Japanese Title: Sword Art Online 2

 

Related: Sword Art Online (1^st season)

Similar: Log Horizon

No Game No Life

Zegapain

 

Watched in: Japanese & English

Genre: Action Fantasy Science Fiction

Length: 24 episodes

 

Positives:

• Makes the first season seem amazing

Negatives:

• Kirito is more Mary Sue than ever
• New girl’s backstory is hysterical
• Act 3 is filler, yet again!
• Exposition dumps everywhere
• The garbage keeps piling up

(Request an anime for review here.)

I don’t know how he did it, but he managed to make Sword Art Online look like a masterpiece. Sword Art Online 2 is such trash that you’re going to need a hazmat suit to sit through all the cancer this anime jabs into your eyeballs.

Shortly after the events of the first season, where thousands died trapped in a virtual MMO, everyone has forgotten about the incident and nothing came of the disaster. Utterly incompetent at everything, the government hires Mary “Kirito” Sue to enter the latest virtual MMO craze, Gun Gale Online, and figure out how a player can kill people in real life by shooting them in game with a “Death Gun” (not kidding). He teams up with the useless sniper Plumber’s “Sinon” Crack, who has the tragic backstory of being terrified of finger guns (not kidding). Meanwhile, Mary Sue’s harem of useless women (including his sister and “daughter”) are stuck in last year’s game, some fantasy trash no one cares about anymore, while they circlejill about how amazing Mary Sue is. They don’t matter, their game doesn’t matter, so let’s forget them there.

Where to begin?

The exposition dumps! I lost count of the amount of time spent with characters sitting down – often in a diner – just vomiting exposition. The first episode alone spends over half of its time on one such scene. I get that Sword Art Online is made for the lowest tier, but have some respect for their intelligence. When it isn’t farting exposition in your mouth after having eaten five too many spicy burritos the night before, Sword Art Online 2 graces you with filler dialogue and some of the dumbest lines in anime history. Mary Sue acts like a dimwit before the show’s big tournament just so the girl can explain everything. The narrative dumps everything beforehand rather than showing it to the audience along the way. Let’s not forget the repetition. It repeats a flashback of a fight with the villain group from SAO four times!

Then we have the new game of the season, Gun Gale Online. This game is reason enough to slam this anime in the dumpster. First, they advertise it as the only game with pro players (what?), then the way they talk about character builds and the metagame doesn’t make sense for a shooter (even one with RPG elements). The system for getting paid – converting virtual currency to real money – is also illegal yet never questioned (remember, the government sent Mary Sue into this game, so wouldn’t they do something?) Once inside the game, it only gets worse. You know what would be better than an empty shell of a new world each season? One fully developed world instead.

How do players not die in a single hit if everyone uses guns? Well, in Gun Gale Online, you can see the trajectory of a bullet before it fires. Did the author put any thought into this? Look, if I pointed a gun at you and told you where I was aiming, you still wouldn’t dodge in time. The only way this works is if the bullets are as slow as molasses, in which case, why bother with guns at all? It’s so stupid it hurts.

Apparently, the character creator is random. Mary Sue has a female avatar generated for him (oh the sweet irony), which is just an excuse to have him be a girl this season – a girl, by the way, that looks just like him, though that may be down to A-1 Pictures’ inability to draw more than one face. Yeah, “random”.

You know SAO 2 is going to be shite in episode 4 – well, from the first scene really, but episode 4 cements it at the bottom of the ocean. Mary Sue needs money as a new player and sees a gambling game where one has to reach a gunslinger down the street while dodging his bullets. No one has ever won, adding to the prize pool with each failure. After seeing only one person’s attempt, Mary Sue breezes through it as easy as a stroll down the street. Of course. He gives us some nonsense about “predicting the prediction” to dodge bullets. So you’re telling that in the most hardcore, competitive PvP VRMMO, none of these professional players ever did the same? What sort of an idiot wrote this?

What does he do with this instant jackpot? He buys a Lightsaber. Yes, in a game about guns, where all swords are known to be useless, they conveniently have Lightsabers – sound effects included (and the villain is a Darth Vader rip-off) – just so Mary Sue can wield a sword like he did in other games. And to nobody’s surprise, he is amazing with it right away. He is so good that he can cut down every bullet from full auto machine gun fire. The author is so bad that he forced a FPS game upon the audience, yet couldn’t even commit and had to give Mary Sue an invincible sword. He can also drive motorbikes instantly and better than anyone else, having learnt this skill from playing racing games in the past. You know, regular racers on screen… (“Is it possible to learn this laziness?” “Not from a good writer.”) There is no attempt at hiding his power.

You have one guess on who wins the big tournament with Sinon.

Speaking of Plumber’s Crack (her character designer made sure she had her crack visible at all times for Mary Sue’s convenience, for we all know he wants to eat that ass), allow me to present to you the worst female character ever written. Her first introduction gives the impression of a sniper at the highest tier of play. As soon as Ass Muncher enters the game, however, she becomes useless all so that he can save and grope her at every turn. It goes so far that the climax has Ass Muncher telling her exactly what to do because she now has the skill of a noob. Every girl, no matter how strong, becomes a puddle of piss around this guy.

The funniest part is her backstory. During an armed robbery in her childhood, Plumber’s Crack managed to get the robber’s gun and shot him dead. This event left her traumatised of everything gun related (did you catch the subtle theming with the new MMO, did ya, well, DID YA?) to such a degree that even finger guns reduces her to a sobbing mess. Yes, pointing is her weakness. This idiotic writing is hands down one of the funniest things I have ever seen.

Finally, we come to the villain (full spoilers ahead; I don’t recommend this anime). The big twist is that the Death Gun can’t actually kill people IRL. A second person would break into the target’s house while they’re strapped into the VR set and poison them in time with the virtual accomplice shooting them in game, thus giving the impression that the player could kill for real. (Let’s not forget that an autopsy would reveal it wasn’t some magical death from the beginning.) The villain turns out to be one of Plumber’s Crack’s clingy IRL friends, who believes she owes him love for caring for her during her previous depression. What is it with every SAO villain being a rapist?

I forgot to mention: Ass Muncher figures out everything about the villain, right down to his psychology and the fact that he’s in the room with Plumber’s Crack right now by merely thinking about him.

What a pathetic anime. I have barely scratched the surface with this travesty. I did not even cover how bad Ass Muncher is at handling the case he’s hired for, not passing on information just so he can play the hero. One could go through every single scene and point out why that is the worst scene ever put to anime. And like SAO, the story ends in act 2 and act 3 is filler in another MMO. Again! Sword Art Online 2 rapes anime.

Art – Low

There is a significant quality drop on the previous Sword Art Online. Less animation, less effects, more reliance on mediocre CG, and there’s less effort in character and world design – naturally.

Sound – Very Low

The acting is bad and the script is utter trash. All exposition and backstory is in the wrong place and much of the dialogue is filler. Good music from the same composer as .hack//SIGN, but it can’t save the show.

Story – Very Low

A girl faces her fear of guns by playing a shooter MMO, until she needs rescuing by a boy called Kiri Sue. Bloody hell…what shit.

Overall Quality – Very Low

Recommendation: Avoid it. Sword Art Online 2 is so bad that it makes Sword Art Online seem like a masterpiece.

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Awards: (hover over each award to see descriptions; click award for more recipients)

Positive: None

Negative: