Sword Art Online: Unanswered//butterfly

I imagine that most people looking to watch Unanswered Butterfly already have some attachment to the Sword Art Online series. In my opinion, much of the original series’ success can be attributed to three key factors: its general concept, soundtrack, and animation. A good spinoff should recognize this and preserve the original’s strengths, but unfortunately this movie ends up falling short on all three fronts. Unanswered Butterfly somehow manages to make the concept of Aincrad feel dull. A large part of this has to do with major tonal issues. The film’s dialogue constantly reminds us that SAO is a deadly survival game, but the movie’s main character, Emirun, is constantly undercutting the tension and desired serious tone with her cheery exclamations and carefree demeanor that treat SAO like a normal game. She’s initially devastated that her friend was just murdered, but her attitude gets repeatedly flipped, with the randomness making her seem inconsistent rather than a well-written or realistic character. Furthermore, much of the serious dialogue is so generic or laughably bad that it rips you right out of the scene, with this getting worse as the plot twists begin to happen. Speaking of the plot, it is often aimless. Scenes rarely flow together well, instead cutting off almost too soon, in a way that I can best describe as when a game cutscene would transition into gameplay. Only this isn’t a game–there’s no context or story lost where you would expect gameplay to be, just a jarring transition. The opening minutes provide a clear example of this: it starts by setting up a revenge plot against Kirito, and then immediately pivots to what is essentially an in-universe tutorial, where Asuna and Rex teach Emirun how to play Sword Art Online via a training segment that is too long to call a montage but too unfocused to call it anything else. This abruptly ends and moves into a quest to find a sword that ends up being a complete waste of time, which then immediately transitions into a falling out between the main characters and a nearly instant patching up that you’ve probably seen in other works a million times. Ultimately, the series of jarring cuts results in the story feeling even more disconnected than it already was. It gets even worse when the abrupt cuts are combined with flashbacks. The first major confrontation between all the characters is plagued by countless flashbacks to earlier in the movie from slightly different perspectives. These show nearly the same thing three to four separate times, even though many POVs deliver the exact same recontextualization. And as we get deeper and deeper into repeated flashbacks, what should be a simple plot gets increasingly convoluted by repeated explanations. Additionally, the motivations and goals of Rex, the other major new character, change on a dime, which makes it really hard to follow how he’s supposed to be characterized. Even after his actions are recontexulized later in the film, this issue remains and honestly gets worse as the movie draws to an end. My final gripe with the characters is that Kirito and especially Asuna feel shoehorned into the plot and are barely even characters: Asuna frequently acts like a tutorial NPC, and Kirito isn’t much more than a plot device for much of the movie. Unfortunately, as the film progresses, it begins to recognize that Emirun is not a very compelling character, and so it gives more screentime to the original duo instead of her. The OST is a mixed bag. Rather than imitating Yuki Kajiura’s style from the original series, the composer here decided to do something different, taking an approach closer to what you would expect in a standard action flick. This led to a very generic soundtrack, with shaky quality in the first half. However, the score improves as the movie goes on: the soundtrack supporting the climax of the movie suits the scene well, providing the energy and grandeur needed for the final action sequences, but unfortunately still remains forgettable. The soundtrack's major flaw doesn’t rest in its quality, but in the fact that it doesn’t feel like SAO. The choir vocals, although still present, feel and sound nothing like the original series, and the digital effects used in the original soundtrack that give it its unique flair are completely absent. Worst of all is the complete lack of the main motif of the series featured in countless tracks throughout the franchise. Without Swordland, although Kirito may be on screen, it just doesn’t feel like Sword Art Online. Although the animation fails to live up to much of the main series, this is a high bar, and the fully CG animation is still one area where the film consistently succeeds. PvP action scenes are generally solid, and the lighting effects that accompany Sword Arts look fantastic. The finale exemplifies this, with the fight between the Emirun and the main antagonist being well choreographed, energetic, and genuinely fun to watch. However, in non-PvP sequences, sword swings never actually pierce their foes; the blows are always too short (but act as if they landed), which makes these scenes feel unsatisfying. Another flaw is that sometimes the expressions are too exaggerated and look corny, but I’d rather have that than expressionless blocks of wood. The background work is often poor: occasionally, the CG backgrounds are just plain disgusting to look at, and sometimes it's clear that backgrounds just weren’t a priority, and we get the generic action background you would see in a low-budget work. Despite the negatives, as a whole, the animation and art were the best part and were very much passable. I came into Unanswered Butterfly expecting an unapologetically bad film, but there was fun to be had. The writing certainly won’t be winning any awards, and I’m not sure I’ll remember much of this for very long, but the animation and general structure were good enough for an entertaining watch. Even though the soul of the original is missing, I’m glad to have gotten the chance to return to the early floors of Aincrad once more.

nonsensical villain? check. nonsensical plot? check. annoying protagonist? check. Look, the reality is that this could have been something, they could have created interesting characters with interesting motivations in subjectively the most compelling setting that the SAO universe has to offer. Yet still with this wind at their back the story managed to be (A) deeply turned around in order of structure and (B) tonally and thematically schizophrenic. To provide an example take the opening shot, one of the most important in terms of setting the tone for such a brief work like a movie. This is where a work must "sell itself" so to speak, and this movie pitches itself as a gritty, realistic setting with consequences and stakes. The work proceeds to pull a classic SAO move and turn into a collection of random vignettes. This is related to the deeper structural issues, having this pivotal moment of dark gritty character building as the opening shot is just? confused. Most certainly this scene would make far more sense as the first act "pinch" rather than as the opening shot. Even the original SAO understood this. It would be as if the og SAO opened with Sachi's death. You would think "who is Sachi? why do we care". This is only one example of these serious structural issues within this movie where, frankly, time is at a premium. The schizophrenic tone (also frankly an SAO series hallmark) is on full display. There is no rising and falling action. There are only ?action? scenes and ?comedy? scenes interspersed at relatively even intervals. Ultimately, this work gives me the impression that it was "made on the cutting room floor" by people who didn't care. 2/10, depressing that someone was given this art team and setting and decided to make this...

This was the worst piece of Sword art online media I have ever seen. Watching this movie felt like sitting in a silent dark room with a mosquito constantly buzzing around my ears. Im talking about emirun if you couldn't tell. Now what about rex? Rex is arguably just as bad of a character as emirun. Hes like the definition of a discord mod incel. Now I suppose this was made to promote the release of Echoes of aincrad but I was hoping it would be better than what I saw. The only good part were the fight scenes because of the new animation but besides that nothing else is good.

Art: I preferred the usual 2D anime design but in the other hand, the kind of animation used in this movie makes the fast movement animation like fighting scene become more epic Character: I hate Emirun. that was the most impression I had the most while watching this movie, in the point it makes me forgot my impression to other character. Plot: Conflict, then conflict, then conflict, then plot twist, finally the not so impressive ending. It's fine, just like mainstream plot in my experience watching Anime, but with a 'little' sweet moment between Asuna and Kirito, that is what make me said it's fine.. Overall: Like I said It's fine (means watching only once is enough). I'm not regret wasting my time (and i'm not feel wasting my time at all because I love this anime) to watch this movie but it's not like I will watch again in the future...