Sword Art Online II: Debriefing

So this is a recap of part 1 of Sword Art Online Season 2. It doesn't contain any new story or any new plot. It's just mixed of some random scenes from SAO Season 2. so if you don't have enough time, If you just wanted to finish the season quickly so you can definitely skip this episode.

Overall all everything was quite impressing. The Sound Tracks, Animation, character design was the same as always. So there is nothing more to say about them.

If you are thinking to hold Sword Art Online after the 14th episode of SAO Season 2 so you can watch ... the special episode before continue the season again.

The bigger problem lies in the “recap” concept. I think the biggest factor for its success is the timing. If I was watching the series weekly, well, by episode 14, that would be 14 weeks or three months and a half of slow-burn watching, I would probably need a recap episode to go through everything that happened on a said arc, or in other cases, if somebody was to take a break in between the arcs, a good recap episode would be amazing to refresh the viewer's mind and set them up to watch more.

Well, I come from neither positions, unfortunately. When binge-watching episodes back ... to back, recaps seem to be a turn-off, so you'd really want to skip on them and win time. That is unless the recap has some fun twist around it, but in SAO II Debriefing, it was not.

The recap episode is a barebones retelling of the entire Phantom Bullet arc from Sinon's perspective, with some minimal narration at the beginning, ending up at when she finally overcame her hardships.

While I don't have any grudge against the series as whole, I have to agree with everyone one this recap episode.

It offers no additional information, or facts and doesn't sum up the first 14 episodes well at all. If you're new to the series, I HIGHLY recommend you watch all episodes 1-14 than view this recap episode; if you have been following from the beginning, then skip it. It is not a good reflection of the series at all!

The only honorable mention this recap episode gets is that in my opinion, the remade opening actually was visually quite good.