×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
EP. REVIEW: Sword Art Online: Alicization


Goto page Previous    Next

Note: this is the discussion thread for this article

Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
S0crates



Joined: 06 Jul 2018
Posts: 227
Location: Banned - Noticed our poor ethics
PostPosted: Wed Nov 21, 2018 9:02 am Reply with quote
I really like where this is going.

The next episode is going to get interesting and accelerate the story for sure spoiler[especially if he wins].
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Dr. Wily



Joined: 09 Nov 2007
Posts: 233
PostPosted: Sun Nov 25, 2018 11:41 pm Reply with quote
Hey guys, *Beavis laugh* when Kirito thought of Asuna his sword got bigger. Laughing





Okay to avoid just making a 6th grader joke, I just want to say that I really hope Eugeo contributes to the plot soon instead of seemingly only existing to be "the straitlaced one" when compared to Kirito.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Fred Lougee



Joined: 01 Oct 2018
Posts: 127
PostPosted: Mon Nov 26, 2018 3:00 am Reply with quote
Dr. Wily wrote:
Hey guys, *Beavis laugh* when Kirito thought of Asuna his sword got bigger. Laughing





Okay to avoid just making a 6th grader joke, I just want to say that I really hope Eugeo contributes to the plot soon instead of seemingly only existing to be "the straitlaced one" when compared to Kirito.


I try to type this without making too much of it, but one dramatic term for Eugeo's role is "foil", definition being the partner to the protagonist who is a thematic counterpoint. Pretty common in fiction but it sounds silly when you apply the term to a show based around swordplay.

*ahem*

So are we finally getting through all the set-up, to, as Churchill put it, "the end of the beginning", and on to the main story itself? I hope so. They have got through a lot explaining the mechanisms of the gameworld, I think I will need to go back and rewatch the last few episodes so that I make sure I understand it all for later on. If it's all necessary because the rest of the series is just that complex then so be it.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Key
Moderator


Joined: 03 Nov 2003
Posts: 18137
Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley)
PostPosted: Mon Nov 26, 2018 9:08 am Reply with quote
Fred Lougee wrote:
So are we finally getting through all the set-up, to, as Churchill put it, "the end of the beginning", and on to the main story itself? I hope so. They have got through a lot explaining the mechanisms of the gameworld, I think I will need to go back and rewatch the last few episodes so that I make sure I understand it all for later on. If it's all necessary because the rest of the series is just that complex then so be it.

Really depends on what you consider "the main story." What you're seeing right now is basically Act 2 of Part 1 of the main story, with the very long Act 3 probably starting with the beginning of episode 10. (It depends on where exactly the next episode break falls, but there will be a definitive and irrevocable change in the status quo when it happens.)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website My Anime My Manga
S0crates



Joined: 06 Jul 2018
Posts: 227
Location: Banned - Noticed our poor ethics
PostPosted: Mon Nov 26, 2018 9:27 am Reply with quote
I like the tempo so far. spoiler[He's been in there for like 2 years now?]

The visuals in these fights are spot on!
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Dr. Wily



Joined: 09 Nov 2007
Posts: 233
PostPosted: Mon Nov 26, 2018 11:35 am Reply with quote
Fred Lougee wrote:

I try to type this without making too much of it, but one dramatic term for Eugeo's role is "foil", definition being the partner to the protagonist who is a thematic counterpoint. Pretty common in fiction but it sounds silly when you apply the term to a show based around swordplay.


Oh yeah I mean I know what a foil is, but a foil can still have personality, which Eugeo really seems to lack. I mean, even if he was upbeat and happy about their place in the world, that'd provide a nice counter to Kirito quietly wanting to escape back to the real world; or alternately he could be really vocally desperate about trying to get to Alice ASAP which would contrast with Kirito, who doesn't remember/care about her as much, but he's neither of those. He seems to just... be there.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Fred Lougee



Joined: 01 Oct 2018
Posts: 127
PostPosted: Mon Nov 26, 2018 12:44 pm Reply with quote
Dr. Wily wrote:
Fred Lougee wrote:

I try to type this without making too much of it, but one dramatic term for Eugeo's role is "foil", definition being the partner to the protagonist who is a thematic counterpoint. Pretty common in fiction but it sounds silly when you apply the term to a show based around swordplay.


Oh yeah I mean I know what a foil is, but a foil can still have personality, which Eugeo really seems to lack. I mean, even if he was upbeat and happy about their place in the world, that'd provide a nice counter to Kirito quietly wanting to escape back to the real world; or alternately he could be really vocally desperate about trying to get to Alice ASAP which would contrast with Kirito, who doesn't remember/care about her as much, but he's neither of those. He seems to just... be there.


Yeah. Just...there. It's almost as if initially he was a McGuffin, a device for advancing the the plot, like the suitcase in Pulp Fiction, you never found out what was in it, it didn't matter, but now he's sort of along for the ride, like a saddle bag, only with less personality.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Key
Moderator


Joined: 03 Nov 2003
Posts: 18137
Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley)
PostPosted: Mon Nov 26, 2018 8:49 pm Reply with quote
^
Eugeo will get some more characterization, but if the anime remains as true to the novels as it has so far then he'll always be the weakest link of the three majors for the Underworld content - at least in terms of character development, anyway.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website My Anime My Manga
Fred Lougee



Joined: 01 Oct 2018
Posts: 127
PostPosted: Tue Dec 04, 2018 3:00 pm Reply with quote
Key wrote:
^
Eugeo will get some more characterization, but if the anime remains as true to the novels as it has so far then he'll always be the weakest link of the three majors for the Underworld content - at least in terms of character development, anyway.


Yeah...and Ep. 9 sure did give us some characterization for him.

Oh...In the last few days I binge-watched SAO and SAO II. It's been at least a year since I last saw them and I needed a refresher course. Not sure if this worked against me though, as I was able to spot a couple of silly flaws I had missed before. One really egregious goof that sticks out...

When Sinon and Kirito are in the cave waiting for Death Gun, after she has told him about killing the robber in the post office, and noticing that Death Gun's weapon is the exact same model, a Black Star Type 54, she refers to it as a "single-action". If you know bupkis about guns I will explain how this is a major goof.

In firearms, referring to a weapon as "single-action" means that only one thing happens when the trigger is pulled: The firing pin hits the primer on the casing causing the powder inside to ignite and send the deadly part out the end of the barrel, end of story. That's it. If you wish to fire another shot you need to perform some other action in order to get another round in the chamber. Now, usually the term is applied to revolvers. Cocking the hammer advances the round, so in a single-action revolver you need to manually pull back the hammer in order to fire again, whereas with a dual-action revolver you can either cock the hammer manually for a fast shot or use the trigger to push the hammer back...but this takes a bit of finger strength. The gun in question, the Black Star Type 54, was definitely not a revolver. It was your standard semi-automatic handgun with the clip in the handle, slide action, and the recoil of firing causes the slide to eject the spent casing with the next round coming up from below.

This is not a mistake an uber gun-savvy person would make. The only possible explanation is that she confused it with a type which "safes" itself after each shot, but then there's no way that Shino would have been able to put three rounds into the crazy guy with one, at that age, operating on sheer defense mode, never having touched a gun before.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Vikkio92



Joined: 25 Sep 2014
Posts: 30
PostPosted: Wed Dec 05, 2018 7:39 am Reply with quote
Quote:
a male student having a female page seems like a situation ripe for abuse


Seriously? So a female student having a male page wouldn't be able to abuse their position of power because...?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
NeverConvex
Subscriber



Joined: 08 Jun 2013
Posts: 2267
PostPosted: Sun Dec 09, 2018 4:15 pm Reply with quote
I thought the episode was a little absurd. It had reasonable base ideas, but Raios and Humbert in particular come and came off as downright cartoon-ish in their villainy.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
JacobC
ANN Contributor


Joined: 15 Jan 2008
Posts: 3728
Location: SoCal
PostPosted: Sun Dec 09, 2018 6:10 pm Reply with quote
Hey, so I've deleted some posts in here claiming that this episode was "censored over Western streaming services," because that's a straight-up lie based on disingenuous dissemination of pirated footage. The people spreading this misinformation are doing it to justify their piracy habits, because the episode was censored on most channels that SAO broadcasts on, with the most notable exception of AT-X.

This is extraordinarily common in anime. You see it done with just about every ecchi series under the sun. SAO airs on six different terrestrial channels in Japan and many more online streaming services, but the edited version seen on Crunchyroll was also the same one that aired on about half those terrestrial channels and several European streaming services, with the notable exception of Wakanim, which is literally owned by Aniplex, so I'm guessing that's self-interest-based. AT-X is known as one of the only deep cable channels that airs the explicit versions of the anime they broadcast before the blu-ray, which is why fansubbers tend to source their rips from there. It's definitely the one I see used for those CRUNCHYROLL IS CENSORING ANIME alarmist tweets.

This is especially obvious because Crunchyroll could not have done the black shadow censoring on the severed arms in this episode in post; the way it was done, you can tell it was changed digitally before exporting the animation. So no, Crunchyroll is not censoring your anime, and people can stop conspiracy theorizing about that just because they don't want to pay for anime.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website My Anime
Chester McCool



Joined: 06 Jan 2016
Posts: 322
PostPosted: Sun Dec 09, 2018 7:34 pm Reply with quote
JacobC wrote:
. So no, Crunchyroll is not censoring your anime, and people can stop conspiracy theorizing about that just because they don't want to pay for anime.


Which... doesn't change the fact the Crunchyroll version is censored and if you want to see the original you have to watch it through other means.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
zrnzle500



Joined: 04 Oct 2014
Posts: 3767
PostPosted: Sun Dec 09, 2018 7:54 pm Reply with quote
NeverConvex wrote:
I thought the episode was a little absurd. It had reasonable base ideas, but Raios and Humbert in particular come and came off as downright cartoon-ish in their villainy.


Yeah, while I understand that they were made that way to eliminate any sympathy for these two to make it ok for Kirito and Eugeo to spoiler[maim and ultimately kill one of them and break the taboo that the creators wanted them to break], this sort of villain is not SAO at its best. I guess the positive would be that it will likely be a while before they go to that particular well again, given the spacing of the previous instances.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Ashley Hakker



Joined: 31 Aug 2016
Posts: 115
PostPosted: Sun Dec 09, 2018 8:36 pm Reply with quote
Chester McCool wrote:
JacobC wrote:
. So no, Crunchyroll is not censoring your anime, and people can stop conspiracy theorizing about that just because they don't want to pay for anime.


Which... doesn't change the fact the Crunchyroll version is censored and if you want to see the original you have to watch it through other means.


Calling any version of the episode at this point 'The Original' is a disingenuous statement. They are all variations produced and released concurrently. None of these versions is in any way more or less 'original' than the other.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page Previous    Next
Page 4 of 13

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group