I marathoned all the available episodes of Sword Art Online. That’s right, I’m actually up to date on a current anime, rather than picking one up several years after the fact.
Now, the fact that this is tagged “Yoshi Suggests” means this is an endorsement. I think I’ve only devoted a hate post to one anime, ever, and I’m pretty sure THAT one was the RO anime. Seriously, that was such a steaming pile of poop, that I would SHAMELESSLY promote Ragnarok TWILIGHT, my own work, over that.
*ahem*
Sword Art Online is, as the name suggests, about a (fictional) MMO. Think… .hack//G.U. meets Tales of Vesperia. Yes, you even get Yuki Kajiura at the musical controls, though this time the soundtrack is more reminiscent of Xenosaga ep. 3 than .hack//SIGN, if your musical memory is up to par. In any case, 10,000 players get trapped in the titular MMO, with an added creepier twist: you die in game and you die in the real world. (Gee, wasn’t there a horror movie with that exact same premise a few years ago?)
SAO follows a solo player, Kirito (imagine Vesperia’s Yuri Lowell with shorter hair) and his path to the endgame, and his encounters with other players (mostly pretty girls– this IS anime, after all) and guilds along the way. As much as the nagging question of “WTF is happening to their bodies in real space” may nip at you, it’s one of those things where you have to just sit on it until the end of the current plotline and the closer you get, the more it will start feeding you answers. The payoff really is worth it. :D
VA Nerdery: The second arc introduces a different villain, one who gets automatic WIN points because he’s played by Takehito Koyasu. That’s right, freaking Jade Curtiss and in my headcanon, the “official” voice of Phil Ayarane and Avatar Blastoise. I should have expected Koyasu to show up in here, he’s a total RPG nerd and eats this stuff up. (He was even in that aforementioned RO anime trainwreck as its primary villain, to boot.) I recall long ago, there was an interview that someone translated, and when asked about a “career failure” he makes a reference to a battle in Final Fantasy Tactics that he got a Game Over in because he used the wrong job classes. XD
Man, is he ever a creeper as Sugou/”Oberon” this time around, sniffing the hair of a comatose person. But soft-spoken villains are exactly what Koyasu is so great at (see: Rezo). It’ll be awesomepants to see how this plays out.</small>
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Roadmap check!
With Brawlection (and with it, our Presidential election) in the can, it’s time to address the first round of Gourmet Ramen commissions. Here’s what it looks like so far as what’s going to happen here:
1. Slot 1 – Typh (Chelsea costume sheets, no color)
2. pause to boost Blastoise to Windows 8 and refresh his graphics programs (to add Illustrator) because of…
3. Slot 2 – Aeth (Magisteral cards, vector, flagged as special project BECAUSE of vector mode)
4. Slot 3? – Permadirty (need to confirm parameters, also flagged as special project)
This shouldn’t interfere with Snowschemes much, however. Whoa, is December already creeping up? We’re already 10 days into November. And the week of Thanksgiving, it’ll already have been 2 years since I got Dinah the MacBook. :O