Review : Sword Art Online Alicization
Story: (2.5/5)
TL;DR,
First Season : Eugeo's character buildup, a good season.
Second Season : Alice's character buildup, a good season.
Third Season : Reverted back to SAO's problems, pretty crappy season.
The overall writing style is still very SAO, the first season had some minor issues of explaining same thing twice to two different parties, the director could've cut the scene as a "And so, we have to do blah blah blah.", instead of having the audience needed to sit through both explanation, even so this is probably one of the best seasons in SAO saga. The story then progressed to a point of rape, though as a cultured man, that's not as "rape-y" as the warning suggested, no actual penetration from what I see. Second part of the first season is the Synthesis battles, pretty cool fights overall, I like the concept of "Enhance Armament" and "Release Recollection", fun thing to shout with the characters. There's an ad of Alice and Kirito eating cup ramen while hanging on the tower, a quite hilarious advertisement. Do note the story became bit weak until the last episode of S1, where Eugeo's death surprised (and saddens) me.
Season 2's beginning reminded me of Shield Hero, on how Kirito and Alice being treated by the peasants in the village simply enraged me. From that point onward, I can clearly see why people liked Alice, but I still preferred Asuna. The whole Dark Territory thing reminded me of AOT, but of less awe. After Gabriel's (the dark lord) backstory been told, the story became quite a bit average for SAO standards, but the fights still a very cool watch. There's one notable fight where Eldrie actually used hacks, negative life points is just comedic. Ages had past, Asuna finally came into the game, to show off her total imbalanced power difference, a motherfucking god account is just... The ingenious writer also thought up the idea of Kirito's harem "had a meeting" with each other on their days with Kirito, nice work there. Moving on to EP11, Yui being an AI felt so much emotions and talked so much is weird, Lisbeth's speech is cool but not convincing to a real life human. No sane human will just risk their RPG account into a game where you will suffer real pain, don't you know how much grinding is needed for RPG? However, Lisbeth's speech on gamers being looked down by society is very relatable. S2 then ends with Sinon being another hacker, one arrow and poof goes the enemy.
Season 3 begun with tentacle rape, what can I say? It's SAO. Then the biggest plot hole, those red knights. How can so many people aren't aware of the factualness of the news they heard (well maybe they want to sent out the message/moral of always verify your news). Next was the fight, those red knights were not given any special equipment, and our Japan team had overpowered equipment with sword skills AND healing spells, how the hell they suffer damages heck even lost to them, purely illogical. The writer had to include Eiji and Yuna from Ordinal Scale to practically DO NO REAL DAMAGE and then leaves. The story then wants us to sympathize on Kirito's agony of killing people. Sachi & Eugeo, I can understand but the rest, especially the villains, I mean come on. All in all, this season's writing is rather horrible.
Characters: (3/5)
Eugeo's character/role is okay as he doesn't have particularly special characteristics, however his relationship with Kirito simply makes the audience shipped them, Kirito × Eugeo sadly sunk, leaving Kirito a-gay-nize for 2 seasons.
Alice is one of the better written characters in SAO franchise, standing tall along side with Sinon! A good backstory, amazing personality, wonderful character development in Season 1 & 2, great ideals and motives. She's a marvelous character who you can sympathize on, unlike someone else. I adore how she is written as caring Kirito through his downs & wants (as she's unsure if it's okay) to love him nonetheless. I can't really see Asuna being like this, Asuna in comparison to Alice, is more depending to Kirito, she aides but in the end relies on Kirito to save the day (not to hate on Asuna in any way but that's just pointing out, and I still prefer Asuna).
As for the side characters, I like Synthesis 28 & 29, they were so cute when they attempted to sabotage our duo. Of course, who doesn't love Bercouli, heavily reminds me of Kamina from Gurren Lagann, and he died in such a way of resembling Kamina, in a sense. Quinella a.k.a. Administrator is a great villain for Season 1, one of the main reasons Season 1 was such a success, her manipulative personality is crazy to a good degree, her backstory, motives were also well thought out. Then we come to Season 3, Gabriel is a way weaker antagonist compared to Quinella IMO, his childhood past of killing a friend just to see her soul is psychotic to unreal also his motives in tasting souls is just weird. Dee Eye Ell is weirdly horny but I like her character role! There are some major stuff I can't tolerate however, the antagonists in Season 3 gets sudden buff isn't realistic, great side characters who got their development is then threw away, i.e. Fanatio. Plus, it occurs to me they purposely made the side characters to look weak just to make Kirito's comeback more impactful.
Music/Sound: (4.5/5)
SAO makes superb music, and that's facts since their first season.
Opening wise, Adamas is simply outstanding, Resister has the shadow of Rising Hope, Resolution is the weakest opening in these bunch for my taste, Anima didn't impress me at first but it gradually grew on me. As for the Endings, Iris is meh, forget-me-not easily outclassed Iris, I Will... is okay. Unlasting totally won my heart, it's lyrics (of reflecting Alice), melody, composition (of using erhu in electronic music is just wow) is marvelous.
OST wise, they remastered Swordland, pretty dope but shies in comparison with Alice's theme She Was Sitting Under the Osmanthus Tree & Eugeo's The Blue Rose Sword Battle. Worth noticing that they didn't use Aoi Yuuki as VA of Konno Yuuki's spirit AND THE ENGRISH OF THE RED KNIGHTS ugh, SMH.
Art/Animation: (4/5)
We can clearly see they switched up the art style and color palette to a much brighter, lighter aesthetic, it's not bad, but if you're coming directly from previous seasons, you will be quite uncomfortable of the change. First season, Suguha melons shrunk, animation is pretty average for a shounen genre in this season, nothing worthwhile. The two strands of hair of Quinella is triggering. The last two endings' visuals, Unlasting & I will... had a unique cinematography feel to it, rarely to never even seen before in anime world, the directing is well done on expressing the character's mental conflicts and the water parts rival all other animes, the realism is applaudable, well done A-1! The director seemed to purposely change up the art style during fights in Season 3, didn't understand the purpose but I like it, the choreography of the fights is cool too. It's sad to say they had implemented terrible CGI at the red knights.
Conclusion: (9.0/Good)
Overall a solid sequel (if we're not counting the poor last season), worth noting there were quite some explicit contents, but hey it's SAO. I think this trilogy could be a stand alone anime, by that I mean you can actually watch this season without watching the previous seasons.
Will I recommend to beginners? Probably won't.
Watch it here :