Did Sword Art Online help Final Fantasy XIV?

[Vilhem]

My friend works for an anime distirubting company, she can read/write/speak Japanese fluently as she has taught English in Japan for a short period before. She understands my problem and suggests anime with decent subs. She mainly told me to beware of any ADV Dubs for they are aweful. I guess I have good taste of anime because so far I have not run into any terrible dubs.

I don't have to read long before my headaches kick in, I am straining against multiple eye conditions so it can be any length of time from 2-5 mins or if the text is large enough and I could probly read for 10-20 mins. It sucks but I'm used to it by now 26 years of coping can do that.

Not -all- ADV dubs were bad. I rather enjoyed Evangelion myself. Either way, that company is under, and the dubs produced under the ADV logo were 10 years ago.. ;D

I've struggled with poor eyesight for all of my life too xD We are kindred spirits ;; I've worn "coke bottle" glasses since I was in the 3rd grade and even then I cannot see more than 5ft ahead of me before things start to blend together. I too need huge text to read well....and I'm only 31 T.T

Also, cut your hair and stop looking like me!

[Elexia]

I do hope SE gets inspired by SAO, mainly on the crafter side. The way there are drops that only drop when the blacksmith is on the party, and how they can open shops and dedicate solely on their job, hiring people to help them get resources and that stuff. That's something only FFXIV could provide in nowadays MMOs.

But I know Yoshi wants everyone to focus a lot more in battle :/

So you mean how they originally intended it for XIV? This won't happen because your lovely community despises the idea of bringing a non battle class to battle content or any kind of content really.

[Kirito]

Not -all- ADV dubs were bad. I rather enjoyed Evangelion myself. Either way, that company is under, and the dubs produced under the ADV logo were 10 years ago.. ;D

I've struggled with poor eyesight for all of my life too xD We are kindred spirits ;; I've worn "coke bottle" glasses since I was in the 3rd grade and even then I cannot see more than 5ft ahead of me before things start to blend together. I too need huge text to read well....and I'm only 31 T.T

Also, cut your hair and stop looking like me!

I was actually going to say that... ADV dubs were all pretty good although now it gone along with geneon (although japanese geneon is still up and running)...

[Keith_Dragoon]

Not -all- ADV dubs were bad. I rather enjoyed Evangelion myself. Either way, that company is under, and the dubs produced under the ADV logo were 10 years ago.. ;D

I've struggled with poor eyesight for all of my life too xD We are kindred spirits ;; I've worn "coke bottle" glasses since I was in the 3rd grade and even then I cannot see more than 5ft ahead of me before things start to blend together. I too need huge text to read well....and I'm only 31 T.T

Also, cut your hair and stop looking like me!

Lol, I have been wearing glasses since I was 2 weeks old, my retina never fully developed, I have Occular Albinism AND a severe Nystagmus. All that makes reading hard as hell. I am only 26 though doctors say my eyes can't get much worst then 20/400 and 20/600 L/R unless I suffer heavy eye/head trauma which I intend to avoid. >.>

I have looked like this since XI NA launch, you sir look like me! As for ADV dubs, I saw one and I see where they dislike it but I had no problem with it.

On-topic: I am still waiting for a ton of animes to be dubbed including SAO but if it did help XIV get more press then I want to see it even more now. :P

[Hanemakikaze]

Then it seems all the subtleness of the entire series was lost on you. Shame really, because the real attraction to SAO is its storyline. A very distinct reoccuring feature about japanese anime are the subtle content that is always inherent within... and for SAO there is a lot going on that shows several facets of the characters. Viewers are able to identify with several aspects of the series, which is what really makes it popular... not just the art and animation style.

Here's a hint... the real life Kirito dives into online games for certain reasons regarding his family, and his online xter shows various sides of his extreme strong will, his humility, his weaknesses and so on. Same goes for Klein, Agil and even Asuna (whose very wealthy family has some corporate ties to the company that developed the Cardinal and ALO software).

Heck, even the name "Heathcliff" was likely chosen by a certain someone in the series because of its significance from a very famous real life book.

Finally, I think its also HIGHLY recommended that you read the light novel and the various wikia sites online... they will flesh out a lot more about the series and make you understand why it now has almost 7 million copies in print.

You'll just have to accept not everyone likes the anime in the same way as you, all the time skipping, the completely boring romance, then theres that one extremely disturbing scene where two of their guild members(one who is a friend) are killed (literally), Kiritos arms chopped off and they decide it's a good idea to get engaged at that exact point? I pretty much stopped caring about the story at this point, and just enjoyed the action since it's very well animated. So no, a statistical number of sales will not change my mind, the anime is over and I'm done with it. Now I just patiently wait for more Pyscho Pass.

[Soukyuu]

Then it seems all the subtleness of the entire series was lost on you. Shame really, because the real attraction to SAO is its storyline. A very distinct reoccuring feature about japanese anime are the subtle content that is always inherent within... and for SAO there is a lot going on that shows several facets of the characters. Viewers are able to identify with several aspects of the series, which is what really makes it popular... not just the art and animation style.

Ramesses, the reason why you can see all those good points is probably because you read the novel and your memories overlap. SAO does have a solid setting and a good story with likable characters - in the novels.

The whole development between the characters was severely cut in the anime's SAO-arc though, which hurt the overall story. Not to mention people were too busy leering about the 16.5 chapter. I have no idea why they decided to squeeze the SAO arc into 12 EPs, in the end the pacing got screwed up completely. And why the hell did they remove nearly every piece of dialogue that showed the main chars getting closer?

They did a decent adaptation of ALO, though the pace there was a bit too slow. Should have allocated more episodes for SAO arc, like not shortening the red nosed reindeer story as well animating the full aria in the starless sky.

All in all, I don't think the popularity of SAO comes from the anime, but the anime serves as a good way to attract people to the novels, making SAO overall more popular. The author even started re-writing the story in a chronological order filling in the gaps, I doubt he would be doing this if the novels didn't sell well.

As for most novel fans, the anime was disappointing. The only good about it was seeing the best scenes animated.

one extremely disturbing scene. [...] Now I just patiently wait for more Pyscho Pass.

That's... kinda contradicting. As for why they decide to engage there... the novels did a much better job at leading to that scene... and it made sense.

[Molic]

Skipped over a bunch of stuff but yea there is another arc after that in a "gun world" then another 1 or 2 arcs after that even depending on how you look at it. But if you ever read the original web novel its pretty good.

can read most of it here:

http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/in...ord_Art_Online

I was chatting with a Japanese colleague earlier about the fact that the FFXIV Nico Nico stream had a degree of success that I didn't expect, with more than 60k viewers that are quite a lot for a stream in Japanese that wasn't very much publicized internationally.

She told me "yeah, with Sword Art Online, everyone is crazy for MMORPGs again in Japan now".

Very possibly, she's right, Japan is very sensitive to this kind of influence, and I can definitely see how a popular anime/manga/novel series could have raised the "cool factor" of MMOs, especially one made locally like FFXIV.

It's interesting that there are already rather strong rumors of a second SAO anime series to be released in the summer season. That'd sure be convenient, even if the next arc of the story is set on a gun-based MMO.

Edit: probably should have read others post beside OP, but yea if you go to that link you can read the web novel if you havent probably one of my favorite.

[Ramesses]

Ramesses, the reason why you can see all those good points is probably because you read the novel and your memories overlap. SAO does have a solid setting and a good story with likable characters - in the novels.

The whole development between the characters was severely cut in the anime's SAO-arc though, which hurt the overall story. Not to mention people were too busy leering about the 16.5 chapter. I have no idea why they decided to squeeze the SAO arc into 12 EPs, in the end the pacing got screwed up completely. And why the hell did they remove nearly every piece of dialogue that showed the main chars getting closer?

Soukyou, sure I liked the novels and sure its what made me view the anime in a favourable light. Matter of fact, I already knew that the pacing for the first twelve episodes got severely cut down from the novels because (as confirmed from several sources), the initial plans was to run the show for only one season (Japanese TV seasons usually run for 12 or 13 weeks).

However, the huge success of the show by the time it entered its 4th week made them re-write some parts of the second season more closely to the novels... and this reflects very clearly in the ALO story arc. Even then, a lot was skipped and glossed over, but lets face it... in the end, the anime did its job perfectly of advertising the novels even more.

You'll just have to accept not everyone likes the anime in the same way as you, all the time skipping, the completely boring romance, then theres that one extremely disturbing scene where two of their guild members(one who is a friend) are killed (literally), Kiritos arms chopped off and they decide it's a good idea to get engaged at that exact point? I pretty much stopped caring about the story at this point, and just enjoyed the action since it's very well animated. So no, a statistical number of sales will not change my mind, the anime is over and I'm done with it. Now I just patiently wait for more Pyscho Pass.

This is why in my previous post I particularly urged you to read the novels as a supplement to watching the anime.... and contrary to belief, statistical numbers DOES play a part in helping a piece of media become successful. Trust me, the publishing industry literally thrives on numbers... its part of why the book is now developed into a PS Vita game.

By the way, the scene with the two guild members dying occurs AFTER a particularly epic battle (which, imho was better delivered in the anime) which made Kirito have to now work with them on a routine mission. Thus, he had no real bonds with them, neither was there any really gruesome images out of place than previously seen. Besides, one of them deserved to die anyway. After that incident, Kirito's subsequent engagement, marriage, honeymoon etc evolves a lot better in the novels.

Speaking of which... Hanemakikaze, while you are waiting for the next episode of Pyscho-Pass (which I believe number 12 is now late by a couple weeks), try watching Jormungand. That's one series that allows you to see the world in a much different light.

[Molic]

They did a decent adaptation of ALO, though the pace there was a bit too slow. Should have allocated more episodes for SAO arc, like not shortening the red nosed reindeer story as well animating the full aria in the starless sky.

Kinda hate when anime make a episode out of a side story, i just see that as filler D:. Wish they would just stick to the main story for the anime, then have bonus ep of side stories or make a movie of them.

[Soukyuu]

Kinda hate when anime make a episode out of a side story, i just see that as filler D:. Wish they would just stick to the main story for the anime, then have bonus ep of side stories or make a movie of them.

There are not side-stories in that sense. If they left the Aria out, it'd end up with Asuna coming out and marrying Kirito out of nowhere. It was already bad as it was with half of the developing dialogue being cut.

The timeskip was supposed to be there, since it's what the novel does, too. The reason is simple, the author had a submission limit so he had to cut a lot. The second volume, the "side stories" are an attempt to flesh the story out, and if you ask me, it does a good job.

So putting those side stories into the anime was definitely a good idea. Cutting them beyond recognition, wasn't. That's why they feel like a filler, there is 50% of their content missing.