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Well, having the main character be an author insert doesn't automatically make a story terrible in theory. It's just that that turns out to be the case like 99.99% of the time. Though to the show's credit Kirito's character and behavior so far have 1)been plausible, and 2) not been remotely perfect. Amateurs (or professionals for that matter) don't usually have their personal avatar gently caress up and get people killed. This show still has plenty of time to turn terrible though.
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Sep 19, 2012 11:43
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Blhue posted:Though I agree with your point, in all honesty if he really did write it when he was a 15 year old MMO nerd, the chances of Kirito not being a self insert are slim. There could be something to be said about a 15 years old's self insert being a more likeable character than quite a few other anime MCs written by professionals though.
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Sep 19, 2012 18:00
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WitchFetish posted:There could be something to be said about a 15 years old's self insert being a more likeable character than quite a few other anime MCs written by professionals though. That is something.. I haven't felt an overwhelming need to throttle any of the characters yet. That's actually a TRICK when it comes to LNs.
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Sep 19, 2012 18:53
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It may seem like a dumb question, but if I enjoy the setting of SAO is it worth my time to read the light novels?
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Sep 19, 2012 18:57
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Alca posted:It may seem like a dumb question, but if I enjoy the setting of SAO is it worth my time to read the light novels? I'd say yes. The translation reads a little stiff at times, but there ARE things the animated series is skipping over due to time constraints. Particularly 'slice of life' stuff where you find out how people who aren't chasing down internet dragons live.
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Sep 19, 2012 19:03
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Gearhead posted:I'd say yes. The translation reads a little stiff at times, but there ARE things the animated series is skipping over due to time constraints. Pretty much. It can be a small hassle if you want to read things in chronological order. You can generally match the episode names to the short story aside from the second episode, which is the side story Aria in the Starless Night.
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Sep 19, 2012 19:34
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Argas posted:Pretty much. It can be a small hassle if you want to read things in chronological order. You can generally match the episode names to the short story aside from the second episode, which is the side story Aria in the Starless Night. Would it be  to make a list of links for the chronological order of SAO for books 1 and 2 (Plus side stories)? 'Cause I think I'll do that just to help in that regard.That said, I will, one of these days, work on Editing Mother's Rosario because that is such a good story that it doesn't deserve to languish in the stilted Japa-English that it is in right now.
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Sep 20, 2012 06:23
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I don't get how people think Kirito is the only one with a special unique skill. Sure he has his Dual Wield skill, but the leader of the lead guild has by all accounts an even stronger skill. Then you get an entire PvP guild worth of people using the Paralysis skill. From the way Kuradeel spoke it appears that they tell people within the guild how to activate that Paralysis skill while Kirito and Heathcliff either don't know how or refuse to tell people how to activate the similar skill.
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Sep 20, 2012 20:51
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YouTuber posted:I don't get how people think Kirito is the only one with a special unique skill. Sure he has his Dual Wield skill, but the leader of the lead guild has by all accounts an even stronger skill. Then you get an entire PvP guild worth of people using the Paralysis skill. From the way Kuradeel spoke it appears that they tell people within the guild how to activate that Paralysis skill while Kirito and Heathcliff either don't know how or refuse to tell people how to activate the similar skill. I think it's more just that Kirito and Heathcliff are the only known users of unique skills, and they don't seem to know how they were acquired. Even Kirito kept his hidden for six months without hardly anybody finding out about it, so there could be more out there. There are plenty of "extra" skills that have known ways of unlocking them. The paralysis poison of laughing coffin would fall into this category, and there are a few others that are well documented. Klein's Katana skill automatically unlocks after using the Curved Sword skill for a while, and there's a Martial Arts skill earned from a low-floor quest that Kirito earns in a side story at one point and uses against Klaudeel.
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Sep 20, 2012 21:19
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Perhaps Heathcliff's goal in trying to pull Kirito into the guild was to gather all the people who had unusual abilities like Kirito and himself into a single team?
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Sep 20, 2012 21:31
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Gearhead posted:Perhaps Heathcliff's goal in trying to pull Kirito into the guild was to gather all the people who had unusual abilities like Kirito and himself into a single team? If Heathcliff assembled the Justice League of Aincrad, I would just about die laughing.
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Sep 21, 2012 04:11
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Einander posted:If Heathcliff assembled the Justice League of Aincrad, I would just about die laughing. Visually he DOES kinda have the Superman thing going, doesn't he?
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Sep 21, 2012 04:55
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Pretty good episode and, importantly, the first time we've seen someone Get one up on Kayaba since the start of this. Good way of showing his grip is slipping. And a nice throw back to the novels with Dood fell to a clumsy, painful death guy.
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Sep 22, 2012 21:59
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So apparently Kirito is a super skilled hacker? That kinds of seems like a cheap plot device.
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Sep 23, 2012 08:18
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It just strikes me as a standard attempt to do something cool without doing the research. SAO isn't really too full of those since the MMO aspects tend to fit together well. Still an instance of "why would someone program this?" in action.
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Sep 23, 2012 09:21
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Zettace posted:So apparently Kirito is a super skilled hacker? That kinds of seems like a cheap plot device. The interface they animated was incredibly inscrutable. The novel gave more of an impression of "find logged in computer, copy file to flash drive" than "blindly push a million magic buttons to make hacker progress bar appear" Minor detail: They left out that the overly strong monster was probably there to guard the console but maybe if you're sharp you could deduce that yourself.
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Sep 23, 2012 09:54
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Zettace posted:So apparently Kirito is a super skilled hacker? That kinds of seems like a cheap plot device. This actually got teased way back in the first episode. Check the contents of his bookshelf. About half the books up there have titles that look like they might have been written by Kayaba himself.
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Sep 23, 2012 11:54
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Amazing hacking stunts are always so unbelievable, I think we just let our eyes glaze over and assume for the sake of the show that the impossible feat the protagonist just accomplished is possible. Modern stories are replete with such examples. It's unfortunate. I'd be far more likely to believe that (episode spioler) Yui, at the "end" of her life, tells Kirito, "I've found your IPv6 TCP/IP address for your Nerve Gear. I'm going to download myself into the local memory. Look for me when you get out of SAO, Papa. I know you'll make it!" Instead, we see (more episode spoiler) fingers flashing across the keyboard as Kirito seems to all the sudden have an intuitive and intimate knowledge of the system (which OS did Kayaba use? Windows 2020? Linux? Some new OS yet to be invented? How does Kirito even find the "program" that is Yui in that short amount of time? I think any person who works with computers will tell you that "breaking" into a system via pure technical prowess, while very possible due to bugs and exploits, is actually pretty hard. It's the Social Engineering of hacking that really allows for the exploits. Anyway, this is an important episode because (future novel spoilers -- but minor ones at that) Yui shows up later on in ALO. She's part of the story from then on, and she has important roles to play. I think the idea of a sentient program helping Kirito and Asuna is terrific. I just wonder why Kayaba bothered creating such a program if he planned to lock her out anyway and force everyone to play his death game all along?
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Sep 23, 2012 13:13
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Dan7el posted:I just wonder why Kayaba bothered creating such a program if he planned to lock her out anyway and force everyone to play his death game all along?[/spoiler] I'm betting it wasn't his idea to have it, probably something someone in the rest of the company thought up. Or perhaps a government mandate since people have enough addiction problems these days to MMOs, let alone a full body deep immersion one like SAO. He probably just went along with it, then set it up so the system would lock that part down and didn't worry about it.
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Sep 23, 2012 15:42
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That or Kayaba's an insane rear end in a top hat who just built things on things after going "Level-5 Villain" insane. The only life restore item is only good for 20 seconds after someone's death and is part of an event featuring a horricialy warped version of Santa Claus? Dood's a sick gently caress.
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Sep 23, 2012 15:58
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ConanThe3rd posted:That or Kayaba's an insane rear end in a top hat who just built things on things after going "Level-5 Villain" insane. This mob was put in the game before it was turned into a death trap, so it was hardly so sinister originally. On the other hand, (LN Spoilers) Cardinal, the master control program for SAO and related games, is a goddamn troll. This trollish behavior was only magnified in making SAO itself lethal. Its quest generation system runs off of Blizzard levels of pop culture abuse. Gearhead fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Sep 23, 2012 |
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Sep 23, 2012 21:38
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I don't really know what Sword Art Online is doing differently, but its' really ramping up! I wonder if they switched out writers/directors/started following the source material more closely? Either way, it's amazing. That thing they did with Yui was already done to death with .hack, but I think SAO handled it much, much better. I even somewhat cared about her after only 2 episodes. Oh yeah, and this: http://i.imgur.com/MaXbo.gif ARGLEBARGLELFGHBEBLEBLEBLBERBRLBRLEBR Who's menacing now? 
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Sep 24, 2012 02:14
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The 'side stories' that people have talked about are stories that were all done after the first main story was done. This one, 'Morning Dew Girl' is the last side story from Volume 2 before we go into Volume 1's endgame. A lot of these stories were longer and more self contained than stuff that happened within Volume 1, which leads to tighter source material to work with. The writer's style matured quite a bit while he worked on the SAO side stories as well.
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Sep 24, 2012 03:12
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I've put together a quick list of what episode corresponds to what chapter/sidestory for those interested in reading in chronological order. There's a few sidestories that have happened chronologically but aren't featured in the anime. This isn't an exhaustive list because I haven't read everything yet. Episode 1: Volume 1, Chapter 1-3 Sidestory: Volume 8, First Day Episode 2: Aria in the Starless Night Material Editions: Continuation: Aria in the Starless Night Sidestory: Rondo of the Transient Sword (Not fully translated) Episode 3: Volume 2, Red-nosed Reindeer Episode 4: Volume 2, The Black Swordsman Episode 5-6: Volume 8, A Murder Case in the Area Episode 7: Volume 2, Warmth of the Heart Episode 8-10: Volume 1, Chapter 4-18 Episode 11-12: Volume 2, Morning Dew Girl Generally, the LN fits in more stuff than the anime but with some side stories written far far later, some things aren't foreshadowed, some things are reverse-foreshadowed, etc. For instance, in Episode 8 during the duel, the Laughing Coffin member isn't mentioned in the LN. I'd recommend against reading A Murder Case in the Area because there's a certain scene in it that heavily foreshadows things that have yet to appear in the anime. The anime cut out that scene while retaining most of the information featured. A lot of the differences, both in details and explanations, are due to the first-person viewpoint of the LN compared to the anime. Aria in the Starless Night has a few scenes and a subplot that didn't make it into the anime, for instance. The subplot is largely unimportant but the missing scenes help flesh out the world and has a fair bit of character interaction.
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Sep 24, 2012 04:53
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I was actually liking this more when it was a relatively bland Lord of the Flies MMO thing. Now it's trying to actually get me emotionally invested! It doesn't look like the writings good enough to pull it off either.
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Sep 24, 2012 08:27
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Yeah, I agree with that. Things were better back when everyone was still confused about the whole trapped-in-an-MMO thing. I understand that they face real dangers in that world, but I can't take anything else seriously, like getting emotionally attached to a psychological consultant AI
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Sep 24, 2012 09:31
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Rexides posted:Yeah, I agree with that. Things were better back when everyone was still confused about the whole trapped-in-an-MMO thing. I understand that they face real dangers in that world, but I can't take anything else seriously, like getting emotionally attached to a psychological consultant AI If there is anything I miss from the internal monologs that have been taken out of the narrative, it's the ones that talk about Kirito and Asuna's mental state during this late part of it. LN Stuff: Basically, Kirito and Asuna both wind up arriving at the decision that they have to confront reality with the information that they're given. Reality is what you experience, whether it's data fed to your senses by a computer or through the original data gathering equipment you were issued with. This sacrifice in order to maintain sanity might have been pretty common among the Clearers, considering how many SAO players keep coming BACK to VR games later on. It also helps to explain why Kirito and Asuna react this way to Yui. Once it becomes impossible to distinguish a simulated response from a genuine one, attempting to split hairs means denying a part of yourself. It doesn't matter if she's synthetic, their emotional response to her is real. My senses tell me that this is a real, hurting person reaching out for help. To deny this person would be killing part of what makes me human. On the other hand, the voice actors for this series routinely knock it out of the park. We don't get a lot of the internal 'mental state' monologs, but the people they brought on are really, really good at conveying how desperate people are becoming. Gearhead fucked around with this message at 11:00 on Sep 24, 2012 |
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Sep 24, 2012 10:55
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As someone who hasn't touched the LNs, I can only speak from experiencing the anime by itself. The little girl "dashes in to save the day and show unfathomable amounts of power, flaming sword of the Gods" bit deserved more ridicule. Worse than Kirito using a command line. On the flip side, I thought it was neat that the AI program essentially was their lovechild. The only reason it was drawn out into the world proper was because it was lured by their love and happiness, so it's like a direct result of their marriage. edit: for spoilers.
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Sep 24, 2012 12:44
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I still can't get past the 'MMO marriage' aspect. They can apparently actually gently caress and everything, but still... I guess I have some prejudices that aren't going to go away easily. In my grandparents' day it was unthinkable for a white person to marry a black person. In the same way I'll be damned if any child of mine marries an MMO person!  Be gay, be trans, I don't give a poo poo. But so help me God, you will NOT marry pixels or I will disown your rear end.Would be a very fun IRL honeymoon too. Two emaciated assholes who know each other well mentally and emotionally but who are unused to living in actual reality. Sounds like the basis of a mutually healthy relationship to me.
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Sep 24, 2012 13:04
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Nathilus posted:Would be a very fun IRL honeymoon too. Two emaciated assholes who know each other well mentally and emotionally but who are unused to living in actual reality. Sounds like the basis of a mutually healthy relationship to me. Amusingly, this gets touched on later. LN Stuff yet again, Nobody ever says Asuna and Kirito's relationship is the healthiest in the world, I mean, Asuna finds comfort and reassurance in the fact that she has his implanted heart monitor and GPS data feeding into her cell phone. On the other hand, it also helps her to catch him when he goes into pokerface mode and call him on that poo poo. A year later, Kirito and Asuna are also still trying to find a way to explain their relationship to her mother. Back on the topic of 'marriage' though... There's an odd sort of gesture there. It's actually very easy to get married in the game's system, but very few people do it. (In part because the male to female ratio is absolutely horrible.) But also because marrying someone gives them access to your inventory. Now, consider that you're playing Ultima Online: The Lethal Edition, and someone you only know from the game has access to your crap. Yeah. In the context of SAO it's an expression of an extreme level of trust, that winds up evolving into something more serious in Kirito and Asuna's case. (Interestingly, Yuriel and Sinker are ANOTHER couple that met in game and got married IRL afterwards.)
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Sep 24, 2012 13:19
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Did anyone else just get creeped out by the AI kid always calling Kirito and Asuna Mama and Papa and just making everything completely uncomfortable? I was seriously rooting for the kid to bite it just so I didn't have to sit through that anymore.
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Sep 24, 2012 14:29
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The Black Stones posted:Did anyone else just get creeped out by the AI kid always calling Kirito and Asuna Mama and Papa and just making everything completely uncomfortable? I was seriously rooting for the kid to bite it just so I didn't have to sit through that anymore. Coming from the LNs, not particularly. It actually made me uncomfortable when she started calling them by their given names. Though I guess it would've been even more unsettling if she'd called Kirito by his REAL name like she COULD have.
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Sep 24, 2012 14:47
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Nathilus posted:I still can't get past the 'MMO marriage' aspect. They can apparently actually gently caress and everything, but still... I guess I have some prejudices that aren't going to go away easily. In my grandparents' day it was unthinkable for a white person to marry a black person. In the same way I'll be damned if any child of mine marries an MMO person! Formalized marriage through game mechanics is basically an expected feature of Free-2-Play eastern-style MMOs nowadays. Usually you get XP gain and other beneficial buffs (what I cared about) and a sense of self-satisfaction seeing your tag/label/whatever say you were married (what my RL wife cared about).
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Sep 24, 2012 17:19
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AnacondaHL posted:Formalized marriage through game mechanics is basically an expected feature of Free-2-Play eastern-style MMOs nowadays. Usually you get XP gain and other beneficial buffs (what I cared about) and a sense of self-satisfaction seeing your tag/label/whatever say you were married (what my RL wife cared about). It really is an MMO thing, yeah. It exists. I can't remember there being a formalized system in UO, but seem to recall there being one in PSO. (These are the oldest two games on his list of MMOs. Oddly, FF11 is NOT on his list, which surprises me considering what comes later.)
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Sep 24, 2012 17:27
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I think the only Western subscription based MMO that has marriage a formal in-game thing is Rift, I could be wrong though.
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Sep 24, 2012 18:27
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Sakurazuka posted:I think the only Western subscription based MMO that has marriage a formal in-game thing is Rift, I could be wrong though. Anarchy Online also has one, and I'm pretty sure EQ does as well, but I can't remember if it had one at the time this was written.
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Sep 24, 2012 21:15
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Gearhead posted:Anarchy Online also has one, and I'm pretty sure EQ does as well, but I can't remember if it had one at the time this was written. I remember EQ had one back when I played it, before any expansions. Oddly I don't remember AO having one, and I played a lot of that, but you could set your character's "real names" and a couple could give themselves the same surname.
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Sep 24, 2012 23:02
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Blhue posted:I remember EQ had one back when I played it, before any expansions. Oddly I don't remember AO having one, and I played a lot of that, but you could set your character's "real names" and a couple could give themselves the same surname. AO has a lot of odd things.
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Sep 24, 2012 23:23
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Blhue posted:I remember EQ had one back when I played it, before any expansions. Oddly I don't remember AO having one, and I played a lot of that, but you could set your character's "real names" and a couple could give themselves the same surname. EQ did not have an official marriage thing built into the game. You could share last names and petition a Guide(volunteer GM) to do some cringe worthy role playing for your marriage ceremony. But nothing really occurred out of it.
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Sep 25, 2012 22:22
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I keep reading conflicting stuff on whether we're getting 13 or 25 episodes in a row. Anyone know for sure?
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Sep 26, 2012 07:35
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