Review of Sword Art Online: Alicization - War of Underworld Part 2

I pretty much never write reviews because anime reviews never turn out well, as this site proves over and over. But man. This arc. What? As a fan of the series, i'm at a loss. I'mma come right out and say I LOVE the Alicization arc. Absolutely the best thing this show ever did. It threw out all the baggage and found a way to give the story stakes again without being repetitive. It introduced a ton of actually interesting characters and a completely new world. It established rules and for once actually followed them to a T. The first Alicization season and part 1 ofWar of Underworld were great, until the main cast started to bleed in and things just devolved into utter nonsense. All established rules of the world were shattered and destroyed.

The story dragged on to get as much waifu time as possible, shoehorning in old characters that made absolutely no sense. Like really one appearance existed solely to waste 5 minutes and nod at the SAO movie. Why? What.

It was all just nonsense. I can put up with plot armour and "breaking the rules" to an extent but not when you're breaking every. single. rule. you set in place, and just shoving it down the damn plot every minute. There's about 17 miracles an episode with no feasible explanation.
And then the ending. As if the arc hadn't crashed and burned enough as is they took the burning wreckage and sent it hurtling into a kitten and baby factory. I was so shocked I wasn't even mad anymore. I'm just in a constant state of confusion.

That said, it was still watchable. And I wonder where the heck the story is heading, if only out of shear morbid curiosity and confusion.

Alice best girl