Sword Art Online: Alicization Review (First Cour)

Let me start by saying Sword Art Online: Alicization was a hard sell for me from the beginning. As I’ve already said, 2017’s Sword Art Online The Movie: Ordinal Scale felt like the perfect ending for the series, incorporating both the real world and simulated reality and building off the premise that the former inhabitants of Aincrad are still reckoning with the consequences of having been trapped in that world. We even got an engagement for Asuna and Kirito too. But a post-credits scene with Seijiro Kikouka showed that there would be more to come. My first question at the start of Alicization, as it is with every new season of SAO, is Why can’t these kids find a new, safer hobby? Perhaps a book club? Knitting? Foosball, for chrissakes? The extent to which all of the characters —and Kirito in particular — still engage in these virtual worlds is baffling. In season two, we got Sinon’s Gun Gale Online storyline as one that directly addressed the relationship between her gaming life and her own personal trauma, but Kirito is ever so willing to jump right into the newest, and inevitably dangerous, technology. Someone should check to see if that kid’s okay, but it really seems like he’s got a death wish. [Spoiler alert: Spoilers for the first 12 episodes of the season will follow.] Alice, Eugeo, and Kirito Alicization opens with a younger Kirito and his friend, Eugeo, living in a picturesque virtual reality village. Kirito has a whole life there with Eugeo and their other friend A…