Anime Review - Soul : Sword Art Online

Review Souls: Sword Art Online 

EPISODES: 25

STUDY: A-1 Pictures

GENRE: Sci-fi, action, drama

DIRECTOR: Tomohiko Ito

CAST: Yoshitsugu Matsuoka, Haruka Tomatsu, Kanae Ito, Hiroaki Hirata, Hiroki Yasumoto, Toru Okawa, Rina Hidaka, Ayahi Takagaki, Ayana Taketatsu, Takehito Koyasu 

PLOT
In the year 2022 is released a new video game to virtual reality, Sword Art Online (SAO), but once inside, the players find that they could not get out; to make matters worse, if they were to die in the die game in the real world. The only way to escape is complete SAO. Kirito, one of the trapped players, will fight to end the game

REVIEW
Review Picture the scene: you are in front of a buffet and right before your eyes there is this dish of pasta rolls filled with a puff. You do not know what's inside, but they have a golden color and fragrant really not bad. Someone behind you says they are the final evolution of the food as we know it, someone else that if they ate an old boot twenty years taken from the garbage would have preferred a hundred million times more.

You are more confused than before, but it's too late: now we are in and you can not go back. Take a roll, hesitate two seconds and I'll drive out in the mouth.

HISTORY
nothing new but still inviting, especially the first arch: every death has its emotional power and the constant sense of danger is pushing just enough to find out what will happen in the episode after ... What then, on several occasions, is a filler. Ok, it really is not all 'I'm much of a problem because it is least integrated with the situation: the characters need to rest and then do everything possible to try to live their lives anyway. The absence of the outside world sequences and a large amount of time in which the story takes place create a sense of claustrophobia, however, unfortunately, can not really take off. Do you understand the time jumps, which is obvious if you focus them in more than two years of imprisonment, but also a jump of a year already in the first episodes? What the hell has happened in the meantime? Also use that year would have been useful to show how the characters and the company that they created in the game to evolve more and more; because they cut so brutally? Oh well ', other than that the first arch is more than decent. Then came the second, and there you begin to feel a different taste. It is not evil, indeed I will enjoy as well, but compared to the previous year is almost, say, tasteless: a captive princess (who would have fled long before its behalf); a large company that, like all large companies, it is ugly, dirty and bad; a parenthesis incestuous that does not serve the purpose of history if not to make it more embarrassing, and the absence of the constant sense of danger of the first arc make the latter more general and much, much less effective.

CHARACTER
good or bad, can be considered both as the strong point of weakness that the series. While we have some pleasant and intriguing characters (like Asuna), on the other hand, lack of due evolution psychology, mainly because of the time jumps and a hasty script: Kirito, say, goes from being the classic boy and unsociable introverted to cool prepotent within an episode without anything further of his personality. And while we're on the subject, another of the major problems is its SAO "kiritocentrismo": everything, and I mean everything, revolves around Kirito, the hero a bit 'a nice little' damn, always ready to smile, to destroy every enemy, to collapse at his feet every single female lead because of its involuntary super gagging (sic!) and outshine every other character that is a more interesting minimum of him (ie all) ... Feel the idea of a vast and varied world, populated by people with their lives and their personalities, but that does not expand enough because sucked into the black hole of Kirito presence. Most of the characters appearing in an episode and then disappear and reappear right away in anonymity hundred million eons later without having anything to say. The only characters who are saved are: 1) Asuna, who as well as having a good personality, also has the most emotional moments (and yes, I admit, to see her and Kirito together is something quite pricey) and 2) Akihiko Kayaba, the game's creator and main antagonist, which, although it is treated in a marginal way, proves to be an intriguing and mysterious character who urges you to ask yourself why the hell he did what he did and whether he is really evil. This at least in the first period ... In the second, however, we find Sugar, the sister of Kirito, which is actually her cousin because, hey, it's not a damn harem without at least a note incestuous! And then, not least, there Nobuyuki Sugou. And Sugou is adorable. Manager Operations ugly, dirty and bad aforementioned, he is the bad guy of the second arc of SAO, so treacherous and slimy is the envy of even the sheriff Nottingham and holds each more enemy face to reach sling azz Ata. It is impossible to take it seriously, but hell if you enjoy every single minute in which you on the screen!

ANIMATION
This is not to say, is fluid and, on many occasions, visually spectacular. The action scenes in the first period can be found a static Cici Nino, but improve with the progress of history.

ACTING AND SOUNDTRACK
Roughly speaking, all the players fared just fine on their side, but maybe Takehito Koyasu as Sugou is a bit 'too over the top, even by Japanese standards ... but, let's face actually, Sugou is anything but a thin villain, so there is going to perfection! The soundtrack by Yuki Kajiura is great and epic as it serves and also the letters very well they do their job (Note: I'm not a music expert, so my opinions about it are quite superficial).
Now you have swallowed the roll.
Behind you, there are those who strives to spread the recipe around the world professing the Word of Browse and who was put to hunt down the armed cook torch and pitchfork. You, however, are still properties: been summing up.
Although well presented, the taste was nothing special ... But even anything evil. Yes, there was some commercial data here and there, a bit 'too much filler and not very interesting characters, but nothing really detestable. Although not without fanservice, at least you enjoyed that you will not have it too slammed in your face, as well as not having sexualized the situation despite the harem premise. He wanted to be an entertainment series and entertained there. 

Source : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_Art_Online
see also the second season Review souls: Sword Art Online 2

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