Weekly Review: SAO Abridged

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Hello, and welcome back to another week of anime! This week we are taking a look at the YouTube sensation Sword Art Online: Abridged. The parody is produced by a group of individuals known as Something Witty Entertainment. The group created the series as a parody of the already popular Sword Art Online series, and it quickly caught on. Their expert editing skills along with some incredibly humorous dialogue are only a few reasons for the series’ popularity. Something Witty Entertainment has also gained a lot of respect as every episode starts out clarifying that the original series is owned by specific companies and that the viewer should support the official release. This covers themselves, and also looks good as they support an already successful franchise.

So you haven’t seen or heard anything about Sword Art Online? Really? Well, the series is about a young teenager named Kazuto who joins the world of Sword Art Online, an incredible breakthrough virtual reality MMORPG. However, as Kazuto and the ten thousand others like him soon realize, the game is a death trap. They soon find themselves trapped within the virtual world with the only hope of escape being to clear all 100 floors of Aincrad and beating the game. If they happen to die in the game, they will also perish in real life. In game, Kazuto is known as Kirito, a solo, floor clearing beast who’s reckless fighting style on the front has earned him several nicknames. Throughout we get plenty of support from other characters such as Klein, Agil, and Asuna. So that’s the basis, no go watch it. I mean, come on, it’s in English on Netflix. Now go!

Back to the parody. Yes, it is in English, in case you are wondering. The story line follows that of its original roughly, with finer details changing as the editors see fit. Our beast of a main Kirito is still a beast, but he is quite the ill mannered in the parody. He is joined by supporting character Asuna who’s personality has got a hilarious twist as a stalker, crazy, kind of racist girl. While the means of the parody is to give us a nice chuckle, the story line is still surprisingly gripping. Some even say that the romance between Kirito and Asuna is better than the original series, not to mention Kirito’s character development is way better, at least in my opinion.

The parody has become a part of my life now. Every time I see a clip from the original Sword Art Online release I can immediately think about the parody as well. It compliments the original series very well, and is a nice laugh, which is the complete opposite of the vibe from the original series. I suggest you give it a watch, it’s on YouTube, therefore it is free. Don’t worry about not being able to follow if you haven’t seen the original, the parody does a surprisingly good job of explaining the story line as well.

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