The Sword Art Online anime series adapts its first spinoff in “Sword Art Online: Alternative Gun Gale Online”. Taking place a couple of years after the events of Sword Art Online II, Alternative follows Karen Kohiruimaki, an extremely tall young woman with a height complex looking to escape her life through entertainment. After being enticed to join a VRMMO game by her best friend Miyu Shinohara who enjoys them routinely, she begins to play Gun Gale Online and is instantly a fan due to being able to find a cute and petite avatar to play around with going under the handle of Llenn. She soon meets an expert player named Pitohui who sends both her gaming and real-life into an unexpected turn.

Sword Art Online: Alternative is a 2018 seinen anime spinoff of Sword Art Online, it is produced by 3Hz and licensed by Aniplex of America. It is currently available for streaming on Aniplex+, Crunchyroll, and Hulu with English subs.

Editor’s Note: This review contains near complete to complete spoilers for Sword Art Online: Alternative.

Karen as she appears in the anime.

Taking place a couple of years or so after Sword Art Online II, Sword Art Online Alternative follows new characters within the same game world in which SAO II took place; Gun Gale Online. Focusing on Karen “Llenn” Kohiruimaki, a lonely young woman with a inferiority complex due to her unusual height, Alternative has Karen coping with her life through VRMMOs at the suggestion of a friend. Karen eventually learns to improve her social life thanks to playing GGO overtime.

SAO Alternative is the SAO spinoff you didn’t know you needed.

THE GOOD: While it isn’t Sword Art Online III, which we’ve all been patiently (and impatiently) waiting on, Sword Art Online Alternative is a solid break between the movie “Ordinal Scale” and the currently in production third season of the anime. New leads Llenn and Pitohui have a solid enough dynamic between the two of them that I think can keep fans of the series invested enough to stick around to the end. Also just a quick heads up, in my previous review for Alternative I believe I mentioned that this season was thirteen episodes in total, but that information ended up being false as the final episode of season one actually aired yesterday morning (Saturday). Another thing I should point out is that Alternative is being animated by a rather new studio in 3Hz, whereas the main core series is animated by Aniplex’s A-1 Pictures. While 5 years may seem like a nice chunk of change in time, it’s actually still pretty fresh in the animation industry. Having said this 3Hz has done some pretty solid work here with SAO, especially with the fan-favorite action scenes.

Karen as Llenn in GGO.

When Llenn joins GGO and begins playing for the first couple of times she meets Pito an avid player of GGO who has a bit of a death wish after missing out on her chance to play the original SAO. She gets Llenn to join the GGO battle royal game mode SquadJam and her partner “M” is an in real life companion of Pito. M teaches Llenn the ropes of gun combat and tactical strategy, which she quickly gets the hang of. After nearly betraying her, M explains to Llenn what Pito is like in real life and it’s not too far off from her GGO personality. Llenn decides to go on with the tournament on her own as M begins to lose himself due to an earlier threat made by Pito. She and the Amazons; a team of bulky & fit women are the only teams remaining in the tournament and Llenn takes out most of them single-handedly. This eventually leads to Llenn taking on the team’s leader one-on-one, after an intense battle which leads to M sacrificing himself in a sniper battle with an Amazon team member, Llenn wins the SquadJam tournament.

Llenn with M (right).

Sometime after having won SquadJam, Karen eventually encounters the Amazons team in real life, and they’re actually the squad of little women she envied on the first episode (and vice versa). The leader of the group is able to recognize Karen as Llenn right away after noticing a GGO keychain she was carrying and the two properly introduce themselves becoming friends along with the other girls in her group. Later on, M who’s real name is Gōshi Asōgi reaches out to Karen and reveals that he’s Pito’s assistant in real life. He requests that Llenn participates in the second upcoming SquadJam due to Pito planning to kill herself if she loses, and he enlists Llenn’s aide in saving her life. Reluctantly agreeing to join the second SquadJam Llenn gets her friend Miyu to join as her teammate under the handle Fukaziroh and she becomes enthralled with the game opting to use dual grenade launchers as her weapons.

Miyu as Fukaziroh in GGO.

After a practice run with Fuka, she and Llenn enter the second SquadJam and eliminate a number of teams. Pito, M, and their team have parked in a forest like area and are involved with an attempted ambush attack by a handful of teams. After easily eliminated them they’re forced to hold up in a cabin where one of the more skilled teams closes in on them when Pito is hit by a sniper from a team she mercilessly killed before. Fearing for Pito’s life Llenn and Fuka hurry to her team’s position while they’re under attack. Suddenly, Pito releases a beam katana similarly to the one possessed by Kirito in Sword Art Online II and destroys the attacking team while most of her own team outside of herself and M are eliminated from the earlier attack. Realizing that she’s survived her ambush, Llenn, Fuka, and the Amazons decides to work together in an effort to eliminate Pito & M. After the Amazons sacrifice themselves long enough for Llenn to come up with a strategy, Fuka is slowly tortured by Pito with sniper rounds.

The Amazons in real life.

Llenn comes into the battle and Pito & M give chase in a tank, Fuka recovers her health bar and joins Llenn with her own tank leading to a race of sorts. After the tanks are out of commission, Pito and Llenn have their long-awaited one-on-one battle. Though there were some close calls, Pito is able to get the advantage on Llenn, and captures her along with Fuka thanks to M. She then eliminates M for betraying her earlier in the battle, and threatens Fuka. Llenn & Fuka take this moment to incapacitate Pito, as Llenn has Pito at her mercy she is thrilled at the fact that she’ll finally know the experience of death, but Llenn reminds her of their promise they made after their initial meeting; if Llenn were ever to defeat Pito one-on-one the two would meet in the real world. Remembering their deal, Pito submits and allows Llenn to kill her, then Llenn and Fuka are eliminated by the last remaining team who avoided most of the combat from the tournament. Having concluded SquadJam 2, Karen & Miyu meet up with Goushi who escorts them to Pito’s current location; a club hosting an Elsa Kanzaki concert, who just so happens to be Karen & Miyu’s favorite artist. When the concert ends they go backstage and are introduced to the owner of the club and Elsa, with the owner claiming to be Pito, however Karen is able to see through the charade having remembered that Goushi found out her real life information, and the only person who knew this and the fact that she played GGO was Elsa who see informed of this in a fan letter sent earlier in the series. Disappointed in Karen finding out the truth beforehand, Elsa confirms that she is Pito. And the two properly introduce themselves to each other, afterwards they rejoin GGO and enjoy the game together once more.

Llenn and Pito in GGO.

I’m sure there are people out there who hate the idea of getting a spinoff before a proper third season, but in reality SAO Alternative is a really well done spinoff. It doesn’t have nearly as many of the annoying writing issues as the core series. I’ve mentioned before that SAO suffers from what I like to call “second half syndrome” in which the second half of each season always seems to dip in overall quality, even “Ordinal Scale” suffers from this, however Alternative never really has too much of a dropping off point if at all. Everything climbs and intensifies as the season goes on and the characters and action continue to be more enjoyable than before. There’s some fun insert songs used throughout the season, one of which is used multiple times and is sung by the series’ in-universe artist Elsa. 3Hz did a good job with the animation, while some may not think it’s all up to par of the standard SAO series it does well enough to have been produced by a third party studio.

SAO Alternative is at least worth a single watch to the end.

THE BAD: The early time jump on the first episode felt completely unnecessary and if you haven’t read the ‘Alternative’ source material you’re going to be spoiled of the first half. There’s also some plot holes here and there.

A lighter, more comedic take on Sword Art Online.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: It feels like the Sword Art Online community will most certainly be split down the middle on ‘Alternative’, but for me it’s a fine break in the long production of SAO III and gets that itch scratched as we await it’s upcoming release. Otaku Dome gives Sword Art Online: Alternative Season 1 a 90 out of 100.