Review of Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale
Sword Art Online, fairly, has come with a ton of controversy over the years. After a fantastic first season featuring Aincrad and ALfheim Online, ratings dropped, at least on MAL, during the seasons in which the arcs for all of Extra, GGO, Excalibur and Mother's Rosario aired. The producers continually put out content and give it a crack in a movie featuring a new type of gaming - Ordinal Scale. As per usual, I'll assume you've seen the previously mentioned arcs for the purposes of this review. Story & Characters: Taken three years after the events of Aincrad, the brand new "thing" launchesin Japan, known as Ordinal Scale. Instead of being a virtual reality like it's predecessors before it, Ordinal Scale is run on an Augmented Reality engine. This means that instead of lying down and watching everything happen within your brain, your physical body moves around in the real world and the game is shown to you in front of your eyes. Praised as having none of the risks that the Nerve Gear had, everyone starts using it and fights bosses in order to climb the ranking ladder. Included in this new system are rewards that players can redeem for real items, such as a drink from the vending machines. As you might have guessed, our main cast from the previous games take part in this game, attempting to have fun in the new big thing. At the center of it all is the face of the AR system, Yuna, who players are rumouring to be a real person, even though she's very clearly virtual in the confines of the game.
The story structure is honestly very fresh to me and is mostly cut into three parts - exploring the Ordinal Scale, exploring the system and how it connects to the real world and the finale. They use a brand new storyline that hasn't really been attempted before this and doesn't seek to try and get crazy with it. It really does feel like they try and be safe with this one, just because some of the arcs, specifically GGO, were probably not what non-light novel readers were super hyped about. The three parts within the movie play out somewhat predictably, but are still fantastic for eye-candy, as the Sword Art Online series has always had fantastic fights. They play on this strength and don't drown you in deeper story details until about a third of the way through the movie, which works well here. When we start to transition into the second part of the movie, we notice things starting to go wrong and I really like what they did with it. While we ultimately don't find out why the Ordinal Scale was developed until late in the movie, pacing this out as well as they did earns a thumbs up from me.
Mixed into all this is the relationship between Kazuto and Asuna, which has taken a bit of a back seat in previous arcs. They really wanted to develop them more as a couple here and even though they don't surprise you as individuals, I love watching relationships evolve. Kazuto has very little interest in the Ordinal Scale, so much of the first half of the movie has him in the background. This means that we get to see more of our other crew members, including Asuna, whose likely my favourite in the series. Yuna gets introduced into this as sort of a mascot to the Ordinal Scale, and they do some interesting things with her character while in the Ordinal Scale game. Eiji also joins in and they integrate his actions from that of Aincrad, which gets mentioned numerous times in this movie. Many of Kazuto and Asuna's friends make appearances in this movie and they certainly make this movie an enjoyable experience.
The final battle is easily the best finale we've seen in any Sword Art Online arc to date in both looks and execution. I love what they did with it and to say much more about it would be spoiling a truly epic moment. Be sure to watch past the credits if you haven't watched the sequels though because they do hint what what's to come, for those fans that have stuck through it all. (Story: 9/10, Characters: 9/10)
Art: Sword Art Online has always looked fantastic and this positive trend continues. Fights look awesome, and the animation remains mostly consistent. I did notice that some of the animation while the crew is at the log cabin dipped a little bit, but it's literally two scenes, so it's not too much of an issue. (9/10)
Sound: This movie sounds amazing. The music this time around is done by Yuki Kajira, well known for her work with Kalafina. That type of sound makes it's appearance in various tracks throughout the movie and lends itself really well here. Her involvement here is very welcome. LiSA sings the ED, Capture The Moment, and it's an awesome tune. There are some tracks here sung by Sayaka Kanda, the Japanese VA for Yuna, and they're a welcome add during many of the fights. This was sadly one of her last works, as she tragically took her own life a few months ago. The VO cast is extremely strong, led by Bryce Papenbrook (Kazuto). I'm not the biggest fan of Cherami Leigh (Asuna) and Stephanie Sheh (Yui) here, as they both sounded a little awkward to me at times. However, the supporting cast remains strong with Christine Marie Cabanos (Silica), Sarah Williams (Lisbeth), Michelle Ruff (Sinon) and newcomer to the series, Jamieson Price (Tetsuhiro). (10/10)
Overall enjoyment: Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale revitalized my faith in the series, just because of the straight forward way they went about the story, with a few dark undertones behind it. People will always give the series a hard time due to the way they go about each different story arc. I love that they always tried different things, even if the payoff wasn't always there, but Ordinal Scale was fantastic. Give it a try! (9/10)