Forum - View topicEpisode Review: Sword Art Online II
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HitokiriShadow
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The incest is usually low on people's issues with it. Maybe try actually reading what people don't like about. For example, the review this thread is for. |
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Seraphic Moogle
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This was a very poor review and highly prejudiced without any discernible objectivity even for a 'critic'. It would be preferable for a different ANN reviewer to take over without an agenda or clear distaste and therefore a belief the material is irredeemable.
I disagree with most of the reviwer's words and it seems as just another part of the bandwagon that seeks to take the supposed 'high ground' in attacking a divisive, yet popular in some quarters to attack, anime. |
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TUSF
Posts: 191 |
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Nick (or Bobduh) has been reviewing SAO episode by episode since early in the year. Just because he doesn't fawn over SAO and say it's a masterpiece doesn't mean he has an agenda against the series. I personally think he's been rather fair with the series. He hasn't said anything about the series being irredeemable (quite the opposite even) While I can't say I agree with everything he says, nothing he says really carries any malice, in my opinion. He's just being critical of a show where it needs to be. |
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JacobC
ANN Contributor
 Posts: 3728 Location: SoCal |
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I have a secret for you: objectivity is a lie. An objective review is just a literal plot summary and production credits. What you are looking for is a subjective review that matches your own opinion. You may find those in many places across the internet, somewhere someone will agree with you, you just have to dream and believe and google-search.
It's so cruel of people to attack the poor defenseless television show. I'm sure its television show feelings and television show self-esteem are deeply wounded. |
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18219 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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While I also heavily disagree with a lot of what Nick says about the series, claiming that he is calling it "irredeemable" is patently inaccurate. In fact, he clearly indicates that he hopes for the series to show him something better. And I will at least agree with him on one major criticism concerning episode 9: it was absolutely padded out. The episode could have been trimmed by at least 3-4 minutes (and possibly much more) without losing anything. That being said. . .
Pretty sure that's not what Seraphic Moogle was getting at, and you're not doing any better than you're accusing him of doing by tossing this back. Last edited by Key on Sun Aug 31, 2014 11:53 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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TUSF
Posts: 191 |
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I was merely pointing out my interpretation of what he said. He claimed the reviewer had an agenda, and I assumed that was because of his negative opinion on most of what happened in the first season. I may have gone too far with what I said, but that doesn't change what I meant. |
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Actar
 Posts: 1074 Location: Singapore |
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I definitely agree with you with regard to the fact that objectivity doesn't exist. However, it is also important to adjust one's judging criteria when it comes to reviewing shows and take into consideration what people might enjoy about the series. Not to mention, substantiating your claims as to why you find certain subjects objectionable and ensuring that you don't make your opinions sound like facts. Keeping an open mind is also important. Regarding his point on "agenda", I can see how some of the statements that were made in the review could have been interpreted as such. I don't want to get into a feminism debate again, but sometimes, considering the intended audience for the series won't hurt. Statements like "a scene that was framed such that the audience was supposed to enjoy it." serves to attack some of its viewers as opposed to the show itself. If you found the content objectionable, fine. But understand that there are others who do enjoy it and we as reviewers should be cognizant of their feelings. (A little off topic, but did the reviews always appear on the main page together with the news? Is there a way to choose the content that appears? I come to ANN for the news, not reviews, so it would be nice to be able to do that.) |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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For now, right under the marquee up top where you see the filter list ("anime" "games" etc) there are filters for "news" and "interest". Click either of those and poof, your feed will not feature daily reviews. |
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Actar
Posts: 1074 Location: Singapore |
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Absolutely brilliant. Thanks a ton! |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4594 |
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What I find most amusing about SAO were the claims about the Aincrad Arc being "the good part"...only to find that it was absolute narrative drek and/or creeper-wish-fulfillment itself. (Seriously, the climax of that arc is one of the single-worst pieces of writing I've laid eyes on in any medium.) So my expectations were already completely destroyed by the time I got to Fairy Dance, but even then it wound up being more horrific than I'd imagined. It really is true: SAO is the Twilight of anime.
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ChibiKangaroo
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Don't you realize that you are confirming his point in your argument here? You complain that he says that a particular scene was "a scene that was framed such that the audience was supposed to enjoy it," but then in the very next sentence you say that "there are others who do enjoy it." This is a phenomenon that I have noticed in many, MANY criticisms of reviews here and elsewhere. If the reviewer notes (accurately) that the writing of the show is trying to pander to a certain fetish or desire of certain audience members, and the reviewer finds that to be distasteful for whatever reason, the fans of the show who did indeed enjoy that particular fetish or whatever come forward and complain about how the reviewer is personally attacking them. The fans see it as the reviewer judging something that they enjoy, and they become all up in arms about it. However, as others have mentioned, judgment of that type is the reviewers job. He or she is supposed to inform us of his or her reaction to what happened in the show, whether the reaction was positive or negative. If we want to censor reviewers to take all of that away when it is negative, then as others have mentioned, the reviews become stale and transform into nothing but recaps or cheerleading posts, neither of which is of any use here. |
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jeffinitelyjeff
 Posts: 12 |
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(This is regarding the Ep 1-8 review)
I thought this review was great! Keep up the awesome work, and I hope you don't let the comments about objectivity stick too close. I had minor point (which led into a bit of a ramble... ugh, SAO):
Maybe this wasn't your intent, but the impression I got from the juxtaposition of these sentences was that Sinon's intro episode was a perfect example of "just enough exposition to provide necessary dramatic context". I really disagree with this, because of one element that I found lacking and extremely frustrating: the almost complete lack of mention of death stakes. In Aincrad, a death was a real-world death; in Alfheim, a death cost time (as I recall, they'd respawn elsewhere, so they'd have to backtrack); in GGO, a death from Death Gun (supposedly) is a real-world death, and a death in the tournament means dropping out of the tournament, but what does a death in GGO cost otherwise? I don't mind that they don't explain that thoroughly in general, because it's a situation that isn't important to the main plot—except in Sinon's introductory episode. In that episode, her teammates wanted to let themselves die and respawn, but we sat through a monologue and dramatic encouter because Sinon told us that dying wasn't an option. Why isn't it an option? Was she so desperate to win because death meant losing all their resources? Losing all equipped items (including her prized sniper rifle)? Because they really desperately needed the prizes they'd get from raiding the other team (which didn't seem that important, IIRC)? It just really frustrates me that the show relied on our expectations for real death to motivate us on a situation that had nothing to do with real death. I think the episode does provide the "necessary dramatic context" Nick mentions in his review, but in a way that almost forces you to forget that you're watching a game and to treat death of the good guys as just as threatening as real death, which falls apart to even a second of logical thought. Sinon's teammate spoke like an MMO player, and Sinon replied like she found herself in a real-life battle, and the show gives the impression that her side is the logical one. Side note: I assumed these talkback threads would be separate for each episode review. That way someone can read the discussion for episode 1-8 without worrying about spoilers for episode 9. As is, how do we tag things for spoilers—tag *every* event in the season as a spoiler? Seeing as there are already 20+ posts soon after releasing these two reviews, I think it's safe to assume there'll be some audience for discussion of each review separately; managing all those different threads of discussion within one thread sounds confusing... but maybe it will matter less when there's a week between each post? |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18219 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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Logistically speaking, keeping all of the episode reviews for a particular series channeled into one Talkback thread is by far the smoothest and most efficient (and least cluttered!) way to handle it, so I expect Zac will maintain that practice. With that established, separating discussion of the initial review and discussion of episode 9 is functionally impossible since they both went up at the same time. In future weeks we can institute a common practice in the Anime forum by asking the first respondent in a new episode's review to clearly-mark the episode that there are responding to, such as by putting an Episode 10: at the top of the page. That would mark the point where official discussion of the newest review would begin. For the series that I do or follow, I might even be troubled to index them on the OP. Now, that's obviously not going to completely eliminate the problem of people who aren't caught up but still want to comment on older reviews being potentially exposed to spoilers, but it should at least minimize the problem. |
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TUSF
Posts: 191 |
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They were more subtle on this part in the anime. If you rewatch the episode, the first person Sinon shoots leaves behind his weapon. And that's the penalty. When you die, you have a random chance of dropping an items and money; in this case the guy's weapon. Actually, they DO talk about the penalties in the episode. Dyne mentions that they'll get benefits from killing the group, like money, specifically saying that they'll get even more money because of all the monsters that the PVE group had taken out before they were ambushed. |
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HitokiriShadow
Posts: 6251 |
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Frankly, viewers need to grow thicker skins and stop projecting themselves onto the shows they watch. Criticizing the intent of how a show or scene was designed to appeal to audiences in certain ways IS criticizing the show, not the audience. Saying "people who like this are pedophiles/mass-murderers-in-training/disgusting" and the like are attacks on the audience. Though I wouldn't even say those should never ever be in reviews, but it sure better be something utterly vile. But talking about the intent and intended audience? Not inherently an attack. That's just criticism. |
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