Sword Art Online (Season 2) Series Review

Do you think it’s possible to stop a player’s heart with a bullet fired from within a video game? This was the core plot idea of the second season of Sword Art Online. In this season, the element of fantasy takes a step back and a more cyberpunk and industrial feel comes into play, with guns and ammo.

Synopsis

A few years after the incident of SAO, virtual reality massively multiplayer online role-playing games (VRMMORPG) have gone viral since ‘The seed’, a program package, was released to the public and everyone could create their own virtual reality games. In a game by the name of Gun Gale Online there is a rumor that one player has the ability to kill a person in the real world by killing their virtual avatar. Kirito is given the task to investigate the matter and find out if this is actually true or not.

Plot & Story

The season actually follows three different arcs, ‘Phantom Bullet’, ‘Calibur’, and ‘Mother’s Rosario’. In the first arc, Kirito has to dive in another virtual game Gun Gale Online in order to investigate the rumored player that can kill people by shooting their virtual characters, who happens to be a member of the PKing clan in SAO, ‘Laughing Coffin’. In his attempt to do so, he meets Sinon, the best sniper in-game player who helps him accomplish his mission. The second arc is all about a quest to find the legendary sword Excalibur within ALfheim Online, and the third arc focuses more on Asuna and how she gets close to a girl named Yuuki who is the strongest warrior within the game but happens to suffer from a terminal disease and doesn’t have too long to live. ‘Phantom Bullet’ had an interesting and engaging story with a fairly good plot, even though you knew that in the end Kirito is super badass and will always be the winner but the other two arcs were not that exciting and to this day I wonder how and why they decided to animate them.

Art & Music

Animation was great and followed the same effects and good fighting scenes from the first season, with cute and detailed character designs, although sometimes you could spot some mistakes or low quality animation in the side characters. For example, in many conversations where they were a lot of characters involved, you could see them with a blank face staring at the back which for me is kind of disappointing to see, especially when you put so much effort into delivering quality animation throughout the whole series. Also, when Sinon converts into ALO, her ears have a different size in almost every scene. The music and voice acting were also very good, especially Sinon’s seiyuu, Miyuki Sawashiro (Celty Sturluson in Durarara!!) who gave a unique and great performance for her character.

Themes & Trivia

Klein and his samurai ways: Klein believes himself to be a samurai warrior and in the ‘Calibur’ arc he mentions something about his bushido. Bushido (武士道, ‘the way of the warrior’) is a Japanese term for the many codes of honor and ideals that uttered the samurai way of life. The ‘way’ originates from the samurai moral values, most commonly stressing some combination of sincerity, frugality, loyalty, martial arts mastery, and honor until death.

Norse mythology references in ALO: There are so many references from the Norse mythology in Alfheim Online. Starting from the NPCs and the weapons presented in the ‘Calibur’ arc we have: Thor, the god of thunder, and the one who wields the magic hammer Mjolnir; Freya, the goddess associated with love, war, death, reproduction, beauty, fertility, and gold; and Thrym who is the king of Jotunheim. As for the worlds of ALO: Jotunheim means the land of giants, Nilfheim is the land of ice and snow, Muspelheim is land of fire, and Alfheim means the land of fairies. Most of the races that live in Alfheim are not from Norse mythology, but from England, Ireland,and Scotland, with the exception of the Salamander race.

Comments

So the main difference in Kirito’s character in GGO was his long hair that made him look like a girl and his motorcycle skills. I don’t enjoy the fact that Kirito is portrayed to be as the only ideal and good male in the whole series. If you think about it, any other male character that shows up, most of the time as love interests for the female characters, they are super perverted and sick in the head. In this season, we have Shinkawa who follows into the steps from King Oberon from Season 1, as he tries to rape Sinon as well. What the actual f*ck.

On that note, why are the girls in Sword Art Online always portrayed as sexual object, showing their boobs and butt cracks with weird camera shots? And it’s not only that. Kirito is shown to have dreams, goals, and aspirations for his future but, of course, Asuna’s dream is to follow Kirito and be with him for the rest of her life. What kind of biased mentality is that, seriously? I will also address the subject of how girls are treated when they play video games. They are shown to wear revealing clothes, and obviously, they are not just recognised for their skills but just because they are girls they get popular and everyone tries to hit on them. Kirito even mocks this by acting all cute. Great role models, Sword Art Online, really well done.

It’s okay to live, even if there’s no greater point to living.

Plus:

Good fighting scenes
Nice humor
Cute character design

Minus:

Plot was a bit boring at some points
The show gives some really bad male and female standards to look up for in general.

Is Sword Art Online an overrated show? I can’t really give a clear answer to this because even though I don’t really love it, I don’t hate it either. As mentioned in my review of the first season of Sword Art Online, it is a good combination of a variety of things that can make a show successful. The thing that I probably enjoyed the most in this season was the character of Yuuki and her story. It did made me cry and revaluate some things in life.

What are your thoughts? Are you excited about the new spin-off season Gun Gale Online that is coming out soon? If you could play GGO or SAO which one would you choose and why?