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Jun 27, 2015
I was browsing along my local bookstore and was surprised to find this on the shelves. I wasn't expecting a new Sword Art Online book in a few months time and having the number "001" on the side seemed to be going against the numbering of the original novel series. You will be surprised as I was to find out that this is a reboot. Not just any reboot, but a reboot that is going to focus upon the game of "Sword Art Online" from floor one to seventy-five, going at a pace of two floors per novel. This is the novel series that many
...
fans, haters, and the author have and wanted to read.
Story
Now that the entire game of "Sword Art Online" isn't restricted to a single light novel (not counting the side stories of the second light novel) the story isn't restricted to having time skips or quick pacing throughout the book like its predecessor. This has enabled the story to progress without fear of having limit on the length of the book. This has also provided us with a view of the game as its own world, with bosses, towns, npcs, side-quests, and the subsequent struggles of being on the front lines with a rag tag team of low level adventurers attempting to complete the game. The first book only contains the first and second floors of the game, but just those two floors gives the world so much life that the original novel series pales in comparison. This novel also takes time in explaining the workings of the game systems like, weapon upgrades, skilling, fighting abilities, and the inner workings of different items.
Art
Illustration is done by the same artist (abec) as in the previous "Sword Art Online" novels and I believe he has really outdone himself with the art on this new series. Just the art cover and its colors left me wetting my appetite with each time I looked at the novel cover. You don't know how many times I have stared at this cover art when it was out on a shelf staring straight at me. I personally see it as his best cover art of any of his Sword Art Online illustrations.
Character
While the previous "Sword Art Online" novel had to keep its focus upon the main characters with minimal spotlight on the side characters, I can happily say that this new series greatly fleshes out its side characters as much as the main characters and I am hopeful that this will stay constant throughout the "Progressive" series. This novel brings to light characters and experiences that weren't previously as well known, like: Argo the Rat, the beginning friendships of Agil and Kirito, the budding relationship of Kirito and Asuna, the abuse of scamming, and even the struggle of keeping the horrors of PVP out of this world. This novel allows for this new world to become populated by the characters of not just Asuna and Kirito, but by every side character that you came across in the previous novel series (minus Lisbeth and Silica, but they are waaayyy down the timeline), and the book does become richer because of this fleshing out of old and new side characters.
Though this series will only be released two floors per book, one book per year, it will possibly be a great ride just based upon this first book in the new "Progressive" series. If going through the entire fleshed out game of "Sword Art Online" one floor at a time with Kirito, Asuna, and company sounds like an interesting prospect to you, then I highly recommend this novel series.
Hmmm... Maybe I should hold off this review for 37 years until it finishes.
End.
Note: This review is based off the first novel, "Sword Art Online: Progressive 001", and not any of the novels afterwards. I will probably get those books when they do release, but having a release schedule of 1 book per year is going to be hard to review the series as a whole.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Jun 26, 2015
THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS UP TO SECOND EPISODE
What can I say about this show other than I dislike it? I just came out of watching "Hellsing (2001)" and having heard that "Hellsing Ultimate" was better than its predecessor I did start to get into it on the first episode. That changed on the second episode when the flaws in the show began to show and I am disappointed in the fact that no one else seems to notice these things. "Hellsing Ultimate" is getting ranked higher than "Hellsing (2001)" even when "Hellsing Ultimate" has character flaws, tone flaws, animation flaws, and story flaws.
Comedy:
Now
...
let us talk about the elephant in the room, the comedy. You may be coming to this show expecting it to be "serious" and "dark", and while this is true to an extent, what isn't mentioned more importantly is that this show has comedy in it. This wouldn't be a problem if the comedy was quips between characters every now and then to lighten the mood, but it is instead light comedy that has a change in animation style almost in the middle of tense and dark moments that ultimately tend to be used to break up said darker moments. If that was their intention congratulations, you succeeded, but in doing so it ruined any atmosphere the show had entirely up until that point. Now I am not against comedy, in fact I love comedy, but the comedy in this show is especially bad since it is paired with a simplistic drawing style, and bright colors to emphasize the comedy. Nothing makes me cringe more than watching the grim and dark setting of "Hellsing Ultimate" being broken up by kindergarten drawings, bright blues, greens, and yellows, with spinning flowers in the background. Yes, you read right. Spinning flowers... in a horror genre. This show would have been amazing, but this Light Comedy messes with the tone of the entire show to an annoying degree.
Story:
In a world where vampires exist, one organization, the Hellsing Organization has gotten a hold of one of the most powerful vampires in existence, Arucard. Through his loyalty they use his power to eliminate other vampires and try to keep the population at large silent about their existence. Soon a new threat arises though where pseudo-vampires arrive on the seen created by some unknown human technology that threatens to tip the scale between the Hellsing organization and this unknown force.
Now, I would be fine with this story if they tried to flesh out the secret of who was making these pseudo-vampires and kept playing on the mystery like it was in "Hellsing (2001)", but, and this is a big "but", they give away the secret in the second episode. It was Nazi Vampires. To be fair if the mystery portion of the who was played more and we didn't have the big reveal until later on in the show I could be more accepting of "Nazi Vampires". But no, with little intro, with little set, they just drop down "Nazi Vampires" into your lap and say "Accept them!" "Hellsing Ultimate" isn't even continuing where "Hellsing (2001)" left off, but a full on reboot of the show. It sadly rushes too much and makes this new villain that once had such promise and mystery in "Hellsing (2001)" fall flat on any mystery that it once had. Talking about pacing, the pacing here is at many times either way too fast or too slow. That is amazing for a show to be on both sides of the pacing spectrum and still miss the mark. It follows the former problem in the first couple episodes having the entirety of "Hellsing (2001)" being condensed down into 2 episodes, while there were many times where the OVAs were obviously trying to pad out the time through panning shots with smiling face cliches, and drawn out fight sequences of the characters just toying with each other. Without giving away spoilers the final battle against Arucard ends sadly with a Deus ex Machina of pseudo-science, and if the entire "threat" is filled with such wacky pseudo-science maybe you will like this.
Animation:
This here is a very mixed bag of nuts. I can't say that the animation was worse than "Hellsing (2001)", but I also can't say it was overall better. Sure the animation is smoother and crisperc in comparison, but the character design, gore, and action went to an over-the-top extreme that made them worse. Let's start with the character animation. The characters, are overdrawn. They have too much detail surprisingly where they look absolutely hideous. The wrinkles and movements of the characters are drawn overly energetic creating a chasm between energy levels of the voice-acting and the animation. The gore itself is, like the animation, over-the-top where every scrape and nick of the skin creates gallons of blood exploding everywhere. A van full of exploding pigs wouldn't create as much blood as I have seen in this one show. It is trying to be bloody and gory, but over-succeeds in its job to the point where I can't take it seriously at all and loses its impact fairly quickly. The guns themselves in the animation all act like machine guns. Where a single gun, no matter what gun, will fire multiple bullets, and cover up the screen with characters that seem to be having seizures with every hit they take, adding to the already over-the-top nature and bringing it to an extreme that makes it seem unbelievable and comedic.
Sound:
The one thing that they did get right was the sound. The music is something that is the only problem I had with "Hellsing (2001)" and this came out with many rocking tracks that sit well with the mood of the show and animation.
Characters:
Now the characters were okay, but there wasn't any arcs that made me connect with any one character. The pace of the show was so fast that people would be introduced and then offed in the same episode without much of an introduction other than their name being pronounced before getting the axe. The animation didn't really help any of the characters either as "Hellsing (2001)", yes I am bringing it up again, made characters seem like great leaders and tragic through their struggles, while many characters didn't have that feel coming off them. Their characters seemed off from their usual self and made me not truly connect with them on an emotional level. That is not to say that no characters had any heart warming dialogue, but whenever it did strike into that territory, our great villain of this show, "Light Comedy" came trundling in as subtle as a bull in a china shop to ruin any mood or atmosphere that was built up at the point, rendering any edge of the seat touching moments into laughable messes.
In short, the show was sub-par as its characters, animation, story, and tone were completely thrown off and destroyed due to its inclusion of "Light Comedy". The removal of this simple fact would have improved the show ten fold. "Hellsing Ultimate" isn't bad or something I hate, but it had so many horrendous moments that destroyed any enjoyment I would have gained for the show. Many people have actually said that this is closer to the manga ("frame for frame" as some would say) than "Hellsing (2001)"", but if that is the case, then I have rated the source material way too highly due to the good things that happened in "Hellsing (2001)" since the comedy really does drag this show down. If it had any sense it would remove the comedy and come back with the dark and tension ridden show I thought I was going to get than what I actually got.
End.
Note: I watched "Hellsing Ultimate" and "Hellsing (2001)" back to back for the first time. I have also not read the manga, so I am judging this show based on its merits and not just because it was the same as the source material.
Reviewer’s Rating: 7
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