Nothing out of the ordinary, the usual unimpressive Sword Art Online next episode preview clip has become available – and it seems the series truly is taking a liking to the concept of generic harem romance anime.
The video shows naught but a constant stream of disappointment – a man is trapped within a digital world, friends have dissipated before his very own eyes, meanwhile however, he’s running around with the cardboard cutout heroine, living the conventional harem lifestyle within a pixel based world.
It’s practically baffling how a concept which seemed so immense within the first episode has somehow withered down to this – an affair which can’t manage to carry on without placing the camera on the worthless female character, the heroine who hasn’t been developed whatsoever beyond name despite the arrival of seven episodes already. And incidentally, the protagonist sits in the same ranks – an overpowered straw figure who, in a grand total of seven episodes, we have learned no more than his name and that he has a fetish for little sisters.
There has in fact actually been some progression in the tale – assuming the story of “Sword Art Online” was an unoriginal love triangle all along. Aside from that however, this series isn’t even at “square one” – it’s gone far below that, to the nether regions of failure, where none can escape.
In a few days, more “Sword Art Online” harem action awaits.
Aug 22, 2012 @ 8:52 CDT
I see another stop-motion battle… For god’s sake, this is an action anime, at least show something that lives up to its genre.
I couldn’t care less about the drama now, but I’ll be severely disappointed if the next boss battle is anything less than spectacular… Nah, that was asking too much.
Aug 22, 2012 @ 8:54 CDT
“I’ll be severely disappointed if the next boss battle is anything less than spectacular”
They’re going to double their efforts and make it six still images with fade-in effects.
Aug 22, 2012 @ 9:51 CDT
I’m looking forward to this episode but why is there a rabbit in there???
Aug 22, 2012 @ 10:20 CDT
Either it’s a deus ex machina or they just don’t have anything better to show.
Aug 22, 2012 @ 10:39 CDT
Gone with generic side-stories, on to the generic continuation of the “plot”.
Aug 22, 2012 @ 11:51 CDT
It’s the start of the real plot, and it does start out like the Side Stories. Only take the action part, and build up on it. On and on and on, with a breather just before the conclusion of this arc.
Aug 22, 2012 @ 12:06 CDT
This is the main plot. No shit sidestories anymore.
Aug 22, 2012 @ 14:07 CDT
I’d like to hope so.
Aug 22, 2012 @ 12:19 CDT
No no no! The main arc is finally happening! The episodes of generic harem are only the side stories of volume 2 of the light novels. Volume 1 will conclude the Aincrad arc. The series start with a high stakes death game but it becomes more than that in the following volumes. (Unfortunately that’s 2nd season stuff)
They are following the chronological order while the light novels follow an anachronic order. The good stuff is coming.
I wouldn’t say that this work is the next Death Note standard of originality, but Kirito is a decent character to project youself into compared to (insert generic harem hero name here). The girls never progress beyond a mild crush except for our official couple.
Bottomline is, please don’t toss this into Guilty Crown territory just yet Seven-san, please reserve your judgement awhile longer.
Aug 22, 2012 @ 14:07 CDT
I’m not tossing it into Guilty Crown territory yet – although main plot begins in episode eight? Come on bro.
Thanks for the solid information however and heads up.
Aug 22, 2012 @ 14:27 CDT
The begining of Guilty Crown was good and then went into decline, meanwhile I hear everybody saying the exact opposite about Sword Art Online. But even though Sword Art Online will probably beat out Guilty Crown in the end, The animation quality and music is nowhere close to the standards of Guilty Crown.
Aug 22, 2012 @ 14:35 CDT
“The animation quality and music is nowhere close to the standards of Guilty Crown.”
Definitely – so it’s perhaps even worse than Guilty Crown. Slideshow attack? lololo
Aug 23, 2012 @ 14:07 CDT
Nothing is worse than Guilty Crown. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!!!
Lol but seriously, animation and music were the only good points of Guilty Crown which isn’t really a compliment. You can listen to the soundtrack and watch the fight scenes on Youtube, but that’s about all the enjoyment you can get from Guilty Crown. Not sure what we can do about SAO though
Aug 22, 2012 @ 14:18 CDT
Well looks like finally we can get on with the main plot…and i sure hope to see some battles here….its supposed to be ana ction anime concerning a VMMORPG…
Aug 22, 2012 @ 14:29 CDT
Kirito uses Slideshow (defeat enemy in 3-5 pictures)
Aug 22, 2012 @ 14:36 CDT
If they’re feeling ambitious, maybe there’ll be some battle music also.
Aug 22, 2012 @ 17:15 CDT
This anime has horrible character designs, animation(at times) and directing. It’s partially the LN’s author fault for writing a few bad side-stories, but the staff could have easily made it more acessible/better on the anime.
Aug 22, 2012 @ 17:18 CDT
I concur with you entirely – and this in particular:
“the staff could have easily made it more acessible/better on the anime.”
If they saw it was such pitiful quality, they should have done something about it.
Aug 23, 2012 @ 14:10 CDT
I blame them all. Whether the staff didn’t have the balls to change the material, or maybe Reki didn’t let them or couldn’t change it to anything good, they all deserve the bad rap.
Aug 23, 2012 @ 14:26 CDT
I agree – they all do.
You see something’s wrong, you take action.