Oh shit what’s this a timestamp breakdown of something that isn’t Sword Art Online?!? I know, crazy. The reasoning’s pretty simple – unlike with Ping Pong, my thoughts on this show seem to take the form of tiny “oh, nice” moments throughout, and not larger thematic/character thoughts on the episode as a whole. Meaning it seems appropriate to get out the blackboard and slide ruler once again, and sift my way through an episode of this shiny new thing Watanabe has given us. Let’s blow up some city monuments!
Category Archives: Episode Writeup
Aldnoah.Zero – Episode 5
Like the second episode, this one started off by bouncing an idea from a few angles – this time, it was “what you gain from fighting.” The defeated martian knight was probably the most childish in his desires here, scoffing at Slaine’s reasons for fighting while bemoaning his loss of “honor” on the battlefield. The childishness of this desire was then pretty much immediately highlighted by framing it in the actual voice of a child, as Inko mused over how nice it’d be to get a medal in battle. Their instructor was quick to provide the cynical counterpoint there – “dying for honor isn’t so bad when you’re living in misery.” He’s talking about his own regrets, of course, but if you’re not living in the war-story dreamland of the martian knights, “using yourself for the cause” may be the only way to actually gain the will to fight.
Sword Art Online II – Episode 5
And we’re back! I wasn’t really that enthusiastic about last episode, but I think we’re through the exposition now, so things may be smooth from here out. Will there be action? Will there be adventure? Will Kirito overwhelm the narrative tension and drag the whole show down with him? Who knows! Hopefully we jump right into this Bullet of… bullets…
Like, goddamnit, SAO. I know “DEATH GUN” is supposed to be all 2chuuni4u because it’s written in English letters and thus is automatically mysterious/romantic/always fucking ridiculous, but “Bullet of Bullets”? You couldn’t think of, like, one word that compliments “Bullets” there? I’m pretty sure my comment section thought up at least three (Ballad, Ballet, Battle), and they were hardly scraping the bottom of the Barrel of Bullets. Or subbers, even if that’sactually the translation, couldn’t you just, you know, perform a little corrective surgery on this writing here? I doubt anyone would complain.
Alright, forget it. Starting this episode with an open heart and an open mind. Let’s do this, Sword Art Online.
Sword Art Online II – Episode 4
It’s that time again. I’m actually kind of excited at this point, you guys. Episode two was a solid action vignette, episode three was an okay character-building episode – this season is showing off a whole new side of Sword Art Online! I originally picked up the first season in large part due to an abiding appreciation of schadenfreude (which paid off both through the show itself falling apart and me falling apart watching it), but if season two just wants to be a reasonable adventure show with high production values, I am very ready for that as well. STRIKE UP THE BATTLE MUSIC.
…that’s the battle music? Alright, sure. Let’s Sword Art Online.
Zankyou no Terror – Episode 3
Hoo boy. This was another crime procedural episode, but that didn’t matter at all because holy crap was this episode thematically focused. The very first comments of the young police officer set the tone of this one, establishing a clear parallel between Shibazaki and Nine/Twelve. As someone consigned to archives until he retires, Shibazaki is also someone abandoned by the world, someone no longer “useful to society.” Like them, he doesn’t fit into the system anymore. People in this position are generally expected to take it, to be quiet and accept their loss of a role – but Nine and Twelve clearly aren’t willing to do that. And just like in Psycho-Pass, it turns out a system that tries to simply ignore its outsiders isn’t really equipped to deal with them – it has to bring in someone like Shibazaki, and acknowledge those it has deemed worthless in order to deal with other leftovers.
Sword Art Online II – Episode 3
And the journey continues! Last week’s episode was far and away the best thing Sword Art Online has ever done, so I’ve got moderate hopes for this one. ‘Moderate’ because last week pulled basically the most obvious and necessary trick for fixing Sword Art Online – it removed Kirito entirely. This, tragically, is apparently not allowed to be a long-term solution, so this week the challenge will likely be in maintaining last week’s energy without Kirito dragging everything into his power fantasy vortex. Fortunately, last week’s episode was also just well-composed and featured a number of solid action sequences, and that sort of stuff can work perfectly well even with Kirito around. And so, for maybe the very first time, positive thinking isn’t just a coping mechanism – things might really actually possibly turn out okay. Let’s do this, Sword Art Online. It’s a beautiful new day.
Sword Art Online II – Episode 2
Time for more Sword Art Online! That first episode was pretty slow, but hopefully this time we’ll get to jump right into Gun Gale and see some bullet ballet or whatnot. I sincerely hope that lightsaber-versus-sniper rifle image was just an artistic flourish, but hey, some people go with sniper rifles on every goddamn map in real life, too. And once again, I request that everybody who’s read the LNs please try to avoid spoiling every single thing I theorize or discuss. It is okay to let me be wrong until the story informs me!
Anyway. Let’s Sword Art Online.
Rough Notes Archive: Revolutionary Girl Utena
Management: Once again, got some requests for some of my original show notes. As before, these aren’t in any way formatted for readers – they’re my notes to myself, containing immediate reactions and anything I thought might be useful for pulling together the motifs and themes of the series. They just go straight through from first episode to last, but of course you can ctrl-f to find the scattered references to any particular topic. The occasional bolded sections are stuff that I thought were key points at the time, or pieces I was sure I’d use for my eventual essay.
Anyway! That’s all for preamble. These are mainly for the crazy few people who are into this sort of thing, so don’t feel obligated to read, there’s no prize at the end. This really is just a whole goddamn ton of Utena notes. Enjoy!
Sword Art Online II – Episode 1
It’s time. IT’S TIME. IT’S TIME TIME TIME. Sword Art Online II has arrived, and I can finally watch this show at the same time as everybody else. No more constant spoilers, no more comments laughing about whatever I’m about to run into, no more one-way delicious tears. Sword Art Online is very clearly our form of Event Television, and thistime I’m actually going to be there at the starting line.
If you don’t follow my site, you may not be aware that I’ve actually been cataloging my journey through the first season over the past few months. I’ve done episodic writeups for all the episodes, with my final one containing abrief overview of the first season, which I found pretty aesthetically impressive but very narratively lacking. Or if you just enjoy the silly concept writeups, you can stick to Hardboiled Sword Art Online and Kirito, The Hand of God – yeah, things have gotten pretty weird these last few weeks. Either way, I’m excited to finally be watching SAO as it airs, and want to please ask anyone commenting to refrain from spoiling future stuff – it’d be nice to actually experience this show fresh for once.
So… yeah. New season of SAO, new game for Kirito to conquer, new love interest played by friggin’ Sawashiro Miyuki. I’m ready. You ready? YOU BETTER BE READY. GET HYPE, IT’S SWORD ART ONLINE.
Sword Art Online – Episode 25
You know, it’s at times like this that I think it’s most important for all of us to remember not to jump to conclusions. I know you want to. I know I want to. And it’d certainly be easy! Over time, as these episodes have stretched on, I’ve given snide little asides and mini-sermons on what I think of the underlying philosophy of this show. How it plays into perverse, naive ideas of meritocracy popular among gamers or outsiders in general. How it doesn’t really seem to understand human beings on more than a superficial, “man-creatures do this” level. How it seems to like violence just maybe a little bit too much. And it’d be easy to extrapolate from this that, say, all gamers are psychopaths who dream only of murder. Or that videogames are popular because they provide the killing fields these bloodlust-crazed time bombs so desperately desire. Or that Sword Art Online represents an idealized view of the world written from the perspective of a person who knows he deserves to rule, scorns those who currently thwart him in the cruel outer world, and longs for the day when he will bring swift and long-awaited justice in the form of righteous, delicious, endless acts of brutal, merciless violence.
But let’s not jump to conclusions.
I could be frank, though!
Should I be frank?
Alright, let’s level for just a brief moment here.
(And before we begin, let me make it clear that I am not talking about “all gamers,” that my statements come from a position of extreme investment in the medium, that everyone I know and am friends with plays videogames, and that I will probably be playing some Soul Calibur tonight or hopefully New Super Mario Bros if I can convince my housemate to let me use his system)
If you read these posts, if you follow my twitter, if you’ve visited my ask.fm, you probably know I have a, to put it charitably, “dim view” of the gaming community at large. I don’t think this is because videogames turn people into monsters, although I’ll get to that in a moment. I think it’s because videogames are what they are.
They’re alternate worlds. Escapism in the form of controlled realities. They are inherently appealing to people who feel powerless, and people who feel powerless often feel the desire to exert power. They’re a specialist interest, leading to insular communities. They were traditionally the domain of boys shunned by social circumstances, leading to an ingrained undercurrent of resentment and an us-versus-them mentality. They make strict, logical sense, a comfort to people who wish the world or other people would do the same.
All of these things lead to gaming surrounding itself with a community predisposed towards some pretty negative stuff. And this is compounded by the fact that videogames are Murder Training Devices.
Alright, hopefully that got your attention, even if it’s a lie. Because it is a lie – if videogames are murder training devices, they are not particularly good ones. But it is true that our media influences us. Forms our cultural landscape. Tells us what is normal and unacceptable. Makes us feel more or feel less. And perhaps most importantly, our media helps us grow.
Which is really the biggest single problem I have with someone who dedicates their life to gaming, and one of the central problems exhibited by Sword Art Online. It’s most strongly illustrated by the villains here, but it’s evident in almost all the characters – they don’t feel like people. They seem like ideas of people, like stories received from a book or, more likely, a videogame. In order to create stories, you must engage with the world, and engagement with the world requires absorbing a variety of rich experiences and rich media. Games are, to be frank, not there yet. They are still largely toys, and cannot substitute for an engagement with the world through literature, film, and human experience. The problem with games isn’t that they are good for you or bad for you – it’s that they are nothing for you. Two hundred hours spent in Call of Duty does not teach you one single thing about why someone might be led to commit an “immoral” action. Fifty hours of mastering a specific speed run won’t give you a single insight into how people react to traumatic circumstance.
Sword Art Online is hamstrung by the fact that its author did too much research, and too little engaging with the world. He does not understand people, and so he cannot write them or empathize with them. His story is an extension of himself, and his shadow does not extend very far.
That may be the harshest thing I’ve ever said about a writer! But it’s honestly the impression I get from this work. The binary worldview, the simplistic characters, the gleeful violence – I think it all comes back to this guy just not spending enough time really trying to understand other people. And I kinda feel sorry for him, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna go easy on his creepy little adventure.
It’s time to finish this, old friend. Let’s Sword Art Online.