This Week in Anime

Does Sword Art Online the Movie -Progressive- Save the Franchise?

Nick
Steve, it's easy to get caught up in the seasonal grind of the anime industry, but sometimes it's worth taking a step back and appreciating some older anime from decades past. And I've got just the ticket!

That's right, assholes, SAO is a decade old now. Go look in the mirror and notice all the grey hairs and face wrinkles you've been insisting weren't there every morning.

Y'know, looking back, it's wild to me that SA-fuckin-O somehow populated anime discourse for as long as it did. There was the initial surge of popularity, followed by the backlash, then the backlash to that backlash, the imitators and trends chasers which only fueled more of the first and third backlashes. Then somewhere in the middle of all that, the imitators of the imitators started having some questionable opinions on slavery. Suddenly, Kirito having two swords didn't seem like that big a deal anymore. Such is the magic of time and perspective.

While, in hindsight, the sheer venom surrounding this franchise was a bit much, I'll say frankly that I don't have many kind words for the original SAO. At its best, it was a well-produced action fare to which you could shut your brain off. At worst, it had a 1:1 Attempted Rape Scene to TV Season ratio. So I was doubtful about how this ongoing film adaptation would hold up. But, for a first film, Progressive is pretty good. I know; I'm as shocked as anybody.

While it's not the first time the series has had a story from its lead waifu's perspective, it works shockingly well as a reimagining and reframing of the early story beats of SAO. If you walked into this film blind, you'd never think that 90% of the actual franchise is about Asuna's nerdy gamer husband. That's just good writing right there.

That is the core difference here. There are a million other changes and purposeful callbacks, but the fundamental change here is this film feels like the work of a much more seasoned and thoughtful creator. Asuna wasn't a terrible character in the show, but it was apparent the creative inspiration for her started and ended with "Ideal Action Girlfriend." Here, she feels much more rounded with a life outside her eventual beau. It even reveals she's a Panda main in Tekken, so she's legally my favorite SAO character now.

Truly the dude must have gone on an intense spiritual journey to eventually arrive at the idea of giving his perfect anime girl a gamer girlfriend of her own.

It's not at all subtle, and in any other context, Misumi could feel like some bait-and-switch bullshit, considering we know where Asuna will end up. But their relationship works well to sell the drama of the whole "trapped in a game" premise and flesh out Asuna as a person. It's way less eye-rolling that she falls for Kirito now that we know she is just as A Type, and that type is antisocial nerds who get way too into roleplaying their chuuni OCs.

I mean, she is a Heihachi main. I'd be disappointed if she weren't some weirdo.

Sadly the asshole who trapped a bunch of people in his video game also decided that having cool and expressive avatars was too much fun, so gangly freak Misumi is short-lived.

This motherfucker went on to design the Metaverse, I swear.

The dude's not even that good of a game dev. The game itself has tons of huge bugs!

And also, it wouldn't work because the system for checking if somebody logged out would have broken three days after they fired the only engineer who knew how it functioned. In that respect, I need to find out if Misumi and Asuna have it better or worse than the real 2022. At least their evil tech billionaire villain is competent enough that they can go on monster-hunting dates.

Our VR tech is decades away from allowing you to sensually braid your girlfriend's hair in bed. A tragedy.


Another thing I appreciate about the movie is its excellent eye for body language and tactile detail. The flashiest stuff is obviously saved for fight scenes, but much characterization is delivered via small but acutely rendered details. Just look at the folds on this fabric:

I genuinely groaned when Kirito finally made his appearance in this - especially since it was, of course, in a scene where he saves Asuna from a threat. But seeing him do the conversational equivalent of Hover Handing because he was talking to a cute girl made this lump of oatmeal charming.

Though not everything with them is wholly improved. The original's fairly innocuous bread and cream scene has a decidedly more...gloppy texture to it this time.

Just saying, don't let that stuff get in your hair, Asuna. Besides, it's not my fault they follow up this scene with the movie's one real indulgence of fanservice.

Fun/awkward fact: the version of this film that's on Crunchyroll is slightly edited, presumably to encourage people to buy the eventual Blu-ray release if they couldn't watch it in theaters. So unless you're a feet guy, you'll need to save up for those discs.

Look, SAO has always lagged behind the real world of the internet and gaming. It still needs to catch up to the OnlyFans meta.

Though, let it be known I'm not complaining about the obligatory bath scene. That whole thing is positively chaste by even this franchise's standards, and there's no perverted elf licking tears off Asuna's face, so by all counts, this is incredible progress.

Poor Misumi made the classic mistake of seeing a weird little guy and following it into danger. It's like me seeing a dog in Elden Ring.

But honestly, while there's some clunkiness and shortcuts, the work with the characters is more than enough to overshadow it. Hell, they even take the time to let Kirito and Asuna have actual conversations and share some moments of vulnerability before jumping into the big climactic fight.

There's also a bunch of cool effects animation, which is nice.

I especially like that Kirito and Asuna feel like partners here. There are quite a few moments in the original series (coughalfheimcough) where Asuna's job is to sit and call for help from her bae, so it's just refreshing to see them fight in a way where neither feels like the sole contributor.

Are they proclaiming their favorite gaming console or their commitment to fluid roles in the bedroom? You decide!

Look, sometimes you come up with a cool-sounding name when you're a teenager, and nothing can ever convince you to give up on it. For Kawahara, that means every version of this story has Kirito trying to recreate the ending of The Dark Knight in the cringiest way possible.

You can tell all the other characters are nerds because they don't immediately bust out laughing at this scrawny chump punctuating his monologue by dramatically pressing "Equip Matrix Coat" from his options menu.

It is deeply surreal to honestly, earnestly say - in the year of our lord 2022 - that I fully enjoyed a Sword Art Online thing. Let alone that I'm looking forward to the next one! Truly, anything is possible in anime.

We, too, have stepped into a brave new world, my friend. Let's do our best to survive.

But if you see anybody named Suguha, log out immediately.