Phantasy Star Online 2 The Animation

Baeron Apr 22, 2016

5

When I first saw this, I had a little bit of nostalgia toward my own PSO Blue Burst days of yore. Unfortunately I was disappointed by the contents inside. The show feels incredibly vapid, yet entertaining, as it strained me in two directions. Under the action it has a visibly forced layer of "Japanese School is always first". Even as the characters are being attacked by enemy forces, they're still more concerned with how their next quiz will be. They even used an "inspiration for survival" where one character basically said "You can't die here, you still have to organize this school event!" and suddenly they were filled with worker-enslaved determination. It's rather attention grabbing and immersion breaking. On top of that, the show focuses more on the kids who play the games, while the PSO world takes a back seat to everything else, even though PSO is supposedly the focus of the entire show. The story kind of bobbles about, giving a little bit of world building here and there, until they're abruptly forced to fight aginst Dark Falz. In the game, he's the very last boss, and requires a LOT of buildup to get to him, but they just charge in after... about 4 fights? Cutting severe levels of corner, just to make a conclusion. Red Ring Rico would definitely be crying from this. Now, aside from the horribly scripted "must do school zombie" bits that are slapped in, the characters seem well created to me. They had interesting reactions toward one another, and as usual had some awkward moments, which they resolved in unique ways withtout breaking their characters for a "generic" answer. This was meant to be a promo of some kind, but it basically left me feeling a bit discouraged. It was entertaining to view, but it might be geared more toward people who have no experience with PSO.

apoc9 Mar 28, 2016

4.5

This is gonna be so hard to review without spoilers. This anime is surprisingly good for a game promo anime. One would expect lazy shameless game promotion (score 1/10 or 2/10 maybe), but instead you get decent anime. Quite obviously another addition to the MMORPG anime series. That being said unlike those other anime series it is not about being trapped in the video game. However like some other anime series it is set in school. As a game promo anime It tries convince the viewers that playing online games has no impact on school performance. Obviously false claim, because games are generally built on grinding to the death mechanisms. If you want to excel at any game you have to dedicate lot of time to grind, hone your skills, etc. All this you do to achieve completely meaningless and empty goals.Putting that aside the story is kind of like mahou shoujo spin on MMORPG anime. Friendship, romance and fighting bunch of enemies threatening people. I consider that to be a good thing. It is well executed, but it is simple concept I have seen many times once you recognize the pattern.  Animation has lot of CGI especially in relation to the game world - weapons, enemies, environment. Art style is definitely better and more impressive in the Hai to Gensou no Grimgar or other current series. It is in my opinion average at the best. As usual OP/ED is forgettable. BGM is good. Characters are I would say perfect average. They are not bland as white wall, but they are not surprising nor strongly intrigueing. Itsuki is this usual protagonist bit naive, cheery, helpful, but he is not complete buffoon. Rina likes the game, but she is not open about this interest, because she is admired student president. Aika is the weird girl, but for a reason. My adivce is to put your expectations low and you might enjoy this anime.

OkamiX Oct 24, 2020

7.5

I will try to make this review short as possible and useful First of all , why anime rate is bad?Second of all , what exactly is this anime?Third of all , is it plugs from the game or not? I will answer these questions with one answer Anime is a commercial tv show  to introduce the game, it does not talk about the story of the game. It is like the rest of the tv shows that are based on games, the firs one ratings are always bad because people are waiting for a verbatim quote Now lets talk bout anime itself , The story is a little good, but it has a lot of errors, such as not explaining the intelligence of oracle  or even the characters. Failure to present suzuki as required. Not giving scripts  to the secondary characters while trying to fill the anime with a lot of  characters that did not give the story somethng interesting to  the story basically they ruined the plots But the story followed a different approach after the game became a reality and not just fiction, and that was a good thing, not gonna lie The animation was beautiful and smooth mixed between CG and casual animation  the sound was so amazing . The fights were super avreage and short . As for the end, it was more than normal and was expected somewhat