Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - Does Sword Art Online the Movie -Progressive- Save the Franchise?
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FilthyCasual
Posts: 2370 |
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Last edited by FilthyCasual on Tue Dec 06, 2022 11:34 am; edited 1 time in total |
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b-dragon
Posts: 496 |
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A distinction without relevance, honestly. In a strange land, now with powers? Protag is strong enough to not be threatened by much of anything? Yeah, there's a criminal lack of Truck-kun, but SAO's first season (and precursors like .hack Sign,) wears enough of the same clothes- it's an isekai in all but technicalities. Later seasons definitely step away from this (until Underworld,) so if your point is that SAO as a whole isn't an isekai, I'd probably agree. But Aincrad definitely colors within those lines. |
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MFrontier
Posts: 13677 |
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I feel like people look at Kirito's OP and chick magnet moments and forget all the times he actually does fail or grapple with crippling insecurities. Not to mention he needs help like all the time.
Also I continue to not get why Mito exists or care for her being inserted into Asuna's character.
I guess there's a similar vibe, but I feel like it's framed so much more with emphasis on them being in a virtual world and game and how they react to it that it feels different from typical Isekai stories. The Underworld is probably the closest to an actual Isekai scenario because it's not really a game world and the emphasis on the AI's basically being real people with their own lives/personalities. |
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Andrew Cunningham
 Posts: 521 Location: Seattle |
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As used in English, 'isekai' is a subgenre of fantasy where you're physically transported to another world.
VRMMO is a subgenre of science fiction, and does not involve that defining plot points. That distinction is pretty important, and worth pointing out if you think words should have meanings. There IS a ton of overlap between the two genres, especially with the popularity of video game mechanics in fantasy settings (to the point where people say isekai when they mean litRPG.) And there are certainly VRMMO series that don't give two shits about any scifi concepts. But SAO is extremely interested in the science fiction stuff, so it's pretty much the last series you want to go around insisting is just like those other isekai. All that does is make you sound like you don't know what you're talking about. |
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Dnautics
Posts: 89 |
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Why does the franchise need saving? Does it need saving from western internet opinion? SAO is doing fine in Japan, and doing fine in America as well. Just because SAO was a meme in the online western anime community doesn't mean it needs saving or is a bad show. SAO was a big gate way for newcomers too, but you know SAO bad because youtuber told me so!
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sirdano1
Posts: 303 |
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SAO is fine the way it is and doesn't need "saving".
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4788 |
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If you're fine with atrocious writing and a gross, indefensible treatment of its female cast, then no, the original SAO didn't need saving. If those are things that give you pause, then yes, yes it did. A lot.
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MFrontier
Posts: 13677 |
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Well, SAO has come a long way from it's initial arc even if I feel like the core appeal of the series and it's cast has still remained, especially as Kawahara has grown as a writer...although even that never stopped the franchise from being popular from the beginning. |
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andramus
 Posts: 192 |
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I didn't know the Crunchyroll release of this movie was censored darn it. I was looking forward to watching it today but I refuse to knowingly watch any anime that Crunchyroll has censored.
I'm sure it won't make any difference to them since they still get my annual subscription dollars regardless but it's a matter of principle for me. I'm probably in the minority on this but I also don't like the fact that it often seems like stealth censorship in that I only become aware of it because of third parties raising concerns. It could be said that it only bothers me when I find out about it which is true but the same applies to someone at a restaurant spitting in my food. Even if the person who did it was totally healthy and the only risk to my wellbeing was my sense of revulsion upon finding out. You could say it would be better not to know. In the case of censorship I might not be aware of every single instance but because I'm aware it occurs and get last minute surprises like this SAO movie being censored it makes me paranoid. Personally I'd prefer it if Crunchyroll had a disclaimer for their censored content. There's a weekly anime podcast I listen to where everyone talks about what they watched that week and one of the hosts regularly mentioned watching Harem in a Labyrinth of Another World on Crunchyroll. He didn't know the series was censored and thought the version he was watching was the genuine article. He thought the censorship was some kind of elaborate parody or joke and that was how the series was intended to be watched. It's funny in a way but I also find it disturbing how easily deceived the uninformed are. |
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GNPixie
Posts: 320 |
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Re the 'censored' discussion:
They probably just uploaded the theatrical version they had already in theaters. I don't remember the edits being present in the JP releases but I could be be wrong. But yeah, a little scummy (plus the edits are just a little sloppy in general) but I'm not surprised personally. About the movie itself: I didn't enjoy it. When they announced they were doing Progressive, I was excited because there's a lot of great stuff in the books since for the most part, its largely a redo but both movies so far have largely skipped the content I actually wanted to see done. I don't like Mito either; just seems like tragedy bait so far. |
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Connor Dino
Posts: 345 |
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I think SAO sucks without youtube having to tell me. But okay, be dismissive over people having opinions about a piece of media. |
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moteless
Posts: 10 |
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Came to say exactly the same. SAO doesn't need any saving, specially from people who don't have opinion on their own. |
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Hiroki not Takuya
 Posts: 2658 |
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Am I to infer from the review that Kirito saves Asuna from engaging in a lesbian relationship?
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a_Bear_in_Bearcave
Posts: 549 Location: Poland |
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What a bunch of nonsense from people who also seem to have no opinion of their own, except "Japan liked it so it's fine, western opinion bad!". I haven't yet heard anything about SAO being bad when I watched the second cour, which I quickly discovered was utterly awful. First cour was mostly fine, so maybe I'll watch this movie if it's improvement.
If it will be uncensored on blu-rays, isn't it just old and standard Japanese practice that's not meant to prevent you from seeing the naughty immoral bits, but to get you to pay through the nose for the privilege of viewing them, kind of like Pixiv and Fanbox art except with more unfair prices? |
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Ditchdigger
Posts: 12 |
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I was SAO-averse for a long time too! I viewed it as the unholy origin of the Isekai scourge, and I've always been averse to super-popular properties because a lot of times they're just popular by zeitgeist.
Then, a few years ago, I decided to give it a shot. What I found was that it's nothing like most Isekai. Sure, it checks many of the same boxes in terms of plot elements, but at its core it's actually a really great piece of speculative fiction. It asks questions about technology and its relationship with concepts such as death and reality. "If something happens in a world that's not real, did it not really happen?" I went on to become somewhat of an SAO nut. The Progressive books are my favorite. Unfortunately, the best part about them has been completely excised from the movies! The Progressive books have a very strong central storyline; without spoiling anything, it revolves around the original in-game SAO storyline of how Aincrad came to be a floating castle and a suspiciously lifelike NPC companion. Unfortunately the second movie is skipping two volumes to the only book that takes a break from both the Aincrad story and the companion character! Also, skipping floors completely violates the purpose of the Progressive books. And yeah, where the hell did Mito come from? I find her interesting but if she's what we get instead of Kizmel then no deal! Also, I saw this movie in the theater and don't remember any nudity so rather than censored I would say the CR release just isn't the enhanced edition from the home video release. |
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