Review of Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online
This show is fresh off the presses of my memory from just watching it and boy howdy do i got some stuff to talk about, and for it being apart of the sword art online franchise it surprises me that i can talk about this show in a good way. Before i get to far into this i believe it would be good information as to where i stand on the SAO series as a whole and how much i've seen of it. I've currently seen all of season 1, the first part of season 2, and Alternative. I have not seen the movie or thenew series thats out but i've heard its gotta at least a tad bit better.
As for where i stand on the series as a whole note that i don't detest sword art online as a show in its entirety, honestly when it first came out i enjoyed the concept of it. But as i rewatched it i could see the obvious flaws in the shows and get this, i still didn't hate the show, (i know shocking isn't?). I would say i compare SAO to a show thats not similar to it in concept but in quilty, Absolute Duo. I enjoyed absolute Duo for what it was and like SAO i saw its flaws as well. But to SAO lovers dismay i'm no fanboy of the show even if i was ok with it, no quite the contrary, i disapprove of SAO's existence but for a completely differing reason.
You see, SAO and AOT are 2 shows that got many newcomers into anime because thats when a sort of renaissance of anime happened, but for me and others from the times of anime past it was a renaissance that would breed much mediocrity into the anime fandom. The reason i disapprove of SAO is because it is currently STILL one of the shows at the forefront of anime despite its overwhelming writing issues, its flawed design, and its continuation despite these issues. I would say it does warrant popularity because it brought forth the Isekai genre (and if anyone wants to say its not a genre i'm going to call you out as blatantly copying a current anime youtube who said as such because whether you consider it a genre or not is subjective), of which i'm a fan of when its done correctly, but that doesn't give it a pass simply for that reason. The issues of SAO being praised are basically similar to saying anything made by Illumination is a masterpiece of which for anyone with any semblance of insight knows is bullshit.
SAOs success may have lead to the creation of more Isekais, it it also brought with it a swarm of shows that were extremely mediocre that turned enough profit to say to the industry "hey, we'll accept anything regardless of its quilty you throw at us". To this day we have may issues in anime that are a result of us accepting mediocrity, not just in bad shows but also in good shows where the animators either want to "save money" rush the production to get it out on time, or just get lazy with writing, animation, 3D animations (i think many can see that in stuff like Berserk, Overlord, and Golden Kumey to be name a few) and other issues because they are now mass producing anime which mean quantity over quality. That's not to say that all shows suffer from this but eventually THEY COULD. THAT is why i disapprove of SAO, not because its a bad show but because by its success, we courage companies to get lazier and lazier and THEY WILL if we just allow it and keep believing the industry is working for us; the industry couldn't care less what you think of them, all they really are out for this the money and if you think people in japan give a damn about what anyone else in the world thinks of their shows you best go do some research and think again. Now if anyone still thinks for some reason that i shouldn't disapprove of SAO then go do you bo, i'm gonna get back on track now so if anyone wasn't reading the whole thing or just doesn't care then continue to where this review says "Story:" and i'll get started.
The review begins here if you wish to skip my thoughts on SAO as a series as i'm sure some will want too.
Story: I'm gonna give the story an 8/10 BECAUSE in comparison to the other parts of SAO the person who wrote this, Keiichi Sigsawa; did an excellent job with the flawed world and series he was given to work with. Unlike the other SAO arcs this one seemed a lot more relatable and realistic to be regardless of a bit of cheesiness here and there. There's no hugely grand stakes, the combat throughout the show seemed why less bullshit then SAO and its conclusion was sort of hinted at early on but was in no way one of the worst ones i've seen in a while, in fact one of the better ones i'd say, (i kinda want a sequel to see what happens and to improve this franchises image). Also the MCs backstory was a huge improvement but we'll get to that in the Characters section.
Art: If there's one thing thats a constant for SAO, it's that the art and battle scenes almost always look great, I'd say an issue i had was the not hugely diverse array of character designs but it could be call back to SAOs second season or something so i can't really hate on it to much (though in a real MMO their would be tons of female models regardless if they were played by a guy or a girl, but in the second season of SAO they made it seem rare so again it could be a call back. I feel sorry for the writer having to work around that if thats the case). I enjoyed the aesthetic of GGO in the SAO second season and i enjoy how they can make a cute character look good in it so i can't complain to much, and the character movements looked amazing, 9/10.
Sound: I wouldn't say i was much of a fan of the opening or ending songs but a part of the sound qualifies as also the sounds of combat in the show and for that i'd say it deserves a good 8/10, plus the background music wasn't terrible or annoying so an 8/10 is appropriate in my book.
Characters: This category i'll go into some depth of why i enjoy Karen vs Kirito and how i like most of the characters, but this is also where i'd like to deduct points, the issue is that MAL doesn't have .5s in the rating system even though they use then to tally up peoples scores to see what has the highest rating... For this category at least here i'm giving it a 7.5/10 because i can't fessibly do it on MAL. Lets start with why i don't think a 8/10 is appropriate.
I think most of the main and supporting characters are decent for the stories progression, HOWEVER its the other characters that annoyed me. You see, besides the "creeps" as they call them in the show, no other players acted in a way that didn't seem kinda dumb or in a way that annoyed me (not EXACTLY including some of the more noteworthy teams in the game but sort of including them too.) For example, the machine gun brothers were EXTREMELY stereotyped where as for almost every other no name team at least seemed semi realistic to a game setting, these guys were acting like Hebros which in most games you rarely see unless they are just dicking around and in no way organized. But as for the "other" non named npcs, after the elite teams combat scenes we just see 2 different teams doing the EXACT SAME FORMATION in the middle of an open terrain, in a game with snipers... REALLY!? You couldn't have them do SOMETHING ELSE?! Like make just walk around the map unaware, or literally anything else... "facepalm". There was also the girl with green hair later on whos extremely minimal backstory made no sense in retrospect because , i'm sorry if this is in some way spoilers but WHO BRINGS A GIRL WHO DOESN"T WANT TO SHOT ANYONE IN A VIDEO GAME TO A PVP TOURNAMENT WHEN THERE WAS NO PARTY MINIMUM AND YOU HAD ENOUGH PLAYERS!? DA FUCK!? At least Sion in SAO DID kill people in the game but only sometimes hesitated due to a traumatic event, this girl had no actual excuse for even trying to participate in a pvp event when she doesn't do what's required of her in the event lol, and if your gonna try and say cause she could spot for them, her team were ALL gun trained and any one of them could do the same thing and participate in the pvp match so thats no excuse!
As for OTHER characters in the game, most all the men in the game who watched the match were dumb as bricks and not realistic whatsoever. On top of that (at least in the english dub version) some of the guys either in the game or watching it went out of their way to patronize women just to make the girls look good when they kicked their asses or when they showed them they could do much more than what they expected in a extremely not subtle way of preaching feminism where we didn't need it to be there... It annoys me when shows get political but note this could be fixed by just stopping that shit and not watching from a distance like some people do and saying that the people who localize these shows should be brought down because they think they could handle it themselves even though they just will expect some else to do it in the long run, NO. It can be fixed by letting the companies that take the time to localize it know we disapprove of it and if it gets worse partition them to stop putting political shit in the shows, not just wanted for them to go down because unlike those people who think everything will sort itself out if localization companies are gone, i KNOW that will bring anime to a terrible grinding halt, not make it "better", end of rant.
Now as for the good characters in the show let's all say goodbye to the self insert kirito and welcome Karen Kohiruimaki who doesn't have a self insert personality and has real life issues besides "which girl should i bring in the harem today and do i have to save them in a literal or metaphorical way?"
Karen plays a cute character in GGO but the reason is she doesn' like the fact thats shes tall in real life and feels self conscious about it, thus she decides to indulge in some escapism which after multiple game issues with ultimately not having player height adjustment options she finally finds that GGO allows her to be the small and adorable girl she always wished she could be and quickly learns that desserts in the game apparently have pink sandstorms... (it makes more sense when you see it). but basically Karen is a character with development which is an amazing leap from Mr. Kirito (which should be replaced with Something witty entertainments version) and thats all that matter.
Karens friend, Miyu Shinohara, isn't a cookie cutter characters but besides some small bits of info about her in the beginning there's not a lot to say about her except she was a good supportive friend that seems kinda fake but real enough to not be SAO quality.
The player M gets more interesting as more info is known about him but let me say that i'm glad a bit of info about him revealed a lot later wasn't censored for being a bit out of the ballpark and ultimately he is an interesting character throughout the show so there's also that.
The highschool girls were kinda just there but if it gets a sequel they could get some development which would be cool.
The semi Antagonist Pitohui plays an interesting part that reminded me a bit of SAOs GGO but overall her best parts are when shes in combat and her at the end in my opinion which the rest you'll have to see for yourself.
Enjoyment: 8/10, no .5 for this one. I think i enjoyed it so much hughley because it make SAO look far better then its looked in quite a long time. But also because i was interesting to see what happened next. Not to say the show didn't get a bit cheesy here and there but the end of the second tournament was very game like and wasn't a live to win type deal like in Girls Und Panzer which i appreciated. The way this show was written made me want to see more of Karen and her adventures in GGO even if perhaps the show got slice of life like every now and again, and if it get a sequel i hope Keiichi Sigsawa comes back to write it and not the person who wrote SAO.
Overall: I was debating if i wanted to say the show got a 8/10 or an 9/10 but because i liked it so much in comparison to its predecessors i think i'll give it the 8/10. If i watch SAO, THIS is what i want to see. Just like with the new star wars movies in how i want to see more rouge one and not more of the last jedi thats the type of thing i want to see from this series and this version showed me it could be done. 9/10, i hope to see more of this again.