Sword Art Online 21
This episode was terrible and thoroughly flawed, only ever elevating to mediocrity with the first instance of
and the disappointingly brief section of this episode that actually allowed Asuna to be marginally
, temporarily ceasing the perpetual attempts to ruin her characterization. Regardless of these few moments of decency though, this was easily the worst episode of them all, as, essentially, it was entirely devoid of satisfying developments, consistent characterization, or, aside from the aforementioned
, a single moment that was remotely enjoyable, culminating with the idiotic usage of
. I suppose there was also a sliver of plot development in this episode, but when it's so easily drowned out by the
and the furtherance of the plodding imouto storyline, it's really not worth mentioning.
The horrible Suguha and the continued focus on her
had far too much prevalence throughout this episode, and the entirety of ALO, for that matter. She remains wholly unsympathetic and quite unlikable, despite the numerous attempts to portray her otherwise. As such, it's rather amusing that she actually appeared to expect she had a chance to
with someone that has effectively been
all this time, but I suppose intelligence was never associated with Suguha in the first place, so it certainly wasn't surprising that she placed hopes in this seeming eventuality. This initial
will inevitably create a greater level of immense satisfaction upon her realization that
, so, at the very least, her involvement in the story has one enjoyable element to it's existence.
Asuna's heightened involvement and consequent focus, though largely welcome and temporarily interesting, was, unfortunately, rather slow and tedious. However, it was quite satisfying to see Asuna regain her former characterization, since, finally, her inclusion in an episode signified something far more significant, however temporarily, than her perpetual
. Of course, she was still
towards the end of the episode, since she obviously won’t be given the ability to
, as the entirety of this terribly-written arc hinges on the seemingly unavoidable portrayal of Asuna as a
; one who clearly, despite her attempts to
, will inevitably and predictably need to be
by her
, which, in turn, creates a ridiculously thin and contrived narrative.
As expected, the laughably bad
was as unnecessary as it was excessive. In fact, though it was pointless in the last episode, it thoroughly detracted from this one, since the sudden appearance of this ludicrous stupidity was completely inconsequential and remarkably random.
The final scene proved to be an impressively exciting conclusion, but I'm certainly not confident in the storytelling for the remainder of the narrative, aside from two select moments, due largely to the woeful material and their inability to adapt ALO into something that's even a slight improvement over said material.
All in all, following two decent episodes, Sword Art Online has, once again, rapidly deteriorated to a level of atrociousness it has never come close to before, riddled with an insurmountable plethora of narrative and characterization flaws. The structure of this entire arc and the abundance of trite, uninteresting developments within are wholly indicative of atrocious writing and a mediocre, unimpressive execution of the narrative. Of course, these criticisms could potentially be overlooked if the story was the least bit entertaining or enjoyable, but, unfortunately, unlike SAO’s arc, it really, really isn’t, due, in large part, to the unfortunate realization that there’s absolutely no weight or tension in any of the narrative developments, instead faltering, due to the incredibly ludicrous villain and the
subplot, into a repetitive, unintended hilarity that doesn’t complement the “story” at all.