Sword Art Online - Seriously?

Sword Art Online is an anime that started simulcasting on Crunchyroll during Summer 2012.  It's an anime about an MMORPG named Sword Art Online.  That's just my first problem with the show.

An MMORPG is the type of game where thousands of people join a single server and run around doing random quests to level up for bragging rights.  I can't stand this style of video game for numerous reasons.  South Park did an excellent job of mocking the entire concept already, so I'll just link that episode here.  Keep in mind that it's South Park, so it's not exactly family friendly.

What makes Sword Art Online [the in-universe game] unique is that it's the first Virtual Reality MMORPG to ever be created.  The main character, Kirito, was a Beta Tester for the game, so now that it's officially released he already knows everything.  Naturally this makes him a boring character, since he's going to be grinding through everything and not learning any new stuff on his journey.  To solve this problem, they give Kirito a friend who just picked up the game who he has to teach everything to.  Just when his friend has to go, they discover the first part of the central conflict of the show: nobody can log out of the game.

Just moments later, the lead developer of the game appears in a highly over-dramatic fashion and announces that this is a feature, not a bug.  You see, he has a god complex, and created the game to become its god.  Also, if anyone dies in the game, the VR device is rigged to fry their brains.  The same thing happens if anyone in the real world tampers with the VR device.  In fact, 213 people have already died because of this. and here are the news articles to prove it.  The only way out is for the players to beat the game, and considering that this is an MMORPG, that's going to take years.  Mwuhahahaha!

Ignoring how the idea of dieing in virtual reality killing you in real life has already been done to death, tell me I'm not the only one who sees the problem with this maniac's plan.  213 people have been killed, meaning that at the very least the lead developer is facing 213 counts of gross negligence manslaughter, with that number rising by the minute.  WHERE THE #%$# IS THE POLICE!?

Okay, let's be fair here; this isn't exactly the kind of problem the police would be trained to deal with.  This is probably a nation-wide disaster, so perhaps the government has a federal law enforcement agency, you know, the NPA.  If it's too much for them to handle, they also have a counter-terrorism unit called the Special Assault Team.  Okay, maybe the disaster goes beyond even their abilities, so it's time to call in the military, or in the case of Japan, the Self Defense Forces and their Special Forces Group.  But perhaps even the Japanese can't handle it on their own.  Fortunately for them, America has a large number of military bases in Japan, including Kadena Air Base where multiple United States Air Force Combat Control Teams are stationed.  And in less than 24 hours, Delta Force, Navy Seals, Army Rangers, Marine Force Recon, Green Berets, and many more special operations units can arrive to assist the Japanese government in bringing the evil video game developers to justice.  Realistically speaking, the 9787 people still trapped in the game are going to be rescued within a few days, and the lead developer will soon be found guilty of 213 counts of premeditated murder, with 9787 first-hand witnesses to his confession, not counting any other members of the dev team who may agree to testify against him.

The second episode takes place one month later, and everyone is still trapped.  Screw this show.

---

 

In all seriousness, I don't think Sword Art Online is a bad show.  It's still enjoyable to watch if you ignore how stupid this aspect of it is, and I'm going to continue to watch new episodes as they come out.  I'm not a real fan of the show, but it's better than most TV shows out there.  Of course this is just a preliminary judgment based on the first two episodes, so my mind could still change.

Welcome to Hell. I mean Private School. Part 1: Junior High

The title alone perfectly describes my high-school experience.  I do not ever want to go through any of it again.  My children, should I ever have or adopt any, will never set foot on the grounds of that school unless I know for a fact that it has drastically changed for the better since I was last there.

This is not going to be a humorous rant in the slightest.  Nor do I intend it to be.  I will not directly name names, nor will I make any attempt to exaggerate things.  I will do my best to be completely honest about it.  There will be a lot of hate and anguish coming out of this post.  Most of it is because of what happened to me there, and the deep psychological effects it has had on me.

The very first thing to keep in mind is that this was not a school with a history of gang-related violence or anything terrible like that.  This was a private Christian school.  At least in name only.  In practice, the faculty didn't act the part (but were really great at talking the part), and the students didn't even try to talk the part.  There were only a few exceptions to this rule.  Most of the faculty that actually did care have either been teaching there since before it went to hell or left after no more than two years there if they started after it went to hell.  As for the students, I have respect for only a few of them.

The problem started with the superintendent of the school.  He didn't give the slightest fuck about the students.  His only care was making sure the school didn't get any negative press.  This was actually the entire topic of one of the lectures that I was given.  That's right; he didn't even bother to try and hide it.  As for why I was given that lecture, just keep reading.  You'll find out eventually.

Some of the more terrible examples of the superintendent come from how totally lazy he was.  He was too lazy to walk to the elementary school building, a walk that took 3 minutes at the most; instead, he used a segway.  Unlike the groundskeeper and his golf cart - which he used to keep all his equipment with him as he worked, there is no excuse for the superintendent using a segway.

But he wasn't the first sign that this school was big trouble.  It started in junior high, where I can name only one teacher who actually cared.  She also was the only one that could really teach.  She retired after I moved on to high school, since she was getting old.  The rest, well, they might as well have told me to go fuck myself whenever I asked them for help with a bully problem.

Oh yeah, there was a massive bully problem because of this.  Naturally, I was the target, because I was the new kid.  Oh, but it wasn't just name calling.  It went much beyond that.  The regular teacher response was "oh, just ignore them."  Sorry, but there are two problems with that.  One, if you react once, THEY WILL NEVER. FUCKING. STOP.  EVER!  It doesn't work one bit.  Two, it's kind of hard to ignore them WHEN THEY'RE FUCKING BEATING YOU AND SHOVING THEIR HANDS WHERE THEY DON'T BELONG.  (This all actually happened on more than one occasion.)  Again, just ignore them was the only response.  I think once a teacher told the other to stop it, and didn't even enforce the command at all.

Once the bullies realized that the teachers didn't care at all, at this point, they decided to go after me even more.  At this point I was just infuriated.  Nobody did fucking anything about it, so I saw that I had no choice but to do something about it myself.  I started fighting back.  And apparently that makes me the problem child.  I was the one getting into trouble in every instance.  Once the bully also got into trouble.  But that was it.  They didn't even care to investigate.  They just naturally assumed that I was a problem child.

Seeing as how the bullies could get away with anything, they decided to start a rumor about me.  Naturally, that I had a death list and was going to shoot up everybody at the school.  Under normal conditions, this kind of rumor would go unnoticed, and be laughed at for being ridiculous.  But because it was me, the school's problem child, the faculty didn't think so.  They called the cops on me.  I had to talk to the police about a rumor, and my parents were there.  I had to try my best to calmly explain everything.  Somehow, I wasn't locked up without a trial, which is what I was expecting at this point.  Even after all this, they still didn't care!  If I remember correctly, it was at this point that the superintendent gave me that lecture about not wanting the press to hear about it.  Today, I would have marched straight over to the local newspaper and told somebody about it.  About how THEY CALLED THE POLICE OVER A FUCKING RUMOR DESIGNED TO MAKE LIFE MISERABLE FOR THE EASY TARGET THEY DON'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT!

What I love is that it was only now that the school started investigating.  Only they were working for the bullies instead.  Somehow, the school managed to pick up so many incriminating pieces of evidence against me that were taken completely out of context.  One example is when I was talking guns with one of the few people who didn't hate me and mentioned that my dad owned an SKS rifle.  Apparently, the school thought that this was the gun I would use.  Never mind that at this point in time I had never even seen the thing.  Another brilliant example is that I once waited in ambush of somebody with a sharpened pencil.  The truth is that it was outside of the high school art room.  I carried the pencils with me because, like everybody else in the class, I didn't want to bring my whole backpack with me when all I needed was the pencils.  No; For me, that was the weapon.  Plus, I was waiting there to talk with who I believe was the same friend I mentioned the SKS to.  If I remember correctly, I got kicked out of class there for violently complaining about the bully problem, and was waiting for the class to end so I could talk to my friend a bit on the walk back so that I could calm down.  It truly is amazing the dirt they kicked up against me.

I really should have known better at this point.  I should have absolutely begged my parents to send me to another school.  I should have begged to go to the local gang-infested public high-school in a terrible neighborhood.  Even that would have been better than my experiences at high school.

Oh, and it only got worse when I actually got to high school.