Hello and welcome to Project Nitsuj. *Deep breath* Well. . .it’s been a while since I talked about SAO *Nitsuj ducks under the table as shots are fired at him. Once the shots stop he returns to his seat* and with the news of a third season set to air next year, I thought now would be a good time to talk about the movie Ordinal Scale. Released in theaters earlier this year and written as an original story by the author himself, Ordinal Scale was our first sign that SAO was making a return. Once again produced by A-1 Pictures (SAO and Magi) the movie was successful in Japan and those who saw it in select theaters also said they liked it as well. Let’s see if this movie can offer us something different from the anime, this is SAO: Ordinal Scale.
The movie starts with introducing the newest virtual device the Augma. Similar to the AmuSphere only instead of doing a full dive which renders people unconscious while they play virtual games, the Augma works while keeping the player conscious creating a whole new virtual experience using augment reality (basically doing what VR games are doing right now). Another huge factor is it that costs less than the Nervegear (that’s a seller) and it has games as well with the biggest being Ordinal Scale a combat game where you fight against virtual creatures (sort of like Pokemon Go except there’s not a mob of people trying to break into your house to catch Articuno. Speaking of which. How are we looking out there Isis? (Isis): I’ve already sniped 6 people so far. *Isis fires her gun* Make that 7. I think they’re starting to get the message) where your score is random and you can get real life prizes (I do wish actual gaming companies did this in real life. But it would cost them too much money). The game works thanks to these drones that fly around the city and spawn monsters throughout the city (okay, I’m pretty sure this would not work in real life. No city in the world is going to agree to have drones fly around freely. Hell, D.C shoots down any drone that gets remotely close to the White House) and the spokesperson for this game is Yuna a mysterious white-haired idol who many people believe is a virtual character because she disappears after every battle and concert. As you would imagine the Augma has hurt the sales and usage of the Nervegear as many are making the switch (like I did in March) and dropping out of ALO and GGO. We see that Kirito and the others (at this point I’m not sure whether to call them a harem or entourage. They like Kirito, but their purpose is like that of a used napkin) have the Augmas and he receives a message from Klein about a special event battle going on at night. Kirito and Asuna arrive at the event just as it’s about to start where Klein and other players are waiting. When the event begins we see that the monster is one of the bosses from SAO (is no one in this anime original? Also, why would you use monsters from a game that killed thousands of people? Do you have any idea how offensive that is? Imagine if I just put the Twin Towers in a videogame and never addressed 9/11 saying it never happened). Yuna shows up via drone (yeah, I’m 100% sure she’s not a real person now. Way to give it away movie) to give everyone a power boost and they fight the boss where for the first time ever Kirito sucks because he’s out of shape fighting in the real world (not so tough in the real world huh Kirito?) and the other players are terrible too (amateurs). Lucky for them Eiji the rank 2 player shows up and leads the charge along with Klein’s group and Asuna delivers the finishing blow to the boss earning the most points and a kiss from Yuna herself (scene here: https://youtu.be/xbjiDo3ft2A. Man, Asuna gets more women than Kirito to like her). Sometime later there’s another boss event near Asuna’s house (and for my Asuna fans, here’s some fanservice. Scene here: https://youtu.be/6YHatMgRr90) and she goes there with Klein’s group where thanks to her leadership they manage to beat the boss (scene here: https://youtu.be/iYVcPSox5NI). But the real battle is with Klein and his group as they get attacked and beat up by Eiji who seems to be targeting players from SAO for some reason.
The next day in the park, while Kirito is waiting for Asuna he bumps into a ghost AI who tries to tell him something. Asuna arrives (sporting a new hairstyle) where they go to sit down and talk at a café (well I see it’s time for some exposition) where she says Eiji is an SAO survivor like them (I’m sure he’s got a lot of trauma). He was a member of Kayaba’s guild (https://youtu.be/zkbHS3U9lJM) along with Asuna but unlike everyone else who had a set and was prepared to die, Eiji was a coward afraid to fight because he feared death. Yui interrupts their conversation (oh thank God) and gathers everyone in ALO to sit down and talk (oh my God~! Have you learned nothing from the anime? This is the one thing that pissed people off the most from the anime). She’s found a correlation between the boss battles and their appearance in Ordinal Scale. All of their locations match up perfectly to where they appeared in SAO (again, originality is dead in this world). This placement of bosses seems to worry Kirito and he decides to look into it on his own (might as well do something since you’re not gonna fight. Try to be at least somewhat relevant in this movie). Asuna, Lisbeth, and Silica go to another boss battle where this time two bosses from SAO show up with one of them being from the 91st floor. Eiji pushes Silica down and just when she’s about to get attack Asuna takes the hit for her and goes down much to Eiji’s enjoyment (real big guy when your life isn’t on the line). Kirito shows up at the event, sees what happened, and he’s rightfully pissed. The event ends with no one able to beat the bosses and something bad happened to Asuna, she can’t remember her time in SAO (scene here: https://youtu.be/N-ktZbOndbU). Kirito takes Asuna to the hospital where they scan her brain and discover that areas of her memories have been scanned, specifically her memories in SAO. When Asuna got attacked memories of SAO (good times) came flashing through her mind because the event was similar to what she did in SAO and her Augma was able to scan and remove these memories from her for some reason. While there’s no major harm done to Asuna there’s a good chance that she might lose the rest of her memories along with others who have had similar experiences recently.
The plot thickens as Kirito uses his connections to get into a seminar hosted by Shigemura the creator of Augma who was also Kayaba’s teacher (https://youtu.be/zkbHS3U9lJM). Kirito tells him of the memory lost dangers, but he doesn’t care and refuses to answer anymore of Kirito’s questions (in other words, he knows what’s going on, he’s behind what’s going on, and he has no intention of stopping because he’s an asshole). Before leaving Kirito notices a picture of a girl on his desk (pervert) who turns out to be his daughter Yuna who died in SAO (so it’s revenge you want huh? I can get behind that). Later on, Kirito encounters the ghost AI again where it gets revealed to be Yuna (well we already knew that). She tells Kirito that if he wants to know the truth and save Asuna, he needs to level up (our excuse for Kirito to go badass mode has arrived) and that’s exactly what he does. In one night Kirito goes on a boss killing rampage and manages to become one of the top 10 players in the game (scene here: https://youtu.be/mjj1-KXZTYg?t=24s, mess with his girlfriend, you’re a dead man. Just ask Sugou). Despite this impressive feat he’s still not strong enough to defeat Eiji so Sugaha gives him some kendo training to whip him back into shape. The next day comes for Yuna’s concert where Eiji challenges Kirito to a one on one fight. If Kirito wins, Eiji will tell him how to get Asuna’s memories back. The two have their fight in the parking lot below the stadium where we find out what’s going on. Shigemura is trying to resurrect Yuna using the memories of SAO players and Eiji is helping because he was Yuna’s friend in the game and stayed with her until her final moments where even then he couldn’t do anything to help her (how this will bring back his daughter is beyond me. Up until now I was okay with this movie. Even the augment reality and memory lost, that had potential. But using the memories of other people to bring back a dead person they may or may not remember or even met, THAT IS STUPID and you know it Reki). The two have their fight which is unsatisfying for me personally (cocky asshole thinks he’s all that just because he changed his name and became the 2nd best player. By cheating mind, you. Don’t get me wrong, the fight is well choreographed and animated, but it goes by in a flash. There’s a lot at stake here for both of these guys, they are fighting for the people they love the most in this world, but the fight doesn’t live up to the intensity of the situation. Not to mention Eiji has been mocking Kirito all throughout the movie so you would think Kirito would remind this guy why he was considered the best player in SAO and beat the shit out of him but no, one good slash and Eiji goes down). Once Kirito beats Eiji (scene here: https://youtu.be/HWINQhIT8XI) he demands to know where Asuna’s memories are to which Eiji just laughs and says Shigemura created this concert to trap all the SAO players inside the stadium and force them all to fight so he can get all the memories he needs to bring Yuna’s soul back and then turn her into an AI (folks, we could be looking at another possible SAO incident). Kirito meets up with the others to fight with them where Yuna comes in to help them and tells them that if they don’t stop this soon the drones will send out an electric wave to read everyone’s memories and cause them serious brain damage like the Nervegear (like student like professor). The only way to stop this madness is to defeat the final boss in SAO (oh, so Kayaba was the secret boss?). Yuna reveals that the Augmas have a hidden dive feature (only $9.99 in the app store) and the group (minus Asuna) uses this feature to dive into SAO where they get teleported directly to the layer of the final boss who to be honest is everything we would expect a final boss to be (big, intimidating, unbelievably strong, and unstoppable). As you can guess Kirito and the others are no match for this thing but Asuna logs in to help them fight and Yui calls in Suguha and the players from ALO and GGO to help fight (oh well that’s not fair. Talk about breaking the game). She even gives Kirito and the others their old stats from SAO so now they’re way powerful than they were before (and it is cool to see them in their old outfits again). They beat the final boss in a fast pace fight scene as everyone gets their hits in and contributes to the fight. We even get to see the ghost of Yuuki as Asuna uses Mother’s Rosario (scene here: https://youtu.be/ga80m0-lRUk). Once the final boss is defeated Kirito receives the ultimate sword (I call it the bullshit sword) and returns to the stadium still in dive mode where he kills off all monsters with one slash (and that’s why I call it the bullshit sword). Once all the monsters are defeated, Yuna returns everyone’s memories and then fades away because she was coded from the same code as the boss on the 100th floor and now that it’s gone and will reset soon, Yuna will cease to exist (scene here: https://youtu.be/6-c5zOSHgFA). Shigemura gets found and caught by Kikuoka and if you watch after the credits (Marvel’s legacy lives on) you’ll see that Kikuoka recruits Shigemura to join Rath after he resigns from his position in Augma (I would hope so). The AI Yuna continues to live on in memory of the real Yuna and performs concerts just like the real Yuna always dreamed of and Shigemura’s secret agenda is kept from being made public (yeah there would be no recovery from this ordeal). As for Kirito and Asuna, the two loverbirds go with Yui to watch a meteor shower in the mountains (scene here: https://youtu.be/FykKULf3CAU).
Final Thoughts
So that was Ordinal Scale and my overall thoughts are meh. The movie suffers from the same problems of the anime. We have a bunch of characters here who really serve no purpose until the end and are just there to be there. None of them get any development charter wise. Asuna has her moments where she’s cool but then she quickly falls into the role of damsel in distress. While the villain this time has a good motive for what he’s doing, his plan doesn’t really make a lot of sense when you stop to think it and the way they get out exposition about the situation is boring and annoying. Now this doesn’t mean the movie is all bad. The stuff with the augment reality was cool. I like the way it was representative here and how it added something new and different to VR gaming that the Nervergear couldn’t. I did like how Kirito doesn’t start off as an overpowered badass this time around. He starts off weak and gets stronger, but I do have to admit it is annoying seeing him train for like one day and manage to beat the rival who was overpowered as well the next day. Like I said before the villains were good. You understand their pain and why they’re doing what they’re doing. Eiji is trying to prove to himself and to others that he can fight and become a hero for Yuna. He wants to become her Superman; the same way Kirito is Asuna’s Superman. Shigemura wants to be reunited with his daughter who was killed by his very student for reasons unknown and is prepared to travel the same road as his student to accomplish that goal. As far as stories go, this is probably the closest we’ll get to an actual sequel to the first arc. For the first time since the first arc, Kirito and Asuna have the chance to lose something they value, their time with each other. While what happened in SAO was terrible, the game did bring them together. It’s where they met and fell in love and even though that place may carry bad memories for them it also carries good memories as well. When Asuna lost her memories of SAO, she not only lost her memories of Kirito but also her drive to keep living in memories of those who lost their lives in SAO.
The animation is great here, as you would expect from a movie budget. The fight scenes are well-choregraphed and animated. If anything, they’re actually better than the fights in the anime. The music really didn’t leave that much of an impact on me. They mix together new music with old music from the anime which was alright but it really doesn’t leave an impact as you watch the movie.
Final Score
Ordinal Scale scores a 5.5/10. Next to the first arc, this is my favorite story in the series. I just wish it didn’t make the same mistakes or have the same problems as the other arcs. However, the movie does capture the heart of the series and why so many like this series so much. If you’re a fan of SAO you’ll really like this movie. If you’re somewhere down the middle you’ll find this movie meh or alright. Either way, I think it’s a good story into the SAO series. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.
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