Review of Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online

This spin-off story from Sword Art Online hits the right notes to be a fun, bite-sized series without trying to be anything more than that. None of our main characters make an appearance (other than a shadowy flashback featuring Kirito), but is set in the Gun Gale game, the same one featured in the second SAO series. The main series is about video games turning deadly. The first SAO features players getting trapped in a video game and dying in real life if they die in the game. The second SAO features a specific player who can kill people. Here the concept of death is muchmore specific: one player who is trying to recreate that feeling of life and death within video games by vowing to kill herself if she dies during a battle royale tournament.

For a short, 12 episode series, it's a nice, constrained vision. It's just enough stakes to carry my interest without feeling like it's trying too hard to be worthy of the SAO name. But at the same time, those death stakes are necessary or it'd be any old tech-centric anime.

The battle royale setting works well. While not set up completely like real games like PUBG or H1Z1, the aesthetic, the strategies, the same basic goal is similar. I've always thought battle royale is an ideal genre for Twitch streaming, as the individual match arc can be very compelling, and the same holds true with an anime.

I do think it would be a bit hard to watch this without having seen the first two SAO series. Despite being its own story, it leans heavily on the conceptual groundwork laid by SAO, as well as the setting development of SAOII. Sure, it lays out some basics for the viewer, so it's very understandable without the background information, but it's not using its 12 episodes to really bring Gun Gale alive. The series covers two tournaments as well as "real life" stuff with the characters; there just isn't space for extra world-building. Is this a problem? I'd argue no, as I doubt it'd appeal to viewers who haven't seen the first two SAO series, but it is worth noting, regardless.

One place where SAO Alternative falters is simply by being predictable. I won't get into further detail there because it's spoilery, but that final episode hits and I was like, "Ah, saw that coming," which wouldn't be too notable, except they reveal the information like it's nothing the viewer could have ever predicted.The show is like, "Surprise!" and I'm like, "The surprise would have been anything else." No matter. It was still fun.