When you think of Sword Art Online the Marvel movies may not come to mind but
there's actually a connection with Ordinal Scale. You got to see Eiji showing
off his power suit and kicking some ass. Part of this was due to the help from
his upgraded Augma, which allowed him to see the prediction movement of someone
in real time. Totally unfair! The inspiration from this came from the man
himself, Tony Stark and his Iron Man suit.
Specifically this was referencing the prediction lines you saw in Captain
America Civil War. Tony had to rely on this after getting an ass whopping by
Captain America. You can bet that the guys over there at the A1 studio
must be on Team Iron Man. Another surprise reference in SAO Ordinal
Scale is actually to Digimon Adventure. The scene I'm talking about happens
towards the end when Kirito has gone into full god mode with his new overpowered
sword. This scene is supposed to parallel Omnimon from the Our War Game movie.
Omnimon goes ahead and unleashes its omni sword. It obliterates a ton of
Diaboromon clones. It's pretty easy to see the parallel with Kirito one shotting those
floor raid bosses.
One of the biggest changes with SAO Ordinal Scale was a sudden shift from
virtual reality into augmented reality. It almost felt like taking a step
backwards. There was this question during production about whether the audience
will be able to fully connect with AR. The author Reki mentioned how he was so
glad that Pokemon GO had just exploded in popularity before the release of
Ordinal Scale. This turned out to be a blessing because practically everyone
was able to relate instantly. There was even a familiar scene of people meeting
up at parks. This may remind you of early Pokemon GO gatherings. Another key
component to AR was the switch from the AmuSphere over to the new Augma
device. The director mentioned how they even got someone from Sony to help
design it. They hope that the design of it will be small enough to take with you
without a second thought. It was also not supposed to look super
futuristic. It actually makes for an interesting look for an early version of
the Neuro-linker from Accel World.
You were lucky enough to get a steamy bath scene from Asuna on the latest
SAO movie but before the movie was officially released on blu-ray there was
a little bit of an uproar online. The director mentioned in an interview about
a possible upgrade at bath for the blu-ray release. You will be able to see
a fully natural not safe for work Asuna on the home version. Some question
whether this was just a tease to get people to buy the movie. Fast forward
sometime later the blu-ray is out. It turns out that you can see a little
something extra in the blu-ray so called "upgraded scene". If you're interested
I'm sure you can find this online or just buy the movie. It goes by so quickly
honestly if I didn't mention it here you may not have noticed. Something else may
have caught your attention!
The SAO author Reki wanted to go with an AR diva for this SAO movie. This led to the
birth of the character Yuna. Yuna actually had several designs before the
final one was chosen. One of the early ones is the one you see on screen but
they also mention of a more complex version before the final one was chosen.
The character you know was given life to by the voiced actress Sayaka Kanda.
Sayaka normally doesn't do anime work and in fact Yuna is one of her first
major roles but he definitely know one of her Disney works, and that is Anna from
Frozen! This was definitely a great pick for a
character that had to sing. As for Eiji, he's voiced by Yoshio Inoue. Yoshio is
similar to Yuna's voice actress, this really is his only anime role ever. He's
mainly a Japanese actor. One interesting thing about Eiji is that he originally did
not exist, I'm talking about the first draft of the Ordinal Scale movie. He
didn't have Eiji at all. The director Itou
thought that there wasn't much of an antagonist in the story for the SAO cast
to fight. This eventually led to the creation of Eiji by Reki.
Japan sure loves their anime themed cafes and SAO is no exception! During the
release of the movie in theaters up until the blu-ray release there's been
quite a few SAO Ordinal Scale themed cafes in Japan. One of the early ones
offer food from scenes in the movie such as that pasta that Kirito was making when
he was talking to Asuna. It even includes an Asuna sandwich complete with
her face on it! I got a chance to try this out and the sandwich was definitely
the best part. I only felt a little bad munching on Asuna. There was also special
Yuna plate. This include her a special mascot as a yummy burger. The best one
out of all of these had to be this dessert. It recreated the scene where Yui
appeared with Leafa at the very end. It came complete with two scoops of melon
ice cream! Unfortunately for me I didn't get to try this one out.
SAO Ordinal Scale was truly a spectacle for any fan of the SAO series. It
included the all-star cast featuring pretty much everyone that appeared
throughout the series. Even Klein and Agil ended up getting a good chunk of screen
time. Unfortunately one character was not so fortunate. With such a giant cast
someone was gonna take a hit. It ended up being Kirito's beloved sister Suguha,
aka Leafa. As soon as you saw Leafa leaving for boot camp you instantly
knew she had been the one chosen to be the one cut out. There actually has been
an official reason for this, and just to be fair it might have been said jokingly,
but it was mentioned that Leafa got left out of this adventure because she would
pretty much kick everyone's ass in augmented reality. You know that Leafa
excels in her physical abilities in the real world so she put an end there
kicking Eiji's ass. I do wonder about that. Would that have still been the case when
you factor in Eiji's enhancement suit? It is also interesting to notice that Suguha
was featured a lot in the early advertising campaign. Perhaps this was
around the time before Eiji's character came into existence.
SAO Ordinal Scale took place in Tokyo so you got a chance to see a lot of
real-world locations. You may have even noticed some other brands in the movie
in like Sony or Lawson. Lawson by the way is a popular convenience store in Japan
similar to 7-eleven. They're everywhere! But did you know? A couple of the items
from the movie were actually turned into real products. Two of these included the
red headphones we saw Asuna wearing near the start. You later saw Kirito
wearing some light grayish version. It turns out that Sony actually
released these alongside with the movie release. They were a very limited item so
unsurprisingly they sold out super quickly. You may have also noticed that
the ring that Kirito gave Asuna looks a lot like Yui's crystal from the old SAO.
It turns out that even this ring was made into a reality. A very limited
quantity were made but you were able to purchase Asuna's ring when Ordinal
Scale got released. There was a complete gold one and a gold-plated version. I
actually have a friend that managed to get her hands on a set. Definitely super
lucky!
Ordinal Scale introduced to you three characters who forever had their lives
changed by this death game. The movie give you glimpses of the Yuna's story
from her father and Eiji's flashback but what exactly was a full story? The
details about them were released in a Side Story, Hopeful Chant. One year after
the death game had begun, Eiji was part of the KoB guild. He
was a friendly new member that hadn't yet fought a floor raid boss with the
guild. Unfortunately for him during the fight with the mid boss it was revealed
that Eiji had a certain condition. The movie makes it seem like he was afraid,
or perhaps a coward, and maybe he was but there was more to it. He actually
suffered from a condition that was a flaw in Nerve Gear connection to the
user's brain. In extreme cases this affected the user's ability to dive into
SAO. For Eiji this simply boiled down to his instincts being in conflict with his
reasoning. The conflict in commands being sent simultaneously ultimately prevented
his character from moving at all. Unfortunately he was unable to overcome
this issue to help him or Yuna.
Now for Yuna's story. Unlike Asuna, Yuna herself was not much of a fighter within
SAO. Before SAO started Yuna and Eiji had been childhood friends. Eiji always had a
crush on Yuna. He thought that he'd be able to confess to her within the
virtual world. This was why he invited Yuna to play SAO. After getting trapped
inside Eiji promised that he would do anything to protect her. Fast forward
some time later with SAO, Yuna stayed back on the lower floors and for some
time she had been living with Eiji. She eventually lived solo when Eiji joined the
KoB guild. The unique thing to notice about Yuna was her love of singing. This
eventually blossomed into what was known as an extra skill. Yuna's singing gave
anyone who listened to it a special defense buff, perhaps the first of its
kind. One day while Yuna and Eiji were in town a
player ran towards him asking for some help.
Apparently his friends got locked up by one of the area traps. Even though Yuna
was not a fighter she quickly jumped in to help. Of course
Eiji followed. While they were trying to rescue the group they themselves got
captured in the prison trap. The inexperienced Eiji in the group found
themselves fighting endlessly. There were unlimited minions flooding inside the
cage and on top of that there was a few boss that they needed to take care of
too. Everything was going well up until the point where the boss's HP reached
red. It then suddenly launched a wide attack that paralyzed
everyone except Yuna. Yuna tried her best to help out, she ran away in hopes of
luring all the monsters towards her away from the group. As Yuna was running away
she started singing to give everyone a buff, and from this moment every SAO
player would remember this moment because here they found out that casting
a buff immediately turns every monster to target you. Eiji tried to jump in and save
her but his condition suddenly kicked in. It was then that Eiji had a front row to
his worst nightmare. He saw Yuna shatter into a thousand
digital fragments.
SAO Ordinal Scale did an excellent job building on everything the series has
set up before it. Of course the cherry on top for all of this was that final boss
fight. Oh you thought the main course was over?
Here's another serving! This raid battle took place at the Ruby Palace.
It showed Kirito and friends struggling verses the final boss, An Incarnation
of the Radius. This by the way is shortened to Aincrad. The final boss
was freakin Aincrad itself! This is also why SAO was programmed to destroy itself
once it got defeated. To escape the death game you literally had to kill the
Aincrad system. Unfortunately this also meant farewell to the revived White Yuna.
But get this, you may have noticed Yuna's little mascot. Do you notice anything
weird? Yuna had been revived through the Aincrad
system, hence she was always carrying this small version of the final boss. They
called this Ain-chan. With the destruction of Aincrad everything was reset
including the new Yuna, but back to the super ultimate final boss. Could you
really imagine anyone beating this thing? I mean how the hell were the trap players
supposed to kill it? Did anyone really stand a chance?
And it seems like Kayaba didn't think so either. The Incarnation of the Radius
was a true boss created by the Argus company. If you recall back to SAO Season
one Kayaba had revealed that he would replace the
final boss with himself. Back when Kayaba was making some changes to SAO he
took one look at this behemoth boss, then he said, like hell anyone could beat this
thing! So even for him it was way too much. It is true that Asuna, Kirito,
and everyone else were able to kill it but if they require players to use magic,
guns, flight, they were pretty much cheating or at the very least that final
boss got a handicap. Now try to imagine a true raid fight against this beast with
all of the old limitations. It would have easily cost most of the Raiders their
lives. Perhaps Kayaba had been a little bit
merciful by switching the boss out with himself, or who knows? Maybe after
defeating this thing Kayaba would have been the extra boss but what do you
think? Just something to wonder about! Hey thank
you for watching and a huge thank you for helping me reach 100k subscribers!
Pretty awesome, so I have two big announcements!
I have now officially open a Patreon. I've had a lot of people ask me about
this for a while and now it's finally up. If you enjoyed the videos I put out
definitely check that out, especially if you want to get more
involved in future videos! Help me take this channel to the next level. And
either way thank you for the continued support! Second thing, the crunchyroll
giveaway is back! Today's question of the day, who is your favorite SAO character?
Did they get a badass scene in the Ordinal Scale movie? Just subscribe and
comment down below to join the giveaway and I'll see you guys later!