There will always be something enticing about the portrayal of MMOs within anime. Like .hack//sign before it, Sword Art Online tickles the fancy of those who revel in finding the glitches, the rare objects, the dark and hidden zones of online worlds that subvert the otherwise strongly governed rules and are all but untouched by the masses. For the first half of the series at least, again like .hack//sign, the pesky outside world cannot interfere, for the players of SAO are locked into Aincard by a nefarious programmer. Reach the 100th level and escape the game, if you die you die for real, if you try and take off the gear used to access the game, you die.
Three simple rules, ten thousand players, starting pistol... Go. From there protagonist Kirito, a beta tester and all-round MMO connoisseur, is able to single-handedly charge through what would otherwise take squads, groups, even whole guilds to defeat. A lovely bit of wish-fulfilment intimating that by relying on solitary skill rather communal co-operation a single person is able to succeed and thrive.
"Don't burn, be moe" is how Kara no Kyoukai: Oblivion Recorder starts, the stop-motion vignette ufotable are known for as adorable as ever. It's an inauspicious message for a series which so far has staunchly avoided anime tropes, but unfortunately the new protagonist Azaka is every bit as vivacious and animated as the slang suggests, and it can't help but seep into the rest of the film. Making sporadic cameos throughout the other movies, it was a foregone conclusion that she would eventually move into a lead role, this does not automatically imbue her with any of the qualities one expects from Kara no Kyoukai and her pronounced lack of them is key to the film's drastic shift in tone.
Action is now a prismatic eruption, colour spewing from magic and faeries with complete disregard for scene comprehension
Taking place in a Christian boarding school somewhere in Japan, Azaka has been ordered by Touko to look into reports of faeries causing unrest on campus. Shiki is brought on to combat the visually ephemeral creatures, however this only antagonises Azaka who sees her as a competitor for the affections of Mikiya. A recent suicide by one of the students of the school raises suspicions, especially when her classmates are unable to recall anything about the incident or the girl in question. A teacher who resembles Mikiya catches Shiki's attention, but it transpires a student is behind both the faeries and the stolen memories; Azaka confronts the student, pleading for them to stop while Shiki faces a powerful sorcerer known as God's Word who seems to be the architect of the entire affair.
