When Sword Art Was The Best Anime Ever

[Music] sword art online is ass nine cred arc such a piece of [ __ ] sorted online is definitely the most disappointing anime ever made it's dog it's a piece of trash and it's actually a big disappointment and let down you may not remember this but at one point sword art was king certainly there were people who didn't like the show but you could actually say i like sword art without someone thinking you're a fat dumbass with the lazy eye and two dads somewhere along the way the internet began to notice gaping holes in the

story likeable character in a dungeon and made kirito's sister wanna there's mother's basement who's been farming views on sword art for years the guxter of course gotta slice that pie can't blame them okay stop eating stop eating and numerous other creators have all shook hands looked each other in the eyes and said we're all gonna act like this is the worst piece of [ __ ] ever made who's with me oh cheerio i'm talking about excellent very good yeah but what about something like the regular and magic high school hey like who invited this guy

home you you gotta go bro you bastard do not fast with me man it's what an absolutely you bastard the funny part is none of these guys are wrong the story is stupid if you take off the nerve gear a [ __ ] microwave will blow your brain up this guy is so evil he starts licking us in his tears yummy if you genuinely see nothing wrong here one of your eyes has clearly drifted off into uncharted territory call sao out absolutely but where the [ __ ] was that energy in 2012 look up sword

art bad and you'll find something most curious videos from five years ago four years six years four years five years on reddit five months we're all on the same page now but back in the day the sword art i remember was rapture the click of a play button would zip me over to another planet it was the most immersive the most vast in the most cooliest stuff out at the time there is no one to tell me it was dog [ __ ] and if there were their voices would be stifled as a grin shot

across my face from one ear to the next while i watched in pure astonishment i can only assume one reason why i can't find any mainstream criticism of the show right after it came out many others had fallen under the spell that was sword art and then years later was like wait what peter he's a beta tester and a cheater he's a feeder a beater yeah that's good i like it what that name is dumb as [ __ ] it's not possible but i want to remember why i loved it so much the impact the

show had and the possibilities it opened up if only for this short time [Music] timing was a pretty big reason why i even watched the show anime moved way slower in 2012. today you can look at any season for the year and find at least four good shows if you dig back then we would have for the whole winter that that's why you kids are so spoiled now there were banger seasons but the truth is new anime comes out faster than back in the day so all of our little eyes were glued to each seasonal

release fairy tale was awesome maybe this one will be cool everything was a land mine that would either be a dud or completely blow your socks off each season showed me something new i was a new human and of all the shows i watched no one did anything similar to sword art but we're not ready for that and i have something crazy to say first gaming was way funner back in 2012. i could go and pretend like i know about hedonic adaptation but basically anything that makes you happy will make you less happy over time

like gaming or anime both of which i enjoyed leagues more nine years ago the last 10 minutes of every school day were characterized by intense eye contact with the clock jumping out of my skin waiting to hear that bill so i can run home press the power button and hear this some of you might have heard this don't forget to grab a fanboy maid outfit on the way in gaming was home at the time machinima was brutally butt [ __ ] youtubers with their permission tobuscus was on top pewdiepie hit his first millions smosh games

game grumps i honestly believe gaming was at a peak here not just for me but millions of kids out there synchronizing with the universe initializing racism misogyny homophobia trace amounts of urine detected shift bucket detect you have reached the criteria to play video games online welcome to sao what this first episode did was the extravagant architecture the different biomes the sound effects there's pk guilds then iconic ui perishable items special event monsters don't even try to tell me you don't remember the scene we could stand here all day and you wouldn't get anywhere there's only

one anime that really makes me feel like i'm in an rpg not the one with the sneaky ass skeleton not the one with the shield it's sword art those sound effects are [ __ ] important the ring bounces around my head years later this is something that a real game has the landscape shots that could have not happened breathe life into an authentic universe this little forest area has a bridge thing giant pillars spill out from the sky with no explanation and yet the sky remains slightly distorted to remind you that this bustling environment is

superficial the stage was set to actually immerse you you believe in this world where if you die in the game you're dunion rings buddy sword art online breezed past his competition that season then said hold up put it in reverse looked at it and said really don't let me catch you out here again and hit the gas it had the greatest premise some of the best fights and highest stakes all the way up until he beat the game what a feeling of catharsis man and then austin is stuck in the game and kirito has to

go back and save her and i'm thinking everybody's putting the oculus back on this is also the part of sword art where kirito's cousin's sister falls madly in love with him i'm in love with my brother and that's something i can't tell anyone about now i had never seen some alabamian [ __ ] like this so i was not very happy regardless the alpha mark managed to reclaim some of the glory it once had kirito is still that guy dominating inferior gamers in the craziest fights possible no it was not as good as the first

dark but i still liked it all the way up to the point where he beats the game and saves asuna and then the government is like kirito uh maybe you could hop into oculus again and at this point i had checked out because that simply makes no [ __ ] sense but before that wow to some extent i'd always inserted myself into the anime i was watching like i genuinely thought i would have fairy tale magic one day sword art provided a perfect vessel that scratched an itch deep into my personality if i were trapped

in this world i would be built differently i would level up super fast i'd certainly gotten overpowered in rpgs before it didn't matter that kirito was undoubtedly a [ __ ] because when we watched his presence was irrelevant us pissy little kids were in nine crowd through these globs of polish spread around the world to make it shine that meant everything to someone like me who lived vicariously through the characters on screen i wanted to have two [ __ ] swords and run around in the games i love the show came out when our standards

were a little different weeks before the oculus rift was announced with a concept that was so goddamn ahead of its time it was impossible not to crush it not without quality it's not a coincidence that we didn't really start seeing rpg inspired isekai until post sword art new type magazine rated kirito as the number one most popular male character of the decade alongside asuna at the number two for females the light novel was voted number one in the decade by people who probably can't read i believe that with the meteoric rise of sword art studios

probably saw potential in adapting anime with similar themes worlds packed with rpg elements where you could level up and be special a ton of novels existed that fit that criteria for years but it's not until slightly after sword art that we see stuff like log horizon getting adapted and making a buzz okay it's not just anime studios the founder of oculus rift stated that he wants to take after sword art and is currently involved in a project to create a game with serious consequences the creators of gentian impact plan on making the largest virtual game

in history with models inspired by sword art the franchise spread roots in various facets of pop culture the show connected with something that a lot of people had been waiting for something that caught on like wildfire all on [ __ ] accident reiki kawahara was a normal guy that liked drawing manga he also grew up with two sisters so what the [ __ ] was that about he spent his time in college either drawing in the manga studies club or playing games like wow and fantasy star online however he would slowly realize that drawing manga

was way too much work and to my knowledge spent the next three years pooping around in 2001 kawahara decided while having exactly zero experience that he would apply for the dengeki novel prize and wrote the entire ironcrad arc the first half of sword art on a whim and didn't even end up submitting it because he exceeded the word count by 120 pages his attachment to the story would not let him throw it away so he posted it online thanks to fan support he felt motivated to keep writing and seven years later he submitted his new

work excel world which actually got published as a novel prompting the publisher to be like hey this sword art [ __ ] is pretty cool too do you want me to print this out also and kawahara was like yeah let me just clean it up a little bit eventually the two were given an anime first excel world and then sword art this monster of a franchise was shielded by a failed novel submission from 2001. no [ __ ] there's flaws with the story kawahara had never written anything before the reason why we resonate with the

plot is because kawahara is a gamer through and through yet the reason why we hate on it now is because he was not a writer as he's gained experience he's collected so many regrets about the series particularly making his female characters trophies to be saved and earned he admits there's obvious plot holes with the nerf gear and just couldn't think of another way to have the players get trapped in a game and i get it if my first video was the one everyone knew me by i'd have some regrets too you know what makes my

balls itch but regardless of his lack of skill the story came from a real place kawahata genuinely wanted to imagine what he would do if he were trapped in a video game it comes through in scenes where asuna shows us how food is cooked under the game's engine kirito is a loner because kawahara himself would play solo american players would get pissed at him for the language barrier and he'd just do his own thing this guy was sharing pieces of himself it's something that pierces through the bad writing which is incredible because holy [ __

] the writing's bad before i dug into his past i could tell this was made by a gamer someone who probably wanted to see all the things he was writing about a world where he put his gaming knowledge to practice and became someone who stood out even when playing by himself there is a great list of things that sword art is not but it was an outlet for us kids i could peer into a distant fantasy at a time where i wanted it the most sure people dunk on it rightfully so just know that for

now i'm not joining in because i remember a time when sword art was the best anime ever [Music] you know what yeah dads i am