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Jan 27, 2020
Forewarning, this review does contain some minor spoilers!
With that out of the way, let me say this: I'm disappointed. The story starts with a great bang, great twist at the end of the very first episode that draws you in, and consistently till episode 7 you will be just astounded by the main villain of the story and how mysterious but deadly they are. After Ep7 though, it all falls a bit flat.
Unfortunately, the main villain seems to occupy only half of the story, the dynamic between them and the main cast will keep you intrigued but there is a second half to this anime
...
- Political intrigue mixed with philosophical discourse. Unfortunately that part is so unrealistic and so basic in it's own concept it just doesn't hold up. The main philosophical question of this series is supposed to be "what is good" and "what is evil", but unfortunately it centres that question on "is suicide good" and "should it be legal" (It actually IS legal at this moment in all the countries involved in this anime). And even though it mulls over an answer for that question for 12 episodes, you're only graced with vague pseudo-answer that adds nothing new to the table and coincidentally is absolutely wrong in some cases (speaking from medical perspective here).
I'm incredibly disappointed because it felt like there was something more to the story, something hiding behind the mystery of the main villain, a deep intrigue to be discovered and explored. But there's none of that. Visually and musically stunning, but lacks substance, it's essentially empty story-wise.
You had my curiosity after first episode, you had my attention... And it didn't pay off at all... I'm pretty sure every single employee of a suicide telephone helpline has a better story to tell than this anime.
Reviewer’s Rating: 6
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Dec 23, 2018
I'll keep this short and sweet...
This anime is for the fans of the genre ONLY, it's basically a big homage to all those Sentai and Ultraman type TV shows, don't know either? Think "Power Rangers" (if that doesn't ring a bell I don't know what will).
Unfortunately it's nothing more than that, this is still studio Trigger so animation is on point and it's a pretty eye candy, but that's it. The story brings nothing new to the table. Bonus points for extra thiccness though...
tl:dr (really mate?) If you're not a fan of the sentai genre, I'd advise to save yourself some time and watch
...
something else.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Jun 30, 2018
First things first, if you disliked original SAO you can safely test this series for yourself, it's nothing like it. Just to be clear here I did enjoy the original SAO immensly (almost all of it) even though it had quite a number glaring faults.
What makes or breaks animes and mangas for me these days are mostly characters and their interactions, then cpmes the story and then the rest, and SAO:GGO unfortunately seems to have it all the wrong way round.
The GOOD things first:
- Sound design is on point, there is not a single moment in this anime where sound would take me away
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from the action or I would be disappointed with it, on the other hand, when it shines you do notice it (songs made for this anime are really good)
- The Art doesn't feel out of place, it's not soaring among the stars like masterpieces from Makoto Shinkai, but the animation is mostly smooth, texture quality is pleasantly high, nothing to really be picky about, very well done.
And now the BAD things:
- The Characters! My god... Someone truly misunderstood interesting for "having a mental problem". Most of the characters should see a psychologist for some guidance and two of the characters (second female main and her "lover") should actually seek out professional psychiatric help. The interactions between them feel extremely artificial, basically you can feel that things happen between them to drive the story forward and not the other way around. And since I already mentioned the story
- The Story is simply boring, at least for me, it seemed like a nice idea at first but by the end I didn't really care for it at all. For me it's not utilizing the setting at all. Why are they playing GGO and not some other game? Why even play games to go about your problems at all? It sure is explained in the anime, but it feels flimsy. Also it lacks a general direction. In the original SAO it was always clearly defined: First clear the game, then save Asuna (because Kawahara has some bondage fetish), then uncover the truth behind the Death Gun and finally the mini-stories. There is no such goal in here at first, then we get a sort of goal, but again, it feels flimsy and artificial (and looks like a job for a psychiatrist and the emergency services, not a 19-y.o. with a complex about her height).
Now finally the golden standard of the whole SAO series: Game Design is absolutely horrible! If it felt a bit more real, if it felt a little bit more tangible, maybe, just maybe I would have enjoyed the story more. But all it did was take me out of the experience. Unlike in the original SAO where I had some characters I cared for here there was nothing stopping me from pointing out the stupidity of the game simply because I wasn't engaged enough in the struggles and problems of the characters. I'll try to mostly list them because there's just too many issues to go into details (some of them are shared with the original SAO since not much has changed in GGO):
- The way the guns are obtained in the game is very unfriendly and unfair to new users
- PVP is does not have weapon balance at all, pretty shit for a pvp-focused game
- Prediction lines, the rules when they appear or not are extremely inconsistent
- If you could shoot without them, every player would simply train to shoot without them
- Teams in the team-battle-royale can wildly vary in size - makes the game extremely unbalanced for professional gaming
- Rules for getting damaged are extremely inconsistent
- You can heal yourself from a headshot!
- Weapon damage doesn't seem to matter when the story asks for it
- Weapon range is inconsistent
- Making bodies bulletproof after death
- Giving a player a bulletproof object to carry!
- If there is no killzone that's getting smaller and smaller, there's nothing stopping you from gettin an 8-player sniper party, bringing a mix of normal and anti-tank rifles and some powerful shields, gettin on a vantage point and waiting there for days...
- Explosives range and damage is horribly inconsistent
- Dual-wielding grenade launchers (both extremely stupid and inefficient)
- No way to replenish ammo other than to beg the enemy for it
- Massive fields with nothing in it! This game is basically shouting "Get a sniper rifle and annihilate everyone"
- There is no upside to having a big player model apart from being able to carry very heavy shit, no matter how big you are a team of lolis would be able to dance around for for days on end and make you look silly
Also this tournament is supposed to have the best of the best teams possible from thousands of players. Why then everyone in here is retarded? People walking around without cover in the middle of the street/field, having no spacing between them whatsoever (I guess it's only because the story needs them to be killed quickly with a single grenade). Found an opposing team? Shower them with bullets instead of regrouping and flanking them. Found a guy in a cave behind a waterfall? Shower him with bullets instead of throwing a grenade in. See a target behind a heavy shield you have no means of destroying? Charge him for no reason (remember to shower him with bullets) instead of retreating and going around his back, forcing him to switch positions.
As you can probably tell I kinda enjoy my FPS games, and GGO is one of the shittiest FPS games ever conceived. It made watching the show incredibly difficult for me. Was the original SAO any better? GGO part was a bit less bullshit, but SAO and ALO were also fucked in the head as RPGs so no, it wasn't. The difference was that I cared for the characters there and here I couldn't bring myself to do that.
TL;DR: You can give it a go, if you'll end up liking the characters the rest should be decent enough for you to have a fun time.
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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Apr 18, 2018
First things first, this is not a stricte mecha anime, there are mecha in it, but they're not the focus of the anime.
This is also not a stricte action-anime, same as mecha, there's cool action in it, but it's not the main focus.
What is it then? Well, that's a bit more difficult of a question, drama probably is the closest of genres, but I can definitely say what the focus of this anime is. Character relationships.
If you approach it as a mecha/action you will be sorely disappointed and miss the point completely, it's about the characters discovering their emotions, fighting against them, trying to live
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with them, hide them, show them, come to terms with them or deny them. Not spoiling anything but more likely than not if you're around say 20 years old and had a few emotional encounters with the opposite sex you might see some of your own early mistakes in actions or thoughts here and really relate to the characters.
I've seen some people shitposting about shameless fanservice in this anime. Sure this anime is lewd quite often, but if you get immersed into this curved mirror of a world, you'll notice that the fanservice is there just to lighten the tone and then most of the time to build something serious or even heavy upon it, which in my opinion is quite a novel and fresh take on it (once the tone changes within the episode fanservice is gone too).
It's easy to dismiss this anime as "stupid" or "simply fanservice" if you take that approach from the start, just watch one or even half an episode without paying attention. You have to suspend your disbelief and give it a go, try to get into the characters heads while watching it. I myself was high alert when approaching this series, I dislike vast majority of the mecha series (especially Evangelion, goddamn Shinji get in the bloody mech already!), but after watching only one episode I was instantly captivated.
If you like animes where characters and their emotions take center stage, definitely try DitF, you shouldn't be dissapointed. If on the other hand you're looking for some light-hearted fun for some popcorn munching I don't think this series is for you.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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Mar 20, 2018
I'm gonna say this straight: If you treat this show seriously, it's seriously bad. There's no question about it...
but...
I'm not sure if the author wanted to make it in such a way, but it's a brilliant parody of other isekai shows! I don't really remember names of the characters, places or anything from this show, all I remember is that I was laughing so hard at the adventures of White Kirito and his harem that I couldn't breathe.
You won't find here any intriguing plot, you won't find here many interesting characters, you won't find here beautiful worlds or heartbreaking drama. But my god this is
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funny as hell...
Go watch it, set your expectations to the lowest setting and just have a laugh, it's well worth it!
Reviewer’s Rating: 8
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