SAO II

I’ll get this out of the way first: Season II has three main arcs, Gun Gale Online, Excalibur, and Mothers’ Rosario. The shortest possible review of season two is watch GGO and MR, and skip Excalibur. Now I’ll go through each arc, give some thoughts, and wrap this up.

GGO

This arc deals with our hero Kirito learning of a potential player killer (for reals) in GGO. He transfers over, meets a player named Sinon, and eventually they save the day, but not before a few players eat a bullet in game and die in real life.

The Good

This arc shines when focusing on the guilt and PTSD that Sinon and to some extent Kirito feel over events in their past when they actually killed people, either in self defense (Sinon) or in order to prevent more death (Kirito in SAO I).

Our protagonists each help the other gain self respect and strength in accepting what they did and focusing on the good that came from their actions instead of the horror of the acts themselves. For Kirito this takes the form of confronting memories he has buried and facing them down. For Sinon it is accepting that she is not a bad person for killing a bank robber, and her actions saved many people that day. As in the first season, the strong points come in the quite moments or conversations, not in the heat of sniper battles.

The Bad

Good lord, random shots of Sinon’s lady parts got gratuitious real fast. Even in the final heart to heart between Kirito and Sinon, the camera keeps tracking to lady parts in ways that pretty much break the scene.