I said I would talk SAO "next week" last Saturday. Well, it is now the Monday after and that constitutes next week. So it's time for some SAO (YES I AM SO EXCITED).
Of course, there will be tons and tons of spoilers for Sword Art Online (the TV show) so if you're either thinking of watching it or you are currently watching it, I wouldn't recommend reading this. But if you don't care and want to know how something can be unoriginal, yet, original, and also one of my favorite shows ever, then read along!
Now, I'll start this talk like I did my Dragon Ball Z one: you have seen SAO. Except this time it isn't necessarily in images, it's actually in themes. You've probably seen a movie where some kids get trapped in a videogame. You've seen the love story where two people struggle to find each other with so many roadblocks. You've seen where the villain morphs from the complete bad guy into actually the one to save the day (okay, maybe not this one so much, but, still).
Sword Art Online is almost anything but original. The names, the setting, and the way that the show carries itself are original, but most of the things you have definitely seen before. But if that's the case, then, why is it I'm giving it such high praise, or why is it one of my favorite shows and not something else?
Because SAO keeps you guessing around every single turn. Yes, you've seen these themes before, but you've never seen them like SAO presents them. Kirito, the main character, and Asuna, his love interest and ancillary character of the story, meet and fall in love in the game in a way that I sort of expected, but, at the beginning you are so confused as to how it happens.
There are also several characters that keep you guessing. Mostly Suguha. Kirito, you would assume, would be rather cut and dry when you meet him, but, he actually is a character with a lot of layers. As the Aincrad arc progresses, we really get a good look into the character that we are meant to care about, and you even develop a little bit of an emotional attachment to the villain of the Aincard Arc, Akihiko Kayaba.
Just a few minutes ago, I watched episode 24, "The Gilded Hero," as it was shown on Toonami and I recorded it. In my opinion, it's the strongest episode of the entire show because it brings everything together, and as such, it's one of the finest endings to a show I've ever seen (of course, there's one episode to go, but, not much happens except for the beginning where you cry like a baby). "The Gilded Hero" had everything that the show had to offer in it: a great small story that an episode needs, a damsel in distress, a great protagonist who finds his strength, a monstrous villain, absolutely beautiful music, and a resolution that makes you feel happy you've come this far.
Most people hate on the Alfheim Arc of the show, and I can feel where they're coming from. In Aincrad, everything was on the line. You win or you die, that was it. In ALO, it was different. It was you die...and you get another shot. Of course, having just watched fourteen episodes of die and you die, that feeling is not evident. When Kirito faces off against the Guardians in "The Grand Quest," and ultimately, sorta, dies, at first you're like, "NO" until you realize, hey, he can just wake up again and try again when his character respawns (that doesn't happen, Leafa saves him and it's awesome). Personally, I had few problems with the Alfheim Arc, the main one being that there were a few episodes where Kirito and Leafa detract from saving Asuna to quell the war of the races, but, I'll get to that.
I've been rambling on about SAO and I haven't even discussed the premise of the show. Sorry. Here it is: in the year 2022, a company, ARGUS (no, DC fans, not that ARGUS) has developed a new game with virtual-reality technology. A select few get chosen as beta testers and the game works great. However, on the day of launch, when everyone is plugged in and playing the game, something happens. Kirito and his new friend, Klein, go to log out, but there's one problem: there's no log out button on their menu. Then, the creator of the game, Akihiko Kayaba, appears and explains that it is no glitch, that there is no way for the 10,000 minds to escape the virtual MMORPG (mass-multiplayer-online role-playing-game) except for one player to clear the game. To do this, they must climb all 100 floors of an entire virtual world. And the catch is that if the player's health should drop to zero in the game, then the Nervegear that they use to play the game fries their brain. And should someone take it off, the brain will stop being able to function.
As a result, several players decide to stay on the first floor, because they are scared. Several commit suicide. It is a bleak start to a beautiful show. By the second episode it's clearly established who we are and who we aren't going to like. Our protagonist is Kazuto Kirigaya, or as he is called in the game, Kirito (I never understood why it was until I put together Kiri(gaya) and (Kazu)to). He was a beta tester for the game, but he also retained all of the skills he got in the beta test, also making him a cheater sort of, so he becomes known as a "beater." The first person who he decides to team up with is a loner girl named Asuna, who in real life is also known as Asuna. Kirito reveals himself as a beater to all the people who he goes on a quest with, and the friends he's made (Asuna, Agil, and Klein) all wish to help him out. Thus, we have our show.
The plot is very intricate because, like I said, there are two arcs to the show: the Aincrad arc and the Alfheim arc. Both are very different in setting, character and even pacing. The Aincrad arc takes place over two years (yes, they are trapped in a videogame for two whole years...their bodies are essentially skeletons when they wake up), while Alfheim is really only covered in about a month or so. The final few episodes take place over the course of two days. That's where most people have their gripes, and again, I understand. Doesn't really take away from the show, though.
The setting is different because the game literally changes. After SAO is finally cleared, most all of the minds are freed, save 300 of them for some reason, including Asuna. Kirito vows to get her back, finding out she is trapped in a new game, Alfheim Online (ALO), and thus dives into that game with his Nervegear to save her. The characters are different, too. Kirito even says that the SAO Kirito's quest is over, that the ALO one is just starting a new one. Asuna becomes more of a damsel in distress rather than a "badass, floor-clearing swordswoman" (to quoteth Kirito after not seeing Asuna for over a year). Also, a new ancillary character, Leafa, is introduced, and her character is just a mess. Plus Yui is back! Yay for Yui!
The characters of SAO and how they act make the show how great it is. Kirito is one of the most driven characters to do something that I have ever seen, rivaling even Eren Yeager from Attack on Titan. He wants nothing but to clear the game. Yet this is nearly impossible without joining a guild, or a group. In episode 3 he does just that. And what happens? By not telling them how high-leveled a player he is, the team falls into a trap and dies. He blames himself for the deaths of five people for two years, and it shows in his character's actions. He stays as a solo player until Asuna comes back into his life because he's afraid that if he joins a guild, they will all die again. Yet when he's with Asuna, he gets his flame to beat them game back. In the ALO arc, he wants nothing more than to rescue Asuna from the clutches of Sugou, the new main villain after Kayaba's ultimate defeat (though not his death...an interesting point I'm getting to shortly).
Asuna, also, takes a grand journey in character arc. When we meet her, she's like Kirito. She keeps to herself and doesn't really talk to anyone. Yet she is very efficient in battle, just like Kirito. We find out later that Asuna spent the early days after launch crying all night because she was afraid of dying in this world, but that she would use her sadness as a way to fight. As such, she climbs the ranks and becomes the second-in-command of the strongest guild, the Knights of the Blood Oath. When she meets Kirito, she is a much different character than the shy girl that we saw. After the two spend some weeks together and realize how much they depend on each other to survive, they get married and it's awesome and you're so happy. Asuna sorta suffers from crazy-girlfriend syndrome on the way to this path, but when they get married it's all good because both Kirito and Asuna are happy for the first time. Asuna is also my favorite girl anime character...sorry Mikasa.
Then there are the supportive characters, who really make a case for themselves. Klein, I suppose, could be seen as the comic relief of the Aincrad arc (he disappears in ALO), but he's ultimately a reminder at first for Kirito of the guild life he left behind, since Klein was the first to ask him to join a guild and Kirito said no. Klein's cool, though, I really thought he was useful and never got in the way like some supportive characters can do. Agil was awesome. Agil is a merchant-warrior who runs his own shop and is an expert at analyzing items in the game, but he's also very down to Earth and funny. Lisbeth and Silica, two other girls that Kirito journeys with before getting with Asuna, are pretty funny and provide some more light on Kirito's character, like how he has a little sister or how he can actually provide happiness even where he finds there is little, even hope and be an inspiration.
Out of the supportive characters, my favorite is Yui. She is an in-game program designed to help the emotional state of characters, yet on launch day when everyone is freaking out, the system does not allow her access to them. For much of the arc, she just spends her time in the system. When she finds two players, though, that are completely at ease and calmed down, even in the face of death, she makes it her mission to find them. Those two, of course, being Kirito and Asuna. Yui is only in the Aincrad arc for two episodes but when she leaves it is one of the saddest moments ever, mostly because Kirito and Asuna adopt Yui to be their daughter after they realize she has no parents. There is a sense of family, and all of a sudden, it is ripped away. Yui is also the only character to make a return (you can't imagine how happy I was for her to be alive) in the ALO arc, this time as a little pixie, but she still calls Kirito and Asuna "daddy" and "mommy."
The villain of the Aincrad arc is also more interesting than the one of the Alfheim arc. Sugou, or as he is called in ALO, Oberon, is just straight up weird and evil. Kayaba, or Heathcliff, is both a surprise and not a surprise. First of all, Kayaba masks himself as the commander of the Knights of the Blood Oath, thus the game maker is playing the game so nobody would learn its him. Kirito has a duel with him for Asuna's freedom out of the guild, and in the duel Heathcliff somehow manages to dodge an attack that surely would have hit him, hinting at something more, but we don't necessarily see what. Kirito figures it out in the final episode of the Aincrad arc and it actually came as a shock to me, but when I thought about it, it made a lot of sense. Heathcliff also reveals himself to be the final boss, and I could only think of Gary Oak when I thought about that. But Gary Oak isn't nearly as evil as Kayaba, since Kayaba created a death game that, in the end, killed over 4,000 people, and nearly Kirito and Asuna had they not defeated Kayaba.
This episode, "The End of the World" (fitting) is also a beautiful ending because of how it all wraps up. Kirito and Asuna actually lose the battle against Heathcliff, yet Kirito somehow manages to stay alive and ultimately stab Heathcliff, who has taken off his immortality mode like he usually would have on. While the virtual world of SAO is crumbling beneath their feet, Kirito, Asuna, and Kayaba are all looking down on it while they are in like the "heaven," I guess, of SAO, where Kayaba is unable to explain why he did what he did, but that he knew a floating castle was his dream, that he wanted a kingdom. But this was ultimately an impossible dream...for him (foreshadowing). The show could have ended there and I would have been content, but, Asuna never woke up, so to Alfheim we go!
There are only two major new characters in Alfheim. The minor characters are so minor that they are hardly worth mentioning. They're necessary in the final battle, but, I feel like that was their only use. So the first of the important characters is Suguha, Kirito's "sister" that isn't actually his sister but is really his cousin whose mother adopted Kirito into the family. At first, Suguha loved Kazuto (yeah, like that kind of love) before she starts playing ALO and eventually meets Kirito while he is playing the game to save Asuna. Suguha, as Leafa in ALO, starts to fall in love with Kirito, only to find out he is really Kazuto and it becomes a big ordeal that is just kind of awkward, because...it's her cousin. Ultimately Suguha is able to get over it and help Kirito out in saving Asuna.
The new villain is Sugou, who is part of RCT progress, the company that took over ARGUS, the one running SAO. He is both a character in game and out of game, unlike Kayaba. In game, is the most powerful player but Kirito never meets him in game until the final battle. Sugou, we find out, is the one keeping Asuna locked up in ALO along with the other 300 players who did make it out, and he is trying to use their data to eventually take over the minds of all people who play ALO and become "like a god." I'll touch on pretty much all of the events of episode 24 because of how relevant it is to the entirety of the story. Unlike Kayaba, though, Sugou gets closure in the real world. He takes a massive amount of damage in the battle against Kirito, and his body shows in. Kazuto, in real life now, has the opportunity but spares his life because he is not a killer and because "the game is over."
Now, about "The Gilded Hero." Well, Kirito manages to find Asuna and yay we're all happy, but then Sugou manages to make Yui disappear and uses gravity magic, a power only he, as the game-maker, posses, which essentially disables both Kirito and Asuna from fighting back. He chains up Asuna and starts to torture her, and since Kirito is so in love with Asuna, it begins to torture him, too. Sugou then changes the pain receptors in game, for the real brain to feel, and makes it so that the brain will feel more pain, and should it drop to a certain level the pain will become real. Sugou stabs Kirito with his own sword and leaves his avatar to die, all this time proclaiming he is like a god. Then, when it seems like all hope is lost, Akihiko Kayaba appears before Kirito, telling him to get up to make their fight worth something. And now you're like, "Hell yeah, Kayaba, you go." And Kirito gets up and you're like, "It's about to go down." The coolest part about it is that Kirito, after he gets up, manages to take over the game because he uses the log-in codes that Kayaba used for SAO. Since ALO is a game who had essentially everything but setting stolen from SAO, Kirito's acess to Kayaba's account allowed him control over Sugou, allowing him to eventually defeat him and free Asuna, allowing her to finally wake up in the real world.
So what makes this episode so cool? Well, it's themes it brings up. About gods, about man vs machine/ human will, and about battles. First, we'll talk about gods. Sugou proclaims that he is the god of ALO and will become the god of the human world. What I found funny about that was that, when Kayaba appears, he appears like a god would (obviously he isn't God). It just showed that Suguo was like the false prophet, and that ultimately lead to his destruction when Kayaba showed up to help Kirito. Second, theme of man vs machine, or about human will. When Heathcliff and Kirito fought, Kirito died, his health bar hit zero, yet his sheer willpower allowed him to live for just a few second longer, and with the dead-Asuna's sword, stabbed Heathcliff. Kayaba brings this up when Kirito is facing death against Suguo. "You would let a system you once defied win?" BOOM. Ah, man, chills. Not only for the sake of the show, but in real life. That was a real life lesson we could all use: if we are bound by a system we know is wrong/ evil, we must fight against it and use our willpower to resist. That is what Kirito does in the world of virtual reality, almost as if bringing his human soul into the game to fight back. Lastly, it is about battles, and their importance. Kayaba clearly sees his battle with Kirito at the end of the Aincrad arc as important, since he points out that if Kirito should let the system win, then their battle was pointless, because the only reason Kayaba "died" (he managed to download his mind into a program that Kirito managed to save, so in the world of computers, he is alive) was because of Kirito's will over his system's power. Thus, the importance of one battle can determine the outcome of another.
But besides all these themes about fighting and awesomeness, SAO has my favorite love story of all time. Move over Jack and Rose...we've got Kirito and Asuna. Like I said earlier, the two of them start off as nothing more than allies, then two changed beings looking for a purpose to finally getting married after Kirito faces death. Their love for each other sprouts more from their dependency than on just being two teenagers in love. They realize that they need each other to survive, otherwise, neither can make it out of the world. Kirito goes from being a hard person to crack to one who smiles, and Asuna opens herself up more, showing that she isn't just a soldier, but a human being. When they get separated, you feel heartbroken. When Heathcliff strikes down Asuna, that was it for me. I couldn't take it anymore, I just didn't know what to do. I didn't know Kirito without Asuna, and I didn't know Asuna without Kirito. All throughout ALO, I wanted them to get back together. When they finally reunite in the episode "The World Seed," the season finale, it was the happiest moment of the entire show for me. FINALLY Kazuto and Asuna got to meet in real life.
After I first watched it, I thought of SAO as a love story more than anything else, because it really is the tale of two people in love with each other doing whatever they can to make each other live on, even if it means giving their own lives up in the process. Kirito's struggle to find Asuna in ALO makes it feel like a struggle for you because you can feel his dread and longing to be with his wife once again, to at least just see her. Once I watched it again, I realized how much of a fantasy story it was, just with a lot of romantic elements, of course. It's the love story we all want.
Saving the best for last, though, the music in Sword Art Online brings all of the emotions you feel to a point. When there needs to be dramatic battle music, there is. When there is music about being in a creepy place, there is. When there is happy music because Asuna and Kirito have finally settled down, there is. There is a song for everything. My personal favorites are "Swordland," "We Have to Defeat It," and "A Tender Feeling." "Swordland" is awesome because it plays a lot and can really go with anything. "We Have to Defeat It" is played in moments of intense and very important action where practically the entire story is riding on the scene. And "A Tender Feeling" plays at all the emotional moments, so it strikes all the cords. All the feels, man. Just listening to the SAO soundtrack might evoke emotions out of you.
As you can see, I have a lot to say about SAO, but honestly, it deserves it. I went into it thinking, "okay, it was a popular anime, let's see what it has to offer." I came out of it wanting so much more, so I rewatched it. I could not get enough of it. It was powerful, it was heartbreaking, it was epic, it was everything I was looking for in an anime. Luckily, season 2 has been confirmed for this year, and it is now one of my most anticipated shows to return, besides of course Game of Thrones.
If you think you might be interested in the show now, please, don't hesitate to watch it. It's a little mature, there's a little language but nothing, yet I highly endorse it. It's not perfect, like I said the pacing is super whack, but I think anyone can get into it and love it.
See you next time!
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