Curate Yourself: The Abridged Story

Abridged series are a well know form of entertainment these days, taking in a completed work and re-editing it and interpreting it in a different light. Having its first season being abridged recently, the completion of the first season anyways, I decided I'd like to share the Sword Art Online Abridged series on Youtube:

SAO Abridged

Anyone who has see SAO knows that the show tries to take itself way to seriously almost all the time, while this abridged series does the exact opposite. SAO Abridged takes itself as nothing more than a joke and it surprisingly works a lot more when seen as such. It shows and gives the characters the personalities that we would have expected them to have, and at times it shows itself more capable than the original show itself, such as the ending. Unlike the original show, which reveals that the main antagonist simply forgot his reasons for starting it entirely, the abridged series gives an explanation to the motivations, even though it is just a joke. The abridged show even purposely makes fun of that plot point in the original show.

On the topic of abridged series in general. They are, like most things in this world, an art form. Abridged series are usually made to be more comedic and to give fans of the shows, or even haters of the shows, to receive more enjoyment from the content. Abridged series are usually great about following the original plot lines from the source content, while including aspects of their own narrative. This is one of the reasons why I enjoy abridged series. In a weird sort of way, some of the changes made in abridged series make a while lot more sense, than what was present in the source material, such as Grimlock's punishment in SAO's abridged series. In the original, he's just sort of forgiven, regardless of the reason, they forgive him after he killed his wife, which seems most questionable.

Now should Abridged series be considered as a form of literature? Most simply put, yes. Much like when someone writes their own fanfiction, there is still merit in what was created. Abridged series are satire on their original content. You don't discount movies or novels today just because they are satire, right?

Abridged content is a form of media that everyone must at least experience once, which is why I decided to share this form of media for today.