Okay, a comparison between Total Eclipse and Sword-Art Online. I waited until I had watched the third episode of SOA because Total Eclipse did only show its uglier side there. And yes, with Sword Art Online, its third installment also was the weakest so far. So, how do they compare:
Length: Sword Art Online is confirmed for 2 cours. Total Eclipse hasn’t had its length confirmed yet, but I’m going to give it the benefit of the doubt. Winner: tie.
Setting: Sword Art Online’s setting is a bit of a cross between .Hack and the Tower of Druaga, but less creative than both. It really feels like a MMORPG where the main goal is to fight monsters, but it does portray that very well. Total Eclipse meanwhile is in a setting that is somewhat like the prequel to Blue Gender, in which giant bugs come and invade the earth and entire continents have already been annihilated. SOA wins in terms of potential and detail.
Production-values: Sword Art Online is produced by A-1 and looks gorgeous during its action scenes. Yuki Kajiura made the soundtrack, and even though it’s not among her best work, it still delivers. Total Eclipse on the other hand looks ugly, sounds ugly, and the director broke down due to work overload. Winner: SOA.
Pacing: Total Eclipse took its precious first two episode to go into anime original territory in order to flesh out the lead female more. Sword Art Online… I can’t put my finger on this because I’m unfamiliar with the source material, but it feels like a lot of scenes are skipped here. This third episode was particularly bad with that, but I also disliked how they decided to skip through the first month of content of total chaos, in which everyone has to figure out for themselves how to survive in this game. Winner: Total Eclipse.
Characters: this is a big one, so I’m splitting it up in some side-categories.
Side Characters: This is where both series dropped a lot of points. It’s not like all side characters leave things to be desired: Total Eclipse had the lead female’s former classmates. They were pretty well portrayed. Sword Art Online meanwhile had that one guy of the first episode, along with the mysterious blue-haired guy. The bad stuff in Total Eclipse is its main side-cast: they are annoying, one-sided and stereotypical. In Sword Art Online, the side-cast also lacks life: it’s hard to tell who is an NPC and who is a real character. The minor ones indeed lack any personality (like the blind sheep of the second episode). Still, it does have more and diverse good ones. Winner SOA.
How on earth did these idiots manage to survive? Both series take place in a world in which it’s very, very easy to die. And yet both series have a side-cast of idiots. For Total Eclipse, the most plausible explanation would be that they all grew up in locations without war, and that they haven’t been to the front-lines like the main female character. For SOA though, I’m not sure whether I can answer that question. The party of this episode: how come they’re still alive after they blindly dive into a room they don’t know anything about? I mean, considering the setting, wouldn’t it be the most logical that the only ones to survive up to this point would be the people who are either smart or cowards? Which also makes me beg the question: why are some of these guys fighting as fast as possible? Can’t you just take your time and just raise your level on the lower floors? I mean, the first episode said that these resources are limited, but this episode’s party didn’t seem to have any trouble to find monsters to fight. Winner: Total Eclipse.
Main Character: Both main characters (for Total Eclipse I’m using the main female character, because she is the only one to have been featured in all three episodes) are angsty and gloomy, but only SOA’s main character is that to the point of being unlikable. This also can be blamed very much on the pacing: he’s there, then he joins a party, then he and a girl fall in love from out of nowhere, then she dies and he gets even more angsty. But what surprises me the most is how he had his entire party die in front of him, and yet when the chance to revive someone appears, he ONLY thinks about that one girl, and doesn’t bother to give a second thought to the other party members who died, effectively treating them as NPCs. In fact, this highlighted my biggest problem with Sword Art Online: it acts as if human life is precious, but that only goes for certain characters with important character-designs. Apart from that, it doesn’t seem to care. Total Eclipse does. Winner: Total Eclipse.
So, a mark of 3-3. Great. In the end, I’m going to blog Sword Art Online, because its flaws are less bad than with Total Eclipse, and they can be fixed with the right build-up. With Total Eclipse though, we’re going to wait for the director to have his breakdown around episode 9 or 10…
Rating: (Enjoyable)
Agree with you on SOA…
This show is clearly overhyped, worst part was in that trap room, but the whole episode lacked subtlety and was predictable…
And the item made no sense, I mean how could the MC believe that it would revive people after being killed, since obviously when someone dies they would disconnect them from the helmet thingy…
And the item made no sense, I mean how could the MC believe that it would revive people after being killed, since obviously when someone dies they would disconnect them from the helmet thingy.
Last desperate hope? I’m a little surprised Kirito didn’t decide to take the plunge himself after what happened to Sachi.
This episode kind of pissed me off, as a fan of the Light Novels. The time skip in the light novel is actually far larger than this, and it works.
Basically, in the light novels this episode was a flash-back, and it works in the context of a flash-back. I won’t spoil why the flash-back occurred, because it’ll show up later. The thing that bugs me is that this episode is so insignificant in the context of the story, that until they reached the room with the chest in it, I couldn’t remember a thing that was going to happen.
If they keep going with this nonsense, the anime really will end up terrible, and not living up to the hype fans like me have created. I’m hoping they skip forward to the main story with the episode and skip the silly side-stories, sticking to the story structure of the actual light novel…
Just becasuethey are telling the side-stories in chronological order doesn’t make the anime suddenly terrible, that doesn’t make any sense .. i think what they chose to do is far better than skipping to the far future (from what i heard “floor 72″ or something” and the leaving the present time to go back to flashbacks .. what’s the so different about that !!! … it basically is the same story .. but i personally prefer the the current way the story is told .. jumping forward bit by bit while fleshing out the characters and setting is more enjoyable to me even if we didn’t get into the main plot yet (and many others agree to that).
I think the point Roninski is trying to make is that the Light Novels were much more thematically and narratively cohesive with the time-skips that without, and that certain seeming inconsistencies and contradictions become far more obvious.
As it is right now, pacing and what A-1 Pictures and the Production Committee have chosen to omit/rewrite are causing the most concern. Case in point with Episode 2 – the lack of time explaining why Kirito chose to take on the title of “Beater” and removing the whole animosity between him and Diabel (who did everything he could to try and screw over Kirito) hurt that episode. People unfamiliar with the light novels wouldn’t know that Kirito was one of a very small number of hardcore gamers in the Closed Beta Test, and that deaths among Beta Players were actually much higher in that missing month than for any other group. That and unlike the Light Novel – it’s not yet been made expressly clear that Player-versus-Player is permanently active outside the safe havens of the town areas and Kirito chose to deflect hatred between Betas and everyone else onto himself to stop a bloody civil war.
By choosing to reveal those things in the same time period they are revealed in the main plot (which starts at floor 72), they’ve handicapped themselves.
In fact, the chronological order telling of the stories is so problematic that the author is rewriting the Aincrad arc (presumably the first cour of this anime) under the title “Sword Art Online: Progressive” – an authoritative version of the light novel with all the side stories, new content and chronologically told (minus internal continuity, canon and logic fail that we’re seeing like in my above example).
@AnonyMoUS3
How closely do you think the LOTR trilogy follows the original books? XD
I get how you feel about the disparity between the novels and the anime but try to take the anime as a standalone adaptation of the novels. The anime has different restrictions from novels and I think they’re going to try to tell the story in quite a different way from how the original novels went. I assume you’re pretty familiar with the novels. Don’t you notice certain other discrepancies between Aria and Vol 2 and Vol 1? Like who was the first person to call Kirito a “Beater”? And when Kirito and Asuna first partied together? And how long after Vol 1 was Aria written?
I think as far as the anime is concerned, the missing subtext from Aria never happened, which is why Argo never showed up in episode 2. Sorry guys, but, once again, Han Solo didn’t shoot first. XD
@meow
I anticipated the LoTR novel comparison. Yes, I understand that the strengths and weaknesses of various media cause things to have to be done differently at times, but the issues I have indicated bother a select group (I won’t say large or small, I couldn’t possibly offer comment on that) having difficulty with how the anime is treating this.
I’m not so much complaining about the disparity myself – I’m only just reading the novels now. I’m talking about internal story logic within the anime: would it have hurt in the episode to explain the PvP thing? No – if anything it would have enhanced the episode. One line of dialogue or a clearer indication of how things were about to build to a violent fever pitch (what’s shown is too subtle for video audiences, IMHO) would have been all it took. A-1 and Aniplex chose to omit that kind of build-up character development and exposition in favour of getting straight to the fight scene. While *I* get it being familiar with MMO concepts before the light novels, a casual viewer completely unfamiliar with either world could be left scratching their head.
The real complaint, I suppose, is pacing and mood whiplash. Even with the discrepancies caused by the retcons Aria invokes, at least the tone, pacing, mood and narrative are cohesive and *generally* consistent. By putting the show in chronological order, A-1 Pictures COULD have worked with Kawahara to use the plot of his revised and authoritative chronological version (and there’s little evidence for now this is the case). They could have solved these issues, and instead they appear to have left the issues intact, making them more glaring to those who have read the books/translations or those who notice them among the mainstream audience.
I’m by no means a strict purist. I know changes have to be made for the art, but the thing about fiction is that unlike reality – it has to make sense to the audience (suspension of disbelief willing). So far, I’m seeing clues in the OP that appear to indicate this isn’t entirely the case yet.
The party of this episode: how come they’re still alive after they blindly dive into a room they don’t know anything about?
I take it you don’t MMO. Different zones of a game world are divided according to difficulty. In this case, the higher the floor, the tougher the monsters, their levels corresponding to the floor level.
At this point, assume Kirito to be the level of the strongest group of players in the game at that point, around level 40 and is probably training himself way up around lvl 30-40 or so – the frontlines so to speak. The Cats meanwhile are in their 20s and have been leveling themselves up more safely in safe areas like lvl 11. In MMOs, if your characters are much more powerful than the mobs, you can kill them easily while the mobs can barely scratch you. You earn less treasure or EXP points to level up though. Unfortunately, the reverse is true if you jump to a higher level.
The Cats were 9 levels above the lvl 11 mobs so they’re quite safe but suddenly they go up to lvl 27 where the mobs are higher level or are around the same level as they are. They have an easy time with individual mobs because, for lvl 40 Kirito, level 27 is still easy for him, but if they’re suddenly surrounded by an army, Kirito can’t protect them all. That’s how Kirito alone comes back alive, even though he’s the last one standing. And why he blames himself for not telling them his real level. If they knew he was lvl 40, they would have been more cautious about going to such a high level. Instead, they saw Kirito, apparently a fellow lvl 20-ish, having an easy time and underestimated the danger.
why are some of these guys fighting as fast as possible? Can’t you just take your time and just raise your level on the lower floors?
Well, they’re trapped inside a game world, away from family and friends and their real lives at the whim of a mad man. They were waiting for 2 months for help from the outside but it never came. And there’s no guarantee that you would remain safe in the starting town if you just stayed there. The mad man holding you hostage could get bored and just decide to kill everybody. Meanwhile, their bodies are atrophying in the real world. How long can you stay in a coma connected to the game?
The type of players also differ. There are players like Kirito – hardcore gamers who live for games like this. These are the guys on the front-line, leveling up fast and trying to monopolize the rare, super equipment that can help them survive and beat the level bosses. Then there are the newbies who stay behind at the starting town where it’s safe. And those in between like the Cats who work towards becoming front-liners but aren’t there yet.
I don’t know about the light novel, but to me, Kirito didn’t fall in love with the girl. From what I saw in the anime, he just cared about that girl because she’s the closest to him compared to the others guys. And well, he did mention that he wanted to know what the girl said before she died.
You interpretation is right. In the novels it’s clearly narrated that they didn’t fall on love or anything.
This whole story was also far less important. I don’t think it deserved a full episode, especially not in the right place chronologically. It may have worked better later on, when there’s actually context as to why it’s important….
Hm. I don’t know. I think it’s relevant to Kirito’s future actions, attitudes and motivations. Try reading “The Black Swordsman” again, right after “Red-nosed Reindeer”. I find that it fits a lot of the things that happen in the former. I agree that the event in Vol 1 is far more important though but I don’t think any weight will be lost given that we already know the context of it.
Just picked up the SAO light novel, and found that these side stories were really great for adding character depth. Especially this one had a huge impact on Kirito and stayed with him for a very long time.
But what surprises me the most is how he had his entire party die in front of him, and yet when the chance to revive someone appears, he ONLY thinks about that one girl, and doesn’t bother to give a second thought to the other party members who died, effectively treating them as NPCs.
There’s only one item in this one rare event that happens once a year at Christmas. He can only revive on person. Or so he thought. And I would say he had the most regrets about Sachi because she was the one person who didn’t want to be there. The others were all for the fighting but she alone never wanted to leave the starting town. Instead of telling the rest to let Sachi leave the group and remain where it was safe, he instead promised to guarantee her safety and encouraged her to keep risking her life. In the end, when she died, he would have the most regrets about her, more than anyone else. It’s the reason why he hates joining parties or guilds and would rather risk only his own life playing solo.
Everything is subject of opinion but about the pacing: You can’t expect the series not to have time-skips when they have to clear one hundred floors.
Oh, also about your previous question about the hair: Even when the face and bodie are like their real ones; the hair is still customizable like in most MMOs.
Its not like i want to be a fag, but i sincerly dont think you understand the premisse of the episode.
Maybe is because you dont play MMOs ?
Rly like your other reviews tho.
SOA?
you mean SAO?
It’s quite easy for dutch people to mix that up, because SAO is very similar to SOA which is the abbreviation of “sexually transmitted disease” in Dutch.
While Ep3 wasn’t very good because they are trying to fit too much into one episode, I do have to say: do you personally care or mourn for people you’re not attached to? If two people die, and I care deeply for one, and the other is just some acquaintance I know of.. I don’t even think about the latter.
I don’t mind SAO too much atm, the pacing is too fast, yes, but they’re animating side stories from what I understand, so it’s extra build up that admittedly could be handled better, but can be excused if they do a good job on the main novel. Whether they will… well, that’s still up in the air.
I dont thing was a bad the third episode, really rushed, but in the end very well done. I expect that either you dont know much about MMRPG, or you dont put to much atention, but for me the Mc background, background and the history was present in the best posible way in paralell whit the fast passing that they want achive. Is no like they must explain everithing like in the novels because they are using the visuals to resume a lot of things, also skip. but is kinda dificult to do it whit that fast passing and can anoying, but i thing they are made a very good job in the adaptation, also is a anime version is no like they must do the same like in the novels. Is because i am so excited about this, but for me is the best anime of the season by far, also superior to hack and doruaga XD. is about likes and dislikes I think.
“then he and a girl fall in love from out of nowhere”
No, they didn’t. Nothing in this episode hinted at that. Hell they didn’t even blush at each other. Also I find you hating this character for angst to be contradictory considering that you find Tsukasa to be a good main character when Tsukasa was angst as hell with not even half the reason Kirito has to be. The sudden time skip can be blamed for Kiritos angst. I don’t find Kirito to be unlikeable either. He hasn’t really given the viewer any reason to hate him.
That said I didn’t think much of this episode. It was badly paced and handled somewhat poorly. Not to mention introducing the information broker and omitting her in the episode where she played a significant role was pretty stupid. The characters deaths were too sudden to gain an emotional response and before that the characters interactions were a little fake.
Ah, one more thing. Yuki’s getting lazy. Some of the tunes in this episode felt like they were airlifted from Fate/zero. Especially the music in the scene were Kirito played Sachi’s message.
Psgels, pacing issues of the episode aside, I think you dropped the ball a bit on your analysis. SOA, at least so far, is doing a pretty good job at illustrating how people are dealing with a rather insane situation.
Secondly, Kirito as a character is far better than anyone in Eclipse. Sure he’s moody, but at least you can empathize with the fact that he’s a hardcore survivor who doesn’t deal well emotionally with the consequences of his decisions, particularly when those choices deal with the fragile lives of other people.
*SAO
Humm, why are people using the “you must not know much about mmo’s” excuse to explain lazy character development and bad storytelling?
Stop it please, it’s not a mmo, it stopped being one the moment they were told they were going to die for real, it’s a survival game with a bunch of hidden rules, and if you are a fan boy, stop trying to protect the anime when it does shit, you’re a fan boy because the novel is good, it has nothing to do with the anime, at least yet… Also remember psgels and a bunch of people didn’t read the novels, so they are judging the anime for what it is, and when they don’t give background enough for the character’s actions to make sense, its bad storytelling… And it will be called up and criticized.
That said, I do like this anime and I’m having fun watching it (well episode 3 took some of it away, but still…), also it’s the first anime in a long time that has a setting that I can imagine myself inside and even wish I was part of, but off course the setting is the creator’s work and so the kudos goes to him not the anime and its staff.
As for Kirito, man how much of a hypocrite is he? He acts like some kind of hero, but thinks like some pathetic emo loser and then he goes from a smart and awesome gamer to a dumb dramatic kid who throws away an object that may save him from making the same mistake twice (a mistake that was his only in his own head). But you know what all of this is acceptable, because he is a 14-15 (or whatever) kid, as long as he learns from this shit and grow up its all cool. After all I can’t believe they will pull some Mirai Nikki shit on us. As for Klein’s reaction, why? Fucking why? I mean the guy is a guild leader, a good one at that, and he gets this awesome item that will make him able to save one of his guild mates (which also are his real life friends) and instead of going, hey thanks man, he goes “You can’t die Kiritooooooo!!!” with teary eyes. WTF they played together for 1 day months ago, why the hell he is acting like the guy is the fucking love of his life. Now I’m reasonable and I’m pretty sure the novel gave background for that scene, or just described the scene in a different light, but the anime surely didn’t and as it is it became a clear case of overdramatic bad acting to try and give reason to Kirito’s dumb action and hypocrite way of thinking.
But oh well, I’ll just go and read the novel since its almost whole translated and there must be a reason for all the hype and keep watching the anime for the eye candy and as a side material.
Or maybe Klein does like him in that way….who knows? Hahaha.
I’m not sure how Kirito became a “pathetic emo loser” though. His actions were in complete line with what I expected him to act based on his established character (uneasiness around people) and after enduring such a horrific event, it would be strange not to be traumatized.
I feel like you and psgels are being too critical, for now. Especially you, since background can be filled in as we go along the story. I’m sure the LN really does flesh out these things more and probably is superior, but I hear the anime is taking a different approach by being chronological and thus starting with these side stories instead. I didn’t think this episode was outstanding – was obvious things were rushed – but I am willing to see if the anime can make something good out of taking this alternate route. If not, I will give the novels a read along the line. (Although I probably will read it anyway if I continue to like the story.)
Sorry but your comment comes of as quite pretentious and clueless … it is still an MMO .. just because they die for real doesn’t change anything about it being an MMO game with all the grinding, monster levels varying from place to place, farming EXP .. they are all MMO stables and affect the story in many ways .. if you don’t know that then please don’t embarrass yourself and go play some MMO or something.
In MMORPGs or even RPGs that you can go anywhere (and they could go up to floor 27 because the front-liners cleared the bosses all the way up to the floor they are on) a common complaint is that you can suddenly find yourself in an area with high level monsters without noticing and you get yourself killed before you can escape .. so it is something that DOES happen a lot in games of this type.
And what’s with randomly hurling meaningless criticisms with no examples to support them whatsoever .. what “lazy character development and bad storytelling” are you talking about !!! .. and the only example you mentioned shows you really neither understand the characters nor their motivations … he threw the item away because he clearly -at that moment- decided he would never team up with anyone again … so he gave it to Klein who clearly has more use for it being a clan leader and all (and also helped him get it when he and his clan stopped the other hi-level clan from getting to the boss).. Kiritio doesn’t seem to even value his own life that much after that incident .. considering how suicidal he was when he attacked that evil santa boss solo .. so either way he has no use for an item like that.
As for Klein, i’m not sure whether you were asleep during the first episode or what .. Klein was already established as an emotional, larger-than-life character .. he talks out loud and a lot, says whatever that is on his mind, is social and is kinda hyperactive .. he is almost the polar opposite of Kirito .. add to that the fact that Kiritio taught him the basics of the game and they both witnessed the declaration of the dearth rule together .. Klein clearly has an attachment to Kirito and considers him a friend .. and when you are in a game of death like that .. it is only natural for Klein to react the way he did.
It’s funny how many people are jumping the “it’s waaay toooo overhyped” bandwagon .. it seems some people still think that over-criticizing anything that’s successful and popular makes you sound smart and “above” the masses .. well .. it DOESN’T.
“It’s funny how many people are jumping the “it’s waaay toooo overhyped” bandwagon .. it seems some people still think that over-criticizing anything that’s successful and popular makes you sound smart and “above” the masses .. well .. it DOESN’T.”
… or we just don’t like it as much as you do.
Seriously, let me ask everyone who mentioned that it’s normal to walk into an area that’s too high for you a question: would you still do the same if you’d physically die, the moment your HP reaches zero?
Well, if you play any RPG game that has a “hardcore” mode in which the death of your character is permanent (Diablo, The Witcher, etc etc) you will know that sometimes you can get cocky/overconfident and get your character killed losing long hours of questing and grinding in the process .. it can be pretty crushing .. closest thing to SAO experience without actually dieing for real XD
They clearly became overconfident because of Kirito being around and with his help it “seemed” easy to beat monsters on that floor (and remember clearly they think he is the same level as them or slightly higher .. not double their level).
With that false sense of confidence and all the prior talk about striving to join the front-liners no wonder they got cocky and made a mistake like that .. and that’s why Kirito blames himself for their deaths .. if he hadn’t hidden his level from them they wouldn’t have gotten this “false” sense of security and wouldn’t have screwed up this badly.
And he blames himself even more for the death of Sachi because he promised her face-to-face that he would protect her and that she would live to see the end of the game and go back to the real world (a promise he clearly and utterly failed), and no .. he clearly didn’t fall in love with her .. he was just emotionally supporting her since she was so depressed (and in fact didn’t even want to leave the safety of towns) .. again that’s why when he had that flase hope of revival he first and foremost thought of reviving her (even if deep sown inside he knew it was impossible he hoped to at least listen to her last words .. maybe he was hoping the game recorded the actions/ghosts of players and the item would bring that back even for a moment).
I’m not saying that the show is flawless or perfect .. it has it’s flaws ..i.e the pacing in this episode was too fast (i felt it would have been better if spread among two episodes .. but it seems they want to finish as many side stories as they can before getting into the main storyline) .. what i’m saying is that most of the complaints stem from people who weren’t paying attention or misunderstood some aspects of the story .. i.e they are most of the time weakly structured complaints IMO.
As for Klein, i’m not sure whether you were asleep during the first episode or what .. Klein was already established as an emotional, larger-than-life character .. he talks out loud and a lot, says whatever that is on his mind, is social and is kinda hyperactive .. he is almost the polar opposite of Kirito .. add to that the fact that Kiritio taught him the basics of the game and they both witnessed the declaration of the dearth rule together .. Klein clearly has an attachment to Kirito and considers him a friend .. and when you are in a game of death like that .. it is only natural for Klein to react the way he did.
Yes, exactly!
Humm, its interesting how you switch between mmo and “death game” so it can suit your arguments.
That should be answer enough for you, but since you went through the trouble of writing such a big answer to my post the least I can do is explain the little things that for some reason you weren’t able to understand.
Now from where I should start?
Oh, the first paragraph off course where you attack me personally assuming I don’t know what a mmo is. Well, that’s the kind of thing I expect from kids… you know attacking the person and assuming stuff instead of paying attention to the post and argument. Anyways while it’s true that mmo’s aren’t really my thing I played my share of them and even capped 1 or 2, so yeah I know what it is about and its characteristics. That said, if you had processed what I said about “the game” with your brain instead of with your fanboy heart, you would have understood that I didn’t deny that the “game” was at its core an mmo and that it was based around an mmo concept, but that it stopped mattering the moment that the “real death” was thrown at them, and by it I mean that whatever common sense the players had about what an mmo was wasn’t common sense anymore.
“And what’s with randomly hurling meaningless criticisms with no examples to support them whatsoever.. what “lazy character development and bad storytelling” are you talking about !!!“
Well that was my mistake; I really didn’t give an example because it was so obvious I thought I didn’t have to. But oh well let me explain what the “lazy character development and bad storytelling” is: When you introduce characters just so you can kill then for your main character(s) to grow up its called lazy character development. When you are unable to provide background or reasons for characters actions or forget about your setting and its rules, circumstances just so you can move your plot, then we have a problem of bad storytelling. The whole episode was rushed and it explains the lack of background, but explaining it doesn’t fix it.
This “he threw the item away because he clearly -at that moment- decided he would never team up with anyone again” and this “Kiritio doesn’t seem to even value his own life that much after that incident .. considering how suicidal he was when he attacked that evil santa boss solo .. so either way he has no use for an item like that.” Explain why I said he turned from an awesome gamer to pathetic and dramatic loser and the reason for all this was his hypocrisy. The girl never believed he would keep her alive until they cleared the game (the voice mail is proof), but he in his wish of being needed lied to himself that he would be able to and when he obviously failed he went all emo. But like I already said its ok, he is a 14/15 year old kid after all what makes it acceptable as long as it pays off in the long run.
As for all you got about Klein from that first episode, I have to say wow, you’re either really empathetic with 2d sprites or you read the novel. Because what I got from Klein on that first episode was that he was outgoing and charismatic. That’s it. Then on this episode he comes as he did on the first outgoing and cool, not even being mad at the fact that Kirito left him behind. He even suggested that they should party up and randomly distribute the item. Then out of fucking nowhere he goes all “drama queen” on me. Like I also said before the novel may have given background for that action, but the anime surely didn’t.
As for your last paragraph, well, like I also said I’m having fun with the anime and I do like the setting, I’m not going against the hype, I’m judging it for what it is and pointing and criticizing its mistakes, or at least what I identified as such in the episode we are discussing.
A last word and little advice try using your brain instead of your heart and passion next time you are going to answer to some criticism against a series or media you are a fan off.
And thanks for taking your time to read and answer my post.
First things first, i don’t know how old are you nor do i care, so don’t bring the whole age “thing” cause it only weakens your argument (it is actually a personal attack) .. in turn i didn’t personally attack you .. all i said was that you clearly don’t know much about MMOs .. and i wasn’t that wrong it seems.
Second .. just because they can die for real doesn’t change all the other MMO systems and rules in that world .. so it still matter that it is an MMO .. actually it matters as much as the “death rule” does .. other wise it would be more like a Battle Royale with monsters .. what sets this story apart from other similar Battle Royale scenarios is that it happens inside a freaking game/digital world .. almost 80% of the decisions and actions of the people in there are dictated by the very fact it is a god damn MMO (loot and exp rules, combat tactics, items, grinding areas, .. etc etc) .. so please stop trying to ignore this fact, if you can’t realize that a huge part of the appeal of this series is that it happens inside an MMO world with MMO rules (except with one rule changed) then by all means stop watching it please XD
And if you think it is ok that he made promises he can’t keep then got all emo and acted rashly when he failed to fulfill those promises, why did you then call this bad character development if you think it is ok and is justified (and it is, and according to the novel readers it will pay off in the long run) .. that really doesn’t make sense.
As for Klein .. i didn’t read the novels, and being empathetic with a character you can relate to is a natural thing (regardless of them being a 2D sprite or an actor or a written character in a book/novel .. obviously it makes no difference what so ever if the character is well written), they don’t have to spoon-feed us all the traits of the characters in a forced way .. every action Klein did clearly shows off his personality and behavior .. it wasn’t hard to deduce what type of character/person he is .. the way he acted when he got reunited with Kirito is perfectly in tow with what i expected from him in that situation, he is hyperactive, social, emotional, gutsy and values friendship and is a natural leader who clearly cares for his guild .. given the situation acting a bit dramatic like that is a very natural response from him.
And it isn’t about heart or brains, the criticisms you made missed the point either because you don’t take the setting and characters personalities in account before judging the situation (you didn’t even bother trying to read between the lines or doing any sort of effort trying to understand the characters or the unique setting they are in) or -your criticisms- were self contradictory like the “that’s bad character development .. *few paragraphs later* .. but it is ok” … sigh .. thanks for reading my post and for the advice anyway XD
Ok let’s stop with the first paragraph thing, since it would be stupid and a waste of time to keep it up.
As for the mmo part… Again, I’m not denying that the systems are there and that the concept is one of an mmo, what I’m saying is that from the moment the “death” thing came up the systems and whatever became secondary, or at least should if they want to keep our suspense of disbelief; Staying alive became primary btw. So it doesn’t matter if the systems are there, they can’t be tackled as they were, let’s say on beta, when you probably just lost some EXP and was sent back to town, now they need to be tackled with that super big rule in mind, what makes of this game a completely new kind of game. Or have you played any game where game over equals’ physical death? And with that in mind came the criticism, in this kind of setting you can’t just pick your chars and dumbly kill then making they tackle the game as an normal mmo and expect normal viewers (the ones that aren’t biased) to just go and accept it.
As for the character development part: You’re confusing character development with acting, what I said that was acceptable was Kirito acting like an emo because he is a kid. Introducing and killing one sided characters so you can make your main character have a situation in which he can act and develop is and always will be lazy and weak character development.
As for all you say about Klein and the characters: While you can say I don’t read or get them enough, for me you read them too much so you can protect the series when it takes twists out of its ass because its too rushed to actually give background. If Klein had slapped Kirito telling him to fucking wake and grow up, then I would have believed it, because that’s what I expect of a mature and charismatic char, not kneeling with teary eyes and screaming a bunch of dramatic stuff (btw this kind of action isn’t a bit dramatic, if something it’s too dramatic).
If you don’t get it now we will just have to agree in disagreeing because you probably like this series too much to be able to see its weakness and mistakes. Anyways thanks again for taking your time and cya around the blog 😀
Keep in mind that the players in-game have no idea if you actually die when your HP reach zero. Make you go to a white room, or maybe you simply sleep, or whatever, while they wait for the game to be cleared. Maybe death is delayed with months, there is no reason it should occur at the moment the HP reach zero, it could be delayed.
The only thing they actually know is that they can’t be disconnected, otherwise they would have been disconnected already.
So they don’t know for certain that HP 0 = death, rather they suspect it and go by the assumption that it is true.
In the anime, they were told in the very first episode that if they died the microwave device in the helmet would destroy their brain.
There’s a good possibility that several people might have tried to go into denial about it like Klein did at first. Only people like Kirito had the ability to independently confirm the possibility because he had done so much research on the developer, along with the technology around the game and knew what the NerveGear could do. And he had done enough research on the developer himself to know that he was serious about killing off players who tried to leave the game early or were killed in-game.
Yes, they were told by the GM. But what about it? As meow said, they could be in denial. After all, they have seen no proof of it. The only way to verify it would be to die yourself. There is no way for them to confirm it.
Maybe the GM lied and players that die simply log out, the only way to log out (since evidently removing the NETgear doesn’t work, otherwise family and friends would have logged them out). The players in the game can not know, it is impossible for them, since there is no information flowing into the game from the outside, no news or mail or anything.
Just look at religion for a reason why people believe in a life after death, would it be so strange that some players cling to the belief that they won’t die even if their HP reach zero? After all, there is no evidence either way. That doesn’t mean they will test it, though. Merely hope. Belief. A dangerous belief, but still it is still… realistic I suppose.
As with everyone else gripe about the traproom, to those of us who’ve played enough games. A empty room with one door and chest, always scream trap. Casual players like the black cats, well. vOv
Having not read the LNs, Klein’s earnest declaration was a bit strange at first, but then it occured to me, that Klein last saw Kirito rushing with determination to get this item. Afterwards, he seemed very dejected, as if he could not find what he wanted. The ten seconds line explains it all, and ulimately Klein’s declaration seems like the declaration of someone trying to stop another decent human being from pulling a anhero. That increased my opinion of Klein by quite a bit.
As for the bluehaired one in episode 2, Kirito took out the potion but the bluehaired one felt he was undeserving. From what I recall of that episode, he refused Kirito’s position, feeling that he was not worthy of such.
OH I see. . .then that makes sense, but. . .still this episode was just. . . *facepalm* worthy. . .although I STILL like it than that crap that is muv luv alternative, that third episode there was just unforgivable . . .it was that bad.
this episode was just annoying, and hopefully they’ll get to the real story soon.
Well, LN readers are totally pissed (according to my sis) about the skips and changes to SAO so you might be right about how its going too fast. I certainly felt it. Glad you’re blogging it though ^_^
SOA animators are doing a good job. Pacing problems are due to source material issues – they are not covering it because there’s nothing to cover during the first month. The main story starts after two years, right now they are just going through the side stories in chronological order and they are basically all a bit disjoint – and the pacing in the side stories isn’t the best. For episode three they’ve cut very little (mostly parts of the framing story, not the actual guild storyline) and actually expanded a number of scenes that were somewhat glossed over.
So wait wait wait. You completely dropped Total Eclipse? You not going to at least put it in the Kaleidoscope each week?
Oh don’t worry. I’ll at least check out the fourth episode.
How the hell did the idiots survive? Because Kirito was spoon feeding them before, so they got overconfident
yeah those guys were pretty stupid, I mean why go to something that is higher level than you are, especially without your leader. . .and why the hell at the end did the leader an hero wtf. . .
And yeah. . .the chick and kirito spent the night together in the same bed. . .I kinda think there was some attraction going on there. If it were klein sharing the same bed, we’d all be shouting “BL” “BL”! so yeah, they were trying to say that all of a sudden they’re in love… which I guess could make sense being that kirito is a 14 year old boy hahah.
but yeah, that guild was waaaay to happy go lucky. It was like they were caricatures for actual characters, so when they died. . .I didnt really care.
Well, I’m lucky, I guess. I read the first novel… and not the second. I don’t know about these side stories yet (well, this one was mentioned–as soon as the episode started, I was already depressed because I could see it coming…), but they play the role of very intriguing bonus information for me, so I’m very interested and pleased… but I see why that’s only my circumstance and not true for everyone.
At least give it the chance to start going through the story of the first novel, which started with episode 1, but… skipped to two years later, after the shock settled in. If anything, the novel was very adamant about showing us how humans adapt quickly to their environment. If only they would show us more of that part of the story…
Very interesting analysis. I agree with it, practically every word. It seems like the “big picture” makes it tough to decide which one of these shows to stick with, but I’m (for now) glad you’re sticking with SAO over Muv.
Completely agree with your review.
Honestly, a lot of your criticisms of SAO can be targeted at the light novel. I’ve read them, and while i admit they’re a fun read, they definitely don’t deserve the crazy praise people are giving it.
I’ve followed your blog for a few years, and honestly, I can’t imagine you liking SAO in the long term. Then again, I have been surprised
SAO is Overhyped
Muv » SAO any day any time.
SAO sure brings a lot of people together both in the game and in real life, for the same results.
We never read the source material to anything, and so approach everything as anime-only series.
From that perspective, if we had to choose between SAO and Muv-Luv, we too would choose SAO. We like series that look and sound good, and if a series doesn’t, it has to have something else going for it.
For Muv-Luv, it’s about how small and insignificant the personal problems of the cast really matter against the larger backdrop of impending global doom. The series has wisely avoided piling on the loss and bloodshed too soon – too much tragedy would put people off – but there’s a great tension that it could back ratchet up at any moment.
We didn’t mind SAO’s “romance of the week”, as it strikes us as something that would plausibly happen to someone like Kirito: both hanging back from the front lines and falling for a girl here and there.
The first three episodes have done a decent job demonstrating the gradations of power and powerlessness all SAO players possess. Players’ chosen level of responsibility for the fates of others may vary (as it does for Kirito), but ultimately everyone is responsible for their own survival.
Take the guild’s leader Keita: he chose to follow his comrades (and real-life friends) into death because he simply couldn’t continue on without them. He tied his fate to them; Kirito didn’t. Even when he loses someone he loves, he doesn’t follow her.
I’ve never seen a blog compare like this two absolutely unrelated anime.
Why is this site so popular again?
Well, in Psgels defense .. he is comparing them because he wants to choose one of them to blog and drop the other .. that’s why he had to compare them .. he could have done that behind the scenes but he chose to share it with us .. i don’t see any problem with that.
That is the reason why this site is so popular, it does stuff that no one else dares to do.
As someone who haven’;t read the novels, i don’t really see the problem with this episode being shown earlier than in the books, if there was no discussion about it here, i wouldn’t even know it. That said perhaps a whole episode as flashback wouldn’t work well at a point where the viewer is much more deeper involved in the story. TV as a medium is very different than a book, but perhaps it’s pointless to argue about it until we actually reach that particular point?
Aside from that I did liked this episode a lot, it tackled an issue that i was wondering about: this episode had a character who reacted realistically to the possibility of actually dying and the suicide bit was also quite fitting (not the particular character suicide, but the fact that many did commit suicide). I’m glad that the creator didn’t left the issue of how the players deal with the possibility of actual death at just the group panic of the first episode. In fact i’m glad that they didn’t wait to tackle these issues. It makes much more sense to me to show this now than later.
Also, about Kirito only caring for one girl: it makes sense, he came to be closer to her than anyone else, he didn’t see her romantically but she was the reason he agreed to join.
@boo
Hm. I’ll try to elaborate a bit about Kirito’s situation. It’s from background stuff from the novels that you could infer from the 1st and 2nd episodes. Possible *SPOILERS* so READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.
You watched the ending of episode 2 right? Kirito basically started to mock everyone and take everyone’s prejudice against beta testers on himself. He was fine with that because he was a pretty anti-social, hardcore soloist who had a hard time trusting people anyway. You can get that from episode 1 where he trusts Klein but is terribly reluctant to meet his unknown buddies. As a result, he gets this reputation of being a “Beater” and basically everyone hates his guts for not helping everyone beat the game like Diabel, the blue-haired knight, and possibly leaving him to die.
My read on why Kirito insisted on going solo though from episode 1 is that he doesn’t believe he can protect everyone and just doesn’t want to be responsible for people dying by falsely relying on his so-called beta test knowledge. Diabel was a beta tester too but both were fooled by the 1st Floor Boss’ changed attack pattern which Kirito recognized from a completely different part of the game.
However, after a few months of grinding, he’s gotten up to a nice high level and on a trip to a much lower level, meets a bunch of friendly people (the Cats). Apparently, he saves them from a pinch but doesn’t want to reveal his level cos he’s terrified that they’ll recognize him as the “Beater” and hate his guts. He winds up liking them and wants to be with them to end his loneliness. I mean, he’s been in this game for months risking his life with very few friends. Even his relationship with Klein is like what you see in episode 3. I suppose you could say they were his safe place to belong while he was stuck in the game world, cut off from his family. He helps them level up little by little but he’s not used to working in a team or dealing with leading one, especially one with a level gap. And the trap room they wind up in is absolutely impossible to plan for. The worst part about the trap was it’s Anti-Crystal nature, meaning teleport escape crystals didn’t work. This type of trap is incredibly rare, and almost unheard of in the lower levels. I wonder if the system might have added that element to the trap because Kirito was so overpowered for that floor.
I don’t think Kirito was in love with Sachi. It’s just that Sachi admired his strength and opened up to him about her fears and troubles and Kirito promised to protect her no matter what. Personally, I think he should have talked to the other Cats into letting her leave the active party and stay in town as a non-frontline class like a cook, merchant or blacksmith. But I think he too felt overconfident in his own abilities to protect his friends. Unfortunately, the game threw him a curve ball and it was a doozy. The other guys were all for adventuring. It was their idea to go up to higher levels and to open that chest carelessly. They forgot how deadly the game really was and paid the ultimate price. But to Kirito, Sachi shouldn’t have and he blames himself for it. And when Kirito reported everything to the guild leader, he had to explain how he himself survived and reported his true level. The guildmaster accused Kirito of failing to protect his friends, just like how he may have been rumored to have failed to protect Diabel. Calling him a “Beater”, feeling betrayed and having lost those closest to him in the world, he committed suicide.
Yeah. Hard to read from this single episode. The pace was way too fast considering the implications, although in all fairness, many of the points I make above should be fleshed out a lot more in future episodes. Hope this helps you a better read of what happened this episode. The events in this episode help explain why he remains a soloist, even though he knows it’s inefficient, terribly risky and makes it impossible to deal with huge obstacles like Floor Bosses on their own. Kirito going up against that Event Boss was actually something like an act of suicidal recklessness. Usually, bosses like that need a Raid team of several parties to deal with, like the first Floor Boss. Even Argo said so. And the reason Klein followed Kirito was to try to save him from killing himself.
Thanks for the summary, but yeah, that’s pretty much what I got from these three episodes. Did I mistyped something? From your description the anime does pretty good job at adapting.
I just wanted to make sure. Like you said in the shoutbox, different people take different things away from looking at the same picture.
True! 🙂
About resources, since the higher levels are more sparsely populated, it’s easier to monopolise a monster area by yourself which is by far the most efficient way and best way to gain experience, whether you are solo or with a group. Fighting over monster spawns in the lower areas which are far more populated, you find yourself constantly looking for monsters and suffer significant downtime. But since the Cats were a decent sized group, they probably managed to monopolise the area making it a less efficient area for anyone else.
In the light novel it’s mentioned that Kirito had specfically taken them to the area to level up, having used it himself in the past. So maybe it was a more secluded one.