Sword Art Online

So I just (I mean just) started watching this show and the concept is cool-ish and hits a little close to home, so I thought I'd make a thread about it.

FIRST, THE WIKI ENTRY.

"In the year 2022, the Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (VRMMORPG), Sword Art Online (SAO), is released. With the Nerve Gear, a virtual reality helmet that stimulates the user's five senses via their brain, players can experience and control their in-game characters with their minds.
On November 6, 2022, all the players log in for the first time, and subsequently discover that they are unable to log out. They are then informed by Kayaba Akihiko, the creator of SAO, that if they wish to be free, they must reach the 100th floor of the game's tower and defeat the final boss. However, if their avatars die in-game, their bodies will also die in the real world. The story follows Kirito, a skilled player who is determined to beat the game."

I cut it off there because spoilers.
It seems to be really interesting, and I've heard that it's really, really good. What's more, it's about MMOs~~~~ I personally love MMOs, and while I greatly enjoy playing them for hours on end, the thought of being trapped in one with the rule of "if you die here, you're done. No revival." absolutely terrifying.

SO YEAH. If you've seen it, talk about it!
If you haven't, watch it.

I hear the final boss is a flamboyant butterfly-man who likes licking the faces of teenage girls in front of their Gary Stu boyfriends.

... Sure, I'll bite.

I genuinely wish this game existed, even though it is basically just a mash-up of all of the MMOs ever. Except, you know, without the YOU DIE FOR REAL bullshit. It's a pretty cool looking world, all things considered.

THIS SHOW REMINDS ME OF .//HACK, ACTUALLY.

Sounds like that Chinese manhua called 1/2 prince. Except better. I'll give it a try, too!

EDIT: Looks like there are more of these kind of things than I realized. It does also sound like .//hack, you're right.

i watched up to episode three and i am already incapable of seeing through this THICK SHEET OF TEARS COVERING MY EYES

i'm taking a break from anime for a while, this is ridikulus

LIKE I NEEDED ANOTHER DAMN ANIME TO ADD TO MY "TO WATCH" LIST.

So obviously I know what I'm doing with my weekend.

I just saw it
WATCHING THIS WAS THE WORST IDEA EVER THANKS MUL.

Did I say this weekend? I meant later this evening.

Sword Art Online <3 It uses the MMORPG setting so well! I mean, it's like an actual MMORPG with reasonable regulations and coding limitations and everything! And the people are genuinely upset at being trapped in a fantasy world! It makes me happy!

And episode 3 is my favorite. It stokes my masochism so.

Oh, phew. Episode 4 isn't sad. Well, at least the first 15 minutes aren't sad. I even smiled. SAFE.

EDIT: I regret watching this again. /cries over episode 7 too

If I may...

After watching the entire anime some time ago, and having about a month to think about it, I've decided to blot out any episodes after fourteen.
Fuck 'em.
I'm just so...disappointed.

I get a little foul mouthed here, so beware I guess.

I must be broken because my overwhelming reaction to the entire thing throughout was ye gods how much more Mary Sueish will this get ._.
and episode after episode it never failed to deliver.

In other words, you might want to stop watching after 14 and assume the rest of the series is "and then all the veterans got physical and mental therapy and went on with their day-to-day lives as better people, the end."
I do like the anime more than the light novel series, though! The pacing is better, I think, since it combined the main story volume and the sidestories volume. And, as it turns out, Japanese novels have incredibly boring sentence structure when directly translated into English. If you do like the second half of the anime, though, I recommend reading the rest of the light novel series to find out what happens next. They have a fan translation online and everything.

More than the general story or characters, I really enjoy the world they set up. I'm a fan of MMOs and I spend each episode just appreciating how they made it 'lifelike' but still integrated menus and equipment and such.
sometimes watching something Mary Sueish can be fun!

I fear i simply played too many of these games (and spent too much time being cynical about their designs on the forums) because the world setup to me looked pretty much exactly like one of those "hey guys, i have this great idea for a MMO!" concepts you get from the wide-eyed players ... that never actually work out in practice, because then the players quickly come to realize they absolutely hate having to put up day after day with all time-wasting shit they thought would be so great and entertaining.

The way everyone in the newbie town sported the same starter gear was cute, tho :3

Agreed. Probably would not play SAO myself because one: I suck at RPGs, two: I suck at MMORPGs even more, and three: I cannot read Japanese. More seriously, though, yeah, I probably would've quit SAO after the shininess wore off, like how I got sucked into Mabinogi by "oh my god you can play music" and "oh my god you can make clothes" and "oh my god you can get fat" and then quit three hours into the actual game? The characters in SAO didn't really get the option of quitting though, I guess. My god, could you imagine playing the same MMORPG all day every day with no big patches or anything? The horror.

I ran to play Ragnarok Online 2 after stopping SAO.
yeah. yeah okay, i can see this being a thing that would make me want to off myself. All of the fetch questing and the bleh bleh bleh. I guess, if anything, I'll watch up to episode 14 (NOT TODAY), take a series break, and come back to it. C:

Unlike others I cannot call him Mary Stu. I merely think Contrived Coincidence always felt into his lap which made me suprised. However I can see how that was necessary so there could be suspense. Fact is he loses and he loses often. It is mere luck that saves him always. Sometimes skill sure but ninety-eight percent of the time he is saved by outside forces. Like others I say first arc was good and second arc was bad but interesting. As for Flonne's point about Asuna.. hm I'll spoil it so far as to say second arc bad guy is responsible for her in game world and out of game world so physical appearance out of game did not suprise me.

I don't really remember him actually losing at any point except for

every other time i can recall it's not so much losing as having bad things happen to other people so the story can focus on just how much wangst these events cause the protagonist. Then in the second part they do away with any pretense of character being normal, and openly grant him power levels unattainable to a legit player.

Ah,yes I know..

Oh there were other times he lost tmp.

Hm that is a fair point Flonne.

I've read the translated Light Novels (you can find them if you search)

There are I believe 2 different volumes with side stories in them from the SAO period as well as stories from the other game(s). They even added some of them into the anime. ie: His encounters with Lisbeth, and Silica.

I will agree with the "Mary Stu" stuff in his later novels. Mainly the next game after Alfheim. (Gun Gale Online) I'll let you guys read up on that one for yourselves.

Yeah. It sounds exactly like the same exact thing as .hack, actually. Are you sure this isn't called .hack//Sword Art Online?

Ah. That does explain why in end of the anime she did have to use a cane.

Okay so I watched up to episode fourteen and there were so many feels and yeah yeah great anime

And then episode 15

I think maybe I will just stop here and preserve my satisfaction.

...well, you heard the Captain.

Just the first fourteen, then?

I can do that!

Orrrr... I can pretend episode 15+ is a horrible, horrible AU.

Oh yeah Rot.. Your comment about girls falling for him.. It happened in the first part of the story as well. (The SAO part) If you watched the anime all the way til the last episode 2 former SAO players mention about giving Asuna a month before they make their move.

hmm, maybe because I just read the manga, it's quite short, but it's only a so-so manga, I felt nothing for any of the characters..

it's either that or my soul are totally deaden by the billions of MMO online novel....

The series ends at 14. End. Stop. Fin.

If you continue to watch past that, consider it an entirely different series.

edit: basic summary of my thoughts from the anime thread. Not too spoilery, but if you haven't watched past 14 and plan on finishing it, might want to avoid the post.

That was my plan. It sounds like a trainwreck of sorts and I wish to witness it.

Oh, it's something alright.

Yeah, I thought that was pretty annoying too but I just rolled my eyes real hard and pushed past it. The SAO part doesn't have much in the way of fan service (that I remember) so that was easier to do. Plus, I found out later that a lot of the material for those filler episodes was written after the first novel (which was the SAO arc) was completed.

Uh, so basically I'm trying to say that while the first part of SAO had it's problems they did not outweigh what the show was doing right. While watching the second part I kept cringing and hoping it'd turn itself around.

Except, it never does.

Also: YUUUUUIIIIIIII! Lurves

Seriously, I can't be the only one that just really, really, wanted to give Yui a hug, even past ep14. She is the embodiment of this sub-forum's namesake.

Oh man, if they decide to do another series focusing on Gun Gale Online and maybe Mother's Rosario (Light Novel with Asuna being the main character) I think some of you guys would lose it.

Although to be honest, this series started as a web novel. The author won some contest with Accel World and got it published. Afterwards SAO was requested to be published so he took down the web novels and started to add things as he went. I think he started to add new games to continue the characters because of the popularity, but was stuck with the SAO "brand" for future stories. There are 11 novels out right now plus 1 side story novel and some other stories it seems he might put online instead of in a book. The 12th novel is due out in the fall I believe.

The anime covered the first 4 novels, although they skipped some parts here and there.


Now ignoring the story parts, there are some concepts within the series that I wish could come about in the future.
The full dive technology would be amazing, but that is more than likely far off if it becomes possible.
The concept of being able to create a character in 1 game and be able to transfer it to other game worlds is something I would love to see.
The whole SAO game concept itself: No Magic, Only Weaponskills and Tradeskills. A huge dungeon with multiple levels that requires coordination to actually open up each level. Each level having its own theme, cities/villages, open areas for hunting.

I've heard the light novels were better, especially about the main romance.

I actually disliked SAO after like episode 7, despite watching it to the end (because I'm not a quitter, dammit!) and loving the .Hack series. Ironically, that was apparently when the main story actually started, and pretty much everything before then was sidestories that were released after.

Maybe I'm just spoiled and picky, but the entire thing feels like a really cheap romance novel that doesn't make sense. It feels like when Asuna and Kirito got together, they brought out not the worst in each other but some sort of cliched blandness. They were both more likable before on their own. The second villain felt really cheap and fabricated too, so his creepy actions didn't get me to rage since he felt so entirely two dimensional and utterly fake. I kept thinking the show would turn itself around but it didn't end up happening, and to the very end I disliked it.

tl;dr there's much better stuff out there, I personally wouldn't recommend SAO. It's very pretty though, that's all I can say in terms of pros to this anime.