Anime & Manga SAO

[Hissatsuken]

I was a little shaky when I first heard about the hype train the show was riding at first, but then after my friends started watching and getting all gushy about it, I gave it a shot when the English dub hit Toonami.


It's not a exactly a hill that I'd die defending, but I still really enjoyed it, plus the follow up in SAOII. If I can be honest, the whole "trapped in a game" concept was never why I got hooked in. It's not exactly original, so I wasn't latching on it like most people were. I was instead paying attention to the more relatable aspects and how the games are basically a backdrop for real-life conflict. Basically a "slice-of-life for gamers", which is funny, because I prefer action. lol


Regardless, I still enjoy the series and I'm looking forward to an SAOIII, as well as looking into the light novel adaptions sometime soon.

 

[Face Nemesis]

I'm a huge fan of SAO! It's not my all-time favorite show, but I definitely love it. I went through a brief MMO phase back in middle school, so SAO helped me to remember those days. Also, being a gamer, it appealed to me in that way as well. I'm usually the type of person to only watch dubbed anime, although I made an exception and watched SAOII as it released in Japanese since I couldn't wait for the English release. I actually happened to prefer the second season, since GGO and Mother's Rosario both went into a lot of new themes mixing the real and virtual worlds that I found really interesting. Yuuki's also my favorite character, so season two has that going for it, too. I'm really excited for the upcoming movie, and I'm hoping that SAOIII follows after it!

I was a little shaky when I first heard about the hype train the show was riding at first, but then after my friends started watching and getting all gushy about it, I gave it a shot when the English dub hit Toonami.
It's not a exactly a hill that I'd die defending, but I still really enjoyed it, plus the follow up in SAOII. If I can be honest, the whole "trapped in a game" concept was never why I got hooked in. It's not exactly original, so I wasn't latching on it like most people were. I was instead paying attention to the more relatable aspects and how the games are basically a backdrop for real-life conflict. Basically a "slice-of-life for gamers", which is funny, because I prefer action. lol


Regardless, I still enjoy the series and I'm looking forward to an SAOIII, as well as looking into the light novel adaptions sometime soon.

Aw, come on, I didn't get that gushy over it. xD

 

[Hissatsuken]

[QUOTE="Face Nemesis]
Aw, come on, I didn't get that gushy over it. xD

[/QUOTE]
Don't you flippin' lie to me. xD

 

[Hinata907]

I love sword art online, my favorite is season 2.

 

[TheFifthDemon]

I love SAO. I don't really like Asuna though e-e

 

[Negative Zone]

I liked the first half of the first season well enough. 'Trapped in a game' stories are one of my weaknesses so I didn't really mind a lot of the shakier aspects of the show. It helped that the art style was pretty decent and the backgrounds + music were gorgeous. As I started watching it right as the first season was finishing up I saw a lot of criticism for the second half. The end of the first half felt very abrupt to me, I think Aincrad on its own would have made a lovely 26 episode show. I was still enjoying the show so despite the criticism sending off warning bells I decided to keep watching...


ALO was a pretty neat game concept but everything else was just a set of huge steps backward. The incest subplot, the godawful villain whose name I can't even remember, Asuna being turned into a literal caged damsel to be groped at and assaulted... (At least she got to do something at the end?) I honestly can't remember why I kept watching. Maybe it was because I still enjoyed the aesthetics and I was curious to learn more about Alfheim?


I still haven't watched Season 2. I might pick it up eventually though as I do like the concept of the series being a kind of anthology about various virtual reality MMORPGs and the characters are mostly interesting enough, except for the villains. (Come to think of it Kayaba was very underwhelming too. The twist about his identity was cool but it was executed really awkwardly.) But if it's anything like the ALO half of the first season I'm probably just going to pass on it.