Reviews Literature / Sword Art Online

You do realize that Sword Art Online was made a year before Log Horizon, right?

Actually I didn't have a problem with this because the anime was character driven, like a .hack game without all the grinding. I also don't really get the whole we don't know how they feel, that's pretty much all they talk about.

This is one of those reviews were you know the work is flawed, but then you the review and can't get all the weird Hype Backlash complaining when there was actually.

Doctrain AUM:

Wow fail. Admittedly should have used .hack since the similarities are more obvious but I haven't watched it so I used Log Horizon instead.

Marcell X:

A work can only be character driven when a character is properly developed and forces them to make decisions based solely on their characterization and not the plot forcing them to do it.

Admettedly, there is probably some Hype Backlash...but I still feel that these highlight the main flaws with the anime.

Gary Stu was the point, and it's not necessarily a bad thing, as per YMMV Our villian had a goal; create his castle, and get people to play it. Completely out there morally, but a motivation nonetheless Still shots are bad? Uh, YMMV One-dimensional? Again, YMMV Similar stories aren't necessarily a bad thing, even if they seem lesser. Awful dialogue? Yet again YMMV Video game critique... outside the purpose of this review, but that's another time.

So yes, not amazing to you, but still not the worst ever imo. However, knowing our differences in opinion, I'll just leave it at agree-to-disagree

Omegafire17:

Gary Stu was the point? Umm what?

I cannot critique the video game cause I haven't played it. I have watched the walkthrough so that's why I said that about the dialogue. Cause I can at least say that.

No comment on the rest and yes, let's just agree to disagree.

It being a video game, there is always one or more players who are completely overpowered (even by the game's standards), and are very skilled at using their character because they know all the ins and outs. Kirito was such a player, and it was even acknowledged; the Dual Blades skill only goes to the player with the fastest reflexes.

As a result, very little is actually a threat to him - which I have no problem with, because fear of losing isn't needed to create urgency/tension, for me at least.

My comment on Gary Stu - the rest is agreed to disagree

Marcel:

>Actually I didn't have a problem with this because the anime was character driven

No, it really wasn't. For a story to be character driven, the actions of the characters have to drive or otherwise have some decent bearing on the plot. In End of Evangelion, what Shinji decided COULD have changed the course of the story. In SAO, there are 10,000 people playing and most of them are working towards the end goal of clearing the game, which theoretically could be accomplished by anyone, whether or not it's Kirito. Everything that they do is to this eventual end. We could argue that in Evangelion, they were all still hurdling to the end of Third Impact, and yes, that bears SOME truth. In the end, though, a decision is made that, if made differently, could have drastically altered the course of the plot. This sort of thing has a type of knowledge hard to transmit, but this is the best that I can explain it.

Omegafire:

>It being a video game, there is always one or more players who are completely overpowered

It doesn't matter that the premise is in a video game, the fact that this context is barely given any focus notwithstanding. It's a story, so it still gets judged on the same criteria nonetheless. We COULD make this argument, but what's left then is something to balance this O Pness out. And there isn't, really. But, you'll have to excuse me if I've already said this to you.

I thins there's a misconception about what I meant by character driven, or could've been my bad on that one with poor choice of words. What I mean is that the interactions between characters and their respective characterizations were the focus, instead of the issue at hand, which honestly it's now kind of played out (people being trapped in an MMO, a MMORPG at that).

marcellX:

I wanted to restrain from sharing more of my opinions in fear of hurting anyone's feelings. But I won't get the point across if I don't. (Completely unrelated to this conversation. Just a fair warning of what I am about to do.)

"I thins there's a misconception about what I meant by character driven, or could've been my bad on that one with poor choice of words."

- It happens.

"What I mean is that the interactions between characters and their respective characterizations were the focus, instead of the issue at hand, which honestly it's now kind of played out (people being trapped in an MMO, a MMORPG at that)."

-The character interactions played like this:

Kirito meets a girl

girl hates or admires him

girl falls in love with him eventually

Kirito saves her from something

Romance episode is over and they don't get together. Unless you're Asuna.

The characters aren't even fleshed out enough, so the interactions seem very generic and forced. Plus the dialogue is horrendously bad and doesn't bear any emotional weight due to how we barely know anything about these characters.

Well seg162, all I can say is that O Pness, in and of itself, isn't a bad thing - especially with the reality that the good guys pretty much always win in the end. Plus there are other sources of tension for stories, so it's better to let that one go and enjoy it instead, I think.

^Strictly my opinion, of course; not here to step on yours.

While it's true that that happens, it's not "just" that (at least the first part). There's the whole aspect of the different ways people cope with the situations at hand, mainly the whole being stuck in a deadly game for 2 years. Going with omegafire, YMMV on the characters being fleshed out, and all that last paragraph, specially since no where it's stated that you need to know details about a character (arguable case) for their dialog to have emotional weight on a given situation.

Omegafire:

That's not a reality— that's a trend that's a reality. Furthermore, with the mention of the idea of Kirito being a Gary Stu, that pretty much makes the accusation of a lack of conflict and tension (to accuse the protagonist of being overpowered is an accusation of a lack of external tension as far as the protagonist is concerned), either in external struggle, or interpersonal, or internal (and dear GOD have I argued at length against the idea that he has significant and meaningful internal conflict with others)— that is literally the essence of the Mary Sue accusation.

Of course, having a Mary Sue doesn't mean that your story CAN'T be good, giving that writing is an art and all (and the contrapositive is also true: not having a Mary Sue does NOT make your story good.) But the idea is that everything else has to compensate for the presence of a Mary Sue, not accommodate it— and if it compensates, it sometimes just brings the Mary Sue status of the protagonist to "debatable". Unless you have a specific purpose for the Mary Sue— plot-related or thematic— it's better to just make more fleshed out characters that have their share of conflict, even if it IS harder.

(Also, you don't have to be redundant about the fact that you're just stating your opinion. Even the "I think" at the end was enough, if not just slightly excessive.)

marcellX:

To know details about a character is to know a character. To know a character is to be more predisposed to caring about the character when they encounter something. If say, we knew prior to the situation that Kirito— in the real world— not only had issues associating with people, but actually ruined friendships because of his ineptitude at communication, it would have given the events of episode 3 a lot more weight BEYOND the fact that people died (this is even beyond whatever weight it did have). If we SAW, on multiple occasions (and this couldn't have been done because of all the time skips), Kirito dealing with the reality of the deaths in episode 3 AND saw how it tied in with an issue that he always had even in the real world (thus, a problem that caused a BIGGER problem than what it used to cause), it'd be more compelling. Two related examples:

The Legend of Korra: We know Korra. We learn about her over the course of the series— we get an introduction to her personality, but we also see her fears and insecurities even very early on. If you pay a fair bit of attention, you get that she highly values her position as the Avatar. HIGHLY. She considers this her entire worth. And thus, the endings every season thus far— and even the current season thus far— demonstrate the effect that it has on her whenever that worth is threatened. But God knows that it wouldn't have the impact that it does now if we weren't aware of this. Like, the season finales would have still been SAD, but the impact would be shallow (and at first, when the series had only one season, the first season ending seemed really shallow in emotional impact to me to the point that I thought that all these people saying that she was probably contemplating suicide were just walking examples of Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory— cue season 4 and I can perfectly see why they would think that).

Attack on Titan: Yes, we're going here. Yes, we're using the arguably least deep character in the story. Listen, if I saw that Eren's mother died and that's how he came up with the feelings to try to avenge her by killing all the Titans, that'd be one thing. That'd be sad.

It'd also be something I've very well seen before. Orphaned child protagonist? About as fresh as day old baguettes.

But TWO things happened that gave his emotions more context and thus, more emotional weight: A) we SAW a glimpse of their interactions together and B) we SAW how he was regretting the fact that the last thing he did to her was tell her off before running away. He's not just sad that a Titan ate his mom— he's sad because he truly DID love his mother, and he couldn't make the last moment that they had before disaster struck worthwhile (and that's just B tying into A). It's a very relateable emotion and thought, coming from someone who's lost someone in the immediate family circle. But I wouldn't mention this here if not for the fact that his EMOTION is given INTERNAL context— and that's what I want you to take from this. It's not just what it MEANS, but it's what it means to the INDIVIDUAL, and beyond "it makes me sad". And think— this is the main person that people will say is the LEAST developed or built as a character, and he even has this down pat.

The bottom line is that KNOWING the character inherently adds emotional weight to what they say, because you KNOW where they come from when they say it— whether or not they have to flashback to it for you to get it. It gives more context beyond the general sadness or happiness or any other emotion that would come with a situation to begin with. The events of episode 3 were sad— Kirito was (according to the people, but not by actual causality or reason) responsible for the deaths of nearly everyone in that guild because of him being reluctant to share his level info, and also lost Sachi, arguably his first love. Okay, that's sad.

...okay, then. What else?

ANYBODY could feel sad over that on the fact that that's intrinsically sad. But if there was a STAKE in all of this, if it was caused by a flaw that he always had, if it was a parallel to what happened to him in the real world (and additionally, it was explored more and clearly), it would inherently have more value than it did. His opening up to Asuna in episode 10 would have had more value than it did (and if we actually knew about him and the idea of how he closes himself and his insecurities off from others— again, Korra as a direct example and how she kept up a façade of tough to hide her insecurities... then again, that sort of requires NOT FREQUENT time skips) if we knew more about him than what was given. More importantly, it'd have more value than "it was a sad happening", and thus, it'd give more context to the person— it'd make Kirito more of a person.

And this isn't rectified by episode 23. The fact that you can shove in some sort of backstory that gives us a tidbit of his personality isn't helpful if it's long after it was relevant and useful to understanding the character. Not to mention that it was telling over showing and seemed to be in a context that would serve best the justification of the incest subplot going on on its psychological level.

This kind of reasoning extends to your point about the girls falling in love with Kirito— I know nothing about the girls, or why they'd fall in love with someone like Kirito who is played up to be socially awkward, and in less than a day, even (except for Asuna). They fell in love with him. Whoo hoo. Why? Because he's a nice person? It's not three-dimensional thinking and it leaves no space for the experiences necessary to realistically build an internal attachment that would lead someone to falling in love with someone.

All in all, SAO DOES deal some emotional impacts, but I just find the actual weight of these impacts pretty light in the long run because they're centered around more the emotion itself and its intrinsic value instead of the characters and WHAT the emotionally triggering events mean to THEM (instead of just what they MEAN).

Anyway, sorry to drill the point into the ground like this (and oh, dear, is this a doozy), but *shrug*. This is, uhm, a layman's interpretation on character building.

Myself, I don't need tension/conflict of any kind to enjoy something. Relationships/interactions don't need to be three-dimensional or even two-dimensional to be considered seriously, or likable. The list could go on, but that's just me; a lack of something isn't bad, period, and can easily be good if you seriously consider it to be.

^This is not saying that I don't enjoy when there is tension, or three-dimensionibility, because I do. Just that my standards/viewpoints are a lot more accepting than the norm.

@Seg162 wow, that sure's tldr material, given that I had a 3 sentence paragraph. I'll power through, but in the future, please take it down a notch.

Now the first thing is that, I never said that you shouldn't use or that there wont be improvements when knowing more about the characters, it was a simple response to Ryochi's claim that there dialog didn't have "any" emotional weight because we didn't know more details about the characters.

I haven't seen neither Korra or Titan yet so I'll refrain from going into it. There are things that we relate and understand given their linear interaction. In episode 3, Sachi's fear of dying and solution of ending it herself has an understandable emotional weight to it. We understand how someone even ourselves could feel that way, without the need of some related backstory (shown, told, implied or otherwise). Probably "because" most people don't have many coincidental inter-related heavy experiences. We can relate and understand the leader's suicide as trauma, loneliness and probably survivor's guilt among other things, without the need of say, a moment where he says that irl there was an accident were everyone but him died. It would add some fuel, don't get me wrong, but what I was addressing to Ryuji was that there's still emotional weight to it without it. These were just normal people, like us, that suddenly trapped in a hazardous place with a constant fear of dying and that have to keep pushing forward if they ever hope to get out.

I never made a point about the girls falling in love with Kirito, in fact my view of it is that he's too Mary suish in regard to girls. In a way I liked his relationship with Asuna, and maybe Celica (if it really is japanese older sibling infatuation), not so much the other girls, "because" of the whole nice guy thing.

I would reply to every comment above me. But I'm feeling lazy today......

Oh screw it I'll just sumarrize:

seg162:

Emotional Impacts: Carry some weight....but feel painfully weak. I agree.

And I do agree with your Attack on Titan (even though I think its average) and Legend of Korra examples (especially Season 4)

Omegafire17:

If you like it that way. That's fine. But if writers are going to promise me three-dimensional characters and a deep plot, they better freaking deliver. I'm tired of seeing wasted potential. -_-

marcellX:

I understand about the relatable emotional weight but WE BARELY KNOW THE CHARACTERS!!!! That girl was on the screen for five minutes before she died. How was I supposed to form an emotional attatchment or even care about her in the span of five minutes? In fact, I've seen shows pull off good characterization, storytelling, and action in the span of FIVE minutes. So this is no excuse. Especially the fact that this is a THIRTY MINUTE SERIES!!!

Oh and btw,

Watch Korra. First season has a lot of wasted potential and so does the Second season (in a way). They both also have bad love triangles. But they are both still good, especially compared to the shit airing on Nick now.

Besides...Season 3 is a massive improvement and so is Season 4.

So you're strategy is to keep changing things?

Now you're talking about emotional attachment, which is not the same thing just because is also about emotions. Things on the lines of "how am I" are too YMMV and personal. We can't really have much of a discussion if 2/3 of it is not even trying to be objective. The dialog is horrible period, there are better characterization, etc. are really meaningless as you're asking us to just take your word for it as facts.

marcellX:

"The dialog is horrible period, there are better characterization, etc. are really meaningless as you're asking us to just take your word for it as facts."

- You're right. Thanks for calling me out on this. I could've gone too far.

"So you're strategy is to keep changing things?"

- Well.....maybe.....I don't really like formulaic shows anyways but I guess that could be YMMV.

"He got thousands of people KILLED over a castle."

And I'm suddenly reminded of Griffith from Berserk, and realize that Kayaba is a terrible villain with no motives.

Dark Deveiver:

Griffith is easily a better developed villain than Kayaba.

And yes, he is a rather terribly written villain.

So what would you say is the best anime you've ever seen that you feel does not deserve it is praise?

Bastard1:

Once again, unrelated....but that's an interesting question....

I might need to think a bit on this.

@ Bastard1:

Evangelion would be an easy answer to this. Then again, it's more-or-less the only anime I've seen in full, so it might not count here.

It's been a long time since this was posted, but I have to ask. Did you post a review of just the anime, when the page says light novel... without actually reading the books? Just curious.

I'm not saying they don't have flaws, just that I found them better than the anime.

HOW CAN I CARE ABOUT CHARACTERS THAT AREN'T PROPERLY DEVELOPED? HOW?!

Thank you! I am so glad to see those words in reviews. I cannot stand it when any medium (or even its fanbase) expects me to give a crap that a character just died, got mutilated or something else horrible happened to them, when they aren't develoepd. Hey, this character you have known for five minutes has been kidnapped! Quick, go and rescue them! What do you mean, why? JUST DO IT, YOU CARE ABOUT THEM, NOW SHUT UP! And no, just telling me 'this character has that important relationship of X years of friendship behind it for the character you are controlling' is not enough. Yeah, the CHARACTER has the background with the friend. Not I.