Sword Art Online II - second half

This post finishes up the second season of Sword Art Online.   After the Gun Gale Online arc with essentially only Kirito and Sinon participating, the second half of the SAO II season brings the rest of the original SAO cast back into the picture.   There is a short arc in which Kirito and Asuna and friends, plus Sinon, take on an afternoon quest in Elfhame Online.  It involves the whole gang and retrieving a magic sword, as well as restoring a dead and mostly abandoned land to life.  Leafa and Klein have slightly more roles in this arc than in other arcs, and Liz and Silica are also part of the questing team.  Of course, the gang wins the quest and Kirito gets another sword.  This little quest is a filler quest and doesn’t occur in the SAO light novels.

The last of the second season is the arc called Mother Rosario.  It begins with challenge fights between a mysterious fighter in Elfhame who sets up and offers a chance to win a prize to anyone who can challenge the fighter and win.  Most of the people in Elfhame Online give it a try, but no one can beat the fighter.  Asuna gives it a try and they battle essentially to a draw, at which point the fighter grabs Asuna and drags her away to talk.  The fighter turns out to be a girl named Yuuki who is a member of a guild called the Sleeping Knights. 

The Sleeping Knights have a goal to beat a level boss and win that level.  If a single guild beats a level boss, they get their individual names inscribed on a great memorial wall in Elfhame’s primary city.  If more than one Guild beats the boss together, only the guild names are inscribed.  The Sleeping Knights are going to have to stop playing Elfhame Online, so they want their names inscribed on the wall before they go.  The problem is that there are only 6 of them, a number of players which normally cannot beat a boss.  They have decided to recruit one person who can beat their strongest fighter, Yuuki – and that person is Asuna.

Asuna agrees to help Yuuki and the Sleeping Knights.  They become friends while training and discussing strategy.  They try a boss level for practice and fail, but they discover that they failed an earlier attempt because a bigger Guild is spying on them and using their experience to plan and defeat the boss before they can get back to it.  When Asuna realizes this bit of information, she encourages the Sleeping Knights to go immediately and try this boss again.  They do, only to find their way blocked by members of the bigger guild who are there to keep anyone from trying until the big guild all gets there and takes the boss.  Asuna and Yuuki-tachi fight their way through the guild members, aided in the nick of time by Kirito, who holds off the big guild while Asuna-tachi tackle the boss.

 

Asuna, Yuuki and the Sleeping Knights succeed in defeating the boss and get their names on the Wall.  During the celebration at Asuna’s Elfhame house, Asuna says she wants to stay friends with the guild and learn more about them.  Yuuki gets upset and logs out.  Asuna begins searching for her in both virtual reality (VR) and real life (RL).

With Kirito’s help Asuna locates Yuuki, who is dying from a virus she got at birth.  In fact she’s been dying since birth, and is the last of her family alive.  It turns out all the Sleeping Knights have terminal illnesses, which is why they wanted so much to win their quest and have their names memorialized on the wall. 

The last three episodes of this season are TRAGIC.  Really TRAGIC, with Yuuki dying in Asuna's arms at the end, and leaving Asuna her sword skill, Mother Rosario.  Be prepared to cry.  Despite the tragedy, I enjoyed this season of SAO almost as much as the first season.   The characters are still fun to follow as they deal with both RL and VR and come to terms with their hangups.  Asuna’s mother has been trying to get her to give up online gaming and switch to a better school, so along the way in this arc Asuna and her mother manage to come to terms, thanks to Yuuki.

Sword Art Online, both seasons, have been following the light novels fairly closely.  This second season ends at the end pf the 7th volume of the light novels.  Despite the ending of this season being pretty definitive, I'm kind of hoping they do another season of SAO, because the story and characters are interesting and fun to follow.  

Sword Art Online II - first half

Sword Art Online II is the second season of Sword Art Online (SAO).   Like the first season of SAO, this 24-episode season is split into two halves, essentially completing one plot line midway through the series.  The first half of the season is the story arc with the two characters from these pictures, and the second half is two shorter story arcs.  In this post, I'll talk about the story in the first half of SAO II.  I talked about the first season of Sword Art Online in a post two years ago (http://alter-ego-reality.blogspot.com/2013/01/sword-art-online.html).  

This season picks up where the last season left off, with Kirito, Asuna, Kirito’s sister, Suguha, and all their various friends from both Aincrad and Elfhame Online, including Yui, Liz, Silica and Klein.  All these guys are continuing with their lives in the real world and also in the virtual world, continuing to play the virtual reality (VR) game of Elfhame Online with their full-dive gear whenever they have time. 

The series begins by adding another VR game, Gun Gale Online or GGO.  GGO is mostly played by males because it is a shoot and kill game.  Everyone is very fixated on various types of guns and shooting skills, and although I think you can hunt monsters in the game, most people hunt each other.  There is a big yearly tournament in GGO where the 30 top shooters are dropped into a VR world and the last person left alive is the winner.  This tournament is called the Ballet of Bullets, and everyone who plays GGO tries to qualify for it. 

The main character added for this story arc is Sinon.  Sinon is a girl who is terrified of guns in the real world because she killed a man with one when she was very little.  In GGO however, she’s one of the top shooters.  Her reason for playing GGO and her ultimate goal is to become strong enough in GGO to face guns in the real world, and in order to do that she’s determined to win the Ballet of Bullets.

Also at the start of the series, a mysterious GGO player begins shooting people in GGO and they die at the same time in the real world.    Investigators in the real world tap Kirito to play GGO and see if he can figure out what’s happening.   Kirito agrees, but since the bad guy only kills top players, Kirito needs to be a top player, basically needs to qualify for a place in the Ballet of Bullets.  When Kirito logs in to GGO, his avatar isn't big and muscled and burly like nearly every other guy’s avatar in GGO.  It’s more in line with his Aincrad and Elfhame avatars, being smaller and more delicate and has long hair.  So everyone, Sinon included, assumes he’s a girl.  He asks Sinon for help getting started in GGO, and because she thinks he’s a girl, she helps him out.  She helps him pick a gun, and he does use a handgun, but predominately Kirito uses a laser sword.  Yes, only Kirito would bring a sword to a gunfight.  Because his reflexes are so damn fast though, it actually works.

Sinon and Kirito fight each other in the qualifying rounds, reach an understanding, and both make it into the Ballet of Bullets.  During the qualifiers also, Kirito realizes that the GGO killer is a former member of Laughing Coffin, a guild from Aincrad that went around actually killing people.  Once the Ballet starts, Kirito and Sinon end up teaming up to figure out who the killer is, to fight him and to keep each other safe.  During the tournament, Kirito figures out that the way the GGO killer is killing people in the real world is that he has a real world accomplice.  This accomplice in the real world kills the person with a drug at the same time he is shot in GGO.  The GGO killer has been trying to kill Sinon, so his real world helper is probably at Sinon’s house, which is really creepy since Sinon lives alone.

In the end Kirito and Sinon beat the GGO killer and are the last two shooters left alive in the Ballet of Bullets.  Because the tournament won’t end unless only one of them is left alive, Sinon blows them both up and they end up both winning.  Back in the real world, Sinon’s friend who started her playing GGO turns out to be the killer’s accomplice and attacks Sinon.  Kirito shows up and helps and everything works out okay.  Kirito and Asuna then set up a meeting with Sinon and the people whose lives she saved by killing the guy when she was little, and Sinon begins to be able to live with her past.

The GGO arc takes up the first half of the second season of SAO.  I enjoyed it almost as much as I enjoyed the first season of SAO, although the only original SAO player that gets much screen time is Kirito.  The rest of the gang watch the Ballet of Bullets from a bar in Elfhame Online, and have a marginal presence.  They figure much more in the second half of the season, which I'll talk about in a later post.

Tears to Tiara

Tears to Tiara is an anime series that was developed from a game which is based on a mishmash of Celtic legends, none of which I plan to talk about in this post.  I’m going to talk about what happens in the series, and any resemblance to Celtic legend is accidental.

The story has three main characters and a host of lesser characters.  The three main characters are Arawn, a demon lord, and Riannon and Arthur, a sister and brother.  Arthur leads their Gael tribe and Riannon is the tribe’s priestess.  The story begins with Riannon being kidnapped by a priest of the Empire to serve as a human sacrifice and used to raise the sleeping demon lord, Arawn.  Only Arawn doesn’t cooperate since Riannon turns out to be a descendant of the elf-king Pwyll, who was Arawn’s friend.  Arawn is raised, but then he kills the kidnapper-priest and frees Riannon.  Arthur, who is rushing to his sister's rescue, sees only a bad, demon-lord-figure and attacks, so Riannon throws her scarf around Arawn’s neck, symbolically marrying him and making him chief of their tribe.   Arthur's not happy, but he and Arawn then fight together to get out of the place the three are trapped.

From this point on, the rest of the series is essentially these three working to lead the tribe, meeting various people along the way and fighting off people from the Empire that want to take them over.  Along the way they collect a group of comrades to fight alongside them, who make up the rest of the cast of characters.  While running from their enemies they are also searching for a place for the tribe to live in peace. They find a kingdom/castle where Arawn used to live and begin living there.

At one point during their running from the Empire and finding new friends, Arawn must use his powers which leaves him weak and white looking, which causes Arthur to believe that Arawn was once a White Spirit who killed Arthur’s father.  Arthur attacks and stabs Arawn, leaving him for dead and running away full of guilt and grief.  Arawn falls into a coma and although his body heals, he stays in the coma.  Arthur essentially grows up after leaving the group and meets up again with Taliesen the minstrel and his people.  Taliesen has defeated him in a duel previously.  Arthur succeeds in making Taliesen and his people into allies and returns with them to the castle where Arawn-tachi are, just as it’s being attacked  by the bad guys.  Arawn wakes up and he and Arthur are reconciled.

Once they’re friends again and everyone has gathered and have defeated their attackers, we learn more of Arawn’s history.  He was once one of thirteen white spirits, who had a falling out with his fellow white spirits when he took the side of humans.  He and his current companions make a quest to the land of the ice giants in order to defeat the remaining white spirits.  Arthur recovers a magic sword which he pulls free from a stone, which is a match for Arawn’s sword and capable of killing white spirits.  Arawn uses his matching sword and together they work to defeat these beings and free the world’s people from their influence.  In the end it takes the combined power of everyone in battle to defeat the bad guys, but they manage to do it with several last minute saves by people appearing and gaining powers, etc.  Everyone lives happily ever after.

As usual, this is a bare bones plot line, without going into any side stories or character interactions, of which there are many.  It also barely skims Arawn’s history and background with Pwyll the elf king.  The warriors who join them along the way include Morgan, from the Gael tribe, Octavia from the Empire, Llyr, the sea elf maid, and Rathty, the mining elf.  Other characters include two elf girls from the castle,  Limwris and Ermin, Ogam the sorcerer/mage, and many enemies from the Empire.  All these characters have stories that cover how they join Arawn’s group or why they’re fighting Arawn’s group.

I began watching this series because Arawn’s character intrigued me, even though in general I don’t like game-derived anime series.  He was like the voice of calm reason amidst a multitude of emotional, hyperactive peoples.   At times the plot of this series seemed more convoluted than it needed to be, as if the producers were trying to get all the legends they could into the series, or perhaps trying to cover all the quests available in the game.  Also, I’m really not fond of best-friend/best-enemy sequences, which is really what happened when Arthur tried to kill Arawn.  But the plot was interesting enough to keep me watching and the animation style is nice.  In addition there are a good number of likable characters in this series.  And the biggest plus, the music from this series is really awesome.  It’s high up there on my list of favorite music.  I would say the series is worth watching.  

Donten ni Warau

Donten ni Warau, or Laughing Under a Cloudy Sky, is a quirky short series (12 episodes) about three brothers who help transport prisoners to a large island prison, and who watch over it and the local village and surrounding area.  The series takes place in the early Meiji era.  The three brothers are Kumou Tenka, the oldest, Kumou Soramaru, the middle child, and Kumou Chuutaro, the youngest.

The boys’ parents were murdered before the series start and Tenka has kept the family together and raised and watched over the two younger boys, with help from a white haired former ninja named Kinjou Shirasu.  Tenka found Shirasu injured and took him in.  Shirasu keeps house and cooks and generally takes care of the Kumou brothers since his ninja clan, the Fuma, was destroyed around the time the Kumou brother’s parents were murdered.  

Tenka believes in laughing at life’s problems, even when the sky stays cloudy, which it always does at the Kumou house due to its proximity to the prison lake, which also happens to be where a demon dragon is sealed.

The main plot line of the series is that an evil dragon demon (the Orochi) is working on breaking free of its seals and being reborn into the world.  The Kumous, along with a special police force called the Yamainu, exist to prevent the Orochi’s rebirth.  The Orochi selects a human as its vessel and begins its rebirth by growing as part of and eventually taking over its human host.  Tenka was a member of the Yamainu but left them, ostensibly to raise his brothers when his parents were murdered. 

Once the characters are all introduced, the plot twists and slightly more than half way through the series, Tenka is shown to be the Orochi’s vessel and is executed by the government.  The series is tragic as hell for a couple of episodes as Soramaru and Chuutaro struggle to deal with Tenka being executed and having to take over his position while they’re really still too young for it.

 

Just when you’re getting used to that, it’s revealed that actually Soramaru is the Orochi’s vessel rather than Tenka.  And Shirasu is actually the head of the Fuma clan.  Not only did Shirasu murder the Kumou parents, but he has been plotting the whole time to aid in the Orochi’s rebirth.  And oh yeah, Tenka isn’t dead.  Tenka wasn't executed after all.  He looked like the Orochi's vessel because he has Orochi cells growing in him.  When his parents were murdered he was injured and he agreed to become an orochi-cell experiment in order to save his life, in order to stay alive for his brothers’ sake.

 

So in the end the meek and mild ex-ninja Shirasu betrays everyone to loose the Orochi on the world.  However, working together, the brothers and their various friends and compatriots manage to defeat the reborn Orochi because the Kumou family swords are spelled to be able to cut the human vessel loose from the Orochi and make him able to defeat it.  Shirasu doesn’t take well to losing, and throws himself off a cliff.  Everyone else though lives happily for as long as they have left, including the still-dying Tenka, the shikigami created to help contain the Orochi and her one-armed human lover, the various Yamainu members, the younger Kumou brothers and the half-ninja girl who betrayed her Fuma clan for the love of Soramaru.

See?  Quirky.   It also takes the time to give back story on essentially all the characters, despite only being 12 episodes long, which is quite a feat.    I began watching this because I like the manga style (and style like the manga style better) and although I’d say it’s not a great series, it was interesting enough to keep me watching.

Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei

Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei, also called The Irregular at Magic High School, or The Poor-performing at Magic High School, is obviously about a high school full of students who can perform magic.  The classes and student are split into those who are exceptional at using magic (blooms) and those who can barely use magic at all (weeds).  The story follows a brother and sister named Shiba Tatsuya and Shiba Miyuki.  Miyuki is an exceptional magic user, and of course, Tatsuya is a weed.

As it turns out though, Tatsuya isn’t really inept at magic.  His magic is just so advanced and different from the usual magic that he performs poorly on standardized magic tests.  Plus in addition to having pretty amazing magic of his own, he’s a wizard at programming, especially programming the CAD devices which are used by magic users to focus and amplify their magic spells.  They also hint along the way that Tatsuya is not quite human, as he can reset himself when injured and has very few human emotions, except for his feelings for Miyuki.

The series is composed of three story arcs.  The first arc deals with the siblings entering the school and meeting their classmates.  It also deals with the whole blooms/weeds things and the inter-school prejudices, while introducing the cast and setting the stage.  Tatsuya is quickly found to be much more than he seems and he and Miyuki quickly become involved in the school, with Miyuki becoming a member of the Student Council and Tatsuya becoming a member of the Student Disciplinary Committee. 

The second arc covers a multi-school magic competition and not only do both Miyuki and Tatsuya compete in the various “games”, but Tatsuya ends up doing the programming for most of their school’s students’ CADs.  In the end he also foils a lot of plots intended to keep their school from winning the competition, which they do win.  In the final battle game, Tatsuya is accidentally killed by the top student of one of the other magic schools, who also happens to be the next head of one of the most powerful of the Ten Master Clans.  Tatsuya uses his most powerful magic skill, and regenerates himself instantly, so no one knows he should be dead, although most everyone is amazed he didn’t die.  

The final arc involves an attack on the magic users during another competition between the magic schools.  During this final arc, Tatsuya, Miyuki and the magic-using students demonstrate clearly that magic-using warfare beats normal, mechanical warfare all hollow.  In addition, Tatsuya’s spell which allows him to reset himself, allows him to reset others also, both people and things, if he gets to them within 24 hours of the damage.   He saves a couple of students’ lives this way.

I found two things about this series irritating:  one was the brother-sister love issue.  Miyuki is head over heels in love with Tatsuya and doesn’t bother to hide it.  It’s almost sickening early on but luckily they tone it down a bit as they go.  Either that or I got used to it.  The other thing was the series creators need to explain every magic spell in detail.  The characters all do a post-mortem discussion of each spell and how it worked along the way.  That little series quirk almost made me stop watching the series. 

Despite those two issues, the story was interesting enough to keep me watching.  Or maybe I kept watching to try to figure out exactly what Tatsuya is.  His family is not very happy with his existence and tends to ignore him for the most part, except for Miyuki who worships him.  He is also a secret operative for a special magic-using section of the JSDF.   Plus his magic and computer abilities often seem more than human.  

I ended up not getting all (any) of my questions answered.  Like why does Miyuki control Tatsuya’s powers?  Before the final battle, she releases the limiter on his powers. So, the series ended abruptly with a lot of things up in the air, including with me having the same question I watched the series all the way through in order to find the answer to:  Who or What is Tatsuya?  Still . . .  I’m glad I watched it, although I probably won’t watch another season if they continue it.   

Witch Hunter Robin

Witch Hunter Robin is set in a world where people with extrasensory powers, known as the “craft", are considered to be “witches” and to be evil.  An organization called Solomon, with ties to the Roman Catholic Church, exists to monitor these witches, people with the genetic ability to perform the craft, in case their powers should awaken.  If that happens, they usually lose control and go mad.  Solomon (STN) then hunts down these witches and removes them from society, for their own safety and the safety of society.  STN also uses a massive database to monitor all relatives of known witches since they carry the genes for witchcraft.

Robin is a special witch hunter, raised and trained by the Church in Italy, and sent undercover to Japan investigate the whereabouts of an item which holds the secrets of the craft.  Robin herself has the genetic craft ability to use fire as a weapon, which also puts her at risk, with the possibility of awakening as a witch, siding with the witches against the STN and being hunted with the other witches.  At the beginning of the series, Robin joins the Japanese branch of STN, STN-J.  She begins to know and work with the people there, including the overall STN-J administrator, Zaizen, and his immediate underling, Kosaka.  She works as a partner with the senior Hunter of the group, a guy named Amon.  The other members of STN-J include three more Hunters, Sakaki, Karasuma and Dojima, and one guy who stays at the base and does all the computer work there named Michael Lee.

The early series is Robin getting used to the work and integrating into the team, and features several witch hunts.  Robin uses her fire power to protect and to attack.  The other hunters wear a small crystal vial hung around their necks that contains a substance in it called Orbo.  Orbo is produced by the STN-J at their Factory and it neutralizes craft attacks from witches.  They also shoot the witches with orbo-containing bullets to stop them and make them powerless.  Robin hates orbo and won’t wear it or use it.

Along the way, Robin begins to look for the item she was sent after and the search leads her to  information about her past, and then things get interesting.  Robin discovers that her father essentially created her with witch genes and she actually is a witch.  An attack on the STN-J headquarters ends with Amon disappeared and Robin on the run, being hunted as a witch herself.  It’s a little hard to tell who are the good guys and who are the bad guys for a while. 

During the time she’s on the run, Robin stays in contact with the other STN-J hunters and finds that things are not all well within the organization and Amon is still missing.  Eventually Amon shows back up and turns out to be working with the Church, being sent to hunt Robin.  A confrontation between Robin and Amon is basically the series climax, as she convinces him that she is at heart a witch hunter, despite also being a witch.  Amon agrees to work with her, setting himself up as her one-day executioner if she should ever turn.  In the meantime he decides that he cares enough for her to trust her to do what’s right.

 

Together, and with the help of the loyal witch hunters, they go to the Factory to bring down Zaizen-tachi – who it turns out was behind the attack on the STN-J.  In the raid to topple Zaizen’s little empire they discover that he is not just removing witches from society, he is rendering them down to produce Orbo.  They destroy him and his Factory.

 

The series basically ends with the destruction of the Factory.  Karasuma, Sakai, Dojima and Michael Lee go back to doing their job hunting witches for the STN-J without Amon and Robin, who “died” in the Factory destruction.  So although the series ends with the “death” of the two main characters, you are definitely left with the feeling that they are alive and out there hunting witches somewhere.  And life goes on.  This series is a really good one.  Great animation style, outstanding music.  Good plot, just twisty enough to keep you guessing, especially when you’re trying to decide if Amon is a good guy or a bad guy.  I definitely recommend it if you haven’t seen it.  

Le Chevalier D'Eon

Another post about an old series today.  I haven't watched enough of the new series to post about them yet.

Le Chevalier D’Eon takes place in 18^th century Europe, predominately in France, as you can probably assume from the title.  The story follows the events in the life on a young man named D’Eon de Beaumont.  As the story begins, D’Eon has just found out that his older sister Lia has been murdered.  The plot basically follows his attempts to find her murderers and bring them to justice.

Lia, it turns out, was working for the King of France, Louis 15^th, so D’Eon is recruited by Louis also.  His quest for justice for his sister can also be of service to the Crown.  He gains three friends/comrades along the way, another knight named Durand, an older knight who also taught D’Eon and Lia to fight, named Teillagory, and a young boy named Robin, who is also a servant of the French Queen, Marie.  These four follow the bad guys trail from the French Court, to the Court of Elizaveta and then Catherine in Russia and the Court of King George III and Queen Mary in England. 

This anime is full of the intrigue and plotting in all the major courts in Europe and England and has a host of characters related to each court.  D’Eon-tachi encounter, and sometimes get involved in, plots in all the courts as they follow a Russian spy and then later Maximilien Robespierre, following the trail of intrigue and death.

The anime is also full of magic.  D’Eon channels his dead sister Lia, and she often takes over his consciousness, especially during fights.  Several of the characters, notably Robespierre, are referred to as Poets, and can wield the magical Power of the Psalms.  Lia was also a Poet and could wield that Power and continues to do so when she’s in control of D’Eon’s body.  A book of power called the Royal Psalms is one of the items the four comrades eventually try to recover.  It belongs to the French royal family, but seems to spend a lot of time being passed around by multiple people.

In the end, everyone betrays everyone in this anime.  Durand and Teillagory both betray D’Eon.  The French King Louis kills his own Queen, Marie, which turns Robin into a revolutionary rather than a supporter of the Crown.  D’Eon finds that Lia and Robespierre were at one time lovers, and that Louis has been using D’Eon.  Louis isn’t even actually of royal blood and Robespierre is – one of the reasons Robespierre works against the crown.  Yet even with all this intrigue, D’Eon maintains his loyalty to his King – the only character who does basically.    The plot is often convoluted.

This series was okay.  The music and animation style are good. It’s not a great series, but the story kept me interested, probably because I spent so much time trying to figure out exactly what was going on while D’Eon stumbled from one intrigue to the next.  I didn’t like that everyone betrayed everyone eventually.  There was also a lot of death in this anime, including main characters.  D’Eon survives it, and Robin moves on as a revolutionary.  It didn’t feel like a satisfying ending though.