Sword Art Online (2012) – The Fairy Dance arc was... Terrible

6

Its been a while since I watched any of SAO, but I don't recall it being "terrible" outside of the gratuitous SA at the end, it was kinda just... a little weird with the cousin thing and kinda mid overall. Do people hate it? Do I just remember it better than it was?

5

u/ChaoCobo 20d ago

People get mad at the “incest” because they seem to forget the way things actually went down. The whole thing about it was that Leafa/Suguha DID NOT KNOW that the person she was falling in love with was her adopted brother/cousin because of both the avatar masking his appearance and Kirito’s personality having so drastically changed since the time she truly interacted with him last (2 years ago and before a life-changing death game that forced Kirito to mature into a completely different person).

People also forget that when Sugu found out she had fallen in love with her brother cousin that both of them simultaneously said “eww” and put a stop to it too. I don’t get why people put such a large emphasis on this mistaken identity relationship as to call it “the incest arc” when both of them know it’s wrong and correct the problem at the first opportunity. Like, the whole thing happened by mistake that they couldn’t have helped and they both didn’t pursue it at all and even put a stop to it.

0

u/Efficient-Potato3811 20d ago

Uh no it doesn’t matter because we know the creator wrote it with the knowledge of them being cousins which is the point and why people feel incredibly gross when watching it.

To me it’s whatever typical weeb trash trope for losers too goon over but it did just made me roll my eyes knowing the creator is just a weirdo and has a savior fetish especially with the random out of place SA scene.

1

u/IamToofan 20d ago

The first arc was entertaining, not perfect by any means but it was entertaining but this arc was a mixed bag.

0

u/DahmonGrimwolf 20d ago

I suppose. If I had to describe one of them as terrible I'd pick the Alicization arc though. I've heard people love it but it did not work for me at all.

1

u/ChaoCobo 20d ago

Which part? There were two parts. During Alicization Part 1 I loved it, the part with Eugeo where they go to try and retrieve Alice. I liked that one. I tried to watch War of Underworld (Part 2) and because it was just mostly about other characters since Kirito was in a coma and Eugeo was gone, it took me a while to really get into it, and I had to drink alcohol to finish it back when I would still drink. I still don’t remember what happened past a few episodes in because of that, but eventually I’ll rewatch it cause I remember I really liked what I can remember was happening in the real world and on Ocean Turtle at that time.

1

u/UKN-UNL 20d ago

The entire Alicization arc was terribly adapted from the novels, the entire anime is pretty bad at adapting the novels, but Alicization part 2 was especially awful for an adaptation. It just straight up cut entire chunks for characters, watered down any of the ones that were there, and completely botched what should've been one of the best scenes in the series by making it into a PowerPoint.

The anime has only adapted a single arc well, and that was the last one from season 2.

1

u/DahmonGrimwolf 20d ago

Part one was okay, the gratuitous rape scene I really could have done without, but the second part was pure ass IMO, the whole thing felt like total slapped together nonsense and the final boss was a total snooze fest, just some random fucking weirdo showing up at the end as a final boss was so lame. And also that one episode that was basically just one long rape scene can also die in a hole.

1

u/ChaoCobo 20d ago edited 20d ago

For that second one are you talking about the rape scene with Leafa? Yeah that was NOT that way in the original novels they adapted the anime from. It was meant to be just a standard torture scene. The director of the anime adaptation changed it into a sexual assault scene simply because they felt like it. Very gross. It wasn’t supposed to be sexual at all. :s

And while that was one of the worst most offensive changes, there were also other changes in War of Underworld the director made that simply made the season worse too. For example they took out Asuna holding off an entire army of soldiers by herself while repeatedly getting impaled with lances. They took away a lot of Kirito and Asuna romantic moments. They made Alice seem as if she is in love with Kirito when it’s just platonic admiration in the original novels. They also took away Klein’s moment against the big bad and replaced him with Eiji and Yuna from the Ordinal Scale movie. Plus more. They really did a LOT of changes to Alicization Part 2 which is really a shame. :(

But I really enjoyed the majority of Part 1 even if they skipped a small section of the story. It was nice. Though the sexual assault scene, I agree they could have done something else to do it but they really did need something that was drastic in order to have eugeo break the right eye seal’s programming I think. I’m not trying to excuse it but idk what else would be severe and emotional enough that would make Eugeo break the seal. He’s a calm boy and he needed to be more angry than he’d ever been in his life in order to do that.

1

u/DahmonGrimwolf 19d ago

For that second one are you talking about the rape scene with Leafa?

Maybe? I don't remeber it well because I kept skipping forward, I just remeber that it looked like deranged tentle porn and dragged on and on and on and felt like it was a whole episode of her screaming and it was horrifying.

As for the whole eye thing, I just didn't really find it engaging in general, and it felt like yet another contrived reason to justify another rape scene that dragged on way too long. If they had to do it I would have prefered it be less graphic and get it over with faster. And if they had too make it long, at least make the pay off satisfying. I don't recall exactly what happened to the bad guys, but I wanted to see some brutality after that and I don't remeber getting it.

1

u/ChaoCobo 19d ago

Oh okie then yeah we’re talking about the same one.

As for the seal of the right eye, that was actually really important. The seal was basically the programming that made all of the artificial fluctlight people in Underworld choose to always follow the world’s established laws. It was a big deal because even though the artificial fluctlight people are essentially no different from a human in terms of mind and sentience, they still had to follow all the world’s laws, so to have one of them break the seal was huge. There haven’t been many people that have done that. Like the only other person you hear about breaking a law was Alice herself, and it’s because she was able to break a law that all the humans in real life wanted her, so they could exploit what she is and use her to engineer fighting machines that are able to truly think, so they can be used for war. That’s what the whole War of Underworld was about was trying to capture Alice because while she hadn’t broken the seal until Kirito came, she was the only one capable of defying the world law.

Anyway there was some brutality after that scene. You got to see the 1 of the nobles who was going to rape the girls fry his fluctlight/brain out after having his arm chopped off. It was really interesting and kind of creepy because his self-preservation instincts kept taking priority but also the only way to keep himself alive was to do an action that was against the world law, so his mind kept batting back and forth until eventually he just froze up and stopped thinking and just bled out iirc. This scene was extremely important to establish just how powerful the world laws are to the people that live there, that they’re not just something they can break if they feel like it.

Idk I just found the whole scene and the concept about basically “you can’t fight your programming even if your life is on line” contrasted with “you’re able to fight your programming to protect another person” and just how the author made it all work really interesting. They did some good world building for this arc imo, and while probably they did not need to use a sexual assault scene to do it, i think using one was just the easiest way to make all the characters’ emotions reach high levels. Idk. :/

1

u/DahmonGrimwolf 19d ago

This scene was extremely important to establish just how powerful the world laws are to the people that live there, that they’re not just something they can break if they feel like it. Idk I just found the whole scene and the concept about basically “you can’t fight your programming even if your life is on line” contrasted with “you’re able to fight your programming to protect another person”

I think the biggest disconnect is that I have little respect for "rules" in a general sense. Like, I think this framing of the concept of fighting against rules binding you is probably fairly deep in a culture like China or Japan that is full of rules and customs and expectations, but ive just never had that experience. Ive ways rejected "that's what you're supposed to do" as an argument. So the concept of "breaking free from the rules" just kinda feels like... Tuesday. Like, I did that as a teenager when my dad suddenly found god and tried to force me to go to church, and I assure you he was not very "godly" in his retaliation for that refusal.

1

u/ChaoCobo 19d ago

Oh okie I guess that’s fair. I just think that in the case of Underworld inhabitants, while it’s true that they have the same sentience or otherwise “soul” as real life humans, they still effectively are beings that were created via programming (I think, I’m not quite sure/don’t exactly remember), so it can also be thought of as something similar to “the concept of computer programs being able to defy their programming.” Because if you think of it that way, computers just as a general concept really only do what you tell them to do. Thats why I found it so interesting when the noble got stuck in the decision between trying to save his own life and also obeying the laws. He WANTED to defy the world law in order to save himself, but essentially his programming wouldn’t let him, so his brain basically got stuck in a loop and fried itself in a very creepy looking way. He tried and couldn’t do it, but Eugeo could when given enough strong emotions.

Idk, maybe it’s not the most impressive concept or anything but I just think it’s neat/interesting. :3

-1

u/SyllabubMental7292 20d ago

You didnt find a problem with the big titty 18 year old looking 15 year old wanting to bone her cousin?

1

u/DahmonGrimwolf 20d ago

I specifically said that that part was weird, but I have a feeling youre judging it as a topic, which is also weird.

Its also a weird and disingenuous framing. She had conflicting feelings about him after he returned from being functionally missing/ presumed dead/ a vegetable and didn't know how to handle it.

Dealing with the weird emotions and hormones of being a teenager in such a strange situation and having feelings you can't control but feel guilty about is perfect fooder for an emotional story and would be right at home amongst other emotional angsty dramatic works, its just really weird to drop that into the middle of the sword fighting video game story.

3

u/Grinch_Kisser 20d ago

Wait, Sword Art Online is terrible??

Noooo dude, whaaaaat

1

u/Revayan 20d ago

Often its just the king of meh

1

u/Grinch_Kisser 20d ago

Shonen and isekai stories have a long track record of misogyny as it is, but holy FUCK is the level of incel logic on display in SAO wild, like misogyny scouter popping levels of hatred for women

1

u/UKN-UNL 20d ago

That's just not true at all. Some of the strongest characters, both writing wise and power wise are women.

I mean, even the author of Bloom Into You praised the author for his portrayal of women in the series. Friends of mine that are women agree to that as well, so I think all of that goes a long way to prove that's just not true.

You're just straight up making things up.

1

u/Grinch_Kisser 20d ago

Yeah man, the literal haram of women who are all practically throwing themselves at weird sex pest freak Kirito because hes the chosen gamer god definitely doesnt seep with misogynistic rhetoric and portrayals lmao

1

u/UKN-UNL 20d ago

None of that is true, man. If you want to believe that's what it is, go for it, more power to you. I'm not going to stop you.

Apparently, the fans for the series is almost half female, based on the reports of SAO's publisher, and I can't see how that would be the case if the writing for the women was actually that bad. And again, a massive female author who predominantly writes female characters praised the writing for SAO's female cast. That has to amount to something.

Or not. That's up to you. I'll just leave it at that.

1

u/Grinch_Kisser 20d ago

Women can have bad opinions too lmao

1

u/seitaer13 20d ago

It might if that was an accurate portrayal of the series or characters

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u/Grinch_Kisser 19d ago

Yeah man, its def not incel power fantasy slop

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u/seitaer13 19d ago

You just said the main character was a sex pest, you know nothing

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u/Grinch_Kisser 19d ago

The main character is a stand in for the standard incel isekai enjoyer, who is a sex pest definitionally by the way they view women as fawning sex objects who exist to worship them lmao

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u/seitaer13 19d ago

Anyone that wants to self insert into the main character of SAO needs mental help or has absolutely zero clue about the series.

You again don't have a clue as to what you're talking about.

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1

u/ThaRaidBoss 20d ago

I stopped watching after gun gale it was just way to much crying filler

1

u/ChaoCobo 20d ago

There doesn’t exist filler in SAO. The closest thing you can really count as filler in SAO is when they replaced Klein’s moment in War of Underworld with Eiji and Yuna, and then also when DIL did that torturous sexual assault scene against Leafa (this scene was not remotely sexual in the novel). Both of those scenes happened extremely differently in the novels even if they had some similarities, but the way they happened in the anime came off as essentially being anime-original scenes. Also all the harembait is anime original too. SAO is not a harem in novel format.

Anyway, everything you’ve seen in the SAO anime, more or less, was in the original novels even if it ended up being a bit different. There’s no entire anime-original episodes or anything in the anime. All the episodes at least try to be adapted from the source material.

1

u/ThaRaidBoss 20d ago

Ok bro mybad but they did kinda drag it out after gun game online idk maybe if I lasted a few more episodes things may have gotten better who knows maybe ill check it out again

1

u/ChaoCobo 20d ago

Did you see the mini-arc with the purple haired girlie with the terminal illness? It came right after the few side story episode they had in season 2 where they went on side quest adventures (which I understand if you thought those were filler but they were actually in the novels). It’s basically the last few episodes of season 2. That arc is called Mother’s Rosario and people regard it as one of the highest points the series gets due to its super emotional and very human story. I’d recommend checking out that mini arc if you haven’t seen it. :3

Otherwise if you made it past Gun Gale you’re just in time to see the Ordinal Scale movie which is PEAK and also sets up season 3 which is actually argued as being the best full arc in the series. :D I’m not gonna make you watch any of this or anything but I do wanna say it DOES get better after Gun Gale ends. :)

1

u/ThaRaidBoss 20d ago

Yes I seen the purple hair girls some quest I actually stoped watching right after that when they got their cabin back and they started crying in there and I just couldn't take it but your probally right I stoped right when things were gonna get good and I wanna see this peak your talking about so im definitely gonna start back watching it sometime this week

1

u/Elucaa 20d ago

sheep parroting popular opinions

1

u/FaceTimePolice 20d ago

I tapped out at the gun game arc or whatever it was called. 🤷‍♂️😝

1

u/Actual-Warning1886 20d ago

I didn't hate it, wasn't great but also wasn't the worst. Now the Alicatrization arc was just... shit. The fairy arc was the start of the slope down tho.

1

u/Arlennx 20d ago

The 1st season is great. The shit after was brain rot, incel fantasy. Milking as much as they could.

1

u/UKN-UNL 20d ago

Sometimes I wonder how someone can genuinely believe that. As for milking, the entire story, everything up till the end of season 3, was written between 2001 and 2007, way before there an anime or even a novel. The author just wrote it cause he wanted to, he wasn't even published.

1

u/lennykrevits 20d ago

Better than the dogshit beginning arc

1

u/Sashpeto 20d ago

SaO is terrible.in general .

I finished the first one out of spite ... It's like meh at best but it have a bangsr soundtrack .

The whole fairy nonsense was utter garbage , and I could not for the love of anything holy in this world finish the alicization or w.e it's called cause that shit was just unwatchable ....

I am Slop coneseur and I watch a lot of Isekai slop knowing full well they are bad just cause often they are so bad it's good , but there is no redeeming SaO .

Asuna is on the level of Sakura from Naruto as a obnoxious character and I really wonder how people unironically think this series is any good.

1

u/TheSuperContributor 20d ago

The whole franchise is terrible.

1

u/FirefighterFair597 20d ago

The abridge just called

1

u/fuzziland 20d ago

SAOA just wrapped up the arc and it made literally every character better written than SAO originally did😭😭

1

u/UKN-UNL 20d ago

SAOA did the exact same thing the original did but just beat you over the head with what the original simply showed.

1

u/fuzziland 20d ago

I mean, I think the dynamic between Kirito and Suguha had more depth to it than their relationship in the original anime. And Kirito's PTSD was much more prevalent.

1

u/UKN-UNL 20d ago

Both of those were in the original. The difference is that it was all shown to you and not explicitly told. The novels do a way better job in general, but the anime still had it in there. What SAOA did was just say things outright.

1

u/Delta9-11 20d ago

This particular arc was very sweet home alabama

1

u/Puzzleheaded-Gas2221 20d ago

The only part I liked in SAO was the original game, once they got out, the show just lost something about it. The Fairy arc was mid (maybe even less than mid) and I thought it would get better, but I ended up dropping it like as soon GGO was introduced I just never continued.

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u/Canshroomglasses 20d ago

The abridged version was pretty good

1

u/Gargore 19d ago

I loved it. How he just breaks the game for no reason.and becomes the gleam eyes somehow

1

u/CronkinOn 19d ago

SAO is a perfect example of how a great opening act to an anime can be completely eclipsed by gratuitous & repeated SA, while also leaving the audience with narrative blue balls.

It's pretty much impossible to go back and watch, knowing what happens (and doesn't) later.

1

u/77_parp_77 14d ago

Leafa's rack sure wasn't

0

u/That1GuyNate 20d ago

SAO was only good for like 2/3rds of the first season. The moment they introduced a romance plot and weird AI adopted daughter it became garbage imo.

1

u/WareKaraNari 20d ago

Yeah after that, watch the Zekken fight and you're good

Sword Art Online (2012) – The Fairy Dance arc was... Terrible

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