well Valentine's Day just came and went
and I can't think of a better way to
celebrate than by talking about one of
the things I love most
hating sword art online one of the
questions that I get asked most often is
why do you make so many videos about si
oh well okay usually it's not so much a
question as an accusation you're just
making videos about si o for the views
or wow another si o video guess Jeff
short on rent this month and well I mean
that's not wrong not entirely finances
and views aren't the first thing I think
about when I make videos about Sao or
anything but I'd be lying if I said that
weren't a factor and lying very
unconvincingly at that considering that
five of the 10 most viewed videos on my
channel are about si oh six if you count
the double feature what's in an O P
about kono subaru's ero in total out of
the almost 200 videos on this channel
the six that I've made about sao account
for sixteen point six percent of my
total views twenty percent of all the
money I've ever earned from Google
Adsense and I'd wager about twenty-five
percent of my current audience
subscribed because of one of them as
well
so yeah I and basically every other anti
tuber have benefited from covering Sao
and with more seasons and a live-action
adaptation coming will continue to do so
for a long time but to answer the
question why do anime youtubers keep
beating this dead horse with money or
views doesn't really work beyond a
surface level because the real question
is if Sao really is a dead horse then
why does discussion of it generates so
much consistent buzz it takes - as they
say - Fairy dance and last I checked
hundreds of thousands of viewers are
dancing to the tune of almost every
youtuber who covers Sao the people who
are sick of hearing about it may be more
vocal but they're vastly outnumbered by
the people thirsty for more and on that
note if the people making these videos
weren't consistently coming up with new
interesting things to say about it that
huge audience would get bored pretty
damn quickly and so would we I wouldn't
spend a full workweek re watching and
writing about a series I hate if the
project wasn't fun for me to work on
there are plenty of easier ways to get
views and subscribers on YouTube and
I'm pretty sure that gig ik explanation
point pedantic romantic digi bro and
most of the other anime youtubers who
talked about Sao feel the same way so
the real question is what is it about
Sao that makes it so interesting to talk
about and why are so many people
interested in hearing that conversation
today I'm going to be answering those
questions and before anyone says it yes
I've seen both Giga and of course my own
video about the source of Si owes
popularity and I'm not going to be
rehashing what was said there that would
be a bit too ironic no today I'm going
to be talking about what makes Sao such
a good critical punching bag and what's
keeping it alive in the critical
discourse around anime mostly because I
find the subject fascinating and partly
because yeah I've got bills to pay and
on that note today's video has a sponsor
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between now and February 28th alright
now that I've paid respect to my second
love shilling let's get back to talking
about the first now obviously I can't
speak to every other content creators
experience with Sao only to my own I
can't tell you what it is specifically
about the show that makes something
witty wants a parody it or digi bro want
to spend an hour eviscerating it I can
only tell you what I see in the show and
why I think discussing it is so
interesting and useful useful now that's
a nod
word to throw at a piece of disposable
pop media there are a lot of words that
I'd choose to describe the anime I talk
about entertaining enlightening
educational emotionally resonant a lot
of words in there but useful would be at
the bottom of the list for most of them
and not just because it doesn't start
with an e because while many anime have
made me happy enriched my life or even
given new meaning to things I care
deeply about
there aren't many that I'd say have been
directly helpful but Sao by virtue of
the fact that so many people have seen
it has a lot of utility as a point of
reference when criticizing or talking
about anime and media in general I could
describe the plot intricacies of log
horizon to you in excruciating detail or
I could say it's like Sao but smarter
and without permadeath then you'd get it
I can say that kado the right answer
falls apart worse than Alfheim
online and well you'd get that too there
are only a few anime like FM a
Dragonball Z attack on Titan one punch
man and Pokemon that I can talk about
like that and expect you to instantly
understand me like Game of Thrones Star
Wars Harry Potter the Beatles Mario and
GTA anime like this serves as an easily
accessible frame of reference for
talking about the features successes and
failures of more niche titles I can
expect anyone who's even remotely
interested in my content to have at
least a passing familiarity with them
which makes it easier for my videos to
reach people who aren't familiar with
the obscure shows that I talk about and
I'd say that Sao has even more utility
than others similarly popular anime
specifically because it's so flawed
there aren't many cases where literally
millions of people have had the same
negative experience with the same media
property sure some people who watch Sao
still like it a lot do even despite my
best efforts but by and large almost
everyone who's seen it can agree that
the show has character writing problems
that the fairy dance arcs straight up
sucks and that the series is a bit
ham-handed when it comes to handling
sensitive topics to put it mildly
so sword art online is very good fodder
for contextualizing say the
disappointment that I felt watching
Charlotte the way that overpowered
protagonists suck the tension
mahouka and caca guru ii or the way that
a show like rezero manages to be
genuinely dark as opposed to angsty and
edgy like Sao there are more
specifically applicable points of
comparison for all of those a comic a
kill or mirai nikki for discussion of
edginess for example but none that
guarantee broad understanding like sao
does so that's why i talk about the show
so much when talking about other shows
but it's also why sao is often my go-to
example when i want to talk about
problems with plot structure
storytelling or character development
which if you break them down is what
fixing alpha i'm how you earu and sao
and my ordinal scale rant are really all
about I could have had similar
discussions about plenty of different
shows and movies and I probably will
make more fixing anime videos in the
future but building each video essay
around Sao specifically let me hone in
on specific writing problems that
everyone who's watched the show has
either identified or at least
experienced which meant that I didn't
have to spend a lot of time clarifying
those points or explaining why they're
problems he'll this video is mostly just
an excuse to talk about my actual
favorite subject me and more
specifically my creative process and the
reason I made my first Sao video the
Watson and Opie was mainly because
people kept asking me what I thought
made a bad Opie and Sao provided a lot
of good examples of that well that in
red it's best Opie contest got me really
riled up and that points to another
major reason that I like talking about
Sao so much it's relevant to my specific
interests sword art online is a show
about video games and to an extent game
development that's one of my favorite
subjects which I don't have many
opportunities to discuss since anime is
my channel's main focus my most popular
and probably best video about the series
why Sao is a terrible game to came about
mainly because I'm sick and tired of
media in general that misrepresents the
development process and the art of game
design and fails to understand what
makes games fun
I could have torn apart say the fake
video games that we see in the terrible
stoner comedy Grandma's Boy or even
accel world which now that I mention it
but Sao just see
like the best fit for that discussion
both because Reki Kawahara slapdash
approach to writing gave me a lot to
work with and because I was already very
familiar with the show's world and lore
and just because of the two previous
videos that I'd made about the series
although that did help this is the other
reason that I'm so enthusiastic about
analyzing and criticizing Sao before I
hated the series I really loved it I was
watching it week to week as it aired and
I went through the same emotional arc as
almost everyone else who did so I was
getting hyped for every subsequent fight
in hein cred and I got a little bored
going into Alfheim and then I was
absolutely disgusted by the last few
episodes I also came back for death gun
hoping it could recapture the magic and
I was at least half engaged throughout
that arc although I was also actively
making fun of the constant ass shots and
dramatically important moments and then
I found myself disgusted again straight
up dropping the series when they decided
to cap it off with more of the same
[ __ ] from Alfheim when I got to it
later I somewhat enjoyed mother's
Rosario but the damage was done then all
I could see in the show was its flaws
and while for a long time I was just
content to let it be a bad thing that I
watched and forgot about when thinking
about anime became my full-time job it
started tugging at the back of my mind
again I needed to understand everything
this show did wrong how it fumbled all
the great ideas and themes inherent to
its premise and why it went from good to
mediocre to offensively awful in the
span of one season we can learn a lot
about narrative structure emotional
beats writing direction and well
everything that goes into telling a
story from any media good or bad but as
is the case with real life I think you
can learn more from the failures than
you can from successes figuring out the
cause of a mistake doesn't just tell us
what went wrong it highlights what could
have gone right and validates
storytelling decisions that do work in
other media and it helps us understand
our own thought processes as well what
affects us emotionally what it takes to
get us invested in a world or group of
characters and what small or big things
can break that investment shatter our
suspension of disbelief or just make a
show feel boring and predictable and I
think that's where the massive
interest in discussion and criticism of
sao comes from i think a lot of people
are disappointed with the show and sure
they want to have their opinions
validated they want to laugh at some guy
getting unreasonably angry about a
cartoon and being overly sarcastic and
mean toward it all of the things that
make angry reviews of films and games
entertaining absolutely apply here
outrage is funny and it's nice to have
more ways of hitting your favorite
punching bag but i think you guys are
also here because you want to understand
why sao felt like such a colossal
letdown why you hate it so much now and
maybe why you enjoyed it so much when
you first started watching it and how it
could have been done better especially
if it was one of your gateway anime if
that's the case then it's naturally
going to color how you view everything
else that you watch now and thus it's
going to be consistently relevant for
you whether you like it or not there are
a lot of things about sao that make it
such a fascinating discussion topic and
i think there are a lot of things left
to be said about it which is good
because the new sao spin-off is almost
upon us and for that matter so is tax
season book walker is the place to get
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read their books use super
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out on any of the detail in the artwork
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I find myself reading book Walker on my
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heading for a con and it makes the hours
just fly by no pun intended if none of
the sales that I mentioned today
interest you you can still use the promo
code basement to get a 600 yen discount
on any of the hundreds of light novel
and manga volumes on their store if
you're looking for manga recommendations
I highly suggest picking up ghost in the
shell' erased maiden abyss or delicious
and dungeon and as for light novels I
really enjoyed the combat Baker in
otamatone waitress spice and wolf kono
supa and overlord as well as the manga
version of Sao alternative gun Gale
online a new Sao spin-off written by the
creator of quino's journey that's
actually really good and has an anime
coming next season I will probably have
at least a few things to say about that
when the time comes
so subscribe the mother's base
to make sure you catch that when it
comes out while you're waiting for that
though head on down to the comments and
tell me
well actually tell me why you're here
what makes you interested in hearing
more about Sao and if you're not
interested in hearing more about Sao
well now I really want to know why
you're here and lastly if you want to
support me further consider pledging to
my patreon at patreon.com slash mother's
basement these beautiful human beings
have already done just that and don't
you want to be beautiful too just like
them if you're not sick of hearing my
voice talk about Sao yet click here for
my breakdown of how the story of Alfa
online could have been drastically
improved or for something completely
different click here for a handy old PSA
that will teach you how to survive if
you ever become the protagonist of a
harem anime
I'm Jeff through professional shitbags
signing out from my mother's basement