Anime Review: Sword Art Online II (Summer 2014)

All the gang (harem).

Guilly pleasure mix with some facepalm situations...
That's how I think of the Sword Art Online II. This anime had some great premise. I remember enjoying the first episodes of the first SOA but then thinking that Kirito (Kazuto) made Asuna pass from the second most powerful kensai to a housewife and a chef. The last twelve episodes of the first season we almost never see Asuna. 

When we start season 2 I already knew that this season had it's problems and boy it had. First of all we meet another girl Shino and she had some problems. It was very interesting two or three episodes. Enter Kirito and she becomes almost a side character of her show. Twelve episodes later I thought another woman that turn from a lion to a little kitten because of Kirito. Another woman to his harem.

Then we've got some 3 or 4 episodes that really felt like a side-quest of a videogame. Had no purpose at all and then enter the last 6 episodes and probably the better of the 48 episodes. Thus enter Yuuki. A swords-woman more powerful than Kirito and befriends Asuna. With her help and the remaining guild of sleeping knights they do a quest to be remembered. But then the last three episodes really broke my heart - I admit I cried...

Kirito & Asuna in AOL

It seems in the future (this is 2023) terminal patients and other people in pain can "live" inside a virtual world because that way they don't suffer and can live peacefully. I must say I really enjoy this (although there are some questions behind - but it's cool - this is anime).

Well it seems Yuuki has HIV and she is in her final days of life and so she has been playing for two years. The reason they wanted to do that quest was so their names become inscribe in a stone and they could life forever (or until the game lived on) after all most of the sleeping knights had terminal diseases. So the last three episodes were a roller-coaster of emotion and thank the gods Kirito was almost absent.

Sinon the un-important main character...

I think the Sword Art Online is a good franchise but I think the creator of the Light Novel didn't really knew what he was entering when he start writing the first two books. I've read in some forum that he didn't knew how to write female characters and such made them love interest more easier... That's why there is a lot of people who dislike those two books but enjoy some of the latter. First Asuna turns from Strong Female character to another female in his harem. In the second season she is almost absent in the first 12 episodes and only returns in the last 6. Then we've got the girls in the harem. His step-sister who was an important character for 12 episodes "just" exist in the season 2. The same happens with the blacksmith that was important in 2 or 3 episodes in the first season and Asuna and Kirito "Daughter".  Even Sinon who was the main character in the first 14 episodes becomes like all the other minor or irrelevant side characters. And Asuna who don't even care about them being jealous of her relation with Kirito. The situation a bout Asuna and the relation with her mother which I think could have been better. Btw, they entered the world of SAO when they were 14/15 (so middle-school) and left 2 years later



. But at 17/18 they were on the last year of high-school. Argh... hard to swallow.


Another turn-off is the all over-powerful character he is. Kirito is not in the same league of Isekai wa Smartphone to Tomo ni OR Death March kara Hajimaru Isekai Kyousoukyoku but almost. He knows everything and can do anything. When he meets someone he fights one on one but then he eventually wins. the only person he does not win is against Yuuki.


There is a movie (Sword Art Online Movie: Ordinal Scale) out that follows sword art 2 and it's a bridge to sword art online 3 Alicization that will come out in Oct 2018. Gonna watch it. Another girl to the ever growing harem? Alice?