive reincarnation high most shows with an isekai-esque formula seem to ride. As a world, SAO's Aincrad was ripe of being built upon with lore and the actions of the inhabitants. Sadly, the world itself wasn't built upon and with the nature of our main character, any interest in side characters was ditched about halfway through the arc.
Characters
The first arc introduces us to our main man Kazuto Kirigaya (Kirito), just some lad who bought into the hype. Never trust game companies, kids. As the "black swordsman" Kirito, he's an extreme competent combatant with an unwillingness to take anyone's offers of kindness of help. He honestly doesn't have much personality as from what was supposed to be "badass", but wasn't built around well enough to warrant any impact aside from "Woo. Can we move on now?". There's an aspect of his that's more prominent here than the Alfhiem Arc, so I'll put it out now. Things just work for this guy. Kirito gets away with the biggest asspulls because it's either convenient for him or because the story would stop dead in its track if he doesn't get through but there's no good way for it to happen. We'll come back to this in a bit. The other "main" characters include Asuna Yuki and Yui, who don't drive too much of this arc forward, but become very important later on, so guess it was a good idea to bring them forward now. Yui especially didn't have much reason to exist for the Aincrad Arc as she only was around to die off for a while.
Story Beats Worth Mentioning
A good amount of the arc's runtime (specifically the time Yui was around) was spent without much moving along of the story. I give it a pass, however, as it was a change of pace from constant movement. A nice time to settle down, until she fucking DIED (F). The main twist of the arc was hinted at via the surrounding during the first interaction that involved somebody involved in said twist, which was a nice bit of foreshadowing. However, these are tiny baby points compared to the sin of the ending. I've seen JoJo's Part 2 so many times, I can smell an asspull from a mile away. And this arc's ending and Kirito's survival of the final fight with Kayaba is the foulest stench I've smelt in a long time. There is no explanation to how he survived his "kill trade" or what enabled him to. It happened so the story could continue, nothing more, nothing less. While less egregious than the end, the appearance and lack of information on Kirito's unique dual-wield ability can also be considered an asspull power-up.
Overall Views
Filled with interesting ideas yet weighed heavily by exceedingly poor execution, Aincrad Arc was an example of how terrible writing can ruined any amount of great ideas. Personality is a major element of a character, yet is lacking in those most important. Worldbuilding can add immersion and interest, yet is nonexistent. Having no explanation for crucial moments only hurts the story more. A poorly handled story with interesting ideas on paper is no good overall.
This arc sees the return of the SAO crew in (mostly) different positions and a new game where death has no real penalty, unlike SAO. New characters also join in, including a pedo and a simp. I wish I was joking.
Setting
Welcome to Alfhiem, the new VR MMO game based on the tech used for Sword Art. After the bankruptcy of the SAO devs Argus, RECT picked up the tech to create a new VR MMO based on fairies and shit. For a series called SAO, my biggest surprise this season was the throwing away of the titular setting for literally just fairy-based racism: the Game. The worldbuilding was thankfully improved on from Aincrad, with factions and territory being a big piece of the arc.
Characters
Firstly, Kirito doesn't change at all from how he left Sword Art. Although, he does pull some odd shit here and there, namely ignoring the shit about nobody being able to fly halfway by themselves outright despite being no different, it's not like dual-wielding (his main shtick) and his literal survival, so improvement there. The same isn't true for the others, however. All the side characters from before are gone, Yui's back (yay), and Asuna's been turned into a basic damsel in distress (sigh). The main girl of this arc is Suguha Kirigaya (Leafa), Kazuto's sister who REALLY wants in her brother's pants. She's also got somebody with the hots for her, Nagata Shinichi (Recon), and he simps over her hard. Our villain is
Sugo Nobuyuki (Oberon), and he is a creeeeeeeeep! He'll be covered in our next section...
Story Beat Worth Mentioning
Firstly, our antagonist. Sugo is just a creep, despite already having reason to be the antagonist as the benefactor to a set-up marriage to an unconscious Asuna and seeing no problem marrying a comatose teen against her will. His perverted traits are pushed so hard, it stops being another reason to hate him and just becomes uncomfortable. Suguha's entire character arc is just her crushing over her brother, which is odd by itself. The drama that comes out of this crush is both very awkward and very believable depending on what point Suguha is going on about in the moment. Awkward when she's on about her romantic feelings for Kazuto and believable when she's going on about her feelings on how Kazuto was stuck in a fucking VR game for 2 whole years. Hell, in Alfhiem, she had so much more personality and depth than her brother, I kinda wish SHE was our protagonist instead. Well, you win some, you lose some. A line near the endgame, "If I die, it's not like it's a big deal.", however, steals all tension from the arc moving forward. A big issue of Aincrad was that the Kazuto success train never stopped and that can just get boring. While he does fail once right after these words, the statement alone causes any tension built up by his failure to be diminished heavily.
Overall Thoughts
Fairy Dance Arc is a big improvement over Aincrad Arc at the expense of any sort of stakes and some characters. Main characters, with the exception of Suguha, are still un- or under-developed to a point where the entire story and cast has no depth. Given more focus on characters and less shock factor-y moments such as the entirety of in-game Sugo's actions, the Fairy Dance Arc may have been able to save the season. However, an even weaker villain, ruining Asuna, and a refusal to develop established characters drag Fairy Dance down enough to be only be considered a slight improvement over Aincrad.
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