Sword Art Online II – 24 [END]

A juxtaposition of life and remembrance

Hello folks and welcome to our series finale coverage of Sword Art Online II. Both Highway and I are going to borrow an idea from lvlln and OC and present this as a conversation. We both watched the show at the same time over a Skype channel and discussed the show as it unfolded. Well….we were somewhat silent for a great deal of it…

 

 Yeah, I was silent to him, because I had actually muted my mic for about ⅔ of the show… so that skylion wouldn’t hear me sobbing. Yeah, it probably did get that bad. So what did we think of this finale, and this series overall?

And So We Begin the Conversation….

 Our Two Heroes

 skylion: Anyone that had payed attention to the last few episodes could see the end of this route. As for me, I was spoiled when I did some research on the character of Yuuki for episode 23. But that was hardly surprising all things considered. In most stories, you can see the die being cast. So with that in mind my first impression of the shows open was how apropos it all was. If you’re going to send off a character, start with something positive….

Getting the gangs together

Highway: The start of the show was extremely positive. Cookouts, bringing the two groups that Asuna has lived in together, more days at school, grades going up, Yuuki beating Kirito in the duel finals, maybe there was even a shot of Kazuto having dinner with Asuna and her mom and dad (well, *some* guy was)?  And giving them credit, they make it through all that stuff without reminding us that Yuuki is sick and that they’re essentially running out the clock. That waited until after the credits and OP / insert song.

The End is Near

When Asuna finally gets the message (really, a text, not a call?), she does rush to Yuuki’s side. And the presentation, as usual, is well done. The air of inevitability, evidenced by everyone in Yuuki’s no-longer-clean room. And Asuna’s interpretation of Yuuki’s gesture that she wants to meet Asuna where she can talk to her is a little convenient, but it’s also good of the doctor to agree, in contravention of what had been earlier decided. For me, seeing Yuuki’s sunken eyes and withered body wasn’t what started the emotions. It was after they got in the game, and she did that slow turn at the base of the tree to meet Asuna. We project emotions onto these drawings sometimes, because there are a lot of times they just can’t convey the same kind of non-verbal communication that real life interactions can. But somehow in that turn and wan smile, brightening as she sees Asuna, Yuuki’s pain from her condition and happiness at seeing Asuna was mixed together, in a moment that just set us off for the rest of a happy but sad ending.

Asuna runs for Yuuki

skylion: So, what she was looking for wasn’t the Full Dive. But simple human contact. And being able to lock eyes upon a person she loves and loves her in return was worth it all. Unlike Highway, this is when I started to get a bit unglued. Just seeing Yuuki’s frail frame set some off in me. Moe is defined by how protective you are of what you witness. This was the same sort of thing, but in a very different manner. The did quite a good job in the pacing, from the text, to Asuna’s desperate dash to the hospital. I liked how they portrayed the halls as both familiar, and foreign. She knows them, but doesn’t want to know them at that moment.

Just a small smile

But for all of it, while watching I was reminded of a moment in one of John Green’s vlogs. A recollection of Neutral Milk Hotel’s “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea” lyric, “How strange it is to be anything at all” But then, that is how my mind fires something. But, then. I also had Neil Gaiman’s Death riding with me when she says to a young child upon her passing, and how unfair she felt she got such a short time in this world. “You get the same thing everyone else gets….You got a lifetime”. So in short, we must make best what is given us. Yuuki does this to exceptional phrases. And now, I find myself unable to type any longer. Highway, if you would be so kind to take us to the next scene….

Small, Medium, or Large – which was most appropriate?

Highway: So it’s a question of does this get overdone? And if it was, where? I’ll say off the bat that even if it was overdone, it was overdone well. Yuuki expending the rest of her energy to transfer her unique sword skill to Asuna, and then the deluge. It doesn’t matter what people thought they’d do before the actual event, what matters is doing what feels right when you need to. So the rest of Sleeping Knights showing up, and the rest of Asuna’s group showing up, and even the rest of ALO showing up, I think that all was fine. It was impactful, it was respectful, and it was touching. Yeah, it was maybe a little bit overblown, but it was received in the spirit it was presented. And it was extremely emotional for me, as this series typically is.

Awfully Large Turnout

And the aftermath was a bit interesting, bringing us to the memorial service for Yuuki. So many people, for someone whose whole ‘life’ was spent being ill. But she did touch many lives, through a medium that allowed her to get around the limitations of her body. It’s something that gives me hope for the future, and hope that we can come up with something like that sooner than later. But despite it being a big event, they kept the scale nice and relatable, especially with the focus time on Asuna and Siune, and the happy news that Siune’s leukemia is actually in remission. It may feel odd to have them cheered up by each other at this kind of event, but that’s one of the reason for memorial services, especially for someone who was surprisingly able to mean something to so many people. But maybe they had a little bit of dissonance in the scene. skylion?

Maybe they didn’t need this conversation?

skylion: Yes, they rather did. I appreciate a writer that can bring to separate streams to a single scene, but I didn’t feel that this funeral was the place to do so. It felt like an intrusion, underlined by the fact that they covered most of the information again in the post ED scene. There are just some places where you have to let the moment be the moment, and a funeral is one of those places.

A nice meeting and good news

I have to respectfully disagree with Highway on the “overdone”. For me, it very much was, and it actually pulled me out of the moment enough for me to question why. They had it, they had it right with both the Sleeping Knights and with Asuna’s group in attendance. Anything else was just adding flash to an otherwise well crafted and simple dish. Now with that in mind, upon a rewatch (again), I was able to edit it out of my mind, and let the rest of the scene flow. It put me in mind of the departure of Hachikuji Mayoi. She was grateful that she got the overtime, and we for one, feel the exact same way. As I said during my last coverage, when we find these sorts of opportunities, we take them and make the most of them. Yuuki did that, and she was able to pass that on to her best friend in both worlds, real and VR. She left a legacy.

Just cause I wanted to throw this in – who’s that next to Asuna’s mother?

For me, SAO II has been almost all better than the first season of Sword Art Online. Part of this is the relative trajectories: the first season started off with good content, got to the really good part, and then spent the second half with no momentum, and nothing much going for it except poor Suguha’s attempt to fall out of love with her brother by falling in love with… her brother. In contrast, the GGO part of II was pretty good for me, and then Mother’s Rosario was all sorts of better. So the impression I’m left with is of something good, rather than something that wasn’t as good, and that makes my overall thoughts about the series better.

I liked that they took the focus of Kirito and his amazing feats of game reality warping. I liked that the things he did do were at least somewhat plausible, including coming to Shion’s rescue (the anime could have done better with why he wasn’t killed by the injection, tho. That was stupid lucky). And I liked that they introduced a character with the chops to take on Kirito, but made it so they didn’t have to. Yuuki Konno is my favorite Aoi Yuuki role, I have to say, although there’s not that much there that says “That’s Aoi Yuuki”, and maybe that’s why. And along the way, we got Reki Kawahara’s trademark melodrama, and I really think that he should get more credit for writing things that are so turned up to 11, yet in the hands of a good team like this one at A-1, don’t make you have the wrong reaction (unlike Sunrise, who made Accel World just bad). So overall, I give it a thumbs up. How about you, skylion?

Well, I do have a somewhat different attitude towards the two series. I felt the original, despite Faerie Dance, was the strongest. It had it’s own set of charms, and had a gravity to the character’s individual situations. I felt a great deal for them while watching, and still feel the same re-watching. By contrast, GGO felt like he, Kawahara, was trying to repeat the death game, and in order to keep the new arc fresh, watered it down, or changed the premise, which I felt never quite worked to keep the suspense. I’ve said in past posts, so I will gloss over here, that the exposition in this outing felt quite forced most of the time, in contrast with the original outing. GGO was action packed for sure, but some of those markers pulled it back for me. Calibur, I felt needed more time to so that the supporting cast could shine. Now I heard that the LNs cast them the same way; which is a mistake, Kirito’s supporting cast actually gives him credit. Here I felt they were swept away to easily. Mother’s Rosario was the best arc by far, outstripping the other two on natural storytelling, pacing, and greater drama.

But that is not to say I hated the second run totally. There were some genuinely entertaining moments that I wouldn’t have missed. Shion’s entire character and how she reacted to everything in her her story was quite awesome, and she is a welcome addition to the cast. I like the specs of the GGO world, and would love to see more gaming universes. As I said, the action and animation were very well executed; kept my eyes glued. So all in all, though I rate some stuff on a fairly tough metric, I don’t feel the show really wasted my time. And the Mother’s Rosario arc is going to go very deep into my memories for quite some time.