SAO II: Throughts so far?

I've already read up on the thread for SAO and I agree with whats been said. But since a new season of this anime just started I really wanted to know what everyone's thoughts are on so far. After four episodes there seems to be a different plot line and so far there's not any hints of romance at all, at least none that I'm picking up on quite yet. Heres a quick summary of it, and yes this is my first summary of an anime so hopefully its not too bad.

(Shogun, if you feel the need to step in to edit this your more than welcome to.)


But anyways this time around this new season picks up about a year after the Sword Art Online incident. In that time span a new game has popped up, Gun Gale Online. It's a cyberpunk world where players battle it out with guns instead of swords. It has become very popular. unfortunately so popular that some psycho has figured out how to actually kill players from inside the game with a special "death gun" and starts going after the games strongest players. This has caught enough attention from the local investigation department to approach Kirto with this idea and asks him to dive into GGO to investigate this " death gun" for them. So Kirto goes in by himself to see whats going on and to prevent any more deaths. By entering a tournament right away to hopefully become a strong enough player that would catch the attention of this "death gun" player.

so far there's been a lot of action, some in depth explanation/back stories on some of the new main characters, and some new twists that might make for some pretty funny/awkward situations. At least this time around there's no one that I can see thats being held against their own free will, which I see as a good thing. So enough of me talking and lets get to the discussion shall we? Give this new season a watch and lets hope for the best this time around...

 

Are you watching it subbed?

 

Most likely. I doubt that anyone here can understand Japanese well enough to watch it without subs

 

What do you think I am, a mod? Because if I had the power to edit things, I'd totally edit your post for you. I originally laughed at that, but as I read forward the urge to do it rose... I mean you're not as bad as wut, but goddamn this goads me something fierce.
Tell me how this works out, premise sounds good, but that's just like the first series. So I am highly skeptical.

 

Yeah I'm watching it with subs. That's how I ended up watching the first SAO. To me I really don't mind watching subs but that's just my personal preference.

It's gonna take me a while to get used to things around here since I was so used to you being in charge of the reviews Shogun. Bottom line I need to memorize who the mods are here and who's in charge of what. That or just get back into writing again so I can catch my own errors. But yeah, I'll try to let you know this works out. If anything I'll just end up laughing since they've somehow put Kirto in as a girl character in this game.

 

-laughs- Well based on what you've typed I'm definitely looking forward to it when they finished dubbing.

 

I'm liking the season so far. Because they aren't trying too hard by making the start super dark or intense and then shifting to a lighter tone later things feel more balanced. The pacing feels better and they aren't wasting episodes on character introductions of characters who are only there to be Kirito's harem or something. In other words this show is doing a lot of things right than the first season did wrong.

I won't say it is super high quality or amazing but it's definitely and improvement over season 1 which wasn't all that bad anyway. So if you didn't like season 1 I'd say give season 2 a chance.

 

there following the book pretty close so far on this one only hope it last till end.

 

.... This isn't a review, it's a discussion thread. I was never in charge of discussion threads. Yeah, technically review chat was a grey area, but it's solely mods turf now. If you make an actual review in the review section (which I highly suggest as nobody seems to be doing it ): then I'll edit it. So far you only had like 2 errors, including misspelling Kirito and not capitalizing the start of a sentence.

Ha oh yes the old super feminine main character.

Is there more real life stuff in this series or is it still mostly a "game world" anime like the first one? Also this sounds like .hack so I have to question, how are they filling time while trying to find the "suspect"? Are they following in his wake, learning small things, or mostly encountering the game so far? @Metazoxan

 

There should be some more IRL stuff a bit towards the end of the series once the tournament is over, most of this season should be panned out over an 8 hour period in-game time so its like a single day.

Spoiler

As far as filling time goes they already had the suspect narrowed down to 3 players when the tournament started and not even 1 ep in it went down to 2.Now its to point where there tracking the guy but they don't know his name since you cant see other player names just by looking at them.The satellite scan can show them who is in the area and there name so they are using that to track the 2 people they think it is to fill time between fights.

 

It's mostly game world. We do see Kirito and other characters in the real world fairly regularly, enough to show how things are going in the real world, but I'd say more than half of the important stuff is in the game world. So there is more real life stuff than in the first series but besides providing back story and set up for characters nothing too important happens in the real world.

As for finding the suspect Kirito pretty much just says "He will probably be in this tournament so I'll enter it and probably run into him" and he does. So if you were expecting some kind of actual detective work to find death gun sorry but they don't have that and they don't really waste any time finding him either. In fact the only reason it takes any time at all is Kirito took a few episodes to learn how to play the game and get through the qualifier rounds of the tournament.

 

But you can't blame a show just because it's now the kind of show you like. The problem with season 1 was it started out promising one thing then completely changed pace and tone. This season is at least keeping a consistent tone and pace which is a good thing. Also we still don't know for sure if Sinon is joining the harem as she simply kind of likes him but even if she does it's just one more person and unlike most of Kirito's harem at least thing girl is actually here to be important to the plot so there isn't really a problem. How is that last one even a con? Kirito's friends are just shown occasionally while playing Alfiem. It's not like it plays into the plot at all.

Also in Kirito's defense learning to use a gun as well as pro players likely isn't easy and he is only there to catch Death Gun. If he can save time by fighting with sword skills instead of taking the time to learn to shoot well then why not? But besides Kirito every other character has used a gun so there have been gun fights especially in the last couple episodes.

You are free to not personally like it but it deserves much better than a 4 because of it's better balance of tone, pace, and character development.

 

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MemeticSexGod Kirito is sounding like this more and more.
It sounds better than 1st season so far, but still not super fantastic.

This thread is very interesting to watch.

 

I would rate SAO II, a 4/10 its just meh. I've been tying to like to like it, but nothing grand has happened. its more or less the same but with guns, yes the animation is nice, it looks good and vibrant. The action scenes are quite impressive.
The story however , the Plot, it just does appeal to me, that's of course my opinion. As to why it dosnt appeal to me, there just isn't much "content" , there just nothing outstanding about it. I likes the first SAO, when they were in SAO. As that was really original, and the plot kept thickening and thickening. And maybe it will with this show, as I will be carrying on.

 

Man you guys are just so critical. Sure SAO II isn't some grand amazing anime that deserves awards but it's definately not that bad and deserves at least a 5 or 6. Sinon is a pretty decent addition to the cast with a better back story than most characters in this show and the idea of Kirito goings up against a PK from SAO sounds a hell of a lot more interesting than that loser from the second arc of SAO. The action could stand to be a little stronger but season 1 wasn't all that different overall so really it's more that this isn't as action heavy a show as some of us might like. Overall this season seems to have a bit of a better idea of what it's trying to be than season 1 did and so it's balanced and paced itself better.

If it's not your cup of tea then that's fine but objectively speaking this season is definitely better than season 1. Plus since they already delt with that stupid Suguha incest love subplot last season we don't have to deal with that again.....I think.

 

ITs certainly not grand amazing anime at the moment, subject to change when it finishes airing. I personally thought the season 1 of SAO, had a much better plot, the charterers were more interesting ish. It did have its ups and downs thought, aka the weird ass incest love. The start of SAo was great, and was pretty brilliant for the first 12 episodes, then it delved into that other arc. But in all honesty I dont think it needed another season, maybe a movie should have finished of this show. Ill of course have to watch more, as i feel im being bias, as i seem to just seem to really dislike this show so far! , that being said the extra addition was good and it did intrigue me about Kirito going up against that PKer from season 1. In the mean time I shall continue to watch.

 

But only Kirito and Asuna were really interesting at all. Everyone else either got minimal screen time or were only there to be added to the harem.

But regarding whether this needed another season yes it did if it's going to cover the light novels. I don't know how far they are right now but I know that after Gun Gail Online there is another online game that Kirito apparently gets stuck in and the cool thing about this one is it has a time acceleration effect making it a precurssor to brain burst. A simple movie would not have been able to cover everything without horribly rushing it. You think SAO II is bad just imagine if they cut out all of the character development and shorted what few fights we've had so far.