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Last season I promised to release mini analyses of the running anime that piqued my interest/gave us stuff to talk about. Unfortunately life got in the way. It's actually happening this time around. These threads will be updated regularly and may become essays. SAO III SEASON 3Permalink On twitter.com
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So some of you may know, despite its flaws, I have some good things to say about SAO. It has deep issues but it's also better than a lot of shows and there are some themes that I can say SAO does better than pretty much any other anime.Permalink On twitter.com
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SAO II is actually my favorite SAO. I'd be comfortable calling SAO II a "good show". Ordinal Scale is also "a good movie" in my book. SAO I and III have commendable elements, but I wouldn't call them "good" overall. They're okay at best.Permalink On twitter.com
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The reason why I'm paying attention to SAO III Season 3 is because it's thematically interesting. It has 2 running threads that are being handled quite well right now. On the one hand, you have the main cast fighting off what is essentially US imperialism....Permalink On twitter.com
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... On the other, there's a complete subversion of the "evil race" archetype. The show introduces us to hordes of dark-skinned "evil people" only to pan back and argue that their lives are worth just as much as any human and the only reason why the humans think otherwise is to...Permalink On twitter.com
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...prop up a blood-thirsty, self-serving regime that's a threat to both humans and the "evil" creatures. It's well done, and SAO III Season 3's first episode hammers this point home. So. What's the catch?Permalink On twitter.com
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So if you know anything about SAO, it's kind of known for having one one-screen rape every season and this episode was a renewal of this fine traditionPermalink On twitter.com
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Since finishing the source material for SAO, Kawahara Reki has since stopped... writing these. Which is good but also makes it worse when you see stuff adapted from his old work and it still has these bad habits.Permalink On twitter.com
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The narrative is really convinced that the only way to show a male character is a good person is to stop some woman somewhere from being raped. And you know what? Plenty of other ways to do this that aren't terrible in every way. Shocking, I know.Permalink On twitter.com
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I'm at the point where I can rank SAO's rapes from most to least problematic. A conversation for another time, probably, but, in general, ONE SHOW SHOULDN'T HAVE ENOUGH RAPES FOR ME TO RANK THEM S T O PPermalink On twitter.com
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I think the worst part of this scene is that I'm not even sure who half the characters involved were. Circumstances had to be engineered for this scene to happen.Permalink On twitter.com
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I could be talking about how the show has a potential to handle racism in a mature way, but I can't because this undoes all the good will you might have had going into it.Permalink On twitter.com
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So I have to continue this thread by noting that SAO keeps doing the thing where it thinks making a villain a rapist is the best way to let us know he's, like, totally evil and stuffPermalink On twitter.com
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I don't want to harp on it forever, because I don't want my objection to the trope to feel performative. But it would also be irresponsible to not point out this has and continues to be the biggest issue with SAOPermalink On twitter.com
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Aside from this terrible habit that continues to not go away for some reason, the show has been launching a pretty coherent critique of American imperialism, actually since last season. And I want to talk about that as well.Permalink On twitter.com
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If you read Bullshit no Yuusha 1, you'd know the main thesis of SAO is that the real world matters as much as the virtual world. Who you are irl and who you are online are deeply connected, and this presents endless opportunity for growth and human connection.Permalink On twitter.com
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It's not a difficult thesis to understand, and yet many don't. And by many, I mean Geoff from Mother's Basement. Anyway.Permalink On twitter.com
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There's an unstated assertion in SAO's themes. Online relationships and experiences are as important as irl ones, but these benefits are constantly under threat by corporations and governments.Permalink On twitter.com
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The big, institutional villains of SAO are basically almost always corporate entities or governments. This season features a Japanese company selling data to the American government, so they can build AI weapons assert a new order of US imperialism world-widePermalink On twitter.com
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The corporations use nationalist rhetoric to get people to put their "lives" (virtual, not real) on the line to defend what they think are their country's interests. But they're always just the interests of monopoly capital.Permalink On twitter.com
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When SAO is being this show -- the show about defending all the wonderful things about video games and the Internet from cynical attacks by the elites... it's being very good and a show I'd honestly recommend to others.Permalink On twitter.com
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When SAO does literally anything else, including trying to make statements about abuse victims, I kinda wish it was never madePermalink On twitter.com
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This show thinks its Eva, which I thought was funnyPermalink On twitter.com
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Unrelated, but I approve of translating nakama as comrade in subs, just because it makes it easier to make lefty memesPermalink On twitter.com
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Boy I sure am glad I watched the movie and somewhat recognized who these people were, otherwise this scene would have no emotional impact whatsoeverPermalink On twitter.com
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I want to talk briefly about how SAO handles racism. SAO, I think, does racism better than every other show this season. This is not a compliment. SAO does not to racism well. It's just not actual garbagePermalink On twitter.com
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Things SAO does well here: the idea that racism can be used by the powerful to manipulate the masses into serving their own interets. Like this dude is so racist he mind controls people into killing each other, and then feeds off that energy. It's a solid analogy.Permalink On twitter.com
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Unfortunately it makes the reason why this guy is racist because he was personally wronged by Japanese people in the past. If racism is caused by people personally wronging others, then there's no fixing it. Because of that the analogy falls apart.Permalink On twitter.com
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However, it's leagues and bounds ahead of Re:Zero and The Misfit of Demon Academy, so there's that.Permalink On twitter.com
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Overall, SAO has always been a deeply flawed show. I like it for some very specific reasons I've gone into in the past, but there's always glaring issues with storytelling, themes, and politics that prevent it from being truly great.Permalink On twitter.com
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SAO, at least half the time, is complete bullshit. But if you twist its arm, and you force it to focus, and deliver a satisfying emotional arc. It'll do that, and it'll do it well. I'll always give SAO credit for that.Permalink On twitter.com
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It's been a really long time since we saw Kirito as himself with his loved ones. Arguably like, 2 and half seasons since then. And a lot of really poor writing decisions have transpired since then and now. And even still, I'm really happy that he's back. It's weirdPermalink On twitter.com
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SAO is what I'll call bare-minimum good. You can just sorta cobble together an enjoyable experience between all the padding that really doesn't work at all.Permalink On twitter.com
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Anyway, more memes. 1) lol she touched titty 2) this show still thinks it's EvaPermalink On twitter.com
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Dang it's been a while, huh? So SAO. What is it about this show that makes me give it chance after chance after chance, while I rip shows like Re:Zero and Rent a Girlfriend up and down every week?Permalink On twitter.com
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My principle: if you can do something that I care about with some level of quality, I'll keep coming back even if the rest of the show is like, garbage.Permalink On twitter.com
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The fundamental theme of SAO throughout all of its seasons is simple: what happens in virtual and fictional worlds is just as real and just as meaningful as what happens in real life.Permalink On twitter.com
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In SAO we explore this literally (if you die in the game you die in real life). Then in ALO we explore Suguha and how she gets over her emotional hang-ups by playing the game (we'll ignore the incest for the time being) (wow what a sentence)Permalink On twitter.com
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Then we have Sinon and her trauma she tries to fix in GGO. And then Asuna finds the meaning of family through her friendship with Yuuki. And then we start this underworld arc where we throw are hands up and meet fully-fledged humans who exist entirely in the virtual world.Permalink On twitter.com
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As SAO progresses, we kind of see an addendum to the core theme emerge. Yes the virtual world and real world are equivalent, but they are also under constant threat by corporations and states. And only when the people control technology can it be used for good.Permalink On twitter.com
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When SAO tries and focuses on this core conceit, I really, truly enjoy the show. Not only is SAO built around this premise, it's one of the best shows to explore this ideaPermalink On twitter.com
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And, as an added bonus, SAO passes the Shield Hero test! It refuses to justify actual slavery. I know this is a low bar but they gave Subaru a slave army last week so work with me here, *work with me*!Permalink On twitter.com
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SAO would be one of my favorite shows if it focused on this all of the time. Unfortunately, it's only really itself 10%-30% of the time.Permalink On twitter.com
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SAO wants to be a MATURE show about MATURE things, but it fails to realize the one theme at its core *is* the mature thing! So it goes off on all these tangents about love and power and rape and feminism and redemption and it's all just so so badPermalink On twitter.com
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It's really not the show to handle any of these other topics but it spends so much time trying to and just either being mediocre or failing entirely.Permalink On twitter.com
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Like seriously what the fuck what does this mean what what is this sentencePermalink On twitter.com
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It wants to do a love triangle with all of the female characters even his sister (again, another time) and how they all love Kirito. And Alice talks about how she's in love with him and I just... don't carePermalink On twitter.com
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He's already married? And I like Kirito and Asuna. Why don't they spend time together? Why 500 other girls? Holy shit, I'm losing it!Permalink On twitter.com
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Give Alice something else to do! She's literally one of the most interesting characters on screen! SHE IS A WARRIOR FROM ANOTHER DIMENSION AND ALL SHE CARES ABOUT IS KIRITO'S COCK?? REALLY???? What must be going through her mind right now? idk, just Kirito I guess 🙄Permalink On twitter.com
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The show wants to rehabilitate Kayaba Akihiko but all it's done is: - tell us he murdered 1000 people for no reason - tell us he was a tortured and complicated man Which is not enough as it turns out. It's the Steven Universe redemption arc! (the worst kind)Permalink On twitter.com
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The show will probably end the way it's been for all these years: a mix of good and bad with its stans and haters fighting a forever war in the Middle EastPermalink On twitter.com
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SAO is over, huh? Like, just the whole thing is over. The whole phenomenon just gone. Wow.Permalink On twitter.com
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Jk lol you thought this show cums money especially in JapanPermalink On twitter.com
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But it is still the end of the core light novel series, which in and of themselves were more or less cleaned up from the original light novels. Kirito may return, and SAO may continue for many years to come, but this really is the end of an era.On twitter.com
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I'm not going to sit here and pretend SAO has ever had stellar writing. I mean, just in the War of the Underworld arc alone there's just so much stuff that really just doesn't work narratively.Permalink On twitter.com
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Rehabilitating The Administrator is really dumb. Like the big titty purple lady? Remember her?Permalink On twitter.com
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The was the pinnacle of evil in the first half of this arc but after her death the show wants to make her out to be some kind of sympathetic mentor figure in the second. She's not. She's literally just a genocidal maniac. I don't know where this redemption comes from.Permalink On twitter.com
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I had a whole essay comparing her regime to late capitalism but the show itself obviously doesn't see that connection at all which is disappointing.Permalink On twitter.com
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We can talk about how SAO tends to have a rape scene a season. We can also talk about the fact that A-1 pictures deliberately chooses to play up these scenes, sometimes when they're more tame in the novels, bc they think it sells.Permalink On twitter.com
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We can talk about this arc's bizarre af pacing. Kawahara Reki seems to have made a mistake that I do when I write. Which is you get to a place that you think is cool and you just spend way too much time doing cool stuff instead of pacing the story.Permalink On twitter.com
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It's obvious Kawahara really liked the Underworld as a concept, and really liked Eugeo, but the story spends too much time there and not enough with characters who have active arcs, like Asuna.Permalink On twitter.com
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And on and on. If you want to find SAO writing missteps, you will find them, because they're there. But here's the thing...Permalink On twitter.com
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The discourse around SAO is not that it's a flawed show that makes mistakes, but that it's a garbage show that only baby anime fans like because they're dumb poopooheads. And SAO is not that show either.Permalink On twitter.com
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I've said this in Bullshit no Yuusha, I've said it in this thread, and I'll say it again: SAO is not literally the worst show ever made.Permalink On twitter.com
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I cannot believe, a decade after this show came out, a decade in which the genre that SAO popularized: the isekai light novel power fantasy, has pumped out dumpster fire after dumpster fire, we're still acting like SAO is the problem here.Permalink On twitter.com
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It's not so much that I'm upset SAO is underrated. Plenty of shows that I love are underrated. This season, Deca Dence is sorely underrated. That's fine. I understand my taste is superior to the rest of the Internet /sPermalink On twitter.com
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What I'm actually upset about is that the discourse around this show HASN'T MOVED IN AN ENTIRE DECADE!Permalink On twitter.com
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In 2013/4 I was a teen and I remember not beign into anime so much but having friends that were. Actually, it's really funny I ended up like this. If there was an award for it I'd probably have been voted "least likely to become a weeb" in High SchoolPermalink On twitter.com
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But anyway, I remember them sitting around, watching SAO Abridged, laughing at this show which was supposedly the worst, most cringe, most cursed thing ever created by man's undeserving hands.Permalink On twitter.com
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And it amazes me that, years later, after finally having the chance to catch up with the show and experience this first hand, that all the talking points on the SAO stan/hater side are exactly the same.Permalink On twitter.com
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Content creators like Diginee and Mother's Basement have long since moved on from these reductive stances on SAO after making bank on that stuff for years. SAO itself is a much different show than what Aincrad was.Permalink On twitter.com
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AND YET WE'RE STILL HERE. There's an entire industry of SAO """discourse""" that seems to run in perpetuity for no reason.Permalink On twitter.com
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And that really bothers me because whether or not you like or hate this show, there's more going on here than just "Kirito is overpowered lol" "he's edgy lol" "he beat Kayaba lol" "2 years worth of semen lol"Permalink On twitter.com
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As SAO:Progressive comes out in a few years, I want people to start looking at SAO for what it is, and not the metalore we've built up on the Internet for clicks.Permalink On twitter.com
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Above all, I love good media analysis. That's what I strive to bring you guys. That and communism, of course.Permalink On twitter.com
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And now for some series finale reactions. This is the world Elon Musk wants:Permalink On twitter.com
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"I love Emilia"Permalink On twitter.com
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Oh no she's cutePermalink On twitter.com
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Alice's stance here is a real medieval swords stance. Kirito's... not so muchPermalink On twitter.com
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I like this little bit here where Alice lights up and then switches on chivalry mode. And Suguha's reaction is nice too. Hey, characterization! How's that?Permalink On twitter.com
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So this show was already pretending to be Eva. I'm please to inform you that it also pretends to be Gurren Lagann Seriously, if this was paced better, we could see just what kinds of changes Kirito and Asuna were able to bring in just 200 years, and what that saysPermalink On twitter.com
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"I didn't know Cthulu was in this one"Permalink On twitter.com
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As the show has ended, consider this the end of my SAO Season III Part 2 thread. Thanks a bunch. Peace, y'allPermalink On twitter.com