Dec 20, 2014
Spoiler Free Review
TL;DR
-First ~14 episodes: 4/10, with ep 13 being 6/10 only because Present Grenade.
-Episodes 15-24: 8/10
Overall: disappointing, but ends on a great note, with the best yet to come.
Sword Art Online 2 almost perfectly mirrors its first season, with first half of SAO being great, second half being pretty damn bad. SAO2 starts out abysmal, and the second half improves in every aspect.
The Gun Gale Online arc has schizophrenic pacing. There's fanservice everywhere (basically in every scene with Sinon), and it tries to portray realistic firefights that fail in absurdly laughable ways, bad cg landscape and all.
Then they have the gall in taking the
...
protagonist Kirito from someone I mildly like, and turning him into a one-dimensional Mary Sue, complete with his trap appearance and forcing us to pay attention to him; sad, since the main point of this arc was supposed to be about the new female protagonist Sinon, and her growth as a person getting over a tragic event.
It still has it's moments of decent storytelling, and after the cave scene during the tournament it finally starts going uphill, only to be spoiled by awkward bullshit after the tournament.
So then we transition back to happy fun times back in the fantasy setting, all the fanservice disappears (I blame this on Sinon's sudden demotion to background character, which was a shame), and we get a nice breather arc that lasts only 3 episodes. Not much to say on it, other than the fact that it's not full of cringe like the first half. It delves into the lore of the world they're in, which, based loosely off Norse mythology, is actually refreshing.
The Mother's Rosario arc finally sees a long-awaited return to the show's former glory, with great character development (Finally Asuna has a chance to do something other than be a complacent Waifu), and some unexpected feels at the end. Don't get me wrong, from the first episode they lay the foreshadowing on really thick, and it wasn't the actual event itself that brought the emotions out. One of the minor characters says something and it's delivered so well, so subtly that the few tears came unbidden and brought a smile on my face.
Final verdict: 5.8/10. Too many trains, not enough guns.
:dealwithitsunglasses:
-edited after 2 years because giant run-on sentence
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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