Anime Review - Sword Art Online Extra Edition

Fantasy, battles, MMO games, great animation, online relations and sex... Not quite sure it's a good combination!

Hey guys,

It's time to get back to anime! I've found that lately the anime industry is a bit slow. Unless you count Kill la Kill or Space Dandy everything else is rather a spin-off of a game or some shojo, bishojo series that we all already know how it begins and ends. So if you can't beat them might as well take a look!

Sword Art Online (SAO) is what I like to call the trifecta of the Japanimation these days, meaning you have the manga, the anime and the game being sold all at the same time to boost each other sales this way. They all cover pretty much the same story but at least people will get to see their heroes on the medium they most favor. SAO however is different cause it's an anime series about an online game - and the game really exists. It consists of the first 24 episodes that were compressed into a movie with the major chapters and moments of the first season.

Good things: You get to see an entire serie in a hour and a half. For us more busy people this is a blessing cause you get to see all the major heroes and moments without having to endure the whole episodes. The major plot is also there so after you see this you get to know the whole story arc. The series was made by Aniplex - an amazing studio - and the character designs, animation and battles are all top level. Technically the serie/movie is very very good!

Bad things: I didn't appreciate the story that much. I don't mean the overall plot, which is pretty much the norm of these sort of series. Heroes trapped in a game that they can't get out until they beat it, is a pretty basic common plot but it works for every teenager just getting into the fantasy MMO genre, so I guess that's fine. What I didn't appreciate (and I'm speaking on a more personal level) was the overall relevance that SAO gives to relationships, marriage and sexuality inside a game! That and the almost incest like relationship that appears in the serie didn't quite strike me fancy. Don't get me wrong these subjects are all very well depicted in some more adult animes but here - since I take it this mostly for kids around 13 -16 years old - I don't think that depicting these kind of subjects should be done quite like this.

But anyway, I thing the serie is very good if you like MMO games! I just wished they stuck more with the fantasy battle aspect of it and leaved the rest for some other serie maybe.

A quite reasonable 3 out of 5.