Sword Art Online II- Mother's Rosario

Mother's Rosario, the final narrative arc to Sword Art Online II, was quite a positive surprise to me.  I'm not knowledgeable with notable directors and writers within the anime industry, but the narrative style had a distinct mechanical difference in its storytelling from Phantom Bullet that I had to check whether or not a change in production was made. Same writer and director as Phantom Bullet: Tomohiko Ito (who also wrote for a few episodes of Sword Art Online and the script for Death Note). A cynical part of me wants to attribute a portion of this success once again to the low bar the franchise set for itself, but more genuinely I thought the show had really developed with regards to structure and content. Mother's Rosario expands on Phantom Bullet's successful moments and distinguishes itself from the rest of the Sword Art Online franchise thus far.

they're waiting

I've stated this before in my response to Phantom Bullet, but the point becomes much clearer in Mother's Rosario: the biggest area of improvement in Sword Art Online II is its centralized narrative structure. Sword Art Online's episodes are self-contained and sometimes smaller narrative arcs exist in a span of two to three episodes, but Sword Art Online II's arcs take longer trajectories and are given adequate time to develop a complexity not found in the original series (which had six distinct writers for a course of twenty four episodes). This furthered development is aided by having Asuna as the protagonist rather than Kirito, who is demoted (or promoted, depending on your perspective) to being a brick in a wall somewhere. Where Sinon is the crux of the Phantom Bullet narrative, Asuna is the focal point of Mother's Rosario's narrative constructs.

Mother's Rosario parallels Asuna's desire to share the gaming world with her strict mother to her desire to help share the real world to a terminally ill friend who is confined to virtual reality. Asuna lives a life full of material comforts, from a large house in crowded Japan to having a housekeeper. Such a lifestyle is possible because of the hard work of Asuna's mother, an austere and ambitious businesswoman. Although living with a comfortable number of luxuries, Asuna is detached from her mother who is determined to get Asuna caught up from the two years she was trapped in Sword Art Online. To Asuna's dismay, this means transferring the young girl to a proper school and threatening to take away her virtual reality headset to get her away from Kirito who the mother sees as a bad influence. While she contemplates the possibility of never being to enter the virtual world again, Asuna meets and befriends a young girl online named Yuuki, who is revealed to be bedridden and deteriorating from AIDS in the real world. Yuuki had agreed to a clinical trial testing the use of a Medicuboid, a medically purposed virtual reality access point designed to improve the quality of life for terminally ill patients; Yuuki has been confined to virtual reality for three years due to her condition.

find that invisible wall sweet spot

Although Mother's Rosario barrows similar themes from Phantom Bullet, a distinct lack of antagonistic conflict leads to a sentimentality that is uniquely present throughout the narrative arc. Yuuki's efforts and the message she embodies to make just a small, but personally significant, mark on the world was inspiring and made the friendship between Asuna and Yuuki feel all the more genuine and delicate. A common point of criticism is directed towards Asuna's minimal character development, but I would argue that in her short time with Yuuki, Asuna realized the true impact of fighting for the happiness of others. Where she once sought to keep the virtual world as a means of escape, Asuna now values expressing and sharing her virtual world as a means of building understanding and trust.

Asuna as a character has taken on many roles and interpretations throughout the Sword Art Online franchise, but, admittedly, she isn't particularized in any way within Mother's Rosario. She's still known as the "Berserk Healer" within the gaming world but there aren't many defining adjectives that come to mind. Asuna's placid character is a valid point of criticism especially after how strongly and enigmatically she was presented in the first half of Sword Art Online, but such a mild approach to her character lends to the sentimental aspect of the series. It's reassuring to see that even the heroine badass doesn't have everything figured out and that she too has relatable problems. As an extension, one could even argue that Asuna isn't particularized because she's meant to represent an entire demographic of people where gaming has become a source of tension and trouble. Asuna confronts this issue by sharing the virtual world with her mother and revealing how she truly feels (about family, friends, school, expectations, obligations, hopes and dreams) and by doing so, bridges the gulf between her mother and herself. The world of Alfheim Online transforms from an escapist fantasy to a world that encourages and supports her in her endeavors and newfound determinations.

bunch of leaderboard try-hards

Mother's Rosario's success over the other arcs in the franchise comes from its better developed message about video game culture. The show doesn't aim to comment on or present games as solely a source of escapism, but rather paints gaming culture as a unifying force that brings people together, given the opportunity. Gaming is something that builds common ground across a wide number of peoples, like chess or soccer. The way Asuna leapt onto Alfheim Online to meet with friends right after school reminded me of the way that my friends and I leapt onto Minecraft or Team Fortress 2 right after school and all the adventures we had then, years ago. Even today we still periodically keep in touch in this manner. I didn't really think much of it at the time, but in retrospect I can see that we created characters for ourselves and entire worlds to share with others.  It sounds emotionally dramatic, but that's the depiction Mother's Rosario aimed for and achieved.

'full zerk gear or kick'

I was curious about how others had responded to Mother's Rosario and to my dismay a lot of reviews focused primarily on the Phantom Bullet arc and simply mentioned Mother's Rosario in passing. After spending some time in sorting out Sword Art Online II, I can understand how when the series is taken as a lump sum it's only natural to compare it entirely to Sword Art Online without a closer look at each arc, but I was honestly frustrated at most of the reviews. I noticed that in a lot of online written and video reviews, technical presentation (which is great in SAO II, by the way) is overly emphasized and any attempt at analysis felt more like a gut reaction rather than a careful inspection behind the reasons and methods. Maybe it's just a hole that the Sword Art Online franchise dug itself into, but there's just constant focus on Kirito's romantic interests that detracts from a lot of the underlying values within the series. Sword Art Online II struggles in many areas, but I feel as if a lot of its successes are overlooked or simply dismissed.

In equalizing the entire Sword Art Online II series, the show is a conclusive improvement over its predecessor (again, low bar, yadda, yadda) and shows a definite maturation, especially in Mother's Rosario. Sword Art Online II as a whole marks a much needed departure away from a dependence on the romance between Kirito and Asuna to pursue an attempt at bringing forwards other, more relevant issues that makes use of its video game setting. While the show itself may not stand tall due to its repeatedly (and annoyingly) chanted flaws, Mother's Rosario is very much a solid narrative arc with distinguishable success in its trajectory and presentation.

'when is chest train starting'

--

So that's the wrap on the Sword Art Online series. I didn't really think the franchise was really anything spectacular because the various stories all had distinct issues and styles that it was difficult for the Sword Art Online universe to really take a strong, singular identity. This leads to that hole the series dug for itself that I mentioned, where a lot of misses and strikes against the show go unforgotten across seasons. Still, the Sword Art Online franchise left enough of an impression on me to want to take a closer look at some of the more interesting topics and ideas that I noticed, even if only for a brief moment. Here are two points that might interest you that I didn't really spend too much time on:

• The Medicuboid device and video games as a therapeutic utility
• Asuna's mom as a statement that marriage and having kids doesn't mean having to end a career (the working mom is an increasingly common character in anime)

Sword Art Online II- Phantom Bullet

After a mediocre-turned-terrible experience with Sword Art Online, I wasn't very keen on expectations regarding Sword Art Online II. Discussing Sword Art Online pretty much meant discussing the show's weaknesses, so needless to say, my expectations and standards for Sword Art Online II weren't that high. Sword Art Online II spans two major narrative arcs with a filler narrative separating the two. The setting and tones of the two arcs are so different I've decided to look at each arc individually.

welcome back

Sword Art Online II improves upon the first series by being able to experiment with the dichotomy between reality and the game world. The biggest setback experienced by Sword Art Online was its inability to use its setting to any great effect. The virtual world is set up by displaying MMORPG conventions and although the narrative was focalized on Kirito's perspective of the game world, the show never really made a statement on video game culture, which is what I expected out of a series about players being trapped in a video game. Risk-free MMORPG conventions are thrown around and what resulted was a straightforward and cliched fantasy.  Fortunately, Sword Art Online II isn't bound by characters being stuck in virtual reality as characters are able to interact and travel between the two worlds. This is crucial because it finally allowed the show to craft a statement around video games regarding how they are perceived and finally dares to imagine what might become of them in the future other than "it's virtual reality." To the future forecast effect, one could say the series took in a little bit of science fiction in some respects. In the first series, the video game setting could just have easily been a journey from point A to point B and the developments that follow; the story in Sword Art Online was more about an isolated population rather than the video game setting. Sword Art Online II adds importance to the fact that people are in a video game and is able to convey social problems by removing video games from its own isolated world, making the world and setting more relatable than its predecessor's.

ggo is actually destiny but with better loot drops

The Phantom Bullet narrative once again focalizes around Kirito (who is perhaps the most static character I have ever witnessed), but this time the Japanese government is asking him to dive back into the virtual world of Gun Gale Online (GGO) to investigate the real-world deaths of prominent players. Why the technology hasn't been banned after the deaths of thousands of consumers and why the government is entrusting Kirito is beyond me. GGO as a setting is a huge tonal shift from the fantasy settings of the first Sword Art Online series. A gritty, cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic cityscape populated by a demographic of big guns and burly bros greets Kirito, so naturally he bumps into the only girl who plays the game: Sinon (pronounced She-non).

'it's a grillll ecks dee kappa' 

Sinon is a powerful character in the sense that the preceding anime set such a low bar for characterization, any kind of backstory and development for any character was a sign of relief from the underworld of blandness that is Kirito and his irrelevant gang. Sinon does, however, come off as a dramatically successful character with real problems and real struggles. Whereas Kirito just pulls off feats of sheer willpower because he defies every rule set out by the game and "fuck you I'm Kirito," any challenge against him loses agency. Sinon's story is the crux of the arc's narrative and it paints her in a rare vulnerable light. Sinon is confronted with challenges like Kirito but what makes it easy to cheer her on is her fight to become stronger. Sinon didn't land on the powerhouse square for the sake of having a protagonist like Kirito. Instead, she is in a position for development as she fights childhood trauma and the resulting years of being a social outcast. Phantom Bullet revolves around what it means to be strong and how to find that strength. The message is epitomized within Sinon and actively places GGO as a setting where meek Asada Shino, the player, becomes Sinon, one of the top snipers in GGO. Abstract introspective moments in which Asada faces her game avatar reveals that they are different facets of personality: Asada Shino seeks to learn from Sinon's strengths so that she may become strong enough herself to confront reality. The show displays the fruits of potentials in being able to comment how people can reinvent themselves in video games as a form of expression, inventing characters, personalities, and even entire worlds. Sinon's characterization is without doubt the strongest point in Phantom Bullet.

ggo is actually a dating sim with rhythm mechanics

Sinon's story is framed within Phantom Bullet's overarching murder mystery that necessitates Kirito's involvement, and wherever Kirito is involved, unnecessary sexualization always seems to follow. It's easy to point to the tasteless fan service that immediately targets Sinon (even Asuna survived for some number of episodes) and Kirito's girly avatar as nothing but a shallow theater act to please certain demographics, but the gender role and sexualization discussion becomes controversial in the scenes depicting Asada being sexually assaulted by her close friend before Kirito enters for a timely rescue. The topics of online stalking and harassment are subtly present within the Phantom Bullet narrative and mostly lies dormant until the concluding moments. The most striking aspect was the fact that the perpetrator was Asada's closest friend who lost inhibition after being rejected from a relationship. The aftermath of the scene in question has Asada confronting her fears again in relapsing moments and she discovers that her experiences throughout the series has indeed brought her newfound emotional strength and supportive friends. It's a delicate subject matter and I'm still not sure if the show handled it with enough gravity as there are a number of interpretations people can perceive depending on their own experiences and beliefs. It is my personal belief that, although Phantom Bullet drops the occasional fan service, Sword Art Online II has matured from Sword Art Online in staying away from its predecessor's absolutely tasteless moments.

strength comes from microtransactions

Phantom Bullet saw improvement in the two areas I found lacking from the first series: directing a statement and character development. By opening up the Sword Art universe to the real world instead of confining it to the virtual world, more complex developments and comments became possible. Phantom Bullet looks into a small window of how players define themselves from past experiences and future hopes, both beneficial and harmful, in virtual spaces where the freedom to become any persona exists. Pay close attention to how Sinon and Asada are individually characterized despite essentially being the same person and how the two interact with and mirror each other in Asada's mind. I have no hesitation in stating that the Phantom Bullet arc of Sword Art Online II is a vast improvement over the installments in Sword Art Online.

Up next: Mother's Rosario- what? Yeah, I'm skipping the middle arc because there wasn't much about it that stood out. You want to know what the middle arc is about? Here:

google image 'sao2 sinon'

See you in Mother's Rosario.