Sword Art Online ordinal scale! Here's my
full non-spoiler review on the SAO movie!
I was fortunate enough to see it early in
japan in a private screening. Afterwards
I even got a chance to visit the A1 studio
where they made the movie. But anyway
like I said this is completely non
stolen. I do plan to have a spoiler video
but that will be sometime later on. Let's
go ahead and get started!
The Ordinal Scale story. Sword Art Online
Ordinal Scale takes place sometime
after the Mother's Rosario Arc. This
time our favorite characters are
tackling augmented reality. It's quite a
change from VR. I'm sure you've seen the
Augma device in all the promos and
trailers. If you're someone that got a
chance to play Pokemon GO this movie is
going to feel much more relatable.
Throughout the movie there's just a lot
of pre battle scenes where there's a lot
of people gathering. It just made me
think back to Pokemon GO when i was
going to the park for PokeStops and seeing
a ton of other people gathering there too.
This time around the actual game that
everyone is playing is called Ordinal
Scale or simply OS. Much like
Pokemon GO players are using their AR
device to play the game. Everyone
eventually gathers in a specific spot
around the city for the upcoming Raid
Boss Event. I'd imagine Pokemon
GO will eventually do this for
legendary Digimon, oops!
I mean legendary Pokemon. Anyway one of
the major things that intrigue everyone
about SAO was the death game aspect. Once
your HP goes to zero you're officially done
in both worlds. In GGO the possibility of
dying in a game was brought back in a way.
As for Ordinal Scale they're quick
to remind us that just because you're
not in a death game it doesn't mean you're
completely safe. Every single one of us
is mortal and often pretty vulnerable.
If someone wanted to badly enough they could easily
shoot you or stabbing. This SAO movie
gives us a very fresh reminder of this
early on. It's actually funny if you think
about how something should be so obvious.
After all every single one of us has a
number it's just something we don't
actively think about. What this boils
down to is that the stakes are raised
for our beloved characters again!
Asuna and Kirito. SAO Ordinal Scale helps
to remind us that SAO is a story
centered around these two Kirito and Asuna.
The trailers and promos have been
screaming it out a lot! Ordinal Scale
includes a huge focus on building
Asuna and Kirito's relationship. If
you're someone that's rooting for this
couple
you're gonna love this movie that much
more! Personally I've always been a fan
of Asuna and i just wish we had
gotten more of her in the first SAO season.
That might be why that after seeing the
Mother's Rosario arc that was heavily focused
on Asuna, it just became one of my
favorite Arcs. This whole movie feels
like it transitions seamlessly from the
end of Mother's Rosario Arc into it. If
anything there's more of a focus of on Asuna in
this movie then of Kirito. And YES! Asuna
kicks some major ass in this. By far my favorite
scene in the movie is Asuna being
a badass in one particular fight scene.
Asuna's voice actress Haruka also
told us that this particular scene was her
favorite too! The new Ordinal Scale
characters. Ordinal Scale introduces us to
three new characters. They're the ones
highlighted in every trailer! There's Yuna,
Eiji and Augma scientist Dr. Shigemura.
All of these are individuals who
directly or indirectly have had their
lives changed forever by the SAO death
game. I think the movie does a good
enough job fleshing these guys out in
the to hour time period. At the end of this movie I
was definitely getting emotional over
one of these characters. Without getting
into spoiler territory the movie does
me curious for find out the backstory of
Yuna and Eiji. Lucky enough a side
novel for them has just been announced
so definitely look forward to that! The
animation. SAO Ordinal Scale is the movie
for no surprise that is just have
beautiful animation. It's notably higher
quality especially compared to the TV SAO
Anime. I know some of the guys are going
to be re-watching the SAO anime before
seeing the movie. For those that do
the difference in animation with
this movie is just going to stand out
that much more for you. The best
animation for this will comes during
the different battle scenes and there's quite a
few of them. I definitely can't wait for
this movie to be really physical just
like to see some of these scenes frame by frame.
Specifically I'm thinking about the
final battle scene! The studio seriously
went all out for it. You literally
cannot blink you or might miss
something. The sound and music. Whether
you love SAO or love to hate it, you
definitely can't deny that this anime has
one of the best soundtracks. With this
movie we have the return of Yuki
Kajiura. Whe's back to produce even
more amazing music for this movie.
Besides the movie score there's just the sound
for everything else going on. When you
hear this in theater it just highlights it
that much more. The movie does have a
ton of raid battle scenes. This means a lot
of swords and metal striking each other.
I'll just say that you could really
feel all that metal clashing. The movie
also features LiSA's new song catch
the moment. I can't say that i fell in
love with the song at first but after
seeing LiSA perform it live I definitely
became a fan of it. A couple of dislikes
/ Nitpicks. After seeing this movie twice i was
trying really hard to think of anything
that bothered me or that I didn't like. I'm
not even sure I'd call these nitpicks but
it did come up with 3. One: the animation
shifts.
Alright so one of my huge positive was
the gorgeous animation scenes. As a bit of
disclaimer I do think i'm more likely to
notice with animation stuff since I do
run this channel. Part of this involves
editing video down to single frame. So
throughout the movie in some of the more
quieter scene I did notice a
difference in animation. It looked more
along the lines of what we got into TV
anime, which honestly isn't necessarily a
bad thing. It was just more noticeable
comparable to what we got in action scenes and that's
really just because in the action scenes
they go all out! That being said, let me
also mention this in my second viewing
of the movie I didn't notice this almost
at all. That might have been because I
saw it in a bigger screen. So depending
on the size of the screen you see this
in it stand out a little or not at all.
Number two: So many characters. At this
point the cast of SAO has gotten pretty
huge.
There's just so many wonderful character!
So there is a question about how they
would split the screen time between them.
I think it's easy to guess for a simple
way to deal with this. Very early on in the
movie they do find a way to
remove one of these characters. I could totally
understand a choice for this but for
anyone that's watching who's a big fan of this
character you'll definitely be
disappointed when she leave. Number
Three: the AR Augma device. From the
very beginning I was never really a fan
of the way that this thing look like. I
think I got used to the design over time.
Even now i can't say that i love it but
I don't necessarily dislike it either.
It's just whatever the director of this
movie did explain to us how they came up
with a look first they even got someone
from Sony to help design it practically
it makes a lot of sense there's really
two defining features for it
one it's not supposed to be super
futuristic and secondly the device is
supposed to be small enough so anyone
scary without a second thought
in other words very lightweight perhaps
the Augma device was also inspired by
the device used in Accel world.
The director simply said he didn't
know when we asked him about this.
The post-credits scene. They do go ahead
and include a post-credits scene
Avengers style. I might do a separate video
on this let me quickly touch on the
post-credits scene. At this point it's
not really a spoiler. It says in big
English writing "SAO Will Return".
So freaking awesome
SAO season three is coming eventually . . .
That's a big question when exactly?
I will say that SAO Ordinal Scale does
serve as a bridge between the second
season and whenever this SAO sequel
comes out. After seeing the movie I
did get a chance to visit A1 studio
and the topic of season three did come
up. The director and some other staff there
were quick to say no comment.
So take that as you will. You can start
taking bets on the season 3 will be
released. My overall thoughts and
recommendation.
Honestly I was scared going into this
movie. There's been all this
masterbuilder first especially as a huge
fan of the series it was pretty hard
enough to have some huge expectation
sport even when I was in the theater I
kept thinking to myself there's no way
the movies going to live up to all the
hype.
So far I've been able to see Ordinal
Scale twice.
The first in private
screening and the second was in some
random theater in Japan. I could
honestly say this. I simply enjoyed every
minute of it. In the movie there's a
total of three action scenes along with
a few other spread in between. They
really did an excellent job in the
pacing. There's never a dull moment in
the movie. It's funny because this movie
actually gave me a couple things that I
didn't even know that I wanted to see.
Definitely a shoutout to the final action
scene in the movie. There's also this
mystery element that comes in to keep
the viewers guessing. It just made me wonder
and think about this movie, how this
could have worked as a short 6 to 7 episode
story. So in all SAO Ordinal Scale helps
to tie everything that's led up to it
from season one and season two.
It put a nice bow at the very top. If they
wanted to they could choose to close the
book on SAO now and be done with it.
This. movie would be the perfect ending.
As you guys know the SAO sequel has
been confirmed with this movie so
thankfully it's not over just yet. So
should you see this movie? If you're a
huge SAO fan or even a casual fan of the
series I would highly suggest checking
this out in theaters if you get a chance
especially if the movie is playing close to
you. I already want to see it again but
unfortunately the closest theater is two
to three hours away. Now if you aren't a
fan of the SAO series i'm not even sure
why you're still watching.
oh and for those that are fans of the
SAO abridged series whether you like or
dislike SAO there's definitely some
material this movie that people will
latch onto. If you made it this far
please be sure to give a thumbs up to
the video! Especially you're an SAO fan!
Let me know how you felt about this
SAO ordinal scale movie.
Which scene was your most favorite? If
you do want to talk spoilers
just be sure to mark them. I do plan to
do a spoiler video for this movie but
that's gonna have to wait until it
gets a worldwide release and i'm not talking
about the theater release! Anyway
definitely be sure to subscribe if you
enjoyed this video. There's a lot more
anime reviews and anime video
coming and i'll see you guys later