SAO Alternative GGO, Anime Recommendation of the Week!

Article at a glance:
LLENN’s journey through GGO, driven by her real-life insecurities, adds a grounded, personal touch to the story.
The series hooks viewers with an intense opening and follows a tightly paced narrative full of action and character growth.
While not overly flashy, the art style and soundtracks maintain their appeal even years later, contributing to the show’s enduring quality.

While I work my way through Season 2, I decided to give a shot to the original one. SAO Alternative GGO is a more grounded story compared to the grandeur of the original SAO and I think that along with its unique protagonist appealed to us fans. This anime also came out when a lot of us were a bit burnt out on SAO. So people just ate it up. Even now, after all these years later it holds up incredibly well and from what I’ve seen, the sequel has also been well-received so far.

So welcome back to another edition of our anime recommendation series. This week we are talking about SAO Alternative GGO. So let’s get started.

Introduction

SAO Alternative GGO is based on the LN of the same name by Sigasawa Keiichi, the author of Kino no Tabi, and illustrated by Kuroboshi Kouhaku. The LN has been serialized since December 2014 and is still ongoing. As for the anime, Season 1 came out in 2018 and Season 2 is currently airing. Season 2 Episode 2 just dropped at the time of writing, Season 1 was made by Studio 3Hz while Season 2 is made by A1 Pictures.

Plot

Kohi towers above most people with her extraordinary height in real life. She is so insecure about her height that when she hears about VR games, she is immediately drawn to them. The idea of being able to experience a smaller body is too appealing to her. After trying a bunch of games, GGO finally grants Kohi her wish in the form of a small avatar. She goes be LLENN in the game and quickly becomes known as the “Pink Devil” in GGO for her all-pink outfit and stupidly fast running speed.

The plot follows LLENN as she meets various players in GGO and how Kohi slowly comes to terms with her insecurities and complexes through the game. The plot is gripping and it is really well paced. The moment you start the series, you are greeted with an intense first episode, throwing you right in the middle of a battlefield. All the introduction is in the second episode, the first episode is just there to hook you in and I love it.

Characters

LLENN/Kohi is immediately an interesting character. It is quite common to run to video games to escape the woes of real life and that’s exactly what she is doing as well. Which is quite relatable lol. Her character development is awesome. Then we have Pitohui, LLENN’s first friend in GGO. I love her character so much though I won’t speak on her much because her true identity is an awesome plot point. Of course, I can’t forget M. I love how tactical he is in GGO.

Animations and Soundtracks

The art style is pretty good. Season 1 doesn’t have crazy animations or anything but it still looks good 6 years later because the setting and the art just hit right. I haven’t watched Season 2 yet so I don’t know what kind of animations that has. As for the soundtracks they are pretty good too. The voice acting is also solid all around.