To recap a little bit about what I said on Ordinal Scale, this anime as a whole seems more like a popcorn anime. It doesn’t have a ton of depth of the bad guys, the good guys develop some depth, but it’s not a very important focus. There seems like there should be because of the theme of getting trapped in a video game and having to beat the game in order to survive. They should have been able to really delve into the psyche of the players in the game, and while they do some of that, it doesn’t really build too much upon that. I do appreciate though that the show has never been about the boss fights, and while there are fights, it’s never drawn out that long.

Now, there are some weird things about this show as well, the first being the lack of motivation for the first bad guy. He seems to have created this world simply because he could and there doesn’t seem to be any more reason than t hat. The second being how it switches in the middle when the new bad guy takes over. Without getting into spoilers, it goes to a creepy dark sort of place and feel, all without really being all that creepy or dark still. It’s just kind of weird how it changes. It almost has a George RR Martin feel to it (not in terms of killing everyone) but where in book four he seemingly decided, I’m bored with these characters, let me write about new ones for no good reason and introduce magic. Sword Art Online kind of has a similar feel to that about half way through the first season. If it weren’t for the fact that you were invested into the story at that point, say this had happened in the first four episodes, I’m not sure I would have continued with the anime. But I think if you are forewarned about the change, it’ll be easier to watch and keep into the story.

With all of that out of the way, the basic premise for the show is that there is an awesome new MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role playing game) where you get into the game as a full dive. This full dive technology basically allows you to feel like you are 100% in the gaming world. So when 10,000 players who get the first copies log in, they are super excited to start killing monsters, hanging out, and killing boars because obviously you have to kill boars to level up faster. Things change drastically when everyone is teleported back to the city of beginnings (where you spawn to start the game) and they all find out that the creator of the game and the full dive system has locked everyone into the world so they can’t log out, the only way to escape the world is to make it to level 100 of the world defeating the bosses along the way and if you die in the game, you die in real life. We follow our main character, Kirito as he battles by himself through the world and finds out that while he can’t save everyone, he needs to try to save them.

It’s an interesting premise, like I said, and it doesn’t focus on the boss battles, in fact they maybe show a handful of snippets of them throughout the show. This show focuses in on the people who are in the world and how they react to being trapped in the world. It takes a fairly light approach to it as there seems to be less concern about being the game than one would expect, but as relationships develop, characters die, and it’s been a long time in the real world, it creates an interesting dynamic. If it had gone darker than it did, I think I’d have a fairly different view on this. Often when I’m watching anime I want something that is enjoyable, makes me think some, but I don’t generally want something that weighs on me too much.

Sword Art Online (Season 1) is one that I’d recommend to people. While it is light and doesn’t go to the depth that it could, and has that swerve in the middle to a different sort of story, it’s enjoyable, it doesn’t seem like a long show. It’s the light beer of anime (as I said in my review for Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale ) I don’t think that is really a bad thing in this case. I’d say that I’ve seen better Anime shows, such as The Devil is a Part-Timer! (expect a review on that later), but Sword Art Online is worth the time watching it and most people will find it enjoyable.

P.S. I know that Sword Art Online is kind of fun to hate on for a lot of people because it’s lighter. If you go into it knowing it’s light and decide that you hate on it because it’s light, get a job.

P.S.S. (Forgot to put this in the first place) – This is also an anime that you can probably watch either dubbed or subbed without  missing all that much.

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If you’re not familiar with the Sword Art Online anime, the basic premise to it is that, in the first season of the show, they get stuck in a fantasy video game called Sword Art Online and to get out you have to beat the game. It’s a full immersion sort of game where you put on a head set and you are transported into the game. That’s the basic premise, except, to add one thing to it, it isn’t about clearing levels, beating boss monsters and epic fights, it’s about the people’s lives who are stuck in the game and how they deal with that well or not. The second season is more of the same thing, so you can kind of guess what the movie is about.

Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale follows many of the same characters you meet in the anime, mainly Kirito and Asuna, as they spend time in the real world as well as venturing back into the old games. In the real world there is now an AR (augmented reality) system that is becoming really popular. Not learning for their many previous mistakes with getting sucked into games or games being more real than they expected, everyone is buying into it. But it turns out that the game might be more than they are thinking. Kirito starts to expect this when Asuna’s memories of the fantasy world from the first season are stolen from her. He then needs to find a way to get the love of his life memories back and as he searches into that, he unravels a greater mystery than he had thought was there.

I tweeted out my very brief thoughts on the anime/movie, but I’ll go into more depth here. Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale is the light beer/pilsner of anime. What do I mean by that and is that a bad thing? To answer the second question first, I don’t think it’s a bad thing. In the case of a light beer or a pilsner, sure there isn’t a ton of flavor of depth to the beer, but you’re still getting the alcohol. That’s kind of what this movie is. It’s something that doesn’t have a ton of depth, touches on areas at kind of a surface level, but it’s still an enjoyable movie. And as the case for some people with light beer and pilsners, that’s what you want. You don’t want to get into something that is very heady. It was an enjoyable watch and would I watch it again? Maybe, eventually, but it isn’t something that grabbed me all that well.

What I do appreciate about the movie is that it was more than just a monster hacking and slashing movie, they spent some time trying to developer real character driven plot hooks. Now, all of these hooks were quite shallow, but it wasn’t just cool AR monster followed by a fight. I do want to say that I didn’t appreciate some of the fights though. In particular, one fight towards the end of the movie, the animators were like “We have no clue how to do this.” so they were given the direction, just make it a ton of close-ups where you have no idea of what you are really seeing, move the camera around a lot (aka the Bourne Identity method) and we’ll call it good. It made for a very bad fight sequence.

Would I recommend that someone goes sees this?
If you’re a fan of the show, definitely and you probably already have or already plan on it. Would I recommend it to someone else. Sure, it’s a popcorn type of flick, know that going into it, and enjoy it, but if there are other movies that you want to see, put it low on your list and you won’t have missed out on anything if you don’t see it. I probably wouldn’t have ever seen it if Kristen hadn’t gotten free tickets for it, but I’m not sad that I saw it.

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