Sword Art Online: A Case Study of Dropping Quality · 8:55am May 27th, 2014
When people talk about "declining quality" in a series (TV, movie, book, video game, it doesn't matter) they're usually talking about a gradual decline. Perhaps the formula is becoming more noticeable or more stale. Perhaps some new element has been introduced that interrupts what was a working formula (Sometimes called the Scrappy Doo Effect). Sword Art Online is a unique case in that the decline in quality literally happens between episodes. Episode 1-14 are amazing, and episode 15-26 are positively sickening by comparison. I heard about the show getting weird and losing quality later on, but I never imagined that it would be this sharp, this fast, or to this degree. Here are a few comparisons.
(SPOILER WARNING FOR SWORD ART ONLINE! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!)
1-14: Asuna, the lead female, is a powerful and charismatic lead who pops in and out for a while until she and the lead male, Kirito, hook up. Not only do they avoid the "tsundere" relationship so common in anime, but the relationship is handled in such a mature manner that they have a completely mature first night of intimacy, and even get married before the game comes to an end.
15-26: Asuna spends the entire time trapped in a cage in the final dungeon of the new game, praying and hoping for Kirito to some to her rescue. Some lip service is given to her independence and skills from the first half of the series, but she shows virtually none of it. She is reduced to the trophy waiting for the hero at the end.
1-14: Sexualization basically doesn't happen. The closest they come is two instances of girls in their underwear. The first is a silly joke in which a girl is almost walked in on, and the second is when Asuna is undressing for her first night of intimacy with Kirito, a moment that is less perverted than it is meaningful, given that this is a character who has shown a strong will and independent spirit, stripping willingly for what she already knows, expects, and wants. A far cry from the normal anime nudity where a woman is accidentally spied upon.
15-26: Not only has the standard dress code for women in this new game become low cut tops and suspicious skirts, but the average breast size for every newly-created woman in the show has tripled. Even Kirito's younger sister in real life has large breasts, her own nude bathing scene, routinely walks around in a pajama top with a few too many buttons undone (sometimes with pants), and there's just a general feeling of unease going from the first half of the series to the second, like you missed the YMCA and ended up walking into a strip club. Strip clubs are nice when you're expecting them, but you don't want girls to start stripping in the YMCA.
And I'm not done there. Asuna isn't just degraded by being turned into a fairy-tale prison-princess, she's also degraded by having the main villain of the series perving out over her unconscious body in the real world, and then fondling and making crude advances toward her in the virtual world. Constantly talking about how she'll change her mind and want to **** him at some point. And the worst offense I've seen so far (I haven't even finished this yet), is that Asuna's first (only?) escape attempt ends with her being subjected to sexual assault by a researcher who, for some reason, has taken the virtual form of an ooze-slug with, you guessed it, tentacles! A twenty second PG-13 tentacle-rape scene ensues, and only ends after the tentacle has entered her mouth (where she bites it and reminds him that he can feel pain).
Oh, and Kirito's sister I mentioned earlier? Yeah, her only defining personality trait is that she desperately wants to ride big brother's bulging boner and becomes depressed that he's in love with Asuna. I'm not a prude, when it comes to incest I actually have a pretty relaxed attitude all things considered... but seriously? But oh wait, it turns out Kirito is adopted and they're not really biological siblings... they're biological cousins. This added absolutely nothing to the plot. The exact same effect could have been achieved with a real-life friend of his from down the block. It's just so out of place relative to everything that came before I can't even wrap my head around how their brains even connected point A to point B.
There is absolutely no bridge between the first half of the series and the second. A couple of plot points and characters carry over, but even those feel wrong and weird in this context. Seeing Kirito's and Asuna's adopted "daughter" (an AI from the original Sword Art Online program), a sweet and heartbreaking character from the first half of the series, turned into a scantily-clad pixie broke my heart. I just don't understand this at all. How does a show go from breaking all of the traditional anime rules and stereotypes, delivering powerful moments with characters who feel organic and alive without needing to resort to needless fanservice or pandering devolve into... THIS? Literally BETWEEN EPISODES. There's nothing gradual about this decline, it's like the perv-lights literally switched on right when the writer sat down to write Episode 15.
As far as I'm concerned this series has 14 episodes (the titular game actually ends on episode 14, and then a new game begins on episode 15, leading me to think a new writer/director took charge and drove it into the ground like a railroad spike), and then is followed by a weird parody someone dreamed up. That's the only way I can reconcile all this. I wish I was making all of this up. The series had such an amazing unconventional flow, delighting with its sharp writing and powerful characters, skipping right past the usual tropes and reliable attention-grabbing stunts to bring life to characters who have a strong pull of their own... and then it became the most stereotypically written and dirty anime you can imagine.
I needed to get that out, it is actually keeping me awake I am so upset about this. In the context of FIMfiction, may I recommend that you out there writing your own story NOT DO THIS. Write a variety of stuff, sure, but don't take one type of story and spontaneously transform it into another type without warning. It won't end well. People who want the first type of story will stop reading, and people who want the second type won't want to read through the first part to get to it.
What about the upcoming Season 2 then? I mean for the most part Asuna will be in the background and not to mention you neglected to mention the OVA and the other girls in the series.
*shrug* i like Log Horizon much more anyway ...
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I'm not sure what you mean by OVA. I've been watching it on NetFlix in Japanese with English subtitles. Not sure if it's edited from the original Japanese or what, but typically they tend to be the original Japanese versions.
As for Season 2... hopefully it goes back to the working formula from the first 14 episodes.
And I don't mention the other girls because they're basically all one-shot characters who reflect the side of the story they're on. the girls from episodes 1-14 are well-thought-out and provide some excellent moments without being exaggerated or used, while the ones in the second half are basically walking body parts, with even the leaders of the Cait Siths and the Silfs wearing needlessly revealing clothing and pressing their boobs and other exposed body parts against the first swordsman who shows up and fights on their behalf. One of them is even wearing a skirt that is open on the front, putting her underwear on display while the men in her group are fully covered.
2149598 Well, it's more like a movie anyway. As opposed to the ALO arc Suguha is actually more tolerable since the entire thing was a prelude to the GGO arc.