#SAO Alicization spoilers

[yuzuna123]

EDITH!!!

[softboysora]

Chapter 5 of Unital Ring IV Volume 25 confused me who was talking but I did figure out it's going from Kazuto, Asuna and Kazuto POV again (sorry, I took it while I was on my bed)

[thegayfromrulid]

weridest a1 picture decision in sao tourmanet arc skip! granted I didn't read it either but

I got into this a bit with other fans back when it happened way back in, what, 2018? But I genuinely have some mixed feelings about this decision because I do get kind of why it may have been skipped over. Spoilers for the LN ahead, be warned.

So, the tournament arc in the first half of Alicization was fairly enjoyable and provided a bit more context for the closeness that Kirito and Eugeo grew to have between leaving Rulid and going to the Swordcraft Academy in North Centoria, but it worked better as a written format.

Certain sections of this part of the story are written from Charlotte's POV; if you recall, Charlotte is a spider, and her identity as a spider is revealed in the novel in the same place as it was in the anime—in the library with Cardinal. A large part of pulling off an adaptation of the tournament in Zakkaria would have involved making sure that the animators could adequately conceal Charlotte's identity while still preserving a few key details that she was involved in.

I ran over this part with my dad, who has a degree in animation, and the conclusion was that some scenes would either have to be changed or they would have to choose to do the reveal earlier for the audience than for Kirito. The latter very much could have worked! We would have had a lot more context for why Kirito heard a voice in the garden, or why Kirito's hair randomly stood up running from Eldrie and Deusolbert in the rose garden.

On the other hand, though, I think the animators mostly wanted to keep Charlotte's identity as hidden from the audience in the anime as the books did, and to do that while animating the Zakkaria sub-arc would have been...a challenge. Charlotte is seen from the start to be performing some wind arts to take care of Kirito's upturned shirt, which could have been fairly decently concealed, I think. The true problem is that some narration is done by Charlotte during the selection process for the brackets in the tournament. Charlotte is the key element that keeps Kirito and Eugeo from sparring one another and knocking each other out of the tournament. Without her intervention, this looks like random, lucky chance.

Now, why does that matter so much to an animator, perhaps? It's easy to change the visual perspective of scenes to not be from eight little eyes peering outwards from Kirito's bangs, and it's not like stories haven't relied on bullshit random chance before. I think, however, the animators knew that people would call it bullshit that Kirito and Eugeo oh-so-randomly pulled opposite fighting blocks, even when this is still statistically possible. It gives the story a bit more credibility to the audience when we can preserve something like this, because Charlotte obviously felt the need to tip those odds due to them being bad.

I think another problem is that the animators likely knew the episode count from the start and had to make decisions on what to cut and where. The second cour dealing mostly with Cathedral climbing took up a heavy amount of space, and we see like, a one-battle-per-episode thing going on. Places where possible cuts to the story were most likely: cutting an entire episode dedicated to Zakkaria, which was more for character development than story progression; cutting maybe what brought Kirito and Eugeo to be Elite Disciples, which was short and all but introduced Incarnation; or perhaps shorten the battle between the group and Quinella, which likely held a lot of the battle-heavy appeal people want to see in an anime with "swords" in the title.

Making these decisions is by no means easy for a group of animators, as they are given a specific budget and episode count. I don't know how easy it would be to ask their boss for more episodes or whatnot, because a lot goes into confirming you get those slots. A-1 has to confirm that television stations have the timeslots to air these episodes in; when SAO was given permission for four cours' worth of timeslots, this was already pretty generous on behalf of the stations airing SAO. Those stations were taking a gamble that SAO would get them viewing hours, and four cours is a hell of a gamble when it comes to hoping people stick it out until the end. SAO could have benefitted from a fifth cour or maybe even a slight handful of extra episodes, but the animation company does need to negotiate as much screentime as stations will permit.

SAO was also aired split-cour, which means that cutting something like the anime-only bits in War of Underworld would not have mattered in the long run for something that happened back in the first half. Perhaps you might be thinking "well we didn't really need anything dedicated to Eiji and Yuna here" and you're allowed to think that! But it wouldn't affect the lack of Zakkaria any more, because the animators cannot just leave you hanging mid-story when there's several months between Eugeo dying and picking back up with the aftermath and a timeskip to Alice in Rulid. It's just not a good business plan.

To conclude, there's a lot of reasons why the studio may have decided to cut Zakkaria, some of which I can definitely sympathize with. While I will also state that it's 100% okay to be frustrated when an adaptation does not look exact or does not meet our expectations as novel readers, I think it's also important to remember why these changes are made. Think about this before jumping into being angry at the studio for these decisions. Some decisions are far more logical than others!

[theundertalekid]

Another SAO spoiler

[babyofbeans]

My boy Kirito really said “you pissed me off, imma turn you into a tree…”

[approximateknowledge]

Reki what does this mean?! (sao gameverse manga)

sao has 2 timelines; the "main" timeline of the anime and the light novel, and the gameverse timeline form, wouldn't you know it, the games

there's a lot of overlap between the 2, but there's some key differences, and as far as i can tell both are considered canon in their own right

(spoilers under the cut)

now one of the most important differences is of course that eugeo doesn't die in the gameverse

which brings me to the alicization lycoris manga; set in the gameverse, considered canon within it, and written *by* reki kawahara

and mostly from eugeo's pov (lots of yujikiri moments it's great)

so from here

and then this

the core of the story seems to be pretty much about, well:

eugeo surpassing kirito, taking up the mantle of "protector swordsman", and eugeo seems to be *better* at it!

and in the process kirito is well

free of that

free to be someone else, unbound by the role and its obligations, because eugeo is there now

which brings me to the LAST PANEL OF THE WHOLE MANGA

let's analyse it shall we?

-the spaceships and eugeo having a physical body make sense enough with the established tech-level

-the text too checks out, this manga is about eugeo becoming a determined force of good and protection (potentially immortal too on account of being an ai)

this makes sense

but hold on

this whole manga the 2 main characters without a shred of doubt have been him, and kirito

and...

^who's that?

now, sao's artstyle has a bit of a "same face"-syndrome problem at times, so *hair is important*

and this the final 2-page spread of the manga so they're not gonna have rushed it

so then, where have i seen this bangs-arrangement before?

oh right

^thought it looked familiar!

in conclusion:

trans girl kirito canon in the gameverse??!!!

[transboykirito]

also the whole time i was thinking “oh these guys remind me of these sao characters” so let me just ramble those here and we can watch them be wrong (i’m on episode 8, i have avoided every single spoiler somehow, i would like to keep it spoiler free lmao)

marco reminds me of eugeo both from their personalities and also their fandomification

sasha (my favourite) reminds me of klein 😭

mikasa reminds me of like a combination of alice and sugu. i don’t know why.

jean is a FUCKING DICK and he is so eiji coded. to me.

armin also reminds me of eugeo :) don’t ask me to elaborate

[truessences]

Some of my fave anime ships

No one asked but I'ma share some of my favorite anime ships. I have't watched every anime or anything but I have some that I just can't give up. I've never been the hugest shipper but there are some that just find their way into my heart.

Nalu (Natsu x Lucy: Fairy Tail)- currently rewatching so they're fresh in my mind. They have such a good friendship and they're so loyal to each other. Natsu is also incredibly sweet when he wants to be when it comes to her and she trusts him without hesitation. She jumped out of a window and knew he would catch her in time. Like... what??

Edward and Winry (Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood)- this is my favorite anime and I will rewatch it but I love that they've been friends since they were kids. They may not have liked each other from the beginning (romantically) but grew into it. The fact that she was his mechanic and he didn't let anyone else fit him for automail, or let anyone work on it... not to mention, I loved their arguments lol and I loved the scene where he tells her basically he loves her in his own way lol. "Equivalent exchange! I'll give you HALF of me if you give me HALF of you!"

NejiTen (Neji x TenTen: Naruto)- Obviously this won't really be a thing since Neji is dead 😭 but I feel like if he wasn't killed, they would have been together. Tenten was the only one Neji seemed to fully respect and trust on his team. They understood each other and I feel like he might have been open about his family with her. I also feel like because Tenten was an orphan and lived on her own, that she felt comfortable around Neji. Plus, Guy and Lee were so over the top that they had to lean on each other.

Inuyasha x Kagome (Inuyasha)- So I know these two get a lot of flack and I think the road to their romance was complicated but I really and truly believe that Inuyasha loves her. Sure, he might have had a hard time in the beginning because of Kikyo but if he didn't care about Kagome he wouldn't have tried to save her as much as he did. Plus, she was always to break him out of his demon spells. I love them lol. I was never a huge Koga fan so I would never support that ship lol. I'm not caught up with Yashahime so don't spoil me!

Atem x Tea (YuGiOh)- So this is an old old ship from when I was young but I always thought that while Yugi was one of Tea's best friends, she liked Atem/Yami Yugi. I really felt like they flirted lol. I rewatched it not too long ago and still stand by that lol. She was always super emotional when it came to stuff with him lol. She was emotional period but super emotional lol.

Senku x Kohaku (Dr. Stone)- I'm not caught up on the manga so no spoilers but I really love the anime and I'm down for this. Now, if it doesn't happen, I'm cool with that because they both seem so... uninterested in romance but they have a trust between them and I think she definitely likes him as of S2. He's so narrow minded on what he's trying to do that he won't notice his feelings for her and hers for him for a while but when he does, I think he'll do everything he can to ignore it. I think that tracks for him.

Kirito x Asuna (SAO)- Obviously they're together and nothing will come between them lol. I'm watching the current season of Alicitization and when Asuna and Alice kind of got into it over him lol had me cracking up. Kirito also has a harem but Asuna is the only one he actually has eyes for... though if it wasn't for her, I think Sinon would have a chance lol. But I love their relationship. They love each other so much that they will literally move heaven and hell to find each other... love them.

Marinette x Adrien (Miraculous Ladybug)- Not quite an anime... I want them to get their shit together honestly. I love this show lol. Their romance square is hilarious but this is what I want. I want the tables to switch, where Ladybug starts to look at Cat Noir differently, as well as her to apologize for how she treats him. Cat Noir deserves much better than what he is given. But also, I think the superior part of their square is Marinette x Cat Noir, since this is the only part of the square where their feelings don't get in the way lol.

That's all I got at this moment lol

[blackguardthecuckoo]

Ace/Yuu is Alice? Or is Ace the White Rabbit? (Time Loop Theory) (Vietsub)

Mị về rồi đây các con giời 

Permission is granted by @twsttheory.

Bản dịch đã có per của chủ post, vui lòng không sử dụng khi chưa có sự cho phép

----------------------------

ACE/YUU LÀ ALICE? HAY ACE LÀ WHITE RABBIT? (TIME LOOP THEORY)

Ace là Alice:

Giống như cách tên của Neige và Hoàng tử Rielle khá giống với phiên bản kinh điển của họ, tên của Ace khá gần với Alice, chỉ với việc bỏ đi hai chữ cái.  

Ace, giống như Alice, có một người anh chị em. Vì cha của Ace không phải là một pháp sư, tôi không nghĩ rằng sẽ có bất kỳ người nào khác phù hợp để dạy cho cậu ấy những phép thuật mà cậu đã biết qua phần mở đầu ngoại trừ anh trai. Trong phiên bản Alice in Wonderland của Disney, chị cả của Alice cũng có hình tượng như là một người hướng dẫn cho cô ấy.

Thức ăn yêu thích của cậu là bánh anh đào, đó là hương vị của một trong những lọ thuốc mà Alice đã uống khi cô ấy ở trong hang thỏ. Mặt khác, món ăn ít được yêu thích nhất của cậu ấy là hàu sống, liên quan đến câu chuyện về Hải mã và Người thợ mộc (Walrus and the Carpenter). 

Cả Alice và Ace lần lượt tố cáo Queen of Hearts và Riddle về sự bạo ngược của họ. 

Chim hồng hạc croquet và nhím của Ace có màu hồng, giống như chim hồng hạc và nhím của Alice. 

Yuu là Alice:

Yuu không đến từ Twisted Wonderland, cũng như Alice không đến từ Wonderland. Trên thực tế, cả hai đã được đưa vào một thế giới không phải của họ thông qua hang thỏ hoặc xe ngựa.   

Alice có một con mèo, giống như chúng ta có Grim. Chú mèo của Alice đã ở bên cô ấy cho đến khi quyết định đi theo con thỏ xuống hố. Mặt khác, Grim là người đưa ta ra khỏi quan tài. Cả hai đều “dẫn dắt” chủ nhân của mình đến thế giới mới

Cả Yuu và Alice đều có những giấc mơ, những giấc mơ của Yuu về những nhân vật phản diện kinh điển và giấc mơ của Alice chính là Wonderland. Có một giả thuyết khác cho rằng Twisted Wonderland có thể chỉ là một phần trong giấc mơ của Yuu, bởi vì tên của nó đúng là có “Wonderland”, nhưng tôi sẽ không đi sâu về nó ở đây.    

Yuu cũng đóng vai trò quan trọng trong phần overblot của Riddle. Trên thực tế, những gì Riddle nói với họ sau khi họ bóc trần sự thật về cậu ta chính là nguyên nhân khiến Ace phát điên ngay từ đầu.   

TW: Có yếu tố Tuwj-sats. Ace là White Rabbit (Time Loop Theory): 

Ban đầu tôi cứ nghĩ rằng White Rabbit sẽ là Deuce, nhưng vì unique magic của cậu ấy đã được trình làng mất rồi, và nó không có dấu hiệu liên quan đến thời gian, nên bây giờ tôi xin phép nêu ý kiến khác.  

White Rabbit mặc bộ đồ Ace of Heart. 

Nếu Ace là Thỏ Trắng, thì điều đó cho thấy unique magic của cậu ta có liên quan đến thời gian? Có lẽ cậu có thể ngăn chặn overblot giống như Deuce. Nhưng không giống như Deuce, người làm chệch hướng phép thuật overblot về phía đối thủ, Ace tấn công người đó ngay lập tức và đảo ngược hiệu ứng overblot. (Ai biết?)    

Đã có giả thuyết cho rằng trò chơi mà chúng ta đang chơi bây giờ có thể là Twisted Wonderland sau vòng lặp thứ hai hoặc thứ ba. Nếu unique magic của Ace có liên quan đến thời gian, điều đó có nghĩa là cậu ta nhớ mọi thứ và biết rằng chúng ta là chìa khóa để cứu thế giới của họ. Đây có lẽ là lý do tại sao cậu ấy tiếp cận ta trong đoạn mở đầu.   

⚠️Chapter 5 spoilers⚠️ nhưng ngoài bối cảnh nên chắc là không sao đâu?  

Ngoài ra, Ace cưng, em ổn chứ? Lời em nói nghe đáng quan ngại z. (Cảm ơn Ayui vì đã là người dịch nhanh nhất) 

Cậu ấy là người duy nhất xuất hiện dưới dạng “????” khi chúng ta gặp cậu lần đầu tiên. Khi ta gặp Deuce lần đầu, tên của cậu ấy đã xuất hiện trong đoạn hội thoại trước khi cậu tự giới thiệu bản thân. Tất cả những người đứng đầu ký túc xá đều được thể hiện là “Cậu trai tóc đỏ”, “Chàng trai đội khăn xếp”, v.v. Chỉ còn lại Ace với một dấu chấm hỏi, nghĩa là không có gì liên quan gì đến cậu ta trong vòng lặp trước.

Có một kênh youtube của Nhật Bản đã chỉ ra rằng trong số tất cả các nhân vật, Malleus và Ace là những người duy nhất nhận ra rằng tên của chúng ta nghe hơi xa lạ. Điều này có nghĩa là cả hai đều biết rằng chắc chắn ta không đến từ thế giới này.  

Chà, nếu giám sát sinh (Yuu) nắm lấy tay Ace, và nếu Ace thực sự là White Rabbit , điều đó không có nghĩa là chúng ta với tư cách là Alice đang rơi xuống hố thỏ sao? Mục tiêu chính của Alice là theo dõi White Rabbit, đó là lý do tại sao cô tiếp tục đuổi theo cậu ta. Có lẽ việc đuổi theo Ace sẽ dẫn đến một cái kết khác? Chúng ta sẽ thấy điều đó sau.   

[dragon-snoots-a-boopin]

A little over a week ago I played and completed Sword Art Online RE: Hollow Fragment and now I am going to talk about what I liked and didn’t like. Remember, there will be spoilers!

What I liked:

The actual gameplay and combat are really fun and the only reason I kept playing the game.

What I Didn’t Like: 

The player customization sucks and doesn’t make sense for the story. Like, you let me change my look and name the character whatever when all the story moments call the main player character Kirito and it just doesn’t make any sense to me and this isn’t the first SAO game to do this as Hollow Realization does this too.

The story is the basis of what SAO is. You start on floor 76 and you have to clear from 76 to 100 and that is the entire game. It’s kind of monotonous.

Floors will often reuse the same enemies and music and it makes me feel like they only made like 4 music tracks for the whole game.

What I Think Is Weird And Creepy:

Why the fuck does this game have a romance system? Yes, other SAO games I’ve played has it too and I find it weird and creepy in every SAO game! All of the characters you can romance are not even of age and it’s just super weird to include a romance system in a game like this.

Now, I know how this looks. Yeah I can’t really recommend this one, even as a person that likes the original SAO and SAO II (and HATES the Alicization seasons with a passion). Compared to something like Hollow Realization, this one is just doing the same thing over and over and also having very strange and sometimes weird and creepy interactions with other characters. 

[kazeyami]

Trigger Warning ⚠️: This one is a fuckin DOOZIE

Honest Review of Sword Art Online

(May contain spoilers)

Well. There’s a lot to say about this one. It has high points, low points, and everything in between. Each arc is written so VASTLY differently from each other it’s almost like you’re watching an entirely different show. Absolutely no consistency whatsoever. Because of this, I’ll be reviewing this show arc by arc.

- First Arc: Aincrad

Absolute doo doo water. I can’t lie to you all, this shit feels like it was written by a high schooler. The idea this show is based on had so much potential but the execution is literal cheeks. The story writing is pretty bland and the entire first season feels like filler lmao. And I didn’t need 5 episodes of hallmark to tell me that Kirito and Asuna are horny teenagers. I will say, the relationship that they have is pretty reminiscent of my own relationship tho. So I was able to relate to the show in that way.

- Second Arc: Alfheim

This arc wasn’t as bad. The story continues on from Aincrad and the story writing got a little better. Character design did not. The biggest gripe I had with this arc is that Kirito was just too OP. Never really felt like we was in danger and it kinda killed the suspense. Not to mention the entire sister thing lmfao. They were going in the right direction with this arc though.

- Third Arc: Gungale

This arc is prolly the worst for inconsistency. The animation got better in this arc but it felt so damn cheap. Here is about the time you start noticing the Laughing Coffin trend. As the first real arc surrounding Laughing Coffin, it wasn’t bad. But some of the story choices really pissed me off. This is also about the time where they start building Kirito a harem which is bullshit and degenerate. Bro already got a wife. The final battle went crazy though and the suspense wasn’t killed like in the previous arc. This one wasn’t as bad comparatively.

- Fourth Arc: Alfheim Part 2

Easily the shittiest arc in the entire show. It starts out as a fucking slice of life, boring as fuck. No real character development or plot. Just bullshit. Pretty sure it’s a filler arc but it continues on into some story. After they get the sword the story starts focusing on Asuna a bit more and goes into an arc for her. This wouldn’t be bad if it wasn’t fucking terrible. It’s like towards the end the writers were like “wow seems the viewers don’t like the slice of life, let’s just give them A CHILD WITH FUCKING AIDS” like what the fuck. The most out of nowhere stupid bullshit I’ve ever watched.

- Fifth Arc: Underworld Pt 1

It starts getting better here. In the beginning it was kinda jarring because you really had no idea what was going on, but the pieces of the puzzle started to connect after a few episodes. The writing was better than any of the other seasons and the story was actually engaging for once. Not to mention they really went crazy with the animation in this arc, so I really enjoyed the fight scenes. The biggest issue I have with both Underworld arcs is they really beat you over the head with the Harem thing. Like if I wanted to see that, I’d just go watch some shitty isekai. Kinda detracted from the serious tone of the show. Also, another laughing coffin mf. They really just used laughing coffin members to stimulate the story and tie it together. It was so cheap. Like “oh a cool antagonist. I wonder what his story is. Fucking oh.. just another LC character wtf”

- Final Arc: Underworld Pt 2

This arc was consistent with the previous arc. I have to say, Alicization kinda redeemed sword art a bit for me. I had to choke through 2 seasons of bullshit to get there, but on its own Alicization isn’t bad. If they had written the entire story like they wrote Alicization, SAO wouldn’t get nearly as much hate as it did. Biggest gripe for this one is Alice turning into a complete bitch. When you first meet her she seems all cool and powerful, but by the end of the show she’s just another crying woman on Kiritos arm fr.

All that to say, SAO is ass. While Alicization wasn’t as bad, it wasn’t good enough for me to ignore the hours of bullshit I went through to get to that part of the story. Honestly, I wouldn’t recommend this show to anyone, but if you just want an action anime to put on in the background while you do other shit, might be a good option. I’m gonna have to give this show a 4/10. Might be better if you were in middle school.

[shijimamei]

i need to finish sao alicization bc i keep accidentally seeing spoilers about wou and im like ... SCROLL FASTER, DONT READ

[tekatonic]

Rambling about Eugeo ( spoilers for SAO Alicization )

You know something that makes me sad about Eugeo's character ?

He didn't even die proud of himself for protecting what he loved. He didn't die feeling accomplished, or feeling like he had done everything he should have... He didn't die happy.

No, he died thinking he DESERVED IT. He died thinking he wasn't worth the lives or love of others. He died after being manipulated and violated and stripped of anything he could have left to be proud of himself. He didn't believe that he deserved to live. He felt that dying was his rightful retribution, the only thing he could possibly do to atone for things that weren't even his fault !

How is that fair ?

Having a childhood of misery, and right when you think you're finally doing something you can be proud of, alongside someone who truly loves you for who you are... an external forces rips you away from it all, and you hate yourself again and again for being forced to do things that are completely against all your ingrained morals and principles. And ultimately, you die believing that you're scum and that it's what you deserve.

Eugeo of all people ! The most gentle and endearing soul you will ever meet ! Who ultimately had everything taken from him ! His friends, his morals, his life... If there is anyone who doesn't deserve this, it's him. He basically just suffered his entire life and ended his life in suffering !

There's nothing okay about this.

Sighhhh. Yes I am still heartbroken over him, in 2022. Can you blame me though ?? Listen listen he is best boy and he deserves better.

[bluerosesinthenightsky]

A bittersweet and tear-jerking idea.

Imagine Sugu asking Kirito to draw what Eugeo looked like. Claiming it would be therapeutic for Kirito to do so. Kirito reluctantly agrees. Kirito draws him up, then Sugu asks him to show her what his hair color was, his eye color, what he wore.

Then after that, Sugu leaves, and a few hours later she comes back with a small little plush toy she made of Eugeo.

Kirito takes the plush toy, trying not to cry, but Sugu hugs him and rubs his back, telling him it’s okay to cry. Kirito cries it out for an hour, while Sugu comforts him. Once Kirito is finished, he smiles at her and tells her that he’ll cherish the plush.

Kirito always has the plush with him, it doesn’t matter where he goes. It’s his comfort item. It’s how he copes with his trauma. He even talks to it, tells the plush how his day was, but then laughs and says it’s silly - cause the plush already knew how his day has been- because it’s been with him the entire time.

He cannot sleep without it. The one and only time he misplaced the plush toy, he about had a mental break down, he was panicked and tearing through the house for it. He nearly became sick due to how distressed he was.

Needless to say, the Eugeo plush was an amazing idea, and Kirito thanks Sugu for the plush often, saying that it’s done wonders for his mental, emotional and physical health.

Kirito loves his Eugeo plush, and sometimes if he closes his eyes and concentrates, while curled up in bed with the Eugeo plush... he swears he can hear Eugeo telling him goodnight and that he’ll see him in the morning. Just like back in the Underworld, when they’d share the same bed together.

[theundertalekid]

SAO spoilers

(Internet is be suckie af soo 2nd edit may come later)

[babyofbeans]

Not only is PoH from SAO a crazy serial killer, but come to find out he’s also a racist.

I mean, the man logged into SAO, AFTER THE INITIAL LAUNCH, just to kill a bunch of Japanese players…

Some people…