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REVIEW: Sword Art Online episodes 1-7

Yttrbio wrote:

So where does your assessment of "he's still pretty good" come from?

He doesn't actively annoy me, doesn't actively do stupid shit, and his actions are consistent with the character he has been shown to have (as opposed to what he has actually stated)

ChibiKangaroo wrote:

How about some kind of backstory to Kirito which explains why he's a loner? How about some scenes where he is having flashbacks about his 'little sister' and remembering times where he saved her from a bully or something, or where they worked together on a game, or something showing their strong connection. How about showing him struggling under some kind of harsh circumstances in the real world before he joined SAO, to build the audience sympathy for him? How about giving him some more consistent personality traits/quirks? (For example, Natsu Dragneel from Fairy Tail or Monkey D. Luffy from One Piece) This kind of stuff would help a little...

>show
>not over

How is this concept difficult?

You are setting the bar so low here, it's like subterranean.

One thing I wonder is where the hell Klein is. He's one of the first people Kirito meets in SAO, you'd THINK he'd be like Kirito's friend and show up a lot.

This anime fails compared to it's hype....I'm sure girls love this anime, because that's where it looks like the ideal target is aimed at. Majority of guys will be turned off by this, and so it's average.

>show
> 8 episodes shown, enough to start making judgments

How is this concept difficult?

Episode 3 did not explain why Kirito is a loner. He was portrayed to be a loner before he even went into the full game. Remember when he first met up with Klein? He was hesitant to hang out with him, even though he did stick around long enough to teach him a few tricks. Eventually, at the end of Ep 1 he goes right back to being a loner and goes off on his own.

Dropped this at episode 5. I knew I wouldn't like it to begin with, but Kajiura's score is really restrained.

I'd say Kirito is a 'pretty good' protagonist because he is relateable, at least to me. He's not some overpowered god-like being,

Quote:

I'd say Kirito is a 'pretty good' protagonist because he is relateable, at least to me. He's not some overpowered god-like being,

As much as I like this show...I'm going to have to disagree with this. Kirito basically bodies everything he comes across.

Blood- wrote:

>show > 8 episodes shown, enough to start making judgments How is this concept difficult?

When 6 of those 8 episodes were adapted from sidestories written after the main arc, and assume existing knowledge of Kirito, then yes, I'd say that in this situation, its too early to make judgements.

This is a fairly unusual situation, which is why you can't just apply blanket statements to every show, you have to consider context, especially for adaptions.

As I said above, I'm perfectly willing to accept that the side-stories were adapted sub-optimally.

ChibiKangaroo wrote:

Episode 3 did not explain why Kirito is a loner. He was portrayed to be a loner before he even went into the full game. Remember when he first met up with Klein? He was hesitant to hang out with him, even though he did stick around long enough to teach him a few tricks. Eventually, at the end of Ep 1 he goes right back to being a loner and goes off on his own.

Did you miss the part in Ep 1 where he did want Klein to come with him, but he was afraid that he couldn't protect more than 1 person through the trip to the area he wanted to go to? Sure, he was a little hesitant when a complete stranger walked up, but he didn't just ditch Klein. Klein just as much ditched Kirito to look for his RL friends.

He didn't seem to be that familiar with anyone in ep 2, but he did go off to a secret leveling spot so that isn't abnormal. He clearly supported the idea of working with that large group to beat the first boss. He clearly liked spending time with that guild. He clearly likes spending time with Asuna. Why is he a loner? He obviously didn't really ever feel that way, he just doesn't want to see people around him die.

You are once again forcing people to view things only from your perspective. Yes, the series isn't over, but this review is about episodes 1-7, and people are perfectly justified in making judgements on episodes 1-7 and discussing episodes 1-7 in a thread about episodes 1-7. This isn't difficult at all.

Plus, just because your standards for a male lead are low doesn't mean people with higher standards are wrong. You need to stop forcing your perspective and your viewpoints on everybody. You don't get to tell people what they can and can't discuss or when they can and can't judge a series.

Let me put it even simpler. In Sword Art Online, the elements are fine, but the execution of those elements has been a bit lacking. Still adequate for the time being, but not up to where the show could have and should have been.