I just watched it somewhat recently for the first time. No nostalgia whatsoever. It was fairly enjoyable.TimeLord said:Loved Cardcaptor when I was younger. I haven't watched it in a while but I can imagine it would be through rose tinted glasses if I did now.perfectimo said:I wouldn't recommend Cardcaptor unless you watched it growing up, but man is it awesome.
There is however another series that must be addressed...
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Remember the first boss? Remember how that one dudeguy died? Kirito tried to give him a healing potion. But the dudeguy's all like "Heck, no! I don't want yer damn potion! I'm just gonna sit here and die for no reason!" And then Kirito's like "Oh, no... This guy's counting on me to lead everyone to victory. I'm not sure if I can do it. Maybe I should explain to them how the boss was different in the beta version or... Wait... I've got it!" *turns to the other players* "I'M EVIL! I KILLED HIM! MUA HA HA HA HAA!!!"
Remember Yui's death? Yeah, that made no sense. First of all, she had amnesia. How the heck does a computer program get amnesia? Or fall unconscious? Oh, and she was just so focused on two out of the 10,000 players she was supposed to watch over. Out of EVERYONE in the entire game, she really wanted to meet Kirito and Asuna. "Why?" No explanation given beyond "Because... THE PLOT DEMANDS IT!" So then the game decides to delete her after she fights an extra boss, even though she's an immortal object (so why didn't Kayaba ever get deleted?) and she's a VITAL PIECE OF THE GAME'S CODE. Like... SERIOUSLY! That's the worst security system ever! That's the equivalent of AntiVirus software deleting your System 32 files! Yeah, she gets deleted because the game gets confused and thinks she's a forgeign object somehow, DESPITE HOW VITAL SHE IS TO THE CORE GAME'S CODING. And yet 10,000 foreign objects popped into the game on Day 1. Why weren't they deleted? But don't worry! Kirito has magically learned how to hack for some unexplained reason. And he's so good at it, he doesn't even need a monitor for the first several seconds! He doesn't even need a mouse! And he's managed to retrieve Yui's Heart, which contains her encrypted code. So she can still be saved! Asuna decides to wear the heart as a necklace, while she and Kirito promise they will never ever forget he- WHOOPS! Asuna is suddenly not wearing the necklace in the next episode (nor any others that follow) and Yui is never mentioned again!
Now for Asuna's death... It's $&#@%^ing STUPID! So, our heroes are on Floor 75 and they just killed the boss. Well, just another 25 to go! Man, I can't wait to see what Floor 100 looks like! COP-OUT! Suddenly it's revealed that Kayaba, the creator of the game, has been playing SAO with them all along! And it just so happens that if anyone can defeat him in a PvP duel, then everyone can go home... for some reason. Kirito agrees to the duel, on the condition that if he loses, Kayaba must recode the game so that Asuna can't kill herself. Asuna kills herself. Ok, ok, so he didn't have sufficient time to fix that. But we've seen PvP duels in the game before. And in none of them did the loser end up dying. What's more, SINCE WHEN CAN SOMEONE WHO ISN'T PARTICIPATING IN THE DUEL RECEIVE DAMAGE FROM IT!? Seriously! If she got hit, she should have received absolutely ZERO damage, because she wasn't part of the fight!
But enough about deaths. Let's talk about some of the other stupid crap this show tries to pull. At some point, we see that Kirito has somehow possessed regenerating health. REGENERATING HEALTH. And it regenerates so fast that he can now stand seven dudes into submission. Seriously, he just needs to STAND THERE and their attacks are useless, because his regenerating health kicks in faster than they can deal damage. And quite a lot of time has passed at this point. I don't care if he got to play the beta version for a while before launch. After THIS much time has passed, pretty much EVERYONE should have this. Especially since the beta testers have been giving out those books with all the information they've been gathering to ALL of the players. But it gets worse. As stupid as a deus ex machina as this is, what makes it even MORE stupid is that IT'S NEVER USED AGAIN. Seriously. That regenerating health sure would've come in handy in various other situations. Like when fighting Kayaba?
You seriously need to unlock a unique rare skill to be able to hold two pieces of bladed metal at the same time? This is about as stupid as the fact that you need to PURCHASE the ability to throw things while running in [Prototype]!
Oh, wow! Kirito has just gotten his own personal blacksmith! And she promises to help him out in the game as much as she can, sharpening and upgrading his weapons, forging new ones, and should keep coming back whenever he can and... she's just going to be dropped out of the plot entirely, isn't she? Yep. This show does that sort of thing a lot.
Yeah, yeah, nice try, Sword Art Online. Kayaba is clearly insane. He just tried to murder 10,000 people and he doesn't even have the foggiest idea why, nor does he even care. Stop trying to convince us that he's really a nice guy. Oh, and why is the ENTIRE GAME BEING DELETED NOW!?
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Also, while this isn't really a plothole, it's still extremely stupid. The scene where everyone draws out those mirrors and their avatars are changed to look like their real-world bodies killed SO MUCH POTENTIAL.
I'm sure anyone who's familiar with the internet is also familiar with the idea of "Wow, I know this person so well, and yet I don't even have the foggiest idea what he/she looks like!" I know that feeling all-too-well. Sword Art Online was well on its way to doing just that within the first episode. BUT THEN IT JUST RIPPED IT ALL AWAY! If everyone was able to remain in the avatar bodies they customized, it could've allowed for some very interesting characters and sub-plots, such as...
Someone playing as a kid because they want to live a second childhood. Nothing wrong with being a kid again, and this game could give them the chance to do it.
Someone wants to know what it's like to see the world through the eyes of the opposite gender; to see firsthand how certain people act around them.
Combine the first two, and we have someone who lost his little sister in an accident and now plays as an avatar in her exact image in remembrance.
Internet predators.
Dude, there could totally be a MASS MURDERER who is killing off other players, and he can't be arrested because he's in the game and can't go to an actual jail (and he can just teleport out of one if there was one in-game as well), nor can he be identified, because he's using a fake body! That would be so awesome and suspenseful!
I've been preparing to write a lot of doujinshi manga sometime next year. I'm thinking I should write one about a virtual reality MMORPG myself, with all of these ideas intact! I mean, come on! The concept of Sword Art Online is brilliant! BUT YOU SCREWED IT UP, ANIPLEX! DO IT AGAIN!
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Oddly enough, I seem to be of the unpopular opinion that the Alfheim Online story arc was actually better. Not GREAT, but a major improvement over the first story. The game is more creative, the new plot is much more interesting AND clever, there are fewer/smaller (though not non-existent) plotholes, and Gary-Ste- I mean, Kirito, actually has character flaws now! Therefor, making him a much more interesting character! When I saw him get beaten easily by his "imouto", I knew his character had been tweaked to improvement. As for that first story arc, I thought the best part was the murder mystery sub-plot. This was because we got to learn a LOT more about the in-game mechanics and the writing was might tighter for some reason. It was more engaging, clever, and frankly, Kirito and Asuna didn't have anything to do with it! It would've been just fine without them, since those two didn't even do anything!
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Alfheim Online's story has just a few plotholes. For one, WHY IS ASUNA STILL ALIVE!? She's dead! DEAD! Deadder than dead! It wasn't even an offscreen thing like "oh, well she could've survived..." NO! She was MURDERED onscreen! Her entire body was shattered; obliterated; completely disintegrated entirely! They don't even TRY to explain it! They just brush it under the rug in the hopes that you simply forgot. Oh, and even though she's been sleeping for more than two years, her body looks completely normal. Kirito looked all pale and frail, so why isn't Asuna?
All of Kirito's items have gotten their data corrupted in the transfer from Sword Art Online to Alfheim Online... except Yui's Heart. Pretty convenient. So, what's he gonna do? Is he gonna download her onto a flash drive, log out, upload her to his computer and use his magical, still-as-of-yet-unexplained hacking skills to unzip her files and bring her back? Nope! Instead, all he has to do is... is... POKE HER!? POOOOKE HEEEEER!?!?!?!?!? THAT'S IT!? This entire time, after two years and a couple months or so, he NEVER tried to fix her when it was THIS PISSIN' EASY!? He never tried poking her back in SAO!? Why should we even expect it to work in THIS game!?
Kirito is also supposed to have illusionary powers in this arc. However, the one time he actually uses them, he LEGITIMATELY transforms himself into a giant monster (and never bothers to use it again). He even explains that it WASN'T an illusion at all. He DID turn himself into a monster! But his class is supposed to only be able to cast ILLUSIONS. That was no illusion! The only time we ever even see an illusionary spell cast, it isn't even from the same class!