Sword Art Online - Alicization – War of Underworld

I have been quite pleasantly surprised so far with Sword Art Online: Alicization – War of Underworld, because since the first season was released, this fourth season is probably the first time I have been so incredibly close to awarding Sword Art Online a five-star rating. Maybe I am crazy, however, I really liked the first half (like twelve episodes) of the season a lot. For the most part, this is an incredibly frivolous and enchanting show, because of all the great and, in my view, interesting and spectacular battles and fight scenes, which I sometimes enjoyed almost as much as, say, the Battle of Helm's Deep in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, although I suppose that is sometimes all right and enough to enjoy such an intense experience... SPOILERS... In addition, I have grown quite fond of Alice, who is doing fine and is OK without Kirito, although I wonder when he is going to recover from being comatose and finally wake up, and when to expect his "epic comeback". It was clear that Asuna would play a more important role, just as it was only a matter of time when the rest would show up...  Anyway, I am (not) curious what will happen when Kirito's old harem meets the new harem, and if it will turn out to be some half-assed ending again with the building of the ultimate harem (as one of the episodes here suggests), and I am going to finally snap out of being under the spell of all the cool battles and just shake my head at where we have ended up... I mean, perhaps not, there might be a load more cool battles and fight scenes, some emotional stuff, and maybe the harem will turn out to be good (because so far in the first half it felt quite weird...). I also like the villains, once again they are two strong psychopaths, with one being an amateur philosopher, searching for a human soul since his youth (with a screwdriver!) and the other obviously being another one of his “Laughing Coffin” friends and this time I did not find them much of a nuisance, embarrassing, peculiar or pathetic, which was good enough for me. Other characters I liked were Bercouli and Scheta and her strange relationship with the Pugilist commander... In other words, I find it entertaining, interesting and I am looking forward to the second half. However, something tells me that there is a pretty good chance that they are going to screw it up somehow, so I guess I shall remain cautious and not award it five stars yet. After the first half of season four 8.2/10. EDIT 27.9.2020 - I finally finished watching the second half of the season and this was pure torture! When you have more tentacles in the first four episodes than in an anime series about fishing, you think the anime’s creator must have really huge issues and wonder what the hell kind of crap you are watching. Then there are the last-minute rescues made by some really minor characters, which make you ask the same question as the vilain - “who the hell is this?”, in the fifth episode. Then the inevitable happened and the vegetable Kirito came to life, however, it could somehow not have happened without his new virtual love interest Eugeo - what the hell am I watching again? The motivations of the bad guys are also peculiar, the worst thing was when one secondary vilain really fell in love with a virtual character - What a SIMP! So, after watching this whole mess and the strange crap going on - I am done with this shit! After enjoying the first half, the second half came along that made me want to abandon Sword Art Online completely. It is so nice that the anime’s creator wants to give more depth to the female characters in his works in the future. However, damn it man, stop watching so much hentai! Putting an attempted rape in every SAO series and now tentacles everywhere! Wake up! Perhaps I am going to try and watch this part of the season again someday, however right now the rating is slipping from an above-average rating to a severely below-average one, and in all honesty, I have no desire or mood to watch any more Sword Art Online for at least a couple of years. This did it, Kirito may have come back to life, however, the irony is that for me Sword Art Online died! For the second half 2/10, and in total 5.1/10. (01.01.2020) (vähemmän) (lisää)