Early Impressions: Sword Art Online II

It's finally time to talk about the second season of Sword Art Online!  I had intended to talk about this one sooner but the show had a fairly slow start so I didn't have much of an opinion on it.  Now that I'm six episodes in I feel I'm ready to talk briefly about it.  Before I talk about season two I feel I should state my opinion of season one.  In short, I loved the first story arc but felt that the second story arc was completely unnecessary and ultimately tainted my enjoyment of the show.  I connected on an emotional level to the romance between Kirito and Asuna during the Aincrad story arc because I have had online romances in the past.  It made me somewhat nostalgic and they did a good job of getting the viewer to care for them.  I would have been happy if they had ended the series there, but they didn't.  In the Fairy Dance arc things just got corny.  All I could think of when it started was that the tagline for that arc should have been: Sorry Kirito!  But your princess is in another VRMMO!  It also introduced a couple things that were never in the first arc and, sure as hell, did not need to be in the series at all; incest and repeated sexual assaults on Asuna.  It ruined the show for me and made me somewhat afraid of what season two may hold.

Well, so far so good!  It has been one year since the events of SAO.  This season finds our hero aiding in a government investigation in which a person in the real world was murdered from within the game by a mysterious player known only as Death Gun.  Kirito is skeptical that this is impossible.  Which I find to be somewhat hilarious given his status as a survivor of a game in which that exact thing happened...  This time he is entering the world of Gun Gale Online, a VRMMO shooter in which some of the best players in the world compete for cash and fame.  Shortly after entering the game he befriends one of the top players, Sinon, who has her own dark past outside of the game.  Rather than do something different and make Kirito use a gun like everyone else in the game they conveniently have lightsabers so he can still dispatch his enemies with a sword.  Aside from the slow start (episode 4 is completely unnecessary) I'm enjoying this season thus far.  I really hope that the creepy otaku fetishes don't sneak their way into this season at any point.  It's just not my thing.  Fingers crossed!

Available on Crunchyroll, Hulu, and Daisuki.

Sinon (Left), Kirito (Right).  No, Kirito is not a girl in this game.