Story
The soft-reboot feel to Alicization breathes new life into the doldrums that SAO was stuck in ever since the death game ended in Aincrad. Even in GGO, where the whole plot was someone trying to recreate the tension of the first arc, it never came close. Alicization achieves this by using previously established plot lines and tying them all together neatly.
Effective usage of callbacks and context are the keys to success in long-running series. Previous seasons of SAO felt like they were almost episodic from the rest, most egregiously the GGO arc. That whole plot line is only tangentially related to SAO, and could’ve easily been a side story a la GGO Alternative were it not for Kirito being in it.
Alicization is not like GGO. Right off the bat we have things that began in Aincrad, ALfheim, and ironically enough GGO, returning to make an impact on Kirito & Co (trademark pending). This isn’t a renaissance for SAO — one solid season isn’t going to make up for one and a half bad ones — but it’s a start.
Eugeo is a huge character for the series. Kirito’s needed a bromance-type relationship for a long time, it improves his character so much it’s a shame we’ve had to wait this long. And no, the wannabe samurai comedic relief guy from Aincrad who makes one or two cameos a season doesn’t count. They can finally stop adding more dead end “love interests” to Kirito’s harem baggage train and start piling them up on Eugeo.
Meta-plot things aside, the actual story of Alicization is nothing special. Shady government group does ethically questionable things with cutting edge technology. Things shockingly go wrong. Of course, the details are a bit more nuanced than this, but not by much. What makes it decent is that it’s not coming from left field, the government has been involved with Kirito since they escaped Aincrad.
The main antagonist is far more bearable than the incel rapist from ALfheim, though they fall below the O.G. villain Heathcliff and the tragic villain from Ordinal Scale. I don’t really rate the GGO villain(s) that much, honestly it felt like a side story forced into being part of the main narrative. But Sinon’s ass shots, I guess?
The overt Alice in Wonderland references are… classic anime, and not in a good way. They take all the names and such from Western fiction, but that’s it. No weird setting, no freaky characters, nope just generic fantasy, which is about as un-Alice in Wonderland as you can get. It’s called Wonderland, not MMO Town Hub. C’mon guys, at least have some weird shit in the ominous tower. A massive missed opportunity for them to really make SAO unique again after a million other medieval-themed isekai have since come out.
Story SPOILERS
Since it’s SAO, there’s never a question as to whether or not Kirito will ultimately prevail, so the interest has to come from the “How” he does it, not the “If.” And in that, Alicization is predictable. Kirito waltzes into danger and either beats up the baddie or convinces them that he’s not evil after they hit each other for a while. Rinse and repeat a couple of times and bang, he’s confronting the big bad.
The pacing seems a bit off in the latter 1/4 of Alicization. Pretty BIG things are introduced, only to have them be destroyed, ignored, or eliminated almost immediately. Here's a list (from what I can remember):
There are probably a few more glaring issues I've missed, but wow is there a lot of completely out of the blue B.S. jam packed into these final episodes. Almost none of these things have any foreshadowing at all, it's ridiculous. Where other anime spend almost too much time contextualizing the powers and power-levels of enemies and characters, Alicization's approach is "Fuck you, deal with it."
The ending is OK. Eugeo’s character assassination (much more on that later) is complete through his self-sacrifice. The Big Bad Administrator… dies? Maybe? The whole scene where Chudelkin jumps into the beam with her and they explode is a bit weird. Is she going to appear as some The Thing monster — a disgusting fusion of Chudelkin and Administrator — in War for the Underworld? Or is she dead? Either way it was very confusing, and I need to make clear, not at all clever, way to have it happen.
Character
Eugeo
As stated in the Story section, Eugeo is a much needed addition to the typical cast of 90% women in SAO, but damn if he doesn't have some serious character development and writing issues.
Eugeo SPOILERS
Oh boy Eugeo says he hates the Integrity Knights because they’ve forgotten themselves and become puppets for the Pontifex. Bet he won’t say that to Alice’s face, just to Bercouli (Broccoli). And then literally seconds after he says that he gets captured and turned into a puppet himself, marvelous.
This is pretty egregious artificial anger for Eugeo’s character, it seems pretty out of place for him to be so angry when the only other time he’s lost it was when his and Kirito’s Pages were about to be raped by the nobles. I think it might just be to make Kirito seem like a level headed superhero who talks Eugeo down.
This character is a complete mess. Why did they make him so emotionally unstable all of a sudden? They set him up to be the more serious, grounded, one while Kirito’s the more ad hoc, adaptable, one. Yes, he sees his Page getting raped, and the system he lives by allowing it to happen, even calling it just, but why then does he hate those that are also being used by said system? Shouldn’t he be the sympathetic one towards the Integrity Knights, more so than Kirito?
What makes it worse is that, while he’ll say he hates Integrity Knights for what they are, he’ll have no cognitive dissonance with Alice being one. He’ll love her without question. There could’ve been a nuanced character arc here, where he struggles with reconciling his feelings for Alice the village girl with Alice the Integrity Knight, but that never happens.
Asuna
Once again this season does what SAO’s done for the past… every cour since the first one ended except for Mother’s Rosario. Asuna’s character comes down to “remember when I was a badass warrior? Yeah me too. Now watch as I do my best Cersei in GoT Season 7 & 8 impression and sit there spouting exposition.”
God damn I hate what they’ve done to this character. It’s bad enough that all the side characters from SAO are basically worthless cameos now, but the one semi-interesting supporting/side character in the show is a full on angry housewife. She’s essentially Bulma from Dragonball, except Bulma never had her character ruined.
Asuna SPOILERS
And before anyone says it, yes I'm aware that she enters the story more in War for the Underworld, but this isn't a review for that, is it?
Kirito
I actually sort of like Kirito in Alicization. Whereas in previous seasons he was so bland it was like eating a slice of plain white bread, now he at least has some underlying motivations that extend to more than “save the princess.” This is a positive continuation from the Ordinal Scale movie where he also showed much more nuance than Aincrad/ALfheim/GGO era Kirito. Don’t get me wrong, he still isn’t some incredibly layered character, he’s just been upgraded from “Blank Slate Self-Insert” to “Semi-Autonomous Human Drone with Added Humor Function.”
Kirito SPOILERS
Animation
Some of the fight scenes look bad, like the perspective is totally out of whack. Specifically the first real fight scene with Alice where Kirito and Eugeo are charging across the field towards her. Holy holy don’t pay too much attention to the perspective, it’s like the editor decided to go on vacation that week. There are several other times where similar issues crop up, it’s a bit strange. The scenes where things are working perspectively are top notch, though.
Sound
Alicization has a nice compliment of music to go with its action scenes. The openings for both cours are good. No glaring issues.
Enjoyment
SAO has always been a bit of a guilty pleasure - one that I love to tear into - and though it is a genuinely bad show for a number of reasons, I still find myself coming back to it whenever there's a new season.
9.5 out of 12 users liked this review
