Review of Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale
Before I start I need to say one thing: 1: There is no reason to watch this unless you are a fan of the SAO series. Absolutely none. Don't waste your time. Just watch an AMV or listen to the soundtrack or something. So now that that's out of the way let's talk about this movie. Ordinal Scale has the WORST story I have seen in anything written by Kawahara ever, which is saying A LOT. However, SAO fans know by now not to watch SAO for the brilliant plot so it doesnt matter. Here are the things that matter (If you're interested in a breakdown forthe story and characters aspect I will do that at the bottom after the review):
1: The art. The budget makes all the difference. This movie is probably the most beautiful animated work I have ever seen. Everything is crisp and clean, the colors are perfect, and the scenery... it honestly left me speechless. While the entire crowd was cheering for Jesus Kun kicking ass, I was staring at the art pondering my own existence. It was honestly brilliant.
2: The soundtrack. This movie uses a ton of songs (Yuuna performs them during the battles) and as such, the soundtrack plays a huge role in this movie. And by god was it good. Between the art and the music, I totally forgot about the plot hole that is Jesus Kun. I sometimes stopped paying attention to the battles happening on screen and just listened to the music (I didn't miss much).
3: Fan Service. And no I do not mean nudity/ecchiness. I mean the constant stream of little things thrown in for the average SAO fanboy. Whether its the progress of Kiritos relationship with Asuna, or the return of characters you loved but forgot existed cause they serve no purpose (Sinon <3), this movie brought back EVERYONE for you to enjoy. The people that showed up to watch this movie could not keep their mouths shut, as the theater would explode with applause every few minutes because they were excited about some character/ some battle. While the story is garbage, the movie was a ton of fun to watch while we wait for season 3. I definitely recommend it
Thats the end of my "review". I'd say this movie is a great watch for anybody who really liked SAO.
I'll do the story and characters next in case anybody actually cares about that. Note that I will spoil some very minor things but I will not talk about the ending.
Story: So the basic premise is that an old SAO survivor named Nautilus wants to rescue his old SAO gf by bringing her back using other people's memories. He does this by beating the shit out of other SAO survivors in Augmented Reality (Ordinal Scale) and stealing their memories of SAO. The catch is that Jesus Kun is apparently horrible at AR and sucks at Ordinal Scale. This is resolved by Jesus Kun... not being bad at Ordinal Scale anymore. Just because. Then Jesus Kun defeats Nautilus who was using a device that was never explained to boost his power. This happens because Jesus Kun. Basically the story will always come down to Jesus Kun being broken overpowered, and thats ok. But 99% of the mechanics of the story and the progression of the plot remain unexplained. Still Yuna was fun.
Characters: Honestly basically exactly what you would expect from the SAO show. Only difference being that Kirito for whatever reason does not want to play Ordinal Scale, despite the fact that the shows Kirito would never hesitate to improve himself at a video game. It was SOOOO much fun to see a better animated version of Sinon and Liz actually doing stuff for once. Especially Sinon.