Review for Sword Art Online II - Part 2

Introduction

After an increasingly unpleasant experience with the first season of Sword Art Online, the second season came as quite the pleasant surprise when All the Anime released its first instalment a few months ago. You might think that ought to be really unlikely with a television series, after all, shows don’t change that drastically from one season to the next. But Sword Art Online’s virtual reality premise allows for such variety in stories, worlds, and even character designs as far as the storyteller’s imagination can stretch. The first Aincrad arc had some structural and pacing issues that niggled me, while I simply found the Fairy Dance arc to be detestable. But when the Second Season debuted with its Phantom Bullet arc, it effectively started a whole new story from scratch, although as it has unfolded, tantalising links to the Aincrad storyline have appeared. Suffice it to say that I am enjoying this arc of Sword Art Online more than anything that has come before, and I have really been looking forward to this next volume.


It’s been a year since the events of the first season, and Kirito and Asuna are building a relationship in the real world as well as the online world. Kirito’s also working towards an education and a career in virtual reality that will allow the three of them, Asuna, Kirito, and the AI from the games, Yui to be together. It all seems to be going so well. The dangerous Nerve Gear Interface technology that so threatened them in Aincrad, has been superseded by the more benign Amusphere technology, and virtual worlds and games continue to proliferate.

The latest craze is Gun Gale Online, a cyberpunk world where players meet to engage in gunplay, racking up kills to earn status and even money. Some players are even good enough to turn professional and make a living at it. And then a mysterious masked figure, calling himself Death Gun, shows up and shoots the two top players in the game. And in the real world, two players wind up dead of heart failure, something the Amusphere technology should prevent. The government asks Kirito to investigate, and while he can transfer his ALFheim skills to Gun Gale Online, he’s still starting as a beginner. Fortunately he runs into the legendary sniper Sinon the first time he logs in, and thanks to a rather androgynous avatar, quickly gains her trust. But you can’t take the fantasy player out of Kirito, and he finds a weapon better suited to his skills than a simple gun. If he makes a big enough splash in the game, he might be able to draw Death Gun out, but Death Gun has already decided on his next target, the legendary sniper Sinon.


This second release collects the next seven episodes of the Phantom Bullet Arc, and it’s also available on single disc DVD.

8. Bullet of Bullets
9. Death Gun
10. Death Chaser
11. What It Means to Be Strong
12. Bullet of a Phantom
13. Phantom Bullet
14. One Little Step

Picture

Sword Art Online gets a 1.78:1 widescreen transfer at 1080p. All the Anime’s release of Season II matches the first in terms of picture quality, with a transfer that is clear, sharp, with strong colours, and smooth, flawless animation. There’s also minimal banding that I could see, even on the scene fades where it’s most likely to occur. Once again, the beauty of Sword Art Online comes in its animation, its world design. The characters are consistent with the first season, and the real world sequences are agreeable enough. The imagination comes in the online worlds, and for this arc, it’s the Gun Gale Online world that we get to explore. Its burnt orange, post apocalyptic cyberpunk design aesthetic certainly stands out against the mediaeval look of Aincrad, and the pure fantasy of ALFheim. What will really impress are the action sequences, which are better even than before.

The images in this review have been kindly supplied by All the Anime.

Sound

You have the choice between DTS-HD MA 2.0 Stereo English and Japanese, with optional translated subtitles and a signs only track. Watching an action packed show like Sword Art Online makes you wish that Japan would produce more 5.1 Surround tracks for their television shows, but surround sound isn’t a priority in a country where living space is at a premium. The stereo is good enough to bring across the show’s music, and offers the action enough space to give some degree of immersion. The dialogue is clear throughout, the subtitles timed accurately and free of error, and as usual I was happy enough to listen to the original language track. I gave the English dub a try and found it to be a solid effort though. One thing I noted was a determination that people’s mouths shouldn’t be obscured when they are speaking, so subtitles will switch to the top of the screen on several occasions during playback.

Extras

I got a silver DVD disc, and a white labelled Blu-ray check disc, so I can’t speak for packaging, artboxes, or booklets, and I can’t even comment on label art.

The Blu-ray disc presents its goodies with an animated menu. On this disc however, there is no pop-up menu to navigate or change options during playback. You’ll have to either escape to the main menu, or use the player remote to change audio and subtitles.

On the disc you’ll find Special Animation “Sword Art Offline II” – Part 3 (11:39), Part 4 (12:46) and Part 5 (13:45), presented at 1080i 60Hz. These are the bonus animations, Flash style, which have chibi versions of the characters offering news reports and chat show segments about the episodes just past and they are a nice bit of fun.

The Original Web previews lasts 4:08 and are presented in 1080p, as is the textless ending.


Episode 14.5: Debriefing is a recap episode running to 23:41, retelling the Phantom Bullet arc from Sinon’s point of view, with her narration. This is available in English and Japanese.

The DVD disc in the collection presents the episodes again on a dual-layer disc, with DD 2.0 English and Japanese, subtitles and signs, with a 1.78:1 anamorphic NTSC progressive transfer. The extras on this disc are the recap episode 14.5, and the textless closing. All in all there are eight episodes on the disc, and surprisingly the image quality holds up pretty well for an anime DVD.

Conclusion

Part 1 of the Phantom Bullet arc really drew me in following my general apathy and eventual disgust with Season 1 of Sword Art Online. Suddenly, all of the problems seemed fixed with Season 2, all of my complaints addressed. The storytelling was engaging, the characters likeable, and the way they were developed was really well done, actually building on previous events instead of just ignoring them. Then along comes Part 2 of The Phantom Bullet arc, and it almost goes and throws it all away. It goes all Fairy Dance for its conclusion, with the reveal of one of the villains as a psychopathic, stalker sex criminal. You just can’t get away from the elements of misogyny in this show, although in Phantom Bullet’s defence, it at least empowers the female character to fight back and take control, staying true to her character, unlike Asuna’s transformation from warrior to victim in season 1. There was a moment at the end there where I did swear at the screen, but thankfully the Phantom Bullet arc pulls it all back with the perfect ending, a real, “I got something in my eye” moment. And in terms of screen time the offending moment merely fills the end of one episode and the start of another, not much more than 5 minutes all told.


I really do like the Phantom Bullet arc story though. It’s well-considered and constructed, and it plays out well over these 14 episodes. The point of the story is clear cut, Kirito’s mission to find and defeat the Death Gun killer so that he can be identified and apprehended in the real world. This takes place during the Bullet of Bullets event in Gun Gale Online, so there’s a discreet and finite timeframe for the story to take place. There’s no meandering, no time-skips as in the Aincrad arc, and you very much get the sense of suspense and tension building up over the episodes.


It’s also keenly focussed on character development for both Sinon and Kirito, both of them traumatised by events in their past lives, and both of them forced to deal with that trauma because of the Death Gun situation. How the characters interact, and come to help each other really lies at the heart of this arc, and it makes for a far stronger and empathetic story than before.

But it does have its niggling flaws, and not just for that moment of wince-inducing ickiness at the climax of its drama. There does come a point in episode 12, where Kirito and Sinon are hiding out in a cave, talking out their issues, planning their next move, that it all becomes incredibly talky, with both Sinon and Kirito issuing forth their mission statements, to the point that they start repeating themselves. That’s around ten minutes of dialogue with no forward movement in the story, and tighter editing could have got this arc down to thirteen episodes with no loss of import. There’s also that random bit of fan service, thrown in for no reason whatsoever other than to sate the fans, with Kirito (in a committed relationship with Asuna) taking the time to ogle Sinon’s avatar’s butt-crack.


Flaws aside, Part 2 of the Phantom Bullet arc is a worthy conclusion to Part 1. The story flows naturally on from that collection into these episodes, and it certainly rewards the time invested in the show in a way that the first season never did. Besides, what it really comes down to is that Kirito has a purple lightsaber. A purple lightsaber! Every time he fights, I wind up skipping back and watching the scene over again.