I wanted to post this as a review to the LN or the anime itself but I combine the two so much that I don't really think it fits into one category. I'll just write it here and maybe I'll submit it as a review to one of them some other time.
I just recently finished the LN series, well the ones that have been released, and it left a bad taste in my mouth. Because I love the first LN so much, I want to express why I was severely disappointed in the following volumes. And so, here's what a day of thinking and a decent amount of time on word got me.
By the way, there are MAJOR SPOILERS from here on out.
The first volume of the LN was incredible. It is by far my favorite anime related story/book/anime/whatever. But sadly, the author fucked up after that.
I don't know whether it was popularity or something, but as the series went on, the author kind of forced more unnecessary things onto Kirito. It felt like a failed attempt to obtain that feel of SAO again, but in a new setting. If he wanted to do something like that, he should have dropped SAO, kept it good, and started something else. I guess Accel World didn’t suffice.
To be fair, I can see how ALO was kind of needed. The idea of Asuna being a damsel in distress was fine. I’m sure nearly every viewer couldn't wait to see Asuna and Kirito meet outside of SAO for the first time. What a great way to entice more readers/viewers by trapping Asuna in a bird cage. Give the romance a little more umph right? I'm sort of being sarcastic here. On one hand a big appealing factor of Asuna was that she actually wasn't helpless. She was more so bad ass. On the other hand, that scene where we see Kirito at Asuna’s bedside for the first time. Damn, I teared up a little bit. That made me love them even more.
Again, ALO was a pretty decent idea but somewhere in the planning stages, something went wrong. First of all, do we really need the stupid anime trope of a harem? No matter how small, or debatably large, it is. Asuna and Kirito was a match made in heaven, what a wonderful romance to ruin. I can only assume that’s what was going through the authors head when he dreamt up Leafa. Thank god she got turned down. And speaking of anime tropes, he had to add incest too? Really?
At this point it’s also worth mentioning the little SAO half harem that was made in LN two, or the first 6 or 7 episodes. I like the role Lisabeth played, only because it enhanced the Kirito x Asuna relationship. Silca, on the other hand, seemed really out of place, and to be honest I found her extremely annoying.
I think one of the reasons SAO appealed to me was because Kirito was this lone wolf kind of guy (LN 1 people), but not a complete fuck head. He reminds me a lot of myself and I’m sure the author was thinking of himself too when he was dreaming up his perfect wife, Asuna. Kirito had flaws, it upsets me when I see people complaining about how perfect he is. I’ll give you that he’s OP as fuck, but he still has flaws as a character. He has virtually no friends; his only talent really was playing video games, how convenient he got trapped in one. It is mentioned many times in Kirito’s inner monologue how he doesn’t talk to anyone, and goes home to play RPG’s all day until dawn. He’s very lonely but hides in his shell of video games. He often doesn’t know how to talk to people or convey his feelings the way he wants to.
Now back to ALO, Kirito appears to be this super guy who makes friends with a huge boobed retard in like 2 minutes, blowing the previous guy out of the water. This also happens in GGO… kind of. I can’t help but feel dirty as the pure romance developed in LN 1 was tainted as Kiroto goes on these half romances in every game he plays. This can be interpreted as character growth I suppose, but I call it lazy writing. They basically just removed the flaws, which I admired so much in LN 1. Now you can call him a flawless unstoppable force that can kill or fuck anything.
The ending of LN 4 was ok. I thought they were taking it in a new direction, one I would have actually taken if I were the author. I was really intrigued how Kirito and Asuna would adapt into the real world. The school thing was pretty stupid, I’d remove that. It was obviously a plot device to keep his characters together. Instead I would have Kirito and Asuna struggle to find their way back to reality.
LN 7, I think, did a decent job at this. Asuna had a couple fights with her mom. She rebelled but it was kind of awkward bringing her mom into the game.
I would have taken a much more mellowed out tone to the series. It’s obvious they wanted to keep it shounen, but I think a slice of life approach would have been much better. A couple big topics that were kind of addressed but I would want to flesh out, one being the feel of reality. They actually did go into this pretty well, and in the later novels they do talk about more realistic dives, I can only imagine the ending will be something like Asuna and Kirito digitizing themselves and living in that cabin forever with Yui or something. Back on topic, in my perfect little series both Kirito and Asuna would struggle with the whole concept of reality, as it was slightly shattered in their two year adventure.
K that’s all I got for now, this is incomplete.
Random thoughts I couldn’t fit in:
I like how he covered his tracks in LN 1 with the fishing story, making the romance seem a little more natural.
You can tell he fell in love with the story he wrote. He continuously wrote little extra bits about those mysterious two years that went by in SAO. He also makes the characters think about their time in SAO together.
I spent way too much time writing this. It’s a damn anime for 15 year old boys.
I read a couple summaries for the later novels because it was kind of hard to get through
Verdict on the series: 4. LN 1 can only carry so hard.
Also as a lasting note, I'm keeping the anime itself a 9 because it's only on the first 4ish volumes and the adaptation was done beautifully.
I think I write very poorly and awkwardly. I'm probably going to be rewriting this a lot as time goes on.
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