Hello one and all and welcome back to First Impression
Friday. Here is where I take a look at
the first couple of episodes of a random title and settle on whether or not I
might keep up with them or just drop them and probably never look back. I’ve got a good batch of ten new First
Impressions to go through over the next couple of months and several of these
are more recent titles (one or two coming just after their initial
debuts). And this week, we’re kicking
things off with the next chapter of one of the biggest Isekai franchises of all
time: Sword Art Online: Alternative Gun Gale Online.
Sword Art Online.
It was, and to a degree still is, a very important title in the world of
Anime. When it first debuted it took the
world by storm with its premise and overall reintroduction of the Issekai Genre,
aka Another World. Like so many others,
I checked out the first series and, like many as well, I thought the first half
of season one was good but the second half was…tough to get through. Ironically, the same could be said for Sword
Art Online II. The first half, which
introduced Gun Gale Online, was great but I never finished the second half of
the series, which of course leads to the correct assumption that I never saw
the movie, Ordinal Scale, either. And
yet, SAO still continues to hang in there despite its popularity nowhere near
what it was years ago. I had heard
rumors after Ordinal Scale that a third season was in the works, and heard
whispers Ordinal Scale also laid some of the groundwork for said season. That all being said…is this it? Is this the grand third season continuation
of the legendary (for better or worse) series?
If so…im not impressed.
To be honest, im surprised a spin off title of SAO wasn’t
done sooner. There are multiple VR
worlds in this little universe and all offer a vast amount of possible stories
and adventures to be told. Gun Gale
Online had a lot of promise and it worked because of a very tightly paced story
and a very mature but fun attitude.
Starting off your series with a tiny, pink outfitted girl with a P90 she
nicknames PP is not the best way to continue the tone of your parent
series. Granted it SAOAGGO (wow that’s
long) might be going for a different feel altogether but any attempt to take
what’s going on seriously is kind of ruined when this would be Umaru Chan
looking Anime Sprite is bouncing back and forth between not knowing how to play
the game strategically to being a Kiroto level speedster who can take out
professional shooters with near ease. I
will admit that I did like the idea of real life soldiers partaking in a VR
experience. It reminded me of an old
commercial for SOCOM Navy Seals 2 where a group of friends were eliminated by
superior players…who turned out to be Army men playing on a base overseas, it’s
hilarious.
I was never the biggest SAO fan to begin with but I was
curious how this new series wanted to start off. Would it work without Kirito, Asuna and the
familiar cast of SAO thus far, not to mention a different animation studio
too? I’d say if youre a die hard fan of
the franchise then you might like this regardless. Me? I think im going to steer clear unless
someone does a good job of selling me on Pink Umaru and her exploits. The humor wasn’t funny. Wayyyyy too much time was spent on LLENN and
her superior sniper partner, M, playing a very long tutorial on how to properly
not just rush into battle and observe things from a distance. And it lacks any real instant draw that SAO
and SAO2 both had in their opening arcs.
Im not saying every series needs to have life or death stakes or Kirito
and Asuna to function. But there have to
be more exciting ways of starting a new chapter of Sword Art Online than
this. Also…Sword Art Online: Alternative
Gun Gale Online, damn that’s a long title (they really couldn’t shorten it a
bit?)
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