Review of Sword Art Online: Alicization - War of Underworld Part 2

[WARNING: There may be spoilers.] Sword Art Online Alicilization did something right, and that's its production. It's visually pleasing with epic fight animation and music to fit the mood. The OP and ED were my favorite of SAO so far. The trailer also did a great job in promoting it. That being said, the story itself had a lot of problems. To start, the stakes weren't high. For an arc about war, the fear of death was low. The fact that the battle was set in a virtual reality that's not SAO already implied that most of the characters (especially the ones from the real world)would make it out alive. Yes, the show established that death within the Underworld is possible but most of the characters barely reached the breaking point of their fluclights to provide that sense of urgency. The only major casualties I remembered after this arc were the antagonists who were unlikeable to begin with and two technically important Integrity Knights who I felt no attachment for. Though I have to admit that their death scenes were visually dramatic. There was also Kirito who I already knew would be fine in the first place so I didn't worry about his damaged fluclight. That being said, I liked the way the arc addressed his trauma and guilt.

The show's attempt to integrate philosophy into sci-fi was poorly executed. In the first place, the human soul was considered intangible which was one of the reasons why some people question whether the soul existed in the first place. Until now, SAO's idea of the "fluclight" being the human soul at its quantifiable form made no sense. Its attempt to use the idea that there's a you in myself and vice versa to explain how to heal Kirito was a bit of a stretch but it wasn't as glaring as the fluclight. One more thing, the human soul is unique to each individual so having a copy of Kirito's fluclight--which was seen as some form of the human soul living within the Underworld while the real Kirito is outside made no sense in context with philosophy. One more thing. Humans are not just the soul, but rather the body & the soul so the show's discussion about the AI of the Underworld being human despite being technically created by a computer is questionable. At best, it wasn't properly addressed.

Minor problems with the arc were the plenty of exposition scenes. As epic as the fight scenes could get, most of the time was spent with characters talking about their goals, explaining things, and being tense about the situation.

Overall, the show had plenty of potential that wasn't executed well due to poor writing. While its production value was very good, it could only take a show so far.