Review of Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online

You know, I was ready to dig deep into this anime and give a really in-depth review, but I actually don’t have much to say about GGO as I thought I would. In terms of story, not too much happened, but it was still good. In terms of characters, there weren’t too many that stood out, but the ones that did were great and there weren’t any truly unlikable ones. Pitohui and LLENN carry the cast. Both of them are endlessly enjoyable to see on screen and interact with their environments and other characters. It wasn’t as in-depth or character driven as either of theSAO seasons (If you can even call them in-depth and character driven) but it was still ultimately better than both. The animation was good, the soundtrack was good, the fight scenes ranged from good to great. Considering we are in a time where battle royal games are all the rage, this came out at a very appropriate time. It delivered fast paced, high action BR matches with some great gun fights that were very entertaining to watch. However, considering all the matches are just video game fun for the most part, it’s not really high stakes. It’s hard to get genuinely excited over the battles at times knowing it’s just a game with no real stakes to it. Even when they do manage to introduce something to make the Battle Royal important, it’s not very compelling. While the anime was still fun to watch, there’s not a whole lot of substance to it. The final battle was awesome, but the conclusion to the last Battle Royal was very quick and underwhelming in comparison. Overall, it was still fun to watch play out. I trusted the studio to do a good job and they delivered on that. Surprisingly, Yuri undertones weren’t as present as I was expecting from Studio 3Hz anime. It’s not something I’d deduct points for, but still something that stood out to me.
The main take away from SAO Alternative though is that a spin-off managed to be better than BOTH seasons of the main series. That’s both funny and sad to think about.