I like Sword Art Online

Sword Art Online, or SAO for short, is a very flawed anime, some of it's flaws bug me more then others, some arcs are more flawed then others.

None the less I enjoy it, and I like it the most of everything I've watched within it's Sub-Genre, which is Anime about being trapped in a Virtual Reality MMO video game.  Digibro says Log Horizon aired in a time-slot usually devoted to educational programs, and frankly it shows. And .Hack was a show so boring even Yuki Kajura music couldn't save it.  The rest I've seen are just Isekai using Video Game references to pander to that demographic.

I'm a fan of Digibro, some of his criticisms I agree with and some I don't.  But in general his initial diatribe is one of his weakest videos, he's learned since then.

I already did a blog post where I explain that it's wrong to view SAO as a Death Game anime and thus Mother's Basement's objection to Yui offends me.  Now I'm going to break things down by Arc.

The Aincrad Arc I have very few issues with.  I wish there was less Anime Style Fanservice, especially seeing the show's youngest character in her underwear.   And in that older post I commented on the murder mystery two parter.

Besides that most of my issues are connected to the Kuradeel story-line.  Like Digibro I wish they'd stuck with Ausna killing Kuradeel as she did in the original Web Novel version.  Overlapping with the above complaint I wish the accidental Boob Grab wasn't there.  And I also don't like the image of Asuna cowering behind Kirito.

I mostly don't share people's issues with the ending.  I like Kaiba being a mystery.  The plot point with the resurrection device I view essentially as explaining why Kirito and Asuna could live at the end, because there is a 10 second delay before the Nerve gear fries your brain.  They should have just included a little more exposition explaining that.  I can again agree with Digibro that it would have been better if Kirito and Asuna had came back and finished off Heathcliff together.

Xoh is a YouTuber who's made a lot of videos responding to SAO critics.  Some of his points I agree with and some not so much.

When people talk about why SAO is inaccurate to what MMO RPGs are like, it largely reminds me why I wouldn't like to play them.  I would like the community aspect, but not being seemingly unable to play alone.  I would be more interested in something like a MMO Breath of The Wild.

Much of what I like about SAO is how especially the first two Arcs can be read as Gnostic allegories.  That's a subject that will some day be it's own post on my recently launched Comparative Mythology blog.

The Alfheim Arc I'm inclined to agree is the worst part of SAO, though even it I see value in.  Mother's Basement did a video on how to fix the arc, and I pretty much agree with that one.  But I can add a third option to Suguha's romantic resolution, since I ship her with Shinon.

Gungale Online aka the Phantom Bullet arc, is perhaps the most complicated to explain my feelings on.  It has enough stuff I like that I can maybe say I like it more then Aincrad even.  But it has issues including being the most gratuitous yet in it's Anime Style Fanservice.

With both Alfeim and Gungale people addressing the in-universe game designs of these games seem to assume from how Kirito gets his Avatar that there is no customization possible.  I just see it as Kirito being given a default Avatar pretty randomly and just sticking with it.  Frankly I don't feel his presumably Customized avatar from the first episode of Aincrad looked all that imaginative either, I think Kirito maybe usually just doesn't care much about that part.

Digibro expressed confusion at so many people in Gungale just hanging out at that in-game bar/nightclub or whatever you call it, and not actually playing the game.  And that just makes me think about how often I've turned on my N64 to "play" Ocarina of Time just to look at the Temple of Time and then turn it off.  Or put in Majora's Mask just to hang out in Clock Town, I've still completed only half of that game.  I've done similar things with Twilight Princess.

It is exactly that part of Gungale online where SAO started reminding me of the missed opportunities of Caprica, the BSG spin off series I really liked at first, and in-spite of how much it started to annoy me I was really upset it got canceled.

Digibro claims it's inherently bad to do exposition scenes in dinners or restaurants and such places.  But says it was tolerable in the first two arcs of SAO because of how Taverns like those are stables of the Fantasy genre.  Well such things are also staples of the Genres Gungale is referencing, Westerns with their Taverns and Brothels, and Film Noirs with their seedy Night Clubs and Casinos, like Rick's place in Casablanca.  Not to mention how this Arc draws on Star Wars.

Which leads me to a criticism I can agree with.  Giving Kirito a Light Saber so that he doesn't have to actually learn to use a new kind of weapon and fit in with the arc's actual theme.  And while I would not consider the mere idea of a Laser Sword plagiarism, using the exact same sound effects for it I think is.  Gundam has their Light Saber like weapons without recycling the exact same sound effects.

They could have at least given Kirito something like that Blaster/Light Saber hybrid Ezra created in Star Wars Rebels, that Canaan figured out how to use properly in the first season finale.

I'm fine mostly with Death Gun.  How obvious of a Vader Clone he is doesn't bother me.  The premise behind revealing he was two people I feel worked well.  But adding a third felt like nothing more then to have a sequel hook for future story-lines.

Once again I'm uncomfortable with the Rape aspect of the plot.  Ironically I feel it's handled a little better this time, but that they took that rout to make their new villain so evil twice in a row is really lazy.

Shinon should have won the Battle of the Bullets.

There is one aspect of my personal interest in Gungale that I'm going to save for it's own post.

I don't like Asuna (and to a lesser extent his other friends) being sidelined. I get why Kirito doesn't want to get them involved, that's a pretty common attitude for this kind of hero to have.  But usually the plot contrives a way to get them involved anyway.  Here however they find out about it, but still never get to actually help.

The thing that really bugs me however, is how Kirito was in Gungale on an undercover mission but never actually reported anything he learned to the person who sent him in the first place.  We see him spend time back in the real world between qualifying for the Battle of the Bullets and entering it.  Yet when we meet up with his government contact during the BoB he clearly had not even been informed about there being a Laughing Coffin member in Gungale.  And given he was diving in a specially arranged hospital room, why wouldn't they set it up to record everything he was seeing and hearing?

The rest of season 2 I have no issues with at all, Mother's Rosario is absolutely SAO at it's best.  And that I can recall there was no what I would consider Anime Style Fanservice.

Ordinal Scale has turned out to be similar to how I feel about The Dark Knight Rises.  As a stand alone film I have no issues with it at all.  But as far as the on going SAO story goes, it's really annoying how after what had defined much of Kirito's motivations in season 2, he does not care that this AR technology allows them to basically interact with Yui in the real world.  And I think it's really going to show in time how it was written in 2016 to comment on things like Pokemon Go and Google Glasses, but is a Prequel to Light Novels written years before all of that.

Looking forward, I'm very curios about the Gungale based spin off.  And the next arc of the main story-line which it sounds like will start delving more into the A.I. theme of the story.

Winter Anime is Coming

Second week of 2018 Seasonal Anime coverage.

Code:Realize ended on Tuesday.  It was a good show, not what I was hoping it'd be, but it was good.

I watched the first episode of Violet Evergarden.  I probably wouldn't have if it wasn't the only new Dub starting at this time, Netflix and KyoAni were able to come to an arrangement so the Dubs can drop right when the episodes drop in Japan.

It's a well done show, not sure it can maintain my attention however, I grow weary of "those poor war veterans" type stories.

Anime Gataris episode 11 was insane, I'm absolutely loving this show, it's definitely the highlight of Fall 2017.

I decided to drop A Sister's All You Need in the middle of episode 11, I finally got bored with it.

Outside of Seasonal Anime.  I watched both Gundam Origin episode 5 and Thunderbolt Bandit Flower.

My only real issue with the first Thunderbolt movie was it's handling of female characters.  Bandit Flower was in that area better.  But in other areas it's inferior, the weird cult story-line feels out of place to me, and the usage of Music was not nearly as great as in the first one.  And it's cliffhanger means it doesn't feel as much like a complete film.

Gundam Origin is still good, but I do not recommend watching it before seeing the proper Gundam Trilogy.  It's not as good a Prequel story as the SW Prequels or Fate/Zero.

I also watched Akira and 2001's Metropolis.  I don't have anything to say about them here just yet.

And I also just watched Hoshi no Koe, which is a pretty little short film.

I'm not going to watch Devilman Crybaby

I respect that it seems to be mostly satisfying it's target audience.  And that Netflix is helping fund new Anime projects.  But it's not the kind of show that appeals to me.

It's existence I would probably not comment on at all if it wasn't for Netflix involvement guaranteeing it'll be part of the face of Anime in 2018.  Because It embodies one of the boxes most people put Anime into based on what got localized in the 90s.

As much as certain people within the community complain about "Cute Girls doing Cute Things", outsiders still seem to mostly not even know that kind of Anime exists, or if they have seen it around they still have no idea it's become the dominant trend.

The thing that annoys me about how often people still put Anime into such limited boxes, is that Anime refers to all Animation from Japan.  And the truth is Japanese Animation has MORE variety then American Animation.  It's American Animation that mostly fits into only three (sometimes overlapping) categories.

1. Stuff for Kids, or maybe "the whole family" which kind of means the same thing to some people.

2. Adult comedies, from Simpsons to South Park to Adult Swim stuff.

3. Super Hero Comics.

Anime has equivalents to all of those, with arguably more variety within them.  And then plenty of stuff that can't fit into any of those.  From trippy art-house Anime, to Historical Fiction, to adaptations of classical literature, to teen dramas, to stuff that's kinda like Sit-Coms, to full on Porn.

So in addition to stuff like Devilman, I want to also see Netflix help fund more Anime that is reflective of what modern Anime is like and show that Anime is more then just Edgy violence.

The first week of 2018 is over

So in the first post on this I said what day of the week it happens may change.  While at the start I realized I may sometimes want to have this up before Sunday's over, it depends on the timing of things.

Code:Realize is not as great as I was hoping it would be.  But it has been fun, nothing I can say is wrong with it.

Yuki Yuna is a Hero season 2 has finished.  I would have preferred a longer season, but overall I like what they did.  I think it might have been better received as a movie.

Anime Gataris episode 10 was awesomely ridiculous.  It is definitely The show of the fall 2017 season.

A Sister's All You Need episode 10 ruined my hopes of getting something truly gender subversive.  I normally wouldn't drop a show when I've already seen this much of it. But in this case I might.

Meanwhile I just watched season 1 of New Game, and I'll probably watch season 2 soon.

I'm glad Amazon ended their Anime Strike service.  Now we just need to find some way to resolve Netflix's disagreement with the Anime Community.  I don't want to lose the effort Netflix puts into getting stuff Dubbed.

Update: Overlord Season 2 has been added the list of FUNimation SimulDubs for the Winter Season.  So I'll be watching that as well.  I may have already decided to consider adding other additional shows, but I don't want to commit to trying anything else just yet.

Yuki Yuna is Over

I'm kind of not entirely sure what happened.  I'll probably comment on it again on Monday.

It avoided my main fear.  So for now I've given it an 8 on MAL, that may change.  Hopefully it all gets dubbed some day.

Bat-Anime

So I talked about Batman Gotham Knight in a post last year.  Now I've learned another Anime Batman project is in the works, Batman Ninja.

I'll check it out.  But I feel that it like Gotham Knight but in a different way is still based on a limited idea of what Anime is from people who don't watch much about it, stereotypes it still has in some circles based on what got localized in the 90s.

I'm not that interested in seeing Batman in old Japan, as far as Batman as a period piece goes I still don't think we've gotten that right keeping him in the west yet since I don't share the reverence many have for Gotham by Gaslight.

First off lots of Anime is set outside Japan, so I'm curious how a Japanese Anime studio would Animate Batman in his usual setting.  But if you want to put Batman in Japan, put him in modern urban Japan, he need not be any more "Ninja" then he usually is.

I've been a Nerd of some sort all my life.  Batman is my oldest fandom, Anime is kind of my latest.  Perhaps that my interest in Anime is so relatively new means it might be a fad I'll move beyond.  But I don't think so, once I discovered what Anime is really capable of I felt like I found what I'd been looking for all along.  So there possibly is no one more interested in the idea of bringing Batman and Anime together then me.

Since Batman can be re-imagined a number of different ways, there is no one way to do Anime Batman right.  Still I have my preferences that I feel I should share.  And I will share them by mentioning Anime that already exist that appeal to me in ways that overlap with what I like about Batman, and/or want from future Batman stories.

My absolute favorite Anime is still the show that is in a sense my first Anime Anime, Noir.  Given what I said above it's perhaps no coincidence that what got me into Anime was one that made me think of Batman.  It's very title is based on how it harkens back to the same roots as Batman, Film Noirs and French Pulp Crime Fiction.  When I first watched it I felt like it was something Nolan could direct.  Chloe's movements often have a very Batman like quality to them.

And there are other Anime of a similar Genre to Noir, like Canaan or it's Bee Train sisters.

But then in a different way there is Kara no Kyoukai.  In Digibro's first video on Kara no Kyokai he talked about how the first film does a great job at giving the city personality.  And that is something Batman stories always try to do with Gotham, which Nerdwriter did a video on., YMMV on their successes and failures.

Many fans lament how post No Man's Land Gotham isn't really "Gothic" anymore, but rather a more realistically modern city.  But that is I feel a superficial definition of what Gothic means.  Yes Gothic originally refereed to a style of late medieval European architecture, Gothic Romance however as a genre moved beyond that.  Tyler Tichelaar likes to talk about how the origins of modern Urban fiction are tied to moving the tropes of Gothic Romance to a then contemporary setting.  And that of course overlaps with what I talked about in The Mysteries of Gotham.

And so perhaps giving a Gothic personality to a truly modern urban environment is exactly where  Anime like Kara no Kyoukai and other Light Novels Digi would call Faust style Light Novels, are more successful then a lot of post No Man's Land Batman stories.

I can't exactly leave out Lupin III, since I already talked about how the original Lupin is also a literary ancestor of Batman.  But in terms of style, most Lupin III is either goofier then I prefer my Batman, or going for more of a retro style then I technically want for Batman.  In the latter category is The Woman called Fujiko Mine.  Fujiko is beyond any shadow of a doubt the Catwoman of Anime.

I may add more to this post in the future.  Naturally sometimes stuff slips my mind.

But one thing I like about Anime is how much Genre stuff there is with female leads, or at least nearly gender even casts.  Batman Ninja is looking to be another Batman cartoon where it's mostly only the males of the Batman Family who will be joining him besides Catwoman.  I really want Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain to finally get a spotlight in Batman animation.  How perfect it could have been for that to also be a Batman Anime, but alas it is not to be.

Update August 2018: I can't believe I forgot to mention Death Note. Subtract the Supernatrual elements and it has a lot of Batman qualities.  There have been some mash up trailers of it to Nolan's Batman films.  Chief Yagami is the closest thing Anime has to a Jim Gordon, and Misa Amane has a very similar appeal to Harley Quinn, though so do Yanderes like Yuno Gasai.

Anime Weekly Updates

So for 2018, I’ve decided it might help better organize my Anime coverage to devote one post a week to my covering whatever currently airing Anime I watched.  I’ll make a tag specifically for it and thus normally not include them in the regular Anime tag.

What day of the week I do it may change, depends what the schedule each season is like.  I’m starting the year with the finishing of Fall 2017 shows doing them on Monday.  There might be some weeks taken off, particularly as we transition from one season to another.

These posts may sometimes include comments on other Anime I’d been watching, but no guarantees.  Also an Anime being covered in these doesn’t entirely preclude them from having posts dedicated specifically to them, but I’ll try to wait till the season is over before trying that.

The last episode of Yuki Yuna Season 2 will still get it’s own post, I’ve made a commitment there.

To start the year I’m finishing up what’s left from 2017, Simuldubs of Code:Realize, A Sister’s All You Need and Anime Gataris.  And the final episodes of Fate/Apocrypha and Yuki Yuna is a Hero season 2.

Code:Realize 10th episode aired on the last Tuesday of 2017.  It’s been fun but not as great as I was hoping it would be.

Fate/Apocrypha finished, and I found it pretty enjoyable.

For the Winter 2018 season.  Certain shows I’m interested in I’ll try to wait for the Dub for no matter how long that may be, like Overlord season 2.  So I’ll mostly be following Simuldubs.  Though I may try the new PreCrue season, Hugtto, but that doesn’t start till February.

A few Simuldubs I already know I plan to watch.  Some may be added to what I’ll list here.

Citrus, I’m worried this may only get half length episodes like Netsusou Trap had.  But Citrus is better source material to start with, if I have a favorite Manga it’s Citrus.  It is a truly wonderful Yuri.

Death March to A Parallel World Rhapsody, hopefully this will prove as fun for me as Smartphone did back in the summer.  I am a new convert to the Isekai bandwagon.

Katana Maidens also has my attention, but I have no idea what to expect from it.

I would like to follow the new Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card.  Thing is I’m far from caught up on the original (and since I never added it to my MAL I don’t even remember exactly where I left off).  It’s supposed to be a sort of Reset so one doesn’t necessarily need to be caught up, and I didn’t watch old Kino before trying the new Kino.  So basically this one is complicated.