Review of Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale

I was fortunate to have a theater in my area screen Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale. I am extremely satisfied with my decision to go. The Ordinal Scale special was a new twist on the Sword Art Online experience as we know. No longer is it related to life in a virtual world, but rather a new reality that is endangering the familiar faces in the Sword Art universe. Story: Years following the events of the initial Sword Art Online Series, a new technology has surfaced that has taken Japan by storm. This new device, the Augma, creates an augmented reality in real-time as opposed todevices like the Amusphere or Nerve Gear that requires players to "deep-dive" into a virtual world. Immersing yourself in this new technology can apply to mundane daily tasks or be used for a new gaming style. This new style of AR game is dependent on your own latent abilities, whereas in virtual reality you can cultivate your skills through character customization. However, the dangers of this new augmented reality world show themselves over time and our heroes face a new evil that must be stopped.

Art: There is a definite improvement of art, specifically being sharper than its preceding series. The movie, while not a recap feature in any way, does flashback to moments in SAO where you do notice the differences in production quality. Furthermore, the character designs have new variants that resemble their real-life appearance. This is since the AR world is set in real-time. It allows for some more creativity in the character representation that expands on who the characters are outside of the SAO and ALO universes -- their clothing styles, their preferred aesthetics in their homes, etc. These art directions allow us to know more about the actual characters themselves, and not their VR counterparts. For a specific example, in the VR world, Sinon exposes a lot of skin; however, her first IRL appearance (not really a spoiler) in Ordinal scale shows her in a frumpy, loose-fitting cardigan and pants. Completely covered. This choice in attire more accurately reflects her reserved nature. Lastly, the animation used in the action sequences is vastly improved from the Sword Art Online series. While some battles may not have the same impact, for a very good reason, they are animated very well, albeit sometimes a little clunky. The art is not flawless, but it is darn superb.

Sound: All the familiar faces are back and with that comes the great voice cast from the main cast of characters. The recurring cast in Sword Art Online already sets my opinion of the sound rather high. New characters are voiced very well also; namely Yuna, who you may know as the former singer from TRUSTRICK. Not only is she a talented singer, but her voice acting in this feature is quite impressive despite not having many credited roles to her name. Her insert songs are quite enjoyable to listen to. She doesn't have that irritating idol quality. LiSA returns with another theme song which provides some continuity from the preceding series in a way. Where the viewing experience suffered, at least for my experience personally, is that the audio was mixed rather aggressively. During battles especially, the audio was almost too loud and actually hurt at times.

Character: Once again, the recurring cast of characters return in some capacity throughout the film. Some welcome cameos also appear at times which can either give you goosebumps, chills, or simply a wide grin across your face. There also is a lot of character development for our main heroes Kirito and Asuna as they adjust to life in this new AR world. The new antagonists are portrayed well and while they are rather telegraphed from the beginning of the movie, their motives aren't immediately known which keeps you guessing. I feel the characters are all portrayed well aside from Leafa. Poor Leafa...

Enjoyment: I sat there from start to finish with a huge grin on my face. I laughed, I cried. I enjoyed the hell out of this movie from start to finish. I will add that seeing this in a theater setting probably amplified my viewing experience, but that aside this is a very, very good addition to the Sword Art Online franchise. I think the only thing that I did not enjoy was that I did not win the poster they were raffling off. 10/10 would see again (and definitely will).

Sword Art Online is one of the most polarizing series I can recall to date. There are those that absolutely love it and those that absolutely hate it. I am one of those that absolutely love it. That said, the complaints I hear from others as to why the series is trash are understandable and I see where they are coming from. I feel like this film avoids those issues quite well for the most part, although some tropes from the preceding series do return, but in a limited fashion. If you are not a fan of this series because of things you did not like in the TV runs, I would suggest giving this movie a try. I hope that the strength of this film is used as a stepping stone towards a bright future for this franchise.