Review of Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online
I'm writing this review from jail, and that might happen to you too, if you watch it until the end! It started out really nice. Just a bunch of random new people playing Gun Gale Online, several years after the events of SAO. Kirito is mentioned in passing once or twice, but neither him nor any other of the previous cast is present at all. The main character is insecure IRL and a bit lonely, and so wants to try out VR gaming with a friend. They get into GGO, a shooter game, do some quests, level up, and eventually end up in a tournament. I digit!!
The animation is also -really- nice, many of the fights scenes are lovely. I also enjoy the main character, and the music is usually on point, too.
Also, there's very little fanservice! Nice!
...But then it all fell apart for me. :'( When they introduced the extra stakes of: your friend is suddenly insane and will kill herself IRL if she loses this tournament. Unless she loses to the main character. Wut?
This series did not need weird crazy stakes like this, in my opinion. I was happy just watching normal people play a normal game. Maybe put more realistic stakes if necessary, but this felt so forced, sudden, stretched out, and totally ridiculous.
On top of that, there are some really silly things that happen throughout the game. The main characters are pretty much immune to damage, as opponents will either always miss, hit non-vitals, or worse, hit the one part they can't hit, ten times, emptying their clips.
The parts that can't be hit include a radar, a dead body (seems OP), an overpowered shield that only one character has, or someone's gun (which can absorb a questionable amount of bullets before it finally explodes).
The main character has super speed, which is never explained, and no-one else seems to have anything like it, other than the main villain who gets a lightsaber at the end for a few seconds. The main character can use her plot armor, err, super speed, to dodge any incoming fire, even at point-blank range, but only when the plot demands it.
The gun has an uwu face and talks randomly.
In these big fps team-based arena tournaments, several professional teams (including main characters) are just running head-on at enemies or standing right in the open, discussing nonsense at length.
Also, at the end, it turns out one character is a pedophile and a stalker who gets blackmailed and abused by a child, the manager is guilty of forcing child labor, and the singer is a bi-sexual insane nymphomaniac. All in the space of 5 minutes.
This is why anime will never be main stream, aaah!