SAOAGGO-A-GO-GO! – Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online 3-Ep Test

That title is a mouthful and I’d probably abbreviate the title if it wasn’t for SEO HRGGHGHH…Ok I’m fine, just far too many acronyms and abbreviations and I had to take a minute to recuperate. After finishing a good marathon of PUBG with the guys, I opted to catch up on SAOAGGO and honestly, it’s been quite a bit of a hoot. The show alleviated some of my previous worry about the sheer practicality of the show and my legitimate concern about the show jumping the shark. Episode 2 had us find out about LLENN, or Karen and her issues with being a tall woman in real life and then jumping from game to game (37!) because of the random character generation she gets, until she finds Gun Gale Online, where she pops in as an adorable little girl. GGO as a First Person Shooter turns into an interesting hobby for her, where she finds her adorable life as a PVE player hunting monsters changed when she becomes a notorious PK’er or Player Killer hunting folk in a region known for it’s pink dusty dessert and sandstorm. So I’ll admit, she’s not quite so pants-on-head with the tactical gear, even though we find out she gets it because it’s kawaii AF and kinda lucked into being camouflaged.

Additionally, she encounters another character in game, Pito, who begins to train her on more PVP and overall game mechanics, leading to a growing friendship. Pito begins to show and train LLENN and maintains enough of a mysterious air about her and her past without straying into the realm of being an obnoxious or cliche character. After some team building exercises and unfair ambushing, LLENN and Pito touch tips and vow to meet should LLENN ever defeat Pito in combat. Overall the interactions have been pretty interesting and well developed enough that I forgot this was Sword Art Online. We even have a touching moment where Pito goes out and shows LLENN a store where she buys her dearest and adorable P-Chan and is given strict instructions in it’s care and maintenance in the heartwarming exchange shown below.

Episode 2 ends and Episode 3 begins with the introduction to the Squad Jam we saw in Episode 1 and Karen agrees to forgo the Squad Jam for a concert her friend is attempting to get tickets for, but she fails and of course Karen at first is bummed, then has a positive bit of PTSD and gets hyped for SJ. After meeting the intimidating M that she shall be fighting alongside, he tests her combat skills through tests such as firing at varying rates of fire and reloading discipline, sprinting and firing at full auto in controlled bursts, rotating at angles and firing with her eyes closed at his explicit instruction, and just overall destroying pineapples. We then end the episode with LLENN receiving some CQC training from The Boss M and then Team LM get into the fray for PUBG GGO SJ.

So the show has managed to not get into any crazy or stupid plot points about dying in real life if you die in the game, and that alone passes the show for my 3-episode test. A special note goes out to Karen Kohiruimaki for at this point seeming like a runner for Best Girl, simply because she has a real and legitimate issue (her height anxiety) that is not insane and unrealistic (having killed someone) and seems to be genuinely capable of character growth. Additionally, from a personal and super biased level, anyone who has an adorable P90 key chain, hangs a sub-machine gun from a coat rack, and is that amazingly T H I C C is absolutely 110% A-OK with me. I’m totally gonna stick with this show as it seems to be a perfectly great spin off with none of the negatives I typically associate with it’s progenitor. How about you guys? Enjoying watching what will hopefully be the next VR game to hit the market? Let me know below in a comment and check out our other articles and stay tuned for more on SAOAGGO and more!