Sword Art Online Alicization is back, this time featuring Alice and not Kirito as the subject of focus. I am curious as to what Alice will bring to the table. As far as I know, power has been cut to the machine that houses the fluchtlights. It is for that reason that Kirito has now lost the majority of his cognitive function. It seems unlikely that Kirito will regain any kind of mental capability in the near future or at all, but I am sure there will be some kind of convenient plot device to bring him back to normalcy.  Until then Alice will be the heroine of the show, after all Alice is in the name of the title. I wonder what is left to explore in the SAO universe and if its written in a compelling fashion.

As of last we left the world of the fluchtlights things looked dire, but I have to say that I wasn’t very terribly interested in what is to happen next. Sure the set up is there to be somewhat interesting, but my biggest fear by far is that the next coming episodes of Alicization will feel hollow and flat. Even if Kirito were to somehow come back and the world of the fluchtlights was somehow spared the destruction by the dark territory I can say none of that is very interesting. Character growth by Alice is expected, as she is now an outcast of society and our main heroine. Given how the Alicization story arc has gone so far it would be fair to say that either something dumb is in store or it will be plain boring. Not that is not to go so far that I hope the heroes fail to make it interesting, but that would be an unexpected twist.

As of now I can’t think of anything that could impress me as a long time viewer of the SAO series, then again I will watch it to the end. I will most likely be critiquing all season long, which I would rather not do. I would love for there to be something that would bring back genuine interest in the show. It would be nice if some of the SAO magic was brought back that made me first fall in love with the series. I was almost convinced Alicization was it, but it fell very flat on its face. There is still time for it to recover, but there is also a big chance it will be a lot of fluff and things I find irrelevant to the show or uninteresting. I am hoping to be proven wrong, but given the direction of Alicization I don’t see where it can end better than it had started. I can say at the very least there may be some satisfaction in watching the society of the flucthlights grow into a full fledged cognitive world. That is the only redeeming grace I can find for the show at the moment. I hope in time to be proven wrong, and that Alicization live up to some of its original promise and potential. Will this season be interesting or compelling? No, but maybe if we get really lucky.