Review of Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale

Ordinal Scale, I feel, stands out from the rest of the SAO seasons, and the main reason why is its single movie status, rather than an actual 13 episode long seasons, which produces massively different results. For my TLDR ratings, they are as follows: Story: 6 Art: 10 Sound: 10 Characters: 8 Enjoyment: 9 Let me explain my reasoning for these.Many of the series' problems -such as pacing issues and setting inconsistencies, are more or less eliminated by the simple fact that this is ~2 hour movie rather than 13 episodes. When it comes down to it, I believe that this is why I gave Enjoyment a 9.

Indeed, SAO seasons 1 and 2 could have perhaps fit into a movie or two of their own and been all the better for it.

Ordinal Scale maintains A-1 Pictures' impressive artwork and animation; if not actually improves on them. Again, I suspect that the reason for this is is the fact that this is a single movie, allowing the studio to focus resources and effort rather than stretching them out across a season. Hence my 10 on Art.

The sound and voice acting remains excellent, which includes some singing that is genuinely enjoyable. Hence my 10 on Sound.

Ordinal Scale (OS) addresses some of SAO proper's worst offenders; that is to say needless victimization and disappointing villains. To clarify, OS is still guilty off these to an extent -the latter more than the former. Asuna is still put into the role of the damsel, at least momentarily. Even though it falls to Kirito to save her, she does save herself in the end. In that sense, the series is closer to the first season than the second (whose victimization and marginalization of Asuna remains the series' greatest sin).

No one will ever write words of praise for OS' villains, but they had clear goals with reasoning that made sense, were suitably threatening for a time and were disposed of at the right time and without needlessly dragged out conflict. That's a good thing in itself.

The main cast and the side characters aside from the villains, I feel, were all given a good amount of screentime and were portrayed well. Hence my final 8 for Characters. Obligatory remark of 'yay Asuna fanservice?'

Ordinal Scale's weakest point is its main plot which, no matter how you look at it, is pretty bare boned, coupled with villains that -while better than the series usually does, are certainly not impressive in any respect- ends up earning it a resoundingly average of 6. Simple and quick, as befitting of a movie, but nothing that will impress anyone on its own.

Overall, I enjoyed Ordinal Scale a lot more than I expected. For me, SAO has always teetered on the edge of guilty pleasure, especially after the conclusion of the Aincrad Arc, but Ordinal Scale seems to be a perfectly respectable piece of media that pinpoints and at least somewhat addresses its predecessors' weak points while maintaining their strong ones.

That's why my overall score for Ordinal Scale is an 8. An impressive movie with room for improvement, but certainly a pleasant surprise.

Here's hoping that A-1 learn from this and don't repeat the mistakes of SAO2 or GGO.