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View Poll Results: Sword Art Online II - Total Season Rating | |||
Perfect 10 | 7 | 13.21% | |
9 out of 10 : Excellent | 18 | 33.96% | |
8 out of 10 : Very Good | 13 | 24.53% | |
7 out of 10 : Good | 11 | 20.75% | |
6 out of 10 : Average | 2 | 3.77% | |
5 out of 10 : Below Average | 0 | 0% | |
4 out of 10 : Poor | 1 | 1.89% | |
3 out of 10 : Bad | 0 | 0% | |
2 out of 10 : Very Bad | 0 | 0% | |
1 out of 10 : Painful | 1 | 1.89% | |
Voters: 53. You may not vote on this poll |
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2014-12-21, 00:44 | Link #1 |
AnimeSuki's Mascot
Join Date: Apr 2006
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Sword Art Online II - Overall Season Impressions & Total Season Rating
This thread is to be used for discussing the entire episodes of Sword Art Online II ... your thoughts about the show, overall impressions, expectations and hopes about Blu-Ray/DVD-exclusive footage etc.
A few subjects you might want to ramble on about:
And so on. The poll represents your total series rating. In other words, how you would rate all the episodes combined (1-10)? If you'd rather rate the whole series by technical/artistic merits, you can do so. An example: Animation Quality: 1-10 Voice Actors: 1-10 Script: 1-10 Soundtrack: 1-10 Editing: 1-10 Enjoyment: 1-10 Emotional Involvement: 1-10 Average = Total Series Rating Or a combination of the two. Or your general gut feeling. Feel free to discuss and more importantly, have fun P.S. If you wish, you could give separate ratings for each arc in your post, but the poll above is supposed to be an overall rating for the whole season that consisted of all three arcs (two major arcs and one minor one). |
2014-12-22, 12:15 | Link #2 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2012
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Tap has updated the translations of Kawahara's twitter comments about the episodes. It is up to episode 17 for now.
http://www.taptaptaptaptap.net/kunori-commentary/ |
2014-12-22, 14:37 | Link #3 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Dec 2013
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The second season started really strong with the initial episodes of GGO, but the latter half of the arc really started to drag. Repeatedly playing the same scenes regarding Sinon's trauma and Kirito's flashback to the Laughing Coffin raid made them less effective. I didn't really like how Kirito's PTSD (or rather the rather quick appearance and disappearance) was handled either. Overall the story was not really developed to my expectations based on the premises laid out in the initial episodes. The pacing also seemed like it moved at a snail's pace.
Calibur was pretty much fluff, somewhat fun for the Thor transformation but overall didn't add much to the story. Mother's Rosario is what saved this season for me. Asuna takes center stage and we get to ditch Kirito as a main and everything is better for it (Kirito works better as a side character anyways). The relationship between Asuna and Yuuki was extremely well done and the pacing and direction of the arc felt way better than Aincrad, ALO, and GGO. Mother Rosario's inclusion and conclusion to S2 is what brings my score to a 8/10 |
2014-12-22, 21:34 | Link #4 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: beside you, staring at you.
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For me season 2 was good, it was a fun ride. I enjoyed Aincrad more, but It was still good. I never watched calibur though. GGO was enjoyable but I still have to use suspension of disbelief for some parts and reading anisuki reviews made me even aware of those. And for MR, the "feels" that people were talking about, I definitely felt it. But I wanted to see the other sleeping knights' backgrounds and more of yuuki's attachment to them(it felt like GGO again, kinda like a little too much focus on two MC's), because honestly, I didn't get attached to yuuki as much I got with Asuna and Kirito maybe because the arc wasn't long enough for me to. But I was really sad when she died, because I'm a sucker for those scenes. overall, it was good.
But I definitely enjoyed both arcs, so with that I'll give this season an 8/10 |
2014-12-24, 00:57 | Link #6 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Jan 2012
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What a coincidence, the same week the Mother's Rosario arc ended:
ANN: Friends and fellow gamers across the internet came out to pay their respects on Sunday when 29-year-old Tai passed away from complications due to renal failure. Tai was active on Final Fantasy XIV's Gilgamesh server where he played his level 50 Bard, Codex Vahlda, and also made friends on the gaming site Backloggery.com. Players on Final Fantasy XIV paid their respects across servers on Sunday when Tai was expected to be removed from life support. The community on Backloggery, a site dedicated to tracking game progress, is dedicating time to complete Tai's 31 unfinished game titles. |
2014-12-26, 11:48 | Link #7 |
Member
Join Date: Aug 2014
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I felt that GGO showed improvement from a writing style, as far as blending two point-of-view. And I quite enjoyed the last few episodes. However, it also had some disappointing weaknesses in the story telling IMO. It was still fairly fun arc.
Calibur was kind of "blah" for me, I just never felt that the story sold the premise of "if we don't stop it, the whole map will be destroyed". It had a few funny moments, but just didn't seem very important. MR arc was good, very emotional. I felt that it could have used either maybe 1/2 an episode's worth of material to allow what started out to be a relatively large conflict between Asuna and her mother to reach a more natural feeling conclusion; either that or cut out the arranged marriage bit at the beginning so that the divide isn't so far. |
2015-01-04, 10:46 | Link #10 |
Moe Kyun~!
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Philippines
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Animation Quality: 08
Pretty ok (if not excellent) animation... Some A-1 slip-ups, but it's A-1 after all. Voice Actors: 08 Except for probably Yuuki (or was it Yuki?) whos male-ish voice screams ....... almost-no, okay, it wasn't that bad... Script: 10 Mother's Rosario 11. GGO goes with 09. Probably because GGO missed a few details from the LN that caused the "suspension of disbelief" in some areas. Seeing more fleshed out characterizations and Asuna as MC was refreshing, even as I read the LN prior. Soundtrack: N/A I don't want to judge soundtracks anymore, as I feel like my bias is coming in. SAO's OP/ED singers are always good (although, mind you, I like S1 OP1 better than S2 OP1). The other BGMs are also surprisingly good, but there ARE some reused BGMs form S1... -_- Editing: 09.5 Mother's Rosario 11. GGO goes with 08. Same reason as with the script really. Enjoyment: 10 Despite all that, I give SAO an excellent ride from start to finish. Sure you might be fed off by "feels", or by "asada-san, asada-san, asada-san", but in the end GGO really gave VR Counter-Strike a real image and MMO-ish setting, which is always nice seeing. Calber and Rosario tooke me back to Alfhiem, which, if you forget about that Fairy Dance Arc, was also as refreshing (Bow class wut). I really hope that S3 comes, and I'm sure the guys managing this will go the train all the way... I hope. Like I said, forget Fairy Dance, and you'll enjoy S2 more, really! Emotional Involvement: 09 What actually brought this down by a point was only my off-turning during the GGO arc (especially with Kirito), but as they say, YMMV. However, Mother's Rosario sold it for me, and Yuuki's death felt like Little Buster's finale. Sure it was only a couple of episodes, but I felt that it was like a train fast approaching... Total (Average): 09 / 10 (would watch again)
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2015-01-10, 04:04 | Link #13 |
Member
Join Date: Nov 2014
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GGO: 8/10
Caliber: 5/10 Mother Rosario: 9/10 Overall average: 7.333/10 GGO wasn't that bad, but it wasn't that nice either. Calibur sucked so much. Even worse than ALO. Mother Rosario I would say was just a bit lower than original SAO. Yuuki is my second fav character with kayaba, after kazuto. Death gun was a nice villian (by death gun I don't mean that perv shinkawa, I mean red eyed xaxa). Best arcs in order of best: 1. Original SAO 2. Mother Rosario 3. GGO 4. ALO .......... .......... 1000: calibur I wish we saw excalibur in action though. That and mjonir..... |
2015-01-10, 04:33 | Link #14 |
A random passerby
Join Date: Jul 2012
Age: 32
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Sword Art Online series 2 for me was overall a big improvement over the first, major characters were given more emphasised and interesting development, the two main storylines were handled better than the first series, and the series lacked any kind of major achilles heel that its predecessor had. Breaking down my thoughts arc by arc:
The Phantom Bullet arc would rate about an eight out of ten for me. The storyline was good solid action movie stuff, the action was fairly exciting when it occurred, and the main characters were likable and Sinon was downright awesome. Death Gun made for something that the series had lacked up to this point in a genuinely threatening villain and the showdowns with him did their job well and had me on the edge of my seat. Sinon's character development while a little bumpy at around the middle point was ultimately satisfying to watch and came to a good conclusion. The only drawbacks of the arc was the somewhat rushed handling of Kirito's ptsd and the over-reliance on a creepy wannabe rapist, the latter was especially unnecessary given Death Gun's performance as the main villain. Even then it at least wasn't as bad as Fairy Dance's main villain. The Calibur arc was the low point of the series for me, scoring a six out of ten. Even then it wasn't unpleasant or anything, it just ultimately felt like pointless filler that served more as a reunion and fanservice of the non-eye-candy variety for fans of the show and older cast. Fortunately it was short and didn't overstay its welcome, and served as a nice sort of interlude that re-familiarized the viewer with ALO before the second main arc of the series. Finally there was the Mother's Rosario arc which was for me easily the high point of the series in its entirety and gets a nine out of ten. Ditching Kirito and the action movie type plotlines we got a character driven arc focused on Asuna and the dilemmas she faced, something I'd wanted for a very long time. The biggest positive of the arc for me was that it didn't overplay and overdo its content, given the nature of the storyline involving Yuuki it would have been very easy to go full blown melodrama on the storyline, instead at times it felt like it was almost underplaying things and the effect was a far more moving story. It deserves a nine alone for getting a few tears out of my eyes. Overall rating: 8.5 out of 10 It had its ups and its downs, but even at its worst the series was still entertaining, and at its best outright moving. The first series left me with a very mixed opinion of the series, this series not only dispelled my negative feelings for it but made me in to a fan, and I very much look forward to the next series if they make one. |
2015-05-14, 12:26 | Link #15 |
Anime Novice
Join Date: May 2015
Location: A little (not) town in California
Age: 29
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I have also read the light novel and I feel that the anime has kept out a lot of stuff I think about Sinon and somehow I always have a feeling that they're missing something for some reason when I watch the anime,whether it is the first or second season.
It does seem like a big improvement from the first season to me, which everyone was talking about it being bad. I agree that the first season was just okay, the Aincrad arc was very rushed and the ALO arc was weird and un..."polished" in some ways. Anyways the GGO and Calibur arc were good also. The GGO arc felt much better than the previous season, plus there was more action and more actual quotes and stuff that is actually in the book instead of "compressing" it to save money and time. The Calibur arc, though, felt a little off, mainly because the boss fight was much shorter and I felt that they barely described anything in the first two episodes. I can't blame them though, it is only a "side story" with the other volumes. I felt that they went more indepth on the characters and the world around them. Mother Rosario arc, though, left me feeling a bit empty. I'm a bit dissapointed that what took up a whole volume was only described in 3 episodes, plus I felt that most of the emphasis was on Yuuki and not her teammates (same thing with the first season,when I read fanfics on Sachi I had no idea who the other guys were until I searched it up). Overall, though, it's a big improvement. I hope they read this and make the alicization arc better and at least taking the whole season and more seeing as it is like 4-6 volumes in already. Plus I hope that they don't get a new drawer and screw up the drawings for the main characters like many series have done. |
2015-08-23, 01:01 | Link #16 |
Tastes Cloudy
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: Snake Way
Age: 35
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Yelp I think i've watched enough to give my verdict.
3/10 - Pros: Not 0 because the art and animations are good. Cool MMORPG concepts and settings. (except that gun one...gross) Cons: Terribly unrealistic characters. Terribly unrealistic actions they make. Gary Sue Main Character. Only Gary Sue Main Character can be the strong male character. All others are weak and pushed down and humiliated by either the main or one of the female leads. Also, don't give me that "It's a Anime, why would they be realistic?" Because it's a anime about real life and a MMORPG. Everything about the MMORPG is cool, but the people? The Characters in this show are god awful, so awful they make Sonic OC's look decent.
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2017-01-25, 00:01 | Link #17 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2003
Location: The dog gossips too much.
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I gave it a 7/10: Good. Mainly on the strength of the first arc, which I really enjoyed.
Gun Gale Online: 8/10 - Lots of action and tension + Sinon is new best girl Excaliber: 6/10 - Short and inoffensive and other characters get a day in the limelight Mother's Rosario: 3/10 - Trying too hard to be sad. Too long drawn out and melodramatic. I don't like Yuuki or her gang, they never grew on me. They also used 1 Corinthians 10:13 out of context and with the wrong interpretation (in the first place it's talking about temptation, not suffering), which is something I've seen the Japanese do elsewhere so it must be a Japanese thing. Total is 5.6/10 but 6/10 felt a bit low for this show overall so I gave it 7.
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2017-02-26, 20:02 | Link #18 |
Junior Member
Join Date: Feb 2017
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I really loved the first season and couldn't wait to start watching the second season. However I can't believe they introduced such a scumbag character (sogu or whatever he is called) in the first episode of the second season, which basically killed the whole series for me.
I will not watch the rest of SOA. |
2017-03-02, 18:52 | Link #19 |
Junior Member
Join Date: Mar 2017
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Animation Quality: 10-10 Well, the animation of sao is always great
Voice Actors: 9-10 voice actors as well Script: 5-10 Pretty well written (JUST AT MOTHER'S ROSARIO). GGO wasnt such a touching arc, and i think the characters weren't described at all, Death Gun has absolutely no motivation behind what he's doing, pretty like Kayaba Akihiko on Aincrad arc. Soundtrack: 10-10 Love it! Editing: 8-10 Pretty good on the fight scenes. Enjoyment: 10-10 I love SAO since I watched it for the first time in 2012, always like the fights and the characters, despite the fact that they are not very well written. Emotional Involvement: 8-10 Mother's Rosario saved this rating, such a good and emotional arc, well written and with the Asuna/Yuuki relationship well described. GGO arc is of course touching, but Mother's Rosario actually made me cry T_T Average = 8.5/10, Would watch it again |
2017-03-06, 13:06 | Link #20 | |
Senior Member
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Quote:
What you're talking about is Episode 15 which is the second half of the first season. Dropping the series as a whole means you're refusing to watch the second half of the first season because of a "scumbag character", and on top of that the actual second season that consists of 24 episodes .. So in total you're missing out on over 30 episodes because of one character. The second half of first season that is basically about Alfheim Online is pretty weak, but not really because of Sugou and he is a scumbag for a reason. You COULD skip the whole second half and not miss out on much, but not watching the second season which has nothing to do with Sugou is just plain silly.
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