From the same creator as Accel World, we get a story of people trapped in an online role-playing game. Why does this sound familiar?
What They Say:
“The World of Swords”
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
According to the ponderous text in the beginning, in 2022, humanity has finally created a complete virtual environment. This is the lead up to a line of gamers lining up to get their copy of “Sword Art Online,” the hot new product for the NerveGear virtual reality system, created by Akihiko Kabaya. (Oh, yeah, this is aimed at otaku; I feel like I’m watching part of Genshiken). We continue with a boy sitting in his room listening to a stream-cast of the publicity hype surrounding the game’s sales on the launch date. He doesn’t seem to be that interested, and we learn why shortly thereafter, when he logs himself into the SAO system. Perhaps he was one of the beta testers they mentioned before, so the official launch does not really concern him that much. When he’s in the virtual world, however, he does seem fired up to be there. So, here ends the nature documentary focused on hardcore gamers.
We then see our first focus character, Kirito (who was a beta tester, as I suspected), helping out a newbie named Klein learn the basics of combat in the world. In this world, the basic starter enemy seems to be wild boars (so at least it’s not giant rats or slimes), and players have a wide range of skills they can learn to advance in the world. Interestingly, the world has no magic (so, it’s just a melee fighter’s heaven, but boring for those who like to use their brains. This must say something about the game’s designer).
Everything seems fine until Klein, who’s getting hungry in the real world, decides to log out for some food. The problem is that there doesn’t appear to be a log out option on the player menu. That’s not a good sign. Suddenly, all of the players are gathered into a central area and a “game master” appears. Not any game master, it is Akihiko Kabaya, the game’s lead creator and designer. And apparently, he’s an asshole of the highest order. He informs everyone that there is no logout button by design, not accident. Everyone is now stuck inside the game world unless they clear all 100 levels. If they die in the game, they will die in the real world. If people in the outside world try to remove the virtual reality equipment from the gamer in the real world, they will also die (the equipment works with microwave scanning of the brain, and can also send a fatal dose of microwaves to the brain).
As one might imagine, fear and panic spreads over a great number of the people gathered there. Kabaya has something of a mean streak as well, as he gives everyone a special item which just changes their game world avatar to a version of their real world self. As if that’s really going to help.
Kirito, however, decides that he is going to survive. Being an experienced gamer, he knows that the area around the beginning town will soon be cleared of resources, so the better move is to immediately go on to the next town. He invites Klein to come along, but Klein declines, since he has gaming friends of his who are also trapped in the world and doesn’t want to abandon them. The two say their goodbyes and Kirito makes his journey alone.
After the end credits, we have a depressing coda, as there appears to be some special room in which there is a list of all of the players and we learn that in the game’s first month, 2000 players died. The first of the 100 floors has yet to be cleared.
In terms of story, what we get here is not entirely new. The plot set up of being trapped in a large scale multiplayer online role-playing game has already been explored quite extensively in the vast .hack game and anime franchise. An evil genius who likes to use regular people as his guinea pigs is nothing new as well. There are shades of The Matrix and the game Portal flowing all about us. Kabaya is clearly a psychopathic asshole who in the real world probably needs to have his brain exposed to oxygen—preferably by an axe or a meat cleaver.
As this is from the same creator as Accel World, it comes as no surprise that there are certain similarities. Firstly, the male hero has the strength of will and determination to survive against what appears to be rather daunting challenges. That’s really about the only ray of light in this entire episode so far, the fact that Kirito seems to have the right attitude to survive (the real question, however, is whether he truly has conviction, or is it covering over fear and terror beneath the surface?). Secondly, we are in an online virtual world that is filled with conflict and struggle. While we did not see anything of this sort occur in this first episode, I have little doubt that human players will start turning on other human players in the future. From real world examples of online games of this kind, there is as much player vs. player as player vs. environment action. Finally, and perhaps most uninterestingly, there will be a great emphasis on “getting stronger.” It’s stated flatly by Kirito. Though a tired and tedious part of so many anime, at least in this show, it’s a genuine part of survival in the real world, as the only way to escape (so claims Kabaya, but should anyone really trust what he says?) is to clear the game.
The animation and artwork is variable. The CG effects are obvious (but also appropriate for things such as game menus and status bar pop ups). The character designs are not particularly interesting. At first, the avatars are all pretty much the stock kinds that one would see in real RPG games. After the players are turned into their real world selves, we see a menagerie of designs that are meant to reflect “real people,” but come across as being largely the generic patterns that we see in crowd scenes and street scenes in any number of anime. So, generic for generic, it’s a wash. The backgrounds are not very interesting either. For the opening town, Kabaya and his design team slavishly followed the standard fairy tale Western medieval-looking castle and town design. Yes, I know, it’s not fair to fault them for this when such would be expected, nay, demanded by the customers who purchased such a game in our world. Some of the earlier pre-show publicity states that new settings that move away from the standard Western sword and sorcery castle milieu will appear later in the show, and considering there are 100 floors (also not a new concept. Someone obviously read Philip José Farmer’s classic science fiction series The World of Tiers), there will probably be scope for a great number of historical and fantasy settings to be plundered for ideas about building design and environment-based enemies.
Overall, it’s an intriguing premise, but one that’s introduced in an annoying way. Frankly, starting it off with having Mr. Psycho Designer come straight out and announce that he has trapped everyone and just wants to make playthings of them is both annoying and bland at the same time. It might have been much more interesting if the situation everyone was in, being stuck and threatened with death, had been left somewhat more mysterious at the onset. If they had learned about the death thing, but not been told so blatantly at the start who was behind it, instead of the arch asshole ponderously and superciliously announcing it to all, the mystery of who trapped them there and why could have been something to unravel as they progressed up the floors of the world. But, that would have taken more imagination.
Compared to some many other anime, however, the dark tone and mood of this show is at least something of a change from the norm. We will see whether it will be done in an interesting way, or just as a means of trying to annoy the viewer as much as possible, putting the main characters in harm’s way as much as possible and constantly trying to build fake tension by making their deaths seem imminent.
In Summary:
The lesson, really, is that no one should ever play a complete virtual reality online RPG. They never end well. It’s too bad that Kirito and all of the other players could not have learned this before falling into the evil clutches of the psychotic Kabaya, the designer of Sword Art Online the game. But as he is now stuck in this virtual world, with only death awaiting him unless he can clear the entire game, Kirito sets out to do just that and survive. Why do I have the feeling that there might be nothing for him at the end except the prospect of a piece of cake?
Grade: B
Streamed by: Crunchyroll Review Equipment: Apple iMac with 4GB RAM, Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard
