Finally caught up with SAO!

Last week to my surprise, I still have a lot of data left to consume before my internet provider's Fair User Policy (FUP) kicks in and dramatically reduce my browsing speed after reaching the threshold.

Maybe it's because February only has 28 days or something but I did take advantage on it and downloaded as much as Anime and TV series as much as I can before the monthly reset. One of which was Sword Art Online.

If my memory serves me right, Sword Art Online is the first ever series I have watched that revolves around "gaming" and a virtual reality mmorpg to boot. (Edit: Well thinking about it I guess 'Ragnarok the Animation' is the first but SAO is more or less close to reality with the whole virtual reality thing so... XD)

I watched the first two seasons of this Anime years ago (SAO and ALO) when it was first released but as much as I want to say that I totally love Sword Art Online (I always say on my blog post that I love the concept of the series), there is one thing that turns me off about the show and that is its pacing. SAO is probably the most fast paced series I have ever watched.

I was expecting epic fights per floor advanced but instead we get a 20+ floor advance and a totally out of the blue random character introduction just to add to Kirito's little harem. XD

Not sure though if the light novel's story and pacing was just like the anime or they were pressured to compress the story arc into only 14 episodes each, but it kinda sucked as I was expecting more as I totally love the whole 'trapped into an mmorpg game concept'.

Anyway, seeing that SAO is in one of the top 10 anime in the KissAnime site, I've decided to download the whole thing and rewatched it from the very beginning... and today I've finally caught up with the recent episode of the series after sacrificing my DOTA2 weekend matches. XD

At the moment SAO is in it's 5th (?) main story arc: Alicization and personally I liked this season better compared to the previous ones especially when talking about the pacing. For the first time ever SAO finally made a story arc not compressed to only 14 episodes but to 24 episodes. The fight scenes though are kinda "meh" but at least I finally liked how the story is presented. XD

On the upside though, SAO finally show some guts and presented us a shocking and highly satisfactory episode.

This warning from Episode 10 of the Alicization arc will speak for itself:

And if you want a small peak as to why this particular episode is shocking, well XD:

It's highly satisfactory though in the sense that for the first time ever in the series (probably), someone finally got the conclusion or karma they deserved. I mean Kayaba Akihiko trapped over 10,000+ people and had 2,000 of those got their brains fried out and the conclusion of the first season was just like that. That's how he somewhat disappear (or dead?!), was kinda expecting more. XD

Well rant over, now unto the next anime I've downloaded and will be watching today: That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime.