Stop me if you've heard this one; a
young man is drawn into the world of a videogame, trapped in a
virtual world with no contact with the real one, in a deadly game
where there are no 1-Ups, and you don't re-spawn...
Oh. You have have heard that one?
Well, I'm going to talk about Sword Art Online anyway, so you might
as well get comfortable.
Sword Art Online (SAO) is a 2012 anime
series produced by A-1 Pictures, based on the first two arcs of the
2009 manga, which grew out of a 2002 short story competition that
series creator Reki Kawahara didn't even enter the first time around,
having written well over the page limit. What I'm saying is, this
thing has some history behind it, and plenty of thought from its
creator. Which probably explains why this thing is so well put
together, on pretty much all fronts.
The anime's setting is pretty
straightforward. In 2022, the groundbreaking VRMMORPG Sword Art
Online is launched, with considerable fanfare and even more considerable hype. However, on that
first day, the game's lead designer reveals he was inspired less by
World of Warcraft than Lord of the Flies. Gathering the players in
the starting city's central square, he reveals to all ten thousand of
them that their VR helmets are boobytrapped, armed with a
brain-scrambling microwave pulse generator. If the player's
character dies in the game world, the pulse goes off. If the helmets
are tampered with in the real world, the pulse goes off. The players
are locked into the gaming world; the only way they'll be allowed to
log out is by clearing all 100 floors of Aincrad, the great floating
castle that is the MMO's dungeon. And then, the designer just
disappears, leaving ten thousand frightened nerds to their own
devices...
It actually goes better than you might think.
At first glance, SAO seems like just
another .Hack or Harsh Realm or The Matrix, a fantastical virtual
realm in which death is the only thing real. But the anime does a
good job of distinguishing itself by really putting its setting and
characters through their paces. Rather than degenerating into
mindless PK'ing, most of the players treat their virtual lives just
as carefully as their real ones. And since not everybody signed up
to do nothing but grind for max DPS, there are plenty of players in
support roles; shop keepers, blacksmiths and armourers, even people
caring for the relatively small number of young children who were
locked in on launch day. On the other hand, the show doesn't shy
away from the harsh nature of their reality; in the first month of being trapped, fully two thousand players die, and while that number
doesn't keep rising at that rate, the game world isn't safe, and
characters do die. Sometimes they're murdered, though since PK'ing
turns a visible icon hanging over your head from green to orange that's relatively rare;
more often, it's just a matter of players taking on bosses or
side-quests they aren't ready for. Over the course of the series
we're shown several small- to medium-sized guilds wiped out in just
such encounters, and the anime really sells that these are real
people dying, even though they just look like digitized avatars going
through damage animations. SAO can be downright tragic, when it
wants to be.
The anime's main protagonist is Kirito,
though I've heard that in the manga his partner Asuna plays a more
equal role. Kirito's a beater, a former beta tester whose slightly
higher starting stats allow him to operate independently, without as
much need for a support guild. He's a nice kid, though like everyone
in SAO it doesn't take long before he's more than a little haunted by
his inability to save everyone around him. Given his stats he's
routinely on the front line as the main guilds push up, level by
level, which is good because it means we're not stuck down in level 1
watching him grind through green slimes for six episodes. The only
other major character is Asuna, though there are a host of one-shot
and minor recurring characters, whose prominent presence in the
opening is a little baffling in that regard. Asuna is more of a team
player, and much more of a leader than Kirito, who can inspire by his
actions but doesn't really connect well with others. Unsurprisingly,
they fall in love (I'm not spoiling anything; the opening basically
shows them together from the very start), and their relationship
offers a really nice window into the 'civilian' side of SAO. Yes,
they fight giant multi-headed monsters in spooky dungeons, but they
also buy a house, and Asuna maxes out her Cooking attribute, and
Kirito takes on a lake monster in a fishing tournament with a very
nice retired old salaryman. They just generally get time to act like
a real couple, in a real world. It really helps sell the idea that
these people have made lives for themselves here, as you would after
months and years in a place. Of course, they are the heroes of an
action show (amongst other genres), so it should come as no surprise
that even their 'civilian' life is routinely disrupted by monsters
and PK'ers.
Married folks, you know how it is. Vacuum the living room, pick up
some milk, kill some shirtless red-skinned monsters. The usual grind.
The first half of the series is
pleasantly free of fan service, but unfortunately the second half
seems intent on making up for lost time. I don't necessarily object
to fan service in and of itself; if it's done subtly, or
occasionally, or in an interesting or inventive way, I have no
problem with it. And heck, I even enjoy catching the odd bit of
Gainaxing now and then. But in its second half SAO really does kind
of get out of control, with giant bouncing boobs and ass shots all
over the place, and a weirdly uncomfortable crush showing up, and
Asuna annoyingly reduced from lady of action to half-naked distressed
damsel. As I said, I understand that she's not as passive and
sexualized in the manga, and gets to go back to adventuring after the
end of the second arc (beyond which the anime does not go), but it's
not a great depiction of a character who, to this point, has been
Kirito's equal. I didn't find it so annoying as to preclude
finishing the series, but the Lovely Madam Meagan did grow frustrated
enough with it that she just couldn't be bothered to watch the last
couple of episodes. Which is sort of a shame, because the anime
really does end with a fantastic two-parter, but it also involves
several instances of implied or threatened rape of a minor by an
adult, one of which is just seconds away from becoming reality before
it's stopped, so maybe she was right to bow out when she did. It's
pretty uncomfortable stuff, and it's very annoying, because the anime
before that was doing a damn good job of appealing to all viewers,
regardless of their sexuality. This didn't need to be there, and it
drags the show down.
Happily, though, I can honestly say
that the fanservice in the second half is my only real complaint with
SAO. The show has excellent production values, with grand vistas,
unique character designs and amazing fight scenes all beautifully
depicted. Kirito and Asuna are great main characters, with a really
believable relationship that grows in realistic ways, and the various
one-shots and secondary characters all stand out; you're always happy
to see someone come back again, even if it's just for a minute, or in
the background. The music didn't really stand out for me, but music
rarely does; I only tend to notice it when it's either amazing or
awful, and if it's not the former at least it isn't the latter. The
show is really well paced, both in terms of the overall story (it
jumps big chunks of time early on, but slows down when the story
starts getting into the really interesting period) and moments within
that story; SAO knows when to rush from fight to fight, and when to
let a moment linger, either beautifully or tragically. You'll laugh,
you'll cry, you'll have to resist the urge to keep watching 'just one
more episode'.
Until you get to this. Then you have to resist the urge to watch all the episodes!
Sword Art Online is available on
Crunchyroll, subtitled, for free. Go check it out; you won't regret
it!
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