Forum - View topicEpisode Review: Sword Art Online II
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Endoger
 Posts: 11 |
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It's not that it wasn't successful, its that it wasn't earned. A fine example is this "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBqhIVyfsRg" Ikea commercial, which successfully in 1 minute, makes me feel more sympathy for a lamp than I ever did for Yuuki. With Yuuki, whom this episode was almost completely about, we went from "Girl who plays games who is sad about her sister and she- BAM HERE'S THE MOST TRAGIC SHIT EVER ARE YOU SAD? ARE WE MAKING YOU SAD? PLEASE CRY. HERE WE'LL MAKE IT SADDER. STILL NOT SAD ENOUGH? OK LET ME SLAUGHTER A FEW ORPHANS WHILE WE'RE AT IT." and I just feel insulted because it's like one of those shock horror gimmicks where out of nowhere a monster appears to try and get a reaction out of the viewer. Which is like the complete definition of cheap, and it degrades the quality of whatever I'm viewing.
As I stated earlier, lamp. But I'm a huge softy. KimiUso has made me cry like 4 times already. I cry almost every other Mushishi episode (where each character only get 20 minutes to be developed, surprisngly.) Shirobako has made me cry. Parasyte has made me cry. These are all just from this season alone, and each have been capable of creating characters that I can empathize with. Honestly it's pretty shocking if an anime doesn't make me cry because I cry with almost every emotion. |
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ChibiKangaroo
 Posts: 2941 |
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People keep trying to distract attention from the poor development of Yuki by claiming that she's not even important anyway and this is really all about Asuna. Well the show's writing has gone well out of its way to make Yuki a central focus of this arc, not only by having her drive the plot forward (being the mysterious swordswoman who everyone wants to fight, recruiting Asuna, bringing Asuna along on a raid, and now functioning as a goal of Asuna's), but also by making her the most sympathetic of all characters - the character that the audience should feel most attached to from an emotional standpoint.
Let's compare the problems of Asuna and Yuki to see which one should garner more audience engagement: Asuna - mom is being a coldhearted @$#% by dumping on her and trying to forcefully send her to some ritzy school and marry her off to a rich guy. Yuki -spoiler[ dying from AIDS. Will be dead within months. Unsure if she will be worth nothing when she dies. ] Okay, I think it's pretty obvious as to whom the audience is supposed to engage with more on an emotional level. Certainly, Asuna does function somewhat as an audience stand-in, but her problems are minuscule compared to those of Yuki. We barely need any buy-in for Asuna. We need a TON for Yuki (and the writing expended almost no effort in that to this point). The show failed in establishing the proper connection between the audience and Yuki to make her tearjerking revelations as impactful as intended. That's all Nick is saying. Also I'm surprised to see a few people so angry with him. He's been giving this show some pretty good reviews for several episodes, or at lest above-average reviews. Is it allowed for him to also knock the show when it fails at something? Is that a rhetorical question? 
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ResistNormal
Posts: 117 |
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Uggg. Did they say yuuki or her mother got AIDS from a blood transfusion, cause that don't happen. They have screened for HIV/AIDS since the mid 80's. I can forgive all the stupid writing up to this point, but it's harmful to society to fear or create panic over blood transfusions. Its hard enough to get people to give blood for crap sake.
Also children born in a first world nation like Japan would have less then a 20% chance of having HIV/AIDS even if they were born from a parent with HIV/AIDS. |
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TUSF
Posts: 191 |
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It's harmful to society for everyone to think AIDS is perfectly under-control and extinct. Because this DOES happen. There was a case in Japan just a year ago where someone got AIDS from a blood transfusion. "That don't happen [anymore]" is an ignorant statement fueled by lack of understanding. Blood screening is imperfect, especially because HIV can be UNDETECTABLE for quite a while after getting the disease. It's harmful to think that you're safe just because you're not in a third-world country, and it's harmful to spread misinformation about things you have only a slight understanding of.
That does NOT mean that it's impossible. It doesn't even mean that it's unlikely to happen under normal circumstances. |
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ResistNormal
Posts: 117 |
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Its a 1 in 6.5 million. in first world nations.
Easier to be hit by lightning at random. 1 in 500,000 |
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TUSF
Posts: 191 |
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And yet it still happens. And again, the kids could have easilly have gotten it during birth. C-sections are particularly bloody operations. Your numbers aren't perfect, and the possibility is still VERY real. (Hell, it's not even uncommon for people to be hit by lightning. Multiple times even.)
As I already said, pushing this off as something that "can't happen in my country" is simply harmful to society, and promotes unsafe assumptions. |
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Endoger
Posts: 11 |
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For this to even begin to make sense Yuuki has to be acknowledged as the 1 in 7billion. To get a -super resistant- strain of aids from a botched blood fusion that her mom apparently got, which still spread to both Yuuki and her Sister AND her dad so her -entire- family is infected with what essentially is SUPER AIDS. And then it kills everyone but Yuuki, who is then trapped in a virtual world from an air locked room so she doesn't die... I mean I'm all for suspension of belief but come on. Like endless 1 in a 6million things happening all to just her? Is the real twist here that her disease has also cursed her to be the unluckiest person alive?
Her situation gets more comical the more I think about it. |
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TUSF
Posts: 191 |
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Getting bad blood in a blood transfusion is not that rare. (Was talking earlier with someone who mentioned their cousin got Hep C from some bad blood) It just doesn't happen as often with AIDS.
Drug Resistant strain of HIV? Not rare at all. It's not some kind of Super AIDS. Her immune system tanked already, long before she entered a clean room. The only unlikelyhood has to do with actually dying of it all, ones it becomes full blown AIDS, because there is in fact treatment for it-- it's just not perfect. Just because you don't hear constantly about how everyone is dying of a disease does not mean it's gone. I find it comical that people think medicine is some kind of magic voodoo, even though any number of drugs can react unpredictably with any number of people, with any number of other combination of drugs. Errors and mistakes are extremely common in hospitals, and happen ALL the time. There are hospitals that are sued constantly because a surgeon literally forgot some tool inside of a patient. Human error accounts for a ton of medical related issues today. It's even more comical that Kawahara is being criticized for giving the virus a name, instead of just calling it a cold, or an "unknown ailment", |
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HeeroTX
Posts: 2046 Location: Austin, TX |
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So... we're railing on the show that has as it's CORE conceit a super advanced technology that allows fully immersive games and at points has fully self aware AI, that is anchored by a guy that is essentially "Neo" from The Matrix in how he can overcome even the base system constraints to do what he needs to do; because the odds of something that is actually possible in real life, today are too remote? Really? Honestly, I expected Yuuki spoiler[to be another AI, like Yui] so I was actually "pleasantly" surprised by the actual story. And the concept of the Mediboid is actually an interesting direction to take the technology we've already become so familiar with in SAO. Definitely a step up from "bubble-boy". |
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Endoger
Posts: 11 |
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Thanks for making me question for the millionth time why I ever watched this show. 
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Emerje
 Posts: 7349 Location: Maine |
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Not until now did I not realize how many people watching SAO don't understand how science fiction works. Amazing. Although, as someone who actually works in nursing and has done hospice work regularly for 18 years I didn't find the story all that ill conceived. The content was heavy, but none of it was impossible. I don't believe they said what order her family died in, but stress can also take its toll on an immune system. So let's assume the mother went first since she delivered twins, has a deadly disease and both over her daughters are dying. Then we'll say the sister went next since from what we know she was basically taking the "big sister" role with Yuuki which probably was a pretty stressful situation to be in even if she put up a strong front.
So now Yuuki has lost her mom and twin sister and she knows she's probably not too far away from the same fate so now her immune system also collapses from the stress but her life is at least prolonged. Then there's the father. They never say specifically what killed him, but I'd say loosing his wife and a daughter with another one on her way out probably is what lead to it. I have to assume he was incredibly stressed out, super depressed, probably not eating or taking proper care of himself and that was it for him. Depression can lead to death if left untreated and he didn't exactly have a lot to live for. This is actually very common when families are killed in accidents, it's called "survivor's syndrome" (related to PTSD) and the Wikipedia entry even cites HIV/AIDS as a leading cause. It's really not that far fetched, it's all plausible. I also really liked the idea of her connecting with other people (never said they were all kids, it is an online game) in the same situation through games. I'm just glad that at the end it's Asuna who has the idea for the camera mount to get Yuuki "out" of the hospital. I really thought Kirito was going to pop in at the end say "I've got an idea." and ruin Asuna's moment. Speaking of Kirito, kinda rude shutting the laptop on your daughter's face without saying anything first so that the grown-ups can talk. I guess she's finally being treated like a real child. Emerje |
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Newbie9
Posts: 38 |
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Doesn't matter how the plot went, there's way too little sympathy for dying people here. This is the "Sword Art Online" show, not the "Asuna Show". People like Yuuki need their day too instead of being shoved out of sight and mind. Seriously, some need to visit a hospice one day to get some life perspective.
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IcyInk
Posts: 3 |
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I kinda interpreted/viewed this arc quite a bit differently from most people (apparently) so I actually liked it quite a bit. I had already read the light novel series so I knew what was going down though tbh it was pretty obvious what Yuuki's situation was about in both the LN and the anime.
I never felt that I lacked a deep enough connection with the Sleeping Knights nor that the story somehow was "cheating" me. This was because I just didn't think that the story was supposed to be or trying to create this incredible emotional investment. It felt much more like the "twist" was plot progression plain and simple. I thought that the sob story scenario was really for Asuna to experience while I got to see how SAO explores the notion of VR technology truly impacting society, medicine and how it can substitute for virtual reality. This arc also builds the world well for Accel World, the other story by this author that takes place within the same world in the future. The way the light novel was written (or at least the translation) pretty much everyone (the Doctor, Kirito, even Yuuki herself) were relatively pragmatic about the whole situation. It was really only Asuna who had significant amounts of emotional resonance for the current plot development. In fact I had much greater emotional investment in what Asuna's feelings towards Yuuki were than Yuuki herself. So I guess I kinda just automatically viewed the anime in the same way. Did anyone else feel this way? Or is it just me? :P |
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maxlance
Posts: 50 |
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I think you pretty much pegged it. Having a third-party "God's-eye" view of a story tends to remove us from appreciating the clueless awareness and true surprise and shock a character like Asuna has in this kind of story. I think her reactions in this are pretty close to how a real person would have in this unique situation. This really humanized SAO for me and I'm pleased the writer took the chance. In fact I'd like him or someone else to take a step beyond this ep or Accel World and portray a whole VR community of 'Sleeping Knights' as it were and how such terminal or extended life-support people would relate to "visitors" from the real world, especially those doing this from very early childhood. I think I'm going to ratchet up by a few percents a chance that Yuuki will make a VR resurrection some day. I have a feeling she racked up enough pathos in Japanese viewers to have producers at least flit with the idea. Another idea I'd love to see developed is a thought of Kirito's in the Mothers' Rosary novel while working on Yui's remote senses regarding Yui controlling a girl 'android' body to live in the real world. Another thing I noticed about Yui is how she's in the dugout during the other's quest, just sitting in the sidelines on Kirito's shoulder calling the shots instead of pitching herself. I guess her (vast?) slam-dunk powers automatically disqualify her from taking an active role in a quest! It'd be fun though if she hung up the fairy thing and powered-down into a vulnerable 'human' to take part in the quests! A spin-off about the 'humanization' (and growth?) of Yui would be a story I'd happily buy! Seasons Greetings All! Max |
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Actar
 Posts: 1074 Location: Singapore |
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This is a truly pertinent point that really delves into how each person appreciates narratives and consumes characters. For instance, do you look at a coincidence happening in a story and say "Oh, how lucky for the main character!" or "That's lazy writing!". (e.g. Tokyo Godfathers) As mentioned by Max, if you are looking at the series of events in this show from Asuna's uninformed perspective, it's actually a legitimate shocking and heartrending twist - finding out the sad truth of someone whom she has just befriended. If you want to look at it from a writing perspective and whether or not the author was able to corral and manipulate the viewer into feeling sympathy for Yuuki, you'd define it as poorly executed and cheap. I'm not saying that either interpretation is wrong or invalid, but personally, I tend to consume shows as if they were windows into universes and characters as actual autonomous beings. Things that happen in the universes are not contrived writing devices thought out by the writers but are instead a sequence of events that occurs in that reality. This way, I personally feel that I'm able to enjoy shows much more. Is Yuuki a contrived plot device made out to look as pathetic as possible in order to illicit sympathy? Or is it a case of a poor girl who managed to find solace in the game and happened to come into contact with Asuna? You decide. |
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