Toonami Shifting To Midnight And Chopping A Half-Hour Off on April 18th

[ben0119]

On 4/8/2020 at 10:37 PM, HardcoreHunter said:

I guess I see more humor in it that helps lighten the tone myself than it being something that breaks the show. SAO though I said in the episode thread I think the Mangka had a very limited understanding of how to write villains. It's like not enough for them to already be doing a lot of evil shit, but they also have to be rapists/molesters to drive it home. It kinda loses it's impact and becomes repetitive by the 5th rapist/molester. To be fair though I guess he did end up making that Pontifiex a rapist/molester as well, at which point she was molested to death by that dwarf. Though I do watch SAO for the same reason I watch bad C list horror films. Just everything is done badly but it becomes entertaining in how bad it is like a train wreck. The only odd thing though is that some people actually enjoy SAO Unironically.  It would be like someone came up and told you that Plan 9 from Otter Space is their favorite film...What? I mean how many anime introduce a Character that has AIDS for no other reason than it's the only way for them to kill a character off that season since you can't die in the game anymore. 

Addressed this in my other post.  Yeah, as mentioned, it was a way to get cheap heel heat for the villains.  SAO wouldn't be as popular and successful as it is, if it was mostly just people watching it in MST3K-style fashion.  Well, Yuuki and all her friends all had debilitating diseases.  It wasn't done because they needed to someone to die because they can't be killed in the game.  Those characters were in such poor health, that they were bedridden, and really got a lot out of playing these VRMMO games since they could walk just fine and do whatever they want in these games etc etc.  It was meant to show the good the games could do.  You know how we always hear about all those programs for sick kids and people in hospitals.  Yuuki is such a likable character, too.  And, there have been in-game funerals for players in real life.  I dunno,' I thought it was one of the best arcs of the show and thought Asuna and Yuuki were great in it.

[HardcoreHunter]

58 minutes ago, ben0119 said:

Addressed this in my other post.  Yeah, as mentioned, it was a way to get cheap heel heat for the villains.  SAO wouldn't be as popular and successful as it is, if it was mostly just people watching it in MST3K-style fashion.  Well, Yuuki and all her friends all had debilitating diseases.  It wasn't done because they needed to someone to die because they can't be killed in the game.  Those characters were in such poor health, that they were bedridden, and really got a lot out of playing these VRMMO games since they could walk just fine and do whatever they want in these games etc etc.  It was meant to show the good the games could do.  You know how we always hear about all those programs for sick kids and people in hospitals.  Yuuki is such a likable character, too.  And, there have been in-game funerals for players in real life.  I dunno,' I thought it was one of the best arcs of the show and thought Asuna and Yuuki were great in it.

I always thought of it as an out of nowhere arc that was kinda ham-fisted in how it was handled. Like here is female AIDS Kirito marry sue that everyone instantly likes. It's really what makes SAO such good MST3K material. You can tell that they're 100% being serious with how they're trying to present drama. However it's put in so haphazardly that You can't help but find humor in it. It's like when Kirito had a really bad day back in SAO and his guild all died. He goes back and tells the last surviving member what happened. Then the guy just adds the cherry on top by jumping into the void right after Kirito tells him the news. People writing a dark comedy couldn't hope to write more apt comedic timing of just upping what else worse could happen in a day. Then I think the next episode they were fighting a fucking evil Santa snowman event. It's a level of emotional whiplash that is so horribly paced, that it only works for the sake of comedy by missing the original intention.

A lot of this I think is because whoever was in charge of adapting the LN really sucked at their job. Season 1 we skipped like 98% of the story and only focused on a few footnotes with no regard for things like character development, setting, mood, and plot progression.  Season 2 once again tires to insert as much things as quickly as possible. We skip over a lot of the stuff the stuff they have to go through in the real world that would make you feel for the characters. Like how they are treated differently in the real world, and are still being experimented on and monitored by the govt. How their social lives have changed, and the ptsd that many of the students have and can't adapt back to normal school life. So then when it gets dropped that the characters are actually being bothered by things like this out of the blue, when they've been playing Kirito's harem the whole time, makes it just feel out of the blue. Hell I had half forgotten that Kirito was even stabbed by a laughing coffin guy which is why he's in a coma and sent to this world, because they just treated it as a plot device, rather than laughing coffin still being a problem.  

 Then in this arc we have a cartoonish villainous group, who's motives feel pointless. I mean we already had drama in the series. It's established that the AI are like Yui and the morality of using them as drones for war in real life is drama enough, or just having the dark territory invading as that was supposedly set to happen anyway after the death of the Pontifex. We didn't need to add some guys who were part of laughing coffin and one guy who murdered a girl when he was a kid an has a boner over the idea of a soul. It's just over the top now and the story now enters dark comedy realms with how over the top it is.  It's almost like they realized that maybe the govt doing something morally grey made Japan look bad, so they had to insert an over the top american antagonist for absolutely no reason. Maybe it makes more sense in the LN, but in the anime once again it's just thrown in there with abandon to the pacing. 

[Jman]

Fairy Dance always reminds me of that one clip from Walker Texas Ranger Conan O Brien made fun of.

 

[Distinct Lunatic]

meh, I haven't watched Toonami in at least 3 years, possibly longer. And I haven't watched cable tv in at least 2 years.

here I am now with my new house, and the only thing I have is internet cause fuck cable. everything I ever want to watch can be obtained through anime download sites or through thepiratebay.

[PokeNirvash]

52 minutes ago, Jman said:

Fairy Dance always reminds me of that one clip from Walker Texas Ranger Conan O Brien made fun of.

 

Wrong arc, but that video is hilarious.

[Daos]

Yeah you're thinking of cour 2 of S2. Fairy Dance is cour 2 S1.

 

[Jman]

50 minutes ago, Daos said:

Yeah you're thinking of cour 2 of S2. Fairy Dance is cour 2 S1.

 

Fair enough.  But whenever I think of SAO tackling AIDS, that clip will come to mind.

[PokeNirvash]

Also this.

As if the infamous masturbation scene wasn't traumatizing enough.

[EmpressAngel]

Okay so here's the question I've had about this entire arc in SAO. So this Wrath company spent years of development and untold amounts of money to creating this elaborate video game system as a means of creating their perfect AI...but why was that even necessary? Yui's existed for years in-universe as a fully realized AI capable of free will and autonomous thought, and has also shown to be completely devoted to its owners in a way that Alice probably isn't capable of. The thing at the center of this conflict already exists elsewhere, and nobody ever says "Hey, that sure sounds a lot like their weird virtual daughter." The crazy guy didn't program the entire game on his own, somewhere there have to be some programming notes that go into detail about how to make their own version of exactly what they're fighting over.

[Daos]

If we're asking questions....

Why are they going through all this effort to acquire an AI that has free will just to stick it in a drone?

The great thing about robots is they do what they're told. You stick an AI in there and now you have a drone that can decide it doesn't feel like following orders?

I don't think they thought this through.

[mochi]

On 4/8/2020 at 11:45 AM, Sketch said:

Yeah but he probably draws the line with “positive” slavery and false rape accusations from a woman being two major parts of a series.

I'd argue SAO has WORSE racism and rape content in it than Shield Hero

'm not making excuses for Shield hero but like.....they show graphic ACTUAL rape scenes like 3 times per arc of SAO and literally are claiming all Americans are a race of all-white bloodthirsty rapist murderers right now >_>

[PokeNirvash]

4 hours ago, mochi said:

they show graphic BORDERLINE rape scenes like 3 times per arc of SAO

Fixed. It technically isn't rape unless there's penetration. Even the one they cut down for the Toonami broadcast was molestation at worst. And I'm not even gonna get into how inaccurate that numerical measure is.

[mochi]

fun side note, I may not be able to watch Toonami anymore since Comcast appears to have, again, relocated Cartoon network to a different cable package without telling anybody >_>

[The1gairon]

56 minutes ago, mochi said:

fun side note, I may not be able to watch Toonami anymore since Comcast appears to have, again, relocated Cartoon network to a different cable package without telling anybody >_>

Why? It's not like Cartoon Network is a small, obscure foreign network from like Malaysia.

[PokeNirvash]

Might I suggest switching to Spectrum?

[The1gairon]

If you have internet, get sling.tv!

[ben0119]

On 4/12/2020 at 6:27 AM, HardcoreHunter said:

I always thought of it as an out of nowhere arc that was kinda ham-fisted in how it was handled. Like here is female AIDS Kirito marry sue that everyone instantly likes. It's really what makes SAO such good MST3K material. You can tell that they're 100% being serious with how they're trying to present drama. However it's put in so haphazardly that You can't help but find humor in it. It's like when Kirito had a really bad day back in SAO and his guild all died. He goes back and tells the last surviving member what happened. Then the guy just adds the cherry on top by jumping into the void right after Kirito tells him the news. People writing a dark comedy couldn't hope to write more apt comedic timing of just upping what else worse could happen in a day. Then I think the next episode they were fighting a fucking evil Santa snowman event. It's a level of emotional whiplash that is so horribly paced, that it only works for the sake of comedy by missing the original intention.

A lot of this I think is because whoever was in charge of adapting the LN really sucked at their job. Season 1 we skipped like 98% of the story and only focused on a few footnotes with no regard for things like character development, setting, mood, and plot progression.  Season 2 once again tires to insert as much things as quickly as possible. We skip over a lot of the stuff the stuff they have to go through in the real world that would make you feel for the characters. Like how they are treated differently in the real world, and are still being experimented on and monitored by the govt. How their social lives have changed, and the ptsd that many of the students have and can't adapt back to normal school life. So then when it gets dropped that the characters are actually being bothered by things like this out of the blue, when they've been playing Kirito's harem the whole time, makes it just feel out of the blue. Hell I had half forgotten that Kirito was even stabbed by a laughing coffin guy which is why he's in a coma and sent to this world, because they just treated it as a plot device, rather than laughing coffin still being a problem.  

 Then in this arc we have a cartoonish villainous group, who's motives feel pointless. I mean we already had drama in the series. It's established that the AI are like Yui and the morality of using them as drones for war in real life is drama enough, or just having the dark territory invading as that was supposedly set to happen anyway after the death of the Pontifex. We didn't need to add some guys who were part of laughing coffin and one guy who murdered a girl when he was a kid an has a boner over the idea of a soul. It's just over the top now and the story now enters dark comedy realms with how over the top it is.  It's almost like they realized that maybe the govt doing something morally grey made Japan look bad, so they had to insert an over the top american antagonist for absolutely no reason. Maybe it makes more sense in the LN, but in the anime once again it's just thrown in there with abandon to the pacing. 

Yuuki isn't a Mary Sue since she is bedridden and has nothing better to do than play videogames.  They even said that in the show, that that's how she got so good.  They compared to them being trapped in SAO.  The fight against the evil Santa boss was to get an item that will revive someone that has died in the game.  Kirito gets it so he can revive Sachi, but it turns out you have to use it right after the person dies.  And there was also the message from Sacchi, which I thought was touching.

Do you mean season 3?  I haven't read the books yet.  I've been meaning to.  But I've heard they are better than the anime, which does cut out some things, but I don't know if it's "98% of the story."  I do know some people were complaining about the pacing in Alicization, but stuff was actually cut, not added for padding!  Unless things were cut and then padded elsewhere.  If the stuff about the characters having to go to special schools and be monitored by the government was mentioned a lot more throughout the series, that makes more sense than having it suddenly come up at the end of this last arc.

Yeah well Kikuoka and Higa's group were already set up as villains, but then these spy guys working for the NSA came in as the even badder guys, heh.

[ben0119]

On 4/14/2020 at 11:34 PM, EmpressAngel said:

Okay so here's the question I've had about this entire arc in SAO. So this Wrath company spent years of development and untold amounts of money to creating this elaborate video game system as a means of creating their perfect AI...but why was that even necessary? Yui's existed for years in-universe as a fully realized AI capable of free will and autonomous thought, and has also shown to be completely devoted to its owners in a way that Alice probably isn't capable of. The thing at the center of this conflict already exists elsewhere, and nobody ever says "Hey, that sure sounds a lot like their weird virtual daughter." The crazy guy didn't program the entire game on his own, somewhere there have to be some programming notes that go into detail about how to make their own version of exactly what they're fighting over.

Are you talking about the SEED dev kit thingy that Kayaba gave to Kirito to release so people could make VRMMO games based off SAO's engine?  I don't think it had the instructions for how to make Yui with it.  I think the government doesn't know about Yui.  Does anybody remember if Kikuoka shared any scenes with Yui when he was in the games as his elf character in season 2?

[ben0119]

23 hours ago, Daos said:

If we're asking questions....

Why are they going through all this effort to acquire an AI that has free will just to stick it in a drone?

The great thing about robots is they do what they're told. You stick an AI in there and now you have a drone that can decide it doesn't feel like following orders?

I don't think they thought this through.

It was more that they wanted AI that was willing to kill, I think?  That limiter was put in there by an INSIDE MAN, it was just revealed (or Asuna theorized) not one of the Rath people.  Remember that Kikuoka was annoyed that the people in the world were too nice and there wasn't any law-breaking or so much as littering going on.  And that happened because of the Pontifex and the Axiom Church creating that Taboo Index, which used the eye thingy.  I thought the Pontifex made that but it's in the Dark Territory people too and apparently put in by someone working against Rath secretly.  So, this would be a really advanced form of an AI that they created, presumably better to use in automated warfare.  Presumably they would have some way of forcing them to follow orders if they put them into a machine.

[ben0119]

23 hours ago, mochi said:

I'd argue SAO has WORSE racism and rape content in it than Shield Hero

'm not making excuses for Shield hero but like.....they show graphic ACTUAL rape scenes like 3 times per arc of SAO and literally are claiming all Americans are a race of all-white bloodthirsty rapist murderers right now >_>

There is no racism in the show.

Well, attempted rape, and it's not nearly that many.  I'd say the only ones that really count were Sugo with Asuna in Fairy Dance, and this last one in Alicization.  I don't think tentacle monsters should count, or at least, I don't think it's as serious as having a human do it.  And I don't think Shinkawa was trying to rape Sinon in that scene.  Funny enough, the first arc actually didn't have any rape.  If the show could have just stayed like that...

How was that ever claimed?  I saw the part with the American gamers more as playing up on gamer dudebro stereotypes.  They were told the Underworld was just a mindless hack and slash game so that's who signed up.  There was even a big shut-in fat guy all hyped about the game!  I thought it was hilarious.  It was even funnier in Japanese since it was all Japanese voice actors speaking horrible English.

[ben0119]

10 hours ago, elfie said:

If you have internet, get sling.tv!

So Mochi can complain about it being on a delay and crapping out every week?

[ben0119]

17 hours ago, mochi said:

fun side note, I may not be able to watch Toonami anymore since Comcast appears to have, again, relocated Cartoon network to a different cable package without telling anybody >_>

Did they put it into a premium package?  Cartoon Network is a basic cable package channel!

[Daos]

35 minutes ago, ben0119 said:

It was more that they wanted AI that was willing to kill, I think?  That limiter was put in there by an INSIDE MAN, it was just revealed (or Asuna theorized) not one of the Rath people.  Remember that Kikuoka was annoyed that the people in the world were too nice and there wasn't any law-breaking or so much as littering going on.  And that happened because of the Pontifex and the Axiom Church creating that Taboo Index, which used the eye thingy.  I thought the Pontifex made that but it's in the Dark Territory people too and apparently put in by someone working against Rath secretly.  So, this would be a really advanced form of an AI that they created, presumably better to use in automated warfare.  Presumably they would have some way of forcing them to follow orders if they put them into a machine.

Yeah but then you have the other question. The people in that world were a bunch of rapey violent aholes. What was the nonsense about them being non violent?

This guy can't write.

[ben0119]

6 minutes ago, Daos said:

Yeah but then you have the other question. The people in that world were a bunch of rapey violent aholes. What was the nonsense about them being non violent?

This guy can't write.

Well, the way it came off was some people were bending the rules.  Like that Volo guy who was finding ways of practicing his sword skills when he was supposed to take the day off, and to have his duel with Kirito.  Also apparently rape was not in the Taboo Index, and Humbert and Raios justified it via their "noble decree."  And it did seem like the nobles were more prone to bending the rules than people like in Eugeo and Alice's village, and Cardinal said the noble line were started by one of the Rath devs who was "unethical."  So the problem is Kikuoka was not paying close enough attention to the world, and was just waiting for a pronounced incident like Alice to happen.  It has already been shown repeatedly that him and Higa are incompetent.

[Daos]

4 minutes ago, ben0119 said:

Well, the way it came off was some people were bending the rules.  Like that Volo guy who was finding ways of practicing his sword skills when he was supposed to take the day off, and to have his duel with Kirito.  Also apparently rape was not in the Taboo Index, and Humbert and Raios justified it via their "noble decree."  And it did seem like the nobles were more prone to bending the rules than people like in Eugeo and Alice's village, and Cardinal said the noble line were started by one of the Rath devs who was "unethical."  So the problem is Kikuoka was not paying close enough attention to the world, and was just waiting for a pronounced incident like Alice to happen.  It has already been shown repeatedly that him and Higa are incompetent.

"As the AIs created by Rath were far too compliant with laws to be used for the military, Rath brought Kazuto into the world with his memories restricted to test why the residents of Underworld were unable to break any laws. "

That was the entire concept for this arc.... and it wasn't really true at all.

[ben0119]

4 minutes ago, Daos said:

"As the AIs created by Rath were far too compliant with laws to be used for the military, Rath brought Kazuto into the world with his memories restricted to test why the residents of Underworld were unable to break any laws. "

That was the entire concept for this arc.... and it wasn't really true at all.

Like I said, all those guys were technically following the law, and didn't outright break any laws.  We've also seen that Kikuoka and Higa don't really pay that close attention to what is going on in the world unless it is something major, with them always getting caught by surprise with things.

[Daos]

2 minutes ago, ben0119 said:

Like I said, all those guys were technically following the law, and didn't outright break any laws.  We've also seen that Kikuoka and Higa don't really pay that close attention to what is going on in the world unless it is something major, with them always getting caught by surprise with things.

They were doing all sorts of messed up shit. They would have done fine if they got stuck in a killbot.

The entire concept of the arc was "These people are a bunch of goody goodies who can't break laws!" We must find out why!"

"All residents of Underworld are generally compliant to any law or rule that they regard as having authority, due to the effects of the Seal of the Right Eye. However, certain individuals, especially nobles, are able to circumvent the restrictions of the laws to satisfy their personal desires"

Basically whoever really felt like it could do whatever.

[HardcoreHunter]

2 hours ago, ben0119 said:

Yuuki isn't a Mary Sue since she is bedridden and has nothing better to do than play videogames.  They even said that in the show, that that's how she got so good.  They compared to them being trapped in SAO.  The fight against the evil Santa boss was to get an item that will revive someone that has died in the game.  Kirito gets it so he can revive Sachi, but it turns out you have to use it right after the person dies.  And there was also the message from Sacchi, which I thought was touching.

Do you mean season 3?  I haven't read the books yet.  I've been meaning to.  But I've heard they are better than the anime, which does cut out some things, but I don't know if it's "98% of the story."  I do know some people were complaining about the pacing in Alicization, but stuff was actually cut, not added for padding!  Unless things were cut and then padded elsewhere.  If the stuff about the characters having to go to special schools and be monitored by the government was mentioned a lot more throughout the series, that makes more sense than having it suddenly come up at the end of this last arc.

Yeah well Kikuoka and Higa's group were already set up as villains, but then these spy guys working for the NSA came in as the even badder guys, heh.

Cut my pointer finger in half the other day and sewn it back together with my non dominant hand. Sorry if I make some typos hurts a little to type with, which is good since it means the nerves are connecting.
Pretty much any character that is just added to a story that everyone instantly likes, and is good at everything is a sue/stu. From what I remember is that her friends and everyone took turns playing that avatar to grind and level it up for her, it wasn't just her, but that's why she gave the avatar so much value because her friends helped with it.  Either way she's just instantly adored by the cast and is on par if not stronger than kirito who is already viewed as a Stu by many. If anything Kirito is more Stu than she is, at least in the anime due to most of his leveling being done off camera. 

As for the santa event, Im not saying that his reason for taking part in it wasn't properly motivated. I was saying that how it was presented was horribly presented and paced. When you're dealing with something like a death and trying to convey death in a serious way. The story shouldn't just delve into a Santa event boss which only results in the confirmation of loss. Trying to present heavy subjects like that comes off as darkly tonedeaf for the viewer to the point that it teeters the line of being comically dark. 
 

As for large chunks of the story missing. It's been an ongoing issue with this series since season 1. If they were to animate all of the Academy arc in Alicization where Kirito has a senpai before he even gets his kohai. We'd be looking at like 30+ episodes of just that. His relationship with his senpai is far more fleshed out than the two episodes she's appeared int he series. Like there are 2 volumes of nothing but Kirito and Eugeo doing nothing but learning about farming and getting hazed by the rape nobles. I think that's like 1 1/2 episodes in the series. Kirito is just like gardening is neat, and they kill his plants before they up their evil game to rape.  For an anime 2 volumes worth of learning about farming and magic control are boring as hell. However from a character development standpoint are great.  Kirito and Eugeo's relationship actually feels more fleshed out in that long span of time. While in the anime he seriously feels like nothing more than an NPC who just tags along. His death really had no impact making Kirito going vegetable feel more overly dramatic considering what he's been through in the past. Namely because they did a piss job of rushing relationships in the anime. Back in season 1 I think they skip the first 20 floors of bosses to the first safe zone. This also skipped a lot of the early interactions with Kirito and Asuna, Kirito taking a lot more shit for being a beta testers all the floor bosses etc.  I think we only see like 4 floor boss battles in the anime, 5 if you count the flashback where we don't even get to see the full battle. So I think it's apt to say that well damn over at least 90% of the story is skipped in the anime and we're mainly watching foot notes. 

[EmpressAngel]

7 hours ago, ben0119 said:

Are you talking about the SEED dev kit thingy that Kayaba gave to Kirito to release so people could make VRMMO games based off SAO's engine?  I don't think it had the instructions for how to make Yui with it.  I think the government doesn't know about Yui.  Does anybody remember if Kikuoka shared any scenes with Yui when he was in the games as his elf character in season 2?

Full disclosure here I am 100% just going off of memory of episodes I watched years ago because I refuse to spend any amount of time fact checking this shit.

Wasn't Yui meant to be an actual in-game feature of Sword Art Online: The Game from the beginning, as some kind of weird virtual therapist helper AI for players? And then Kayaba intentionally went in and screwed with her programming to disable her, and our super special hero couple found her after she spontaneously generated for them because (god I hope I'm remembering this wrong) these two were the only people to ever feel true happiness in the game?

I can't imagine the mass murderer developer went to all the trouble of creating a system like that from scratch, kept it a secret from all his employees working on the game, and then just changed his mind and kneecapped it at the last minute when he decided he'd rather commit genocide on gamers. Someone else had to have worked on her, and that wouldn't have stayed a secret during the inevitable deep investigation that would have been done over the course of the game to try to rescue the thousands of hostages. He didn't murder his entire staff before releasing the game (wait, did he?); that was a significant feature, it's impossible that nobody else ever discovered TherapyBot existed and passed that information on, unless literally every single person outside of Kirito's video games is totally incompetent at their jobs. Wait hold on, mystery solved.

[Jman]

The fact remains that Yuuki’s arc boils down to...

 

Edited April 16, 2020 by Jman

[OwlChemist81]

We interrupt this mountain of nonsense to bring some actual news, though it has been reported in another thread:

Food Wars is NOT being renewed (at least not for now). Paranoia Agent replaces it (yes, at 1 AM!) on April 25th.

Personally, I would have chosen 1:30 and moved Black Clover up to 1, because PA would pair better with JoJo, but I digress. JoJo stays stuck at 2 AM.

[Jman]

I continue to maintain Toonami just gets JoJo to keep it off Netflix.  No other reason.

[PokeNirvash]

17 minutes ago, Jman said:

The fact remains that Yui’s arc boils down to...

 

For the second time this thread, that's Yuuki's arc you're thinking of. Not Yui's.

[Jman]

It will forever be what defines SAO -

Maybe it even killed that LA adaptation being bandied about.

[The1gairon]

10 hours ago, ben0119 said:

So Mochi can complain about it being on a delay and crapping out every week?

I been using sling for like 3.5 years by now and the worst thing that has happened is that I'm 1 minute behind you all when live-commenting. I suppose others have poorer internet connection.

[HardcoreHunter]

4 minutes ago, elfie said:

I been using sling for like 3.5 years by now and the worst thing that has happened is that I'm 1 minute behind you all when live-commenting. I suppose others have poorer internet connection.

I have youtube tv and it varies a lot it seems on how insync it is with everyone else. Sometimes it's within a reasonable window plus or minus 30 seconds. Other times it can be minutes ahead or behind. For some episodes I try to read what others are posting if I think I'm running ahead so I'm not spoiling  stuff. Most of the time though I'd say it's close to everyone eases though. Though the one week in SAO I knew I was a couple mins ahead because I was talking about attacks and nobody knew what I was talking about. 

[mochi]

14 hours ago, Jman said:

It will forever be what defines SAO -

Maybe it even killed that LA adaptation being bandied about.

honestly......everything probbably killed the hollywood adaption

the racism, the sexism, the homophobia, the INCEST, the extremely incorrect depiction of AIDS, 

[Daos]

Wait so how was the depiction of a future superaids wrong?

[Top Gun]

Y'know the part that pisses me off the most about that whole storyline is how the entire family gets infected with HIV from...a blood transfusion.  A blood transfusion that would have taken place somewhere in the mid-to-late 2000s based on the series' timeline, long after first-world countries had comprehensive screening of donated blood with an extremely low rate of false negatives (we're talking a literal one-in-a-million shot, if not even rarer).  And I don't even remember what bullshit excuse they came up with as to why the HIV infection immediately escalated to superAIDS, when if the donor was recognized as being HIV-positive they could have easily traced past usages of the donated blood and had the family start antiretroviral treatments.  The fact that Kawahara went with such a ridiculously-improbable premise completely destroyed any suspension of disbelief I might have had and made that arc feel like a farce...of course he's an expert at that, so I was hardly surprised.  Oh, and that's not even getting into how massively fucking irresponsible it is to cast aspersions on the safety of blood transfusions when it's hard enough as-is to get people motivated to donate.  Fuck off, Kawahara.

[Daos]

Oh right it was a one in a million testing failure on the blood transfusion. OOPSIE

[PokeNirvash]

SAO'S COUNTLESS FLAWS IN A NUTSHELL

Reputable Source: Fair warning, this arc of SAO has [insert disturbing/grossly inaccurate scene here].
/a/: Pssh, you're bluffing! It can't be that bad...
You Guys: Oh god, this sounds awful and poorly written. What fresh hell awaits us?
Myself: I instantly believe you, but I think I can handle it.
SAO: [shows disturbing/grossly inaccurate scene previously mentioned]
/a/: Oh fuck, it really is that bad. [insert reaction image here]
You Guys: Oh dear god it's worse than I ever imagined! Fuck you, SAO!
Myself: [shrugs] Well whaddaya know, I managed to handle it. Let's see you do better next time.

Sometimes I surprise myself with how much bullshit I can take before reaching the point where my extremely flexible suspension of disbelief just snaps.

Edited April 17, 2020 by PokeNirvash
Readjusted for accuracy.

[EmpressAngel]

It's not that we think "Nah, this plot point in SAO can't possibly be that bad."

It's more that we think "Oh god, this sounds awful and poorly written. What fresh hell awaits us?" and then it turns out even worse than we expected, because this series started at rock bottom and just keeps bringing out the jackhammer to go deeper.

[PokeNirvash]

Well some people who hate SAO think that first way, moreso on /a/ than on here.

[CountFrylock]

starting tomorrow toonami begins at 11:00 PM in my time zone....

[The1gairon]

Also their FB announced that after taking a break for several weeks, Pre-Flight will return, this time on Saturdays at 10 PM, likely to be more as a companion piece to the block. Also I expect Jason and Gill to be seen at home, through poor internet connection, separated by a Zoom splitscreen.

[OwlChemist81]

Wow, that's what Toonami has needed all along: Toonami Pre-Flight to be Pre-Toonami! But wait, 10 PM!? Shouldn't it be 11? Don't we just lose continuity this way?

 

[ben0119]

On 4/16/2020 at 1:45 AM, Daos said:

They were doing all sorts of messed up shit. They would have done fine if they got stuck in a killbot.

The entire concept of the arc was "These people are a bunch of goody goodies who can't break laws!" We must find out why!"

"All residents of Underworld are generally compliant to any law or rule that they regard as having authority, due to the effects of the Seal of the Right Eye. However, certain individuals, especially nobles, are able to circumvent the restrictions of the laws to satisfy their personal desires"

Basically whoever really felt like it could do whatever.

Well that was what I was saying.  The nobles were able to get away with shit, and it didn't register to Kikuoka because they weren't shown as violating the taboo index.

And it was recently revealed that the seal of the right eye was likely put in by an INSIDE MAN, since having that in place would go against Rath's goals.

[ben0119]

On 4/16/2020 at 3:50 AM, HardcoreHunter said:

Cut my pointer finger in half the other day and sewn it back together with my non dominant hand. Sorry if I make some typos hurts a little to type with, which is good since it means the nerves are connecting.
Pretty much any character that is just added to a story that everyone instantly likes, and is good at everything is a sue/stu. From what I remember is that her friends and everyone took turns playing that avatar to grind and level it up for her, it wasn't just her, but that's why she gave the avatar so much value because her friends helped with it.  Either way she's just instantly adored by the cast and is on par if not stronger than kirito who is already viewed as a Stu by many. If anything Kirito is more Stu than she is, at least in the anime due to most of his leveling being done off camera. 

As for the santa event, Im not saying that his reason for taking part in it wasn't properly motivated. I was saying that how it was presented was horribly presented and paced. When you're dealing with something like a death and trying to convey death in a serious way. The story shouldn't just delve into a Santa event boss which only results in the confirmation of loss. Trying to present heavy subjects like that comes off as darkly tonedeaf for the viewer to the point that it teeters the line of being comically dark. 
 

As for large chunks of the story missing. It's been an ongoing issue with this series since season 1. If they were to animate all of the Academy arc in Alicization where Kirito has a senpai before he even gets his kohai. We'd be looking at like 30+ episodes of just that. His relationship with his senpai is far more fleshed out than the two episodes she's appeared int he series. Like there are 2 volumes of nothing but Kirito and Eugeo doing nothing but learning about farming and getting hazed by the rape nobles. I think that's like 1 1/2 episodes in the series. Kirito is just like gardening is neat, and they kill his plants before they up their evil game to rape.  For an anime 2 volumes worth of learning about farming and magic control are boring as hell. However from a character development standpoint are great.  Kirito and Eugeo's relationship actually feels more fleshed out in that long span of time. While in the anime he seriously feels like nothing more than an NPC who just tags along. His death really had no impact making Kirito going vegetable feel more overly dramatic considering what he's been through in the past. Namely because they did a piss job of rushing relationships in the anime. Back in season 1 I think they skip the first 20 floors of bosses to the first safe zone. This also skipped a lot of the early interactions with Kirito and Asuna, Kirito taking a lot more shit for being a beta testers all the floor bosses etc.  I think we only see like 4 floor boss battles in the anime, 5 if you count the flashback where we don't even get to see the full battle. So I think it's apt to say that well damn over at least 90% of the story is skipped in the anime and we're mainly watching foot notes. 

I wouldn't say she is good at everything.  Yuuki's good at that game, because that's all she does.  I don't recall it being said her friends took turns playing the character.  As I said, it was compared to them being in SAO, having such a long period of constant experience.  This also made the characters wonder if Yuuki was an SAO player, and Kirito said no, because if she had, she would have gotten the dual wield skill, since she had faster reflexes than him, which is how he got the skill.  I mean, some people are likable?  I don't see how her being "instantly adored" means she's a Mary Sue.  I don't agree on Kirito, either.  He has had multiple cases of failure and weakness and things not going his way.  It was shown that he spent time on his own level-grinding.  I don't know why people thought we needed to see multiple episodes of him doing nothing but that.  And I'll say again, I feel like I lose brain cells every time I have to read or type that idiotic term "Mary Sue."  Really, it's just shorthand for "competent character I don't like."

I don't remember the Santa event ever being portrayed as comical.  That episode wasn't portrayed as comical.  So I don't know where you're getting the mood whiplash thing from.  You're saying it got too dark?  But it still had sweet moments, like the message from Sachi I linked.

So, what you're saying is... the book is much better than the movie.

And Reki is less at fault that some would like to believe!

I still haven't read the books yet.  I checked some out from the library a long time ago but never got around to reading them.  Obviously that's not an option now, but I should still try to find some way of reading them when I get the chance.  I did read a few excerpts here and there and saw there was more detail given, which is often the case with books compared to TV and movies.

But I thought that issue came from the original books.  The first arc was a story that was cut down to meet a word limit for a writing contest, and was still too long.  Reki then went back later and expanded it.  But, if there was still stuff cut even by the anime, I have a feeling that will be rectified for Aincrad, at least, when they inevitably animate some of the Progressive series, where Reki is remaking and further fleshing out the original arc to show all the floors, I believe.  Yeah some people were complaining about the pacing being too sluggish in Alicization at some points.  I found an article about fans being upset by pacing and here they were actually mad at things being cut!  So yeah, I don't think having all that stuff in there would help the pacing issues, for the reasons you gave.  This is why 1:1 book to screen adaptations can't always happen.  But I don't agree with you about Eugeo.  I am still shocked and upset by his death.  I was convinced that he was going to be healed since he fell in two pieces but was frozen in the middle... but nope!  Then I realized Alice's memory crystal also got destroyed.  Along with Cardinal's death and Kirito becoming a vegetable, that mission was almost a total failure for the heroes outside of killing Administrator!  I still just really can't get over that Eugeo actually died.  Eh I doubt it's 90% that's been skipped.

But, you realize what you're asking for, which might even go beyond the Aincrad Arc itself in relation to adapting Progressive material, is a Kai of SAO, but making it longer! =D Be careful what you wish for.

[ben0119]

On 4/16/2020 at 7:54 AM, EmpressAngel said:

Full disclosure here I am 100% just going off of memory of episodes I watched years ago because I refuse to spend any amount of time fact checking this shit.

Wasn't Yui meant to be an actual in-game feature of Sword Art Online: The Game from the beginning, as some kind of weird virtual therapist helper AI for players? And then Kayaba intentionally went in and screwed with her programming to disable her, and our super special hero couple found her after she spontaneously generated for them because (god I hope I'm remembering this wrong) these two were the only people to ever feel true happiness in the game?

I can't imagine the mass murderer developer went to all the trouble of creating a system like that from scratch, kept it a secret from all his employees working on the game, and then just changed his mind and kneecapped it at the last minute when he decided he'd rather commit genocide on gamers. Someone else had to have worked on her, and that wouldn't have stayed a secret during the inevitable deep investigation that would have been done over the course of the game to try to rescue the thousands of hostages. He didn't murder his entire staff before releasing the game (wait, did he?); that was a significant feature, it's impossible that nobody else ever discovered TherapyBot existed and passed that information on, unless literally every single person outside of Kirito's video games is totally incompetent at their jobs. Wait hold on, mystery solved.

I don't think that was why or how they found her.  I remember she was disabled from helping players and was only allowed to watch them suffer, so Kayaba was not only torturing the players by denying them a therapist, but torturing the therapist too.  I don't think it was what you just said.  I just remember them finding her in a forest.  Maybe she was simply relegated to being a character in the game but couldn't instantly teleport around to counsel players?  Presuming that is how she might have worked as intended.  Actually, maybe there would have been multiple instances of Yui to counsel so many players?  Would they all be the same Yui like Naruto shadow clones or it would it be multiple individual Yuis?  ANYWAY.  I don't want to search things too much because I don't want spoilers for future stuff.  I guess I can go re-watch the Yui intro episodes later.

Edit - You were right. x_x They did find her in the forest and it's true she was disabled from helping the players but could observe, but this is what the wikia said in second of her two-parter intro -

She only saw hate, rage and desperation in the players until she saw Asuna and Kirito, who were enjoying themselves despite being trapped in the death game, and decided to get as close to the two.

I'm sure there were other players that were content in the game, but Yui simply didn't observe them.  We actually know this is true thanks the old fisherman that appeared.  But still.

True even though Kayaba was a genius and came up with SAO, we know he didn't develop it on his own as his girlfriend Rinko was introduced in the Alicization arc, along with talking about the past development team.  Even if he was also as much of a genius to come up with Yui as well, he couldn't have made her on his own, either.  No he didn't have anyone killed.  From what I can tell in the show, the government and companies either don't know Yui exists or don't care.

There was a whole explanation by Kikuoka about how the citizens in Underworld are a whole new revolutionary AI, and are clones of real people's souls.  Yui was wholly created artificially.  So does this mean Yui isn't "real" or isn't a "true" AI? D: The way it came across without outright saying it is AI like Yui aren't good enough for Kikuoka. T___T

Bah, I can't find a clip of Kikuoka's speech, but it was episode 6 of Alicization which is on umpteen streaming platforms, and here is an excerpt from the wikia - 

Interested in receiving Rinko's assistance on his project, Seijirou revealed that its true purpose was to create Bottom-Up Artificial Intelligence (Bottom-Up AI), a type of AI that would be able to respond appropriately to any unexpected situation without prior training, unlike the usual Top-Down AI.  Such an adaptive artificial intelligence was created by using the Soul Translator to scan and replicate the Fluctlight of a human.

Edited April 30, 2020 by ben0119

[ben0119]

On 4/16/2020 at 10:44 AM, elfie said:

I been using sling for like 3.5 years by now and the worst thing that has happened is that I'm 1 minute behind you all when live-commenting. I suppose others have poorer internet connection.

Dude you constantly bitched about it crapping out... and yes the feed being 1 minute and sometimes more behind.