Introduction

This week we learn that just about all of my predictions regarding this episode are actually wrong. While being wrong is actually a good thing because it means the anime is less predictable than I first thought, I still have a couple of issues with this episode.

Unfortunately, at this point I also have to concede that Sword Art Online: Alicization isn’t even the worse isekai of the season; something I never expected to say. That title belongs to That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, which hasn’t surprised me yet.

Ocean Turtle

The first way this episode surprised me was by taking place entirely in the real world. All of my predictions about this episode in particular were from the mindset that it would be following Kirito and Eugeo’s adventure in the Underworld, so it’s already SAO: 1, DoubleSama: 0.

We begin by being reminded of what happened to Kirito just before he awoke in the Underworld with his memories of the real world still intact. He and Asuna were attacked by the final member of the Laughing Coffins (I think), and Kirito was injected with some sort of poison.

Now, this is a bit of a tangent, but is it correct to say that Kirito was injected with some sort of poison? Technically venom is injected and poison is absorbed, so it would be venom, not poison, right? Either way, let’s just say he was injected with a harmful drug from here on out.

So, as Kirito is injected with this harmful drug, he stabs his attacker in the thigh with the tip of his umbrella. This is where my first issue with the episode comes into play. We can assume that Kirito’s unconscious state is due to the drug and not the injection itself, but what about his attacker?

The attacker also appears to be unconscious, but why? Sure, getting stabbed in the thigh like that would hurt, but it’s not as if it would knock you out. Maybe you’d bleed to death if your femoral artery was severed, but even that wouldn’t immediately knock you out.

Basically the attacker being knocked out by a little jab to the thigh is a poor plot hole cover up. If said attacker wasn’t knocked out, then we can assume he would either finish off Kirito, or attack the unarmed Asuna next. But, by having him pass out at random, this plot hole is “avoided.”

Kirito is then taken do a hospital and we learn that although he’s survived the worst of the damage done by the harmful drug, he’s still in a coma. We also find out that his heart stopped beating for five minutes, and so he may never fully recover from this ordeal due to brain injury.

Now, I checked, and as it turns out, if Kirito’s heart stopped for five minutes then he would definitely have brain damage as a result. However, as long as the heart is restarted before six minutes, brain damage is considered reversible, so the facts check out. Good job, SAO.

I was worried I’d have to write about the protagonist-condition plot hole of Kirito being all better after having his heart stopped for five minutes, but it seems this is medically “acceptable.” Now, we’ll have to wait and see if he actually has a long road to recovery, or if he wakes up perfectly fine, because those are two very different scenarios.

But, this is SAO, so we can’t just have Kirito go into a coma after being attacked by a madman on the street, there needs to be some evil game company involved somehow. And, in fact there is.

I wonder if Reki Kawahara actually hates video games and sees them as a plague affecting humankind. I know this might sound strange considering SAO is all about games, but the games always harm people, the companies are evil, and he doesn’t seem to actually understand how games work, so I can’t be sure he’s ever played one.

After Kirito is “transferred” to another hospital which specializes in comas and the like, it turns out that he never actually made it to this new hospital. Further, the hospital staff are covering up this fact, which means someone in a position of authority is involved.

At this point, Asuna and Suguha take matters into their own hands and attempt to figure out Kirito’s whereabouts. Luckily, Asuna has a heartbeat tracker on her phone which tells her all of Kirito’s vital signs as well as his location, because she’s not a girlfriend, she’s a stalker.

By using this app, and the power of the A.I. Yui, Asuna is able to track down Kirito’s last known location, which is a warehouse in the opposite direction of where he was supposed to be. Further, according to surveillance footage, a helicopter left the area recently, which means Kirito could be anywhere.

Rath

The company behind the Underworld project which Kirito was testing is known as Rath. Despite a deep search, the only thing Yui could find out about the company was the location of their headquarters, which is heavily guarded.

This is also the company which gave Asuna access to Kirito’s vitals, so obviously they have the ability to restrict access to this information, thus hiding his whereabouts if need be. Rath also apparently has a secret research facility in the middle of the ocean known as the Ocean Turtle.

Last week, I assumed that the Ocean Turtle referenced in this episode’s title was going to be some sort of giant turtle island, which is a fairly common trope in fantasy stories. It turns out that this isn’t the case, although we’re still early in the series so there’s still time to see one.

Asuna finds a scientist who has connections to some of those working at Rath, and requests that she take her to find out where Kirito is being hidden. The two are then invited to the Ocean Turtle, with Asuna in disguise, to help out with the research.

Upon seeing the Ocean Turtle, the scientist with Asuna comments how although the structure does indeed look like a turtle, its face looks more like that of a pig. From this comment, I’m fairly sure she’s never seen a pig before.

And now, we get to Asuna’s master plan: Operation sneak onto the Ocean Turtle by disguising yourself as a researcher, only to blow your own disguise the second you get the chance because it’s not like you’re stranded in the middle of the ocean with no backup or anything.

Seriously, Asuna, if you’re going to go through all the trouble of sneaking into enemy territory, at least don’t blow your disguise until after you obtain proof of criminal activity. Does she think they’re just going to tell her all their secrets and allow her to leave now?

I’d be shocked if that actually happened, so instead I’ll put two alternate routes out there. In route one, Asuna is escorted off the Ocean Turtle before receiving any information regarding Kirito. In route two, she is given information, but not allowed to leave.

Common sense would say that Asuna should be returned to the mainland without being given information, but let’s entertain the idea that the second route is taken. Wouldn’t it be smarter to both keep her detained there and not give her any information? Of course it would.

However, as you should know by now, not just from anime, that’s not how villains work. Villains love to explicitly spell out their dastardly plans to their opponents, and then comment on how even though they know the plans now, there’s nothing they can do to stop them.

This villain trope is exactly why I don’t see there being a possibility of Asuna both being detained and refused information on the whereabouts of Kirito. Remember, SAO has never been a series to go against major tropes, so why would it start now?

You may be thinking to yourself, “but it didn’t go for the island-is-actually-a-giant-turtle trope,” and that’s correct. However, the villain-has-a-secret-lair-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean trope is there in its place, so can we really say that SAO has deviated from relying on generic tropes?

Underworld

The last thing I want to discuss before I conclude for today is the nature of the Underworld. While it’s true that this episode took place entirely in the real world, that doesn’t mean we didn’t learn anything about the Underworld.

I had previously predicted that the Underworld Kirito was in was simply within his own mind and a result of his coma. While this could partially be the case still, I think I need to bring up the alternative, which is that Kirito is hooked up to the soul transfer device.

Now that we know Rath likely has possession of Kirito, and their Ocean Turtle operations room has a giant screen on which we can see the Underworld, it’s increasingly likely that they’re the reason Kirito is stuck in the Underworld. However, it’s unclear exactly why they’re doing this.

Also, since the Gigas Cedar is seen standing on the monitor in the Ocean Turtle, we can assume that this episode takes place chronologically before the previous episode. It’s very possible that the next episode will again focus on Asuna, and will take place alongside episode 4.

The final thing I want to bring up is if Kirito’s attacker was hired by Rath. Could his coma have been planned from the start by Rath in an attempt to get him away from his friends and family and onto the Ocean Turtle?

If so, just how is Rath connected to the Laughing Coffins or Death Gun (I forget which the criminal was associated with)? If not, was it merely a coincidence that Rath kidnapped Kirito from the hospital after this attack, or were they tipped off by someone else?

Conclusion

So what did you think of this week’s episode of SAO: Alicization? What do you think is going to happen to Asuna? Do you think Rath is cooperating with criminal organizations? Let me know in the comments.

If you enjoyed this post, be sure to click the like button down below and follow me on Twitter @DoubleSama to receive notifications every time a new post goes live. Also, if you haven’t checked them out already, consider giving my other SAO: Alicization episode reviews a read.

Finally, join our Discord server! There aren’t many members currently, but it’s a great way to discuss anime with myself and other members of the community. There’s also a Patreon page for those who want to become even more involved with the community and website.

My lengthy review of the next episode is available here.

Introduction

If you’ve read any of my other posts from this past week, then you already know the drill. There’s currently a poll on Twitter to decide which other Fall 2018 anime gets added to my weekly, episodic reviews. The poll ends at 11:30am EST on October 31st, and all you have to do is click the embedded tweet below to cast your vote.

As the vote currently stands, there’s a tie between My Sister, My Writer and SSSS.Gridman. So, if you don’t want me to flip a coin to choose between those two, I’d suggest either voting for one of those so it takes the lead, or one of the other two options before time runs out.

With that out of the way, let me start today’s introduction for real by saying that episode 4 of SAO: Alicization was actually good. There were definitely problems with it, but all things considered, this was a really good episode.

Since this season still taking place in a virtual world of some kind, the focus on realism came as an unexpected twist. However, while this season attempts to portray a world that’s more realistic than ones we’ve previously seen in the series, it still very much falls into what I’ll refer to later as “the anime problem.”

Departure

Last time we left off with our two heroes, Kirito and Eugeo, about to fight a horde of goblins in order to save Alice’s younger sister, Selka. Eugeo, being the Armin-like character that he is, is afraid of the goblins, and freezes up with fear. Luckily, Kirito is there to snap him out of it.

Kirito’s plan for defeating the goblins involves him and Eugeo rushing them, putting out the torches so the goblins can’t see, and then picking up swords off the ground. But, before we congratulate Kirito on his plan-making abilities, let’s break it down just in case.

First, rushing armed goblins while you’re unarmed doesn’t really seem like a good idea. Luckily this works out for them though, and they’re able to make it past the first four enemies and to the torches. I’ll have to chalk the success of this first step up to luck though.

The purpose of the second step is to remove the goblin’s light source, which sounds like a great idea at first, until you realize that goblins probably have better night vision than humans anyway. But, Kirito has already come up with a countermeasure for this by having Eugeo keep his grass-light, right?

Wrong. There are two possible scenarios here. The first is if the grass-light is able to provide enough light for both Kirito and Eugeo to see their surroundings, then it’s doing the same for the goblins, and therefore knocking over the torches solved nothing.

The second scenario is if Eugeo’s grass-light is only bright enough to illuminate his immediate surroundings. If this is the case, then Kirito would have been fighting mostly in the dark, and the grass-light would serve as a beacon to tell the goblins exactly where Eugeo is, without providing him enough light to see them coming from a distance.

Of these two scenarios, I’d have to say the first one is more favorable, despite it not changing anything. The second scenario, which is the one I think Kirito was going for, only serves to put him and Eugeo in a worse position than they were in when they started.

In practice, however, it seems like the cave is naturally bright enough to see anyway, even with the torches put out, so the second phase of Kirito’s plan didn’t matter in the end. Again, we can chalk the success of this step up to luck, because as it turns out, the goblins are afraid of magic light sources.

The final step of the plan is the most sound of them all: pick up swords off the ground. From seeing this cave previously, we know there are a variety of weapons lying around from when the dragon once lived here. Naturally, arming yourself with one of these swords is better than fighting with your bare hands.

Now that Kirito’s plan has “succeeded,” it’s time for the real fight. Eugeo’s role is to hold the goblin horde off while Kirito takes down the hobgoblin leader. This fight is both where this episode succeeds and fails in my opinion.

VS. The Hobgoblin

For starters, the animation for this fight was good; really good. After watching the fight animation of other fantasy/isekai series recently, the surprising fluidity of this fight animation and choreography was a sight for sore eyes.

But, good animation isn’t the only thing this fight has going for it. This is where the “reality” and “realism” of this world are introduced in full. We already knew that the Underworld is a surprisingly realistic-looking virtual world based on what Kirito says, but we now see that it’s more than surface level realism.

When Kirito’s arm is cut by the hobgoblin’s sword, he actually feels real pain, and there’s blood, something that was missing from all the other virtual reality games we’ve seen so far. But what exactly does this mean?

Kirito’s first thought was probably that this virtual reality is surprisingly realistic, because that’s how he tends to think. However, as the pain lingers and his wound doesn’t heal, he probably begins to wonder if this is actually reality.

The truth is likely somewhere in between. While the world Kirito is currently in is almost certainly not reality, as far as he’s concerned, it is. By this, I mean what happens to him in this world has a real effect on his condition in the real world.

You could make the argument that the original Sword Art Online game was essentially reality for those who were stuck in it since if they die in the game, they die in real life, but what I’m proposing goes a step further. Remember, the technology that runs the Underworld is more advanced than that of Sword Art Online.

I’m predicting that something went wrong, and some of the suppressed memories about the Underworld came to the surface, thus putting Kirito into a coma in which he’s dreaming as if he were trapped in the Underworld. The difference between this and Sword Art Online, is that he can’t be sure this isn’t real.

This means that any pain he feels is likely real, but not the cause of a direct wound. For example, if his brain and body truly believe that he was cut by a sword, they’ll respond as if he really was. This means pain receptors would fire and the body would act as if it actually received a wound.

If Kirito had been sliced across the stomach as Eugeo is later on in the fight, it’s likely that his body in the real world would begin to go into shock, which could kill him. Now, this is all just my speculation, but that’s what you’re really here for anyway, isn’t it?

So, back to the fight, after sustaining an injury to his upper arm, Kirito isn’t able to match the hobgoblin and begins to be overpowered. Now, this is where “the anime problem” I mentioned earlier comes into play.

You know how in many action/shounen anime people get hit and go flying back into walls and the like, dealing massive damage to whatever they hit, but getting back up to continue to fight? That’s exactly what happens when Kirito is hit into a crystal formation in the cave.

If we’re talking about a series like Dragon Ball, it makes sense because everyone’s either a super human or some kind of super-powered alien. It even works in a series like Monogatari because Koyomi is a vampire. But, it doesn’t work with regular people like Kirito.

If the impact didn’t kill him, being impaled on the crystals surely would have. You can chalk this up to him being in a virtual reality world, but as I just explained, this world is supposed to be extremely realistic in its portrayal of things such as injuries.

This wasn’t the only one of such should-be-fatal injuries, however. After Kirito is unable to get up due to immediately get up due to his injury, Eugeo rushes in to save him and ends up with a gash across his stomach. While that alone would have killed him if not for Selka’s magic, he should have already been dead.

The blow from the hobgoblin which dealt the wound was a hard hit with the blade of a large sword. The force of this blow was enough to lift Eugeo off the ground, his body slumped over the blade. I shouldn’t have to tell you this, but something like that would easily cut a human in half.

I understand that both of these “anime problems” are due to fight choreographers wanting the fight scenes to look more intense, but the issue for me is that they don’t follow the rules of the “world” which have already been established. It’s always the little things that prevent me from suspending my disbelief.

In the end, Kirito gets back up and beheads the hobgoblin, which causes the rest of the goblins to flee. Selka then uses magic to transfer her and Kirito’s life force to Eugeo, thus saving his life. During this, Eugeo remembers that Kirito is his childhood friend, and Kirito has a vision of Alice.

The Gigas Cedar

After returning to the village with Selka, we see Kirito and Eugeo back at work chopping away at the Gigas Cedar. While Eugeo is using the dragon bone ax, Kirito checks his own stats and finds that he’s now able to wield the Blue Rose Sword due to his fight against the hobgoblin.

He then tests it out by dealing a massive amount of damage to the tree with a single strike, and turns the sword over to Eugeo so he can try it out as well. Despite not actually doing much fighting, Eugeo is now also able to wield the Blue Rose Sword, and asks Kirito to train him.

At this point I’d like to point out that this sword is supposed to be some legendary treasure, and yet both of these losers are able to wield it after fighting only a few goblins (which are usually among the weakest monsters). Either this is a severe case of the “protagonist condition,” or that sword isn’t anything special after all.

Kirito then trains Eugeo in the Aincrad sword technique, which appears to simply be wildly swinging a sword with one hand. You’d think that a two-handed grip and an actual stance would allow for more power, but I guess the Blue Rose Sword does enough damage on its own so that’s not needed.

Now that he’s a Kirito-certified master swordsman, Eugeo finishes off the Gigas Cedar and the village holds a celebration in his honor. Apparently, once someone completes their Calling they’re given the right to choose their next Calling, and Eugeo picks that of a swordsman.

While this is an interesting idea, we need to keep in mind that very few people in the history of the village likely ever completed their Callings. Remember, Eugeo’s Calling wasn’t supposed to end for another 900 years or something.

But, although it was going to take countless generations to complete, Eugeo’s calling was, in fact, completable. Some people surely have Callings which can never be completed, no matter how many generations, such as a doctor, farmer, or baker because they’ll always be needed.

Also, what if you fail your Calling? It’s implied that an integrity knight will come scoop you up if you abandon it, but what about failing? What if being the village leader is your calling, but then the villages switches to democracy, thus voiding your Calling?

I could get into these kinds of situations in greater detail and go off on another tangent about what we can learn about this society as I did with the dwarves in That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, but I’ll save you the lecture this time around.

Anyway, now that Eugeo’s Calling is officially that of a swordsman, as is Kirito’s I suppose, the pair set off for Central City. Kirito is notably carrying some sort of long, wrapped up object, which I assume to be a sword. However, it doesn’t have a distinct hand guard, so I can’t be sure.

What we do know from the OP though is that at some point Kirito will obtain his signature black sword. I don’t really have any idea how he’s going to acquire it, but that seems to be what will happen. Perhaps he already has it (somehow), and it will be revealed in the next episode.

Next Episode

As with any series that doesn’t include true next episode previews, there isn’t much to talk about here regarding what’s going to happen next week. All we know is that the title is “Ocean Turtle,” which could really mean anything.

However, if we’re to take it at face value, then I’d wager Kirito and Eugeo will come to an ocean of some sort, and a turtle will be involved. More likely though, is that either the ocean, turtle, or both, are simply metaphors for something else. It could also go the classic island-is-actually-a-giant-turtle route as well.

At the very least, we should get to see more of the world known as the Underworld, and that in itself should be interesting.

Conclusion

So what did you think of this week’s episode of Sword Art Online: Alicization? Did you take issue with any of the parts I did? What do you think is the true nature of the Underworld? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

If you enjoyed this post, be sure to click the like button down below and follow me on Twitter @DoubleSama to keep up to date with my new content. Don’t forget that as of the posting of this review, there’s less than 24 hours left in the twitter poll, which can once again be found here.

Finally, there’s a Discord server for anyone who wants to join in on the conversation in real-time rather than in the comments. Along with the Discord server, there’s also a Patreon page for those who want to go one step further in being a part of the community.

My review of the next episode is available here.

Introduction

The Gigas Cedar lives to see another episode, and while some people may think that means the story is going to take longer to get to the real action, I see it as an improvement for the SAO series at large. The fact that Kirito hasn’t one-shot it yet is truly remarkable.

It’s good to see that there are some things which can’t simply be overcome by believing in yourself more. That said, I now think that Eugeo is going to take on the role of the person to defeat the Gigas Cedar, and he may very well do so in one hit, but it looks as though it will involve some character development as well.

That’s right, I said that it looks like there’s going to be character development in SAO.

The End Mountains

The first half of the episode focuses on Kirito and Eugeo as they continue to hang out and work towards cutting down the Gigas Cedar. After watching Eugeo toil away at his calling by using the Dragonbone Ax, Kirito asks him if there’s anything stronger they can use on the tree.

Eugeo then remembers he has the Blue Rose Sword stashed away somewhere nearby (it was probably in the shed in which the Ax is kept). This sword is the same one the knight of legend attempted to steal from the dragon in the End Mountains, and it seems Eugeo went back to get it years after Alice was taken.

His end goal was to be able to one day use the Blue Rose Sword and save Alice, but there are a few problems. The first is that the sword is way too heavy for him to properly wield, and the second is that he can’t leave on an adventure and shirk his Calling.

With the Blue Rose Sword in hand, Kirito attempts to cut into the Gigas Cedar, and misses his mark. However, even though he missed the weak point, the single blow did enough damage to the tree for it to be visible, something the Dragonbone Ax is unable to do.

He then suggests that Eugeo try, because although he isn’t a swordsman, he has more experience with cutting the Gigas Cedar. As expected though, Eugeo fairs even worse than Kirito, and the two decide to go back to using the ax for some ungodly reason.

The sword can do at least 50 damage in 50 swings, while the ax does the same amount of damage in around 1,000 swings. It seems pretty obvious to me which of the two should be used. Plus, by using the sword, they’ll theoretically get better at using it, and then be able to hit the sweet spot, thus dealing even more damage.

But, hey, in the introduction I only said it looks like there’s going to be character development, I didn’t say that the characters were going to specifically develop their common sense capabilities.

The second half of the episode focuses on Alice’s younger sister, Selka. After Alice’s disappearance, Selka took her place working at the church, though not in the same capacity which Alice had. While Alice was studying magic, Selka seems to be a regular Sister.

Although I’m pretty sure Kirito knew about Alice before this episode, Eugeo’s reminiscing about her has made Kirito finally take interest. There are three main parts of Eugeo’s story which stick out as far as Kirito is concerned:

1. Alice exhibited behavior unlike an NPC when she “willingly” broke the rules and passed the End Mountains.
2. Alice was considered a magical prodigy and knows of a spell which can stop the aging process/death.
3. Alice wasn’t immediately taken when she broke the rules of the Taboo Index.

Alice’s un-NPC-like behavior is the most important of these three parts. Up to this point, Kirito has been assuming that he’s within some kind of virtual reality, but if that were the case, an NPC wouldn’t “willingly” break the rules of the game.

To him, this probably means either one of two things. The first option is that Alice was supposed to “break the rules” as some sort of plot development. The second, and more interesting idea, is that Alice isn’t an NPC, but rather another player with their memories of the game suppressed, just like Kirito.

It’s unclear exactly why Kirito is so interested in that second part as of right now, but it could simply be that he’s interested in immortality even though he’s pretty sure he’s in a virtual world. Instead, maybe he believes that her magic is the key to him returning to his own world.

Unlike the first two parts, the third doesn’t come into play until the end of the episode, so I’ll discuss that when we get there.

Now that Kirito’s interested in Alice, and has learned that Selka is her younger sister, he decides to see if Selka can give him any more information on her sister. Unfortunately, Selka doesn’t have any more information on Alice than Eugeo had, and in fact, she doesn’t even know why Alice was taken away to begin with.

When asked if he knows why Alice was taken, Kirito, the socially inept person that he is, tells Selka that it was because Alice crossed into the forbidden territory beyond the End Mountains. It was pretty obvious that there was a reason nobody told Selka why her sister was taken, but social queues aren’t Kirito’s strong suit.

So what happens now that Selka knows why Alice was taken by an Integrity Knight? She goes off on her own to cross the End Mountains just like her sister, of course.

Once it’s known that she’s missing the next morning, Kirito and Eugeo go out searching for her. At this point Kirito still doesn’t realize that she’s missing because of what he told her, but luckily Eugeo is a bit more socially adept than he is, and so he figures out where she headed.

On the way there, Kirito reveals his master plan, just in case they don’t make it to Selka before she crosses the mountains. This is where the third part of the information about Alice he’s gathered comes into play.

Since Alice was taken by an Integrity Knight the next morning after crossing into the forbidden territory, that means Selka won’t be taken until the next morning either. Between now and then, Kirito will take Selka and flee the village so the Integrity Knights can’t find her. Genius.

Luckily, they catch up to Selka before she has a chance to completely cross the mountains. Unluckily, she’s been captured by a horde of goblins who appear to be planning to sell her off as a slave. If only there was someone to slay all these goblins; a Goblin Slayer, if you will.

Eugeo then makes the mistake of letting the goblins know their there, and subsequently freezes up when they turn to face him. Kirito, on the other hand, is ready to jump in and beat the goblins with his bare hands, or, more than likely, he forgot he’s unarmed at the moment.

This is where the episode ends, what a cliffhanger.

Next Episode

I’d like to think that the actual adventure will begin in earnest next episode, as I thought was going to happen this episode, but that doesn’t seem like it’s going to be the case. I’m expecting the fight against the goblins to take a bit since Kirito and Eugeo are unarmed, then they’ll have to deal with Selka.

That doesn’t leave much time left for the start of an adventure to save Alice, so I think if anything, it’ll happen at the very end of the episode. I think Selka won’t go into the forbidden territory after being saved, and in return, Kirito will promise to bring Alice back to her.

Eugeo will also want to go save Alice, but his Calling is preventing him from going on the adventure with Kirito. So how can this be solved?

It’s simple, really, Eugeo will pull the Blue Rose Sword out of his back pocket (as you do), and use it to slay all of the goblins along with Kirito, who will pull his own sword out of his back pocket as well. Then, now that they’re both master swordsmen, they’ll chop the Gigas Cedar down together with their respective swords.

I really hope everything I just predicted doesn’t come to pass, but this is SAO we’re talking about, so I don’t have the highest of hopes when it comes to high-quality plot progression.

Conclusion

Can you believe this season of SAO is actually rated lower than the Slime isekai? This is SAO, so it should be popular, and it’s actually potentially the best season of SAO yet, but somehow it’s still losing to That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime.

Anyway, if you enjoyed this post be sure to click the like button down below. You can also let me know what you think is going to happen next in the comments, and we can all enjoy being disappointed together.

Finally, follow me on Twitter @DoubleSama if you like SAO, or if you hate it, either way, just follow me.

My review of the next episode is available here.

Introduction

Although this is the second episode of Alicization, it felt more like a first episode. Yes, the first episode set up the differences between the virtual world and the real world, but in the end, nothing from that first episode seems to have actually mattered.

All of the important information from the first episode was retold to us in this episode due to Kirito’s memory loss, which is often the trope used to explain things to the viewer the first time around, not the second. This wasn’t a bad episode, but it made the first episode look bad.

The Demon Tree

The episode starts off with Kirito waking up in the virtual world, which I don’t believe has been given a proper name yet by its inhabitants, so I’ll be referring to it as the Underworld. Typically when in the Underworld, Kirito’s memories of the real world are suppressed, but this time something’s gone wrong.

Instead, while he can remember hanging out with his friends in the real world, he doesn’t remember anything about the Underworld, effectively giving him amnesia. However, this amnesia seems to go both ways, because even his friend in the Underworld, Eugeo, has no recollection of Kirito either.

When Eugeo recounts what happened to Alice, his story follows what we already saw in the previous episode, but simply leaves out Kirito’s character entirely. More importantly, however, is Eugeo’s explanation of the Giga Cedar, something we were left in the dark about in the first episode.

The reason for Eugeo’s Calling being to cut down the Giga Cedar is because the locals believe it to be a demonic tree. He explains that the villagers are unable to use the area around the tree for farming, and so want it to be chopped down.

Typically I would assume that the locals would revere a tree as massive and ancient as the Giga Cedar, but since they don’t I’m suspecting that something else is going on behind the scenes here. My early prediction is that the locals are being misled about the nature of the Giga Cedar.

Whoever is in control of the land, or the Taboo Index, has likely made the locals believe the Giga Cedar is their enemy, when in fact it’s some sort of protective deity. Once the Giga Cedar is cut down, the wasteland from beyond the mountains will likely start to move in on the habitable land.

Now, this next part is my first major complaint with Alicization. Many people who have read the light novels swear that Alicization is better written than the previous arcs of SAO, but I’m starting to think this isn’t really the case.

As you may recall from the first episode, Kirito’s Calling was that of a Giga Cedar cutter just like Eugeo. However, in this episode we see that not only does he suck at cutting the Giga Cedar, but he also decides that he actually has an entirely different Calling.

What is this calling? Swordsman of course. By using his signature skill of always needing to one-up everyone around him, Kirito bypasses the Calling system and decides that instead of a woodcutter, he’s actually a master swordsman. I don’t see how this isn’t exactly what he did in the previous arcs.

As usual, Kirito simply decides that he’s stronger than everyone else, and so it comes true. That’s not good writing, that’s a convenient way to turn a below average character into a “hero.” Even Naruto grows and develops his skills, and doesn’t simply decide he’s suddenly stronger.

So, now that Kirito has decided he’s a swordsman, we can forget about the possibility of there being any real adversity awaiting him on his likely journey to rescue Alice. It also seems that along with being a swordsman now, all of his skills from SAO have carried over, because of course they did.

Let’s also not forget that it’s been years since Kirito escaped from SAO and he still instinctively reaches for a sword (which isn’t on his back) when he runs into someone he’s not familiar with. He seems to believes that this physical manifestation of his PTSD is somehow linked to his identity.

Towards the end of the episode we also meet a new character, a Sister at the nearby church. I don’t remember her name, but it appears as though she’s the romantic interest of Eugeo. Unfortunately for her, that’s probably as far as her character development is going to go.

If you haven’t realized by now, there are two major reasons why characters are tossed to the side in SAO despite being potentially interesting:

1. The character is female.
2. The character isn’t Kirito.

As far as female characters in SAO go, they typically last for one arc, and then are tossed aside for the next arc’s female lead. An example of this would be Leafa replacing Asuna in the ALO arc, and then Sinon replacing her in the GGO arc.

While the first of these rules only applies to female characters, the second can apply to anyone. Name one character from the first SAO arc who isn’t Kirito, Asuna, or Klein. I can’t, and it’s likely that you can’t either. The only reason we remember Klein is because he’s been kept around as a perpetual background character.

That said, I’m hopeful that Eugeo will break free from this curse of being forgotten simply because he isn’t Kirito. As I mentioned in last week’s review, the Alicization OP shows a bromance of sorts between Kirito and Eugeo, and they seem to be equals, so I’ll take that as a sign that he won’t be forgotten.

Conclusion

The next episode should be when Kirito and Eugeo’s adventure begins in earnest, though they likely won’t head out of the village until the halfway point of the episode, if not later. We’re also likely to be formally introduced to the woman shown in the tower of Central City in the closing scene of this week’s episode.

I’d discuss more about the next episode, but without an actual next episode preview, there isn’t all that much to talk about.

If you enjoyed this post, be sure to click the like button down below and tell me your thoughts on the episode in the comments. How are you liking Alicization so far, and do you think it’s going to be better than the previous arcs of SAO?

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My review of the next episode is available here.

Introduction

I don’t try to hide the fact that I’m not a Sword Art Online fan, but when an anime adaptation of the next part of the series was announced, there was no question as to whether or not I’d be watching it. At this point, like it or hate it, SAO has become an important part of anime culture.

Now, just because I don’t like SAO doesn’t mean I hate it either. I don’t think it’s good, but I enjoyed it (for the most part) the very first time I watched it. Since then, as I’ve had time to think about it and add a lot more anime to my repertoire, I’ve come to see SAO as mediocre at best.

But, despite what you might think, I’m not here to tear down this new season of SAO simply out of spite. Since this is a four-cour season (that means it will run for an entire year), these weekly posts may eventually devolve to that, but for now I actually plan to attempt to enjoy this season for what it is.

It should come as no surprise by now that Reki Kawahara, the author of SAO, isn’t considered to be a very good writer by many. That said, those who have stuck through the series’ light novels swear that this arc, Alicization, is his best work to date.

Other than that, I’m going into this season with no knowledge of what’s to come, and all I can say is that I hope Alicization is as good as all the light novel readers claim it is, otherwise this is going to be a very long year.

Underworld Part 1

The first episode was double-length and was really more like two episodes glued together than one long episode. The first part of the episode has almost nothing to do with the rest of the series up to this point, other than the fact that Kirito is the protagonist.

However, instead of being roughly 20 now, Kirito appears to be around the age of 11.

He lives in a small village with his two friends, Eugeo and Alice. Along with Eugeo, Kirito’s job is to cut down a tree known as the Giga Cedar. It’s unknown what the purpose of cutting down the Giga Cedar is, but what is known is that it won’t happen within Kirito’s lifetime.

Generations of Giga Cedar cutters have been working to chop down the tree, and it’s estimated that many generations more will work on the tree before it eventually topples. But, this is SAO, so Kirito will probably just believe in himself harder and chop it down in one hit later on in the season.

Alice, on the other hand, is the daughter of the village elder and appears to be in a higher social class than the two boys since she actually attends classes instead of doing manual labor all day. Despite this, the three of them are close friends, much like the Attack on Titan trio.

I won’t say that Alice is anything like Mikasa from AoT, but Kirito and Eugeo gave off some serious Eren and Armin vibes. We already know from the previous seasons that Kirito is loud and stubborn just like Eren, and just from this first episode we saw that Eugeo was a weak loser, just like Armin.

I’m hoping that in the future Eugeo becomes a competent character, and the OP seems to confirm this. Despite this being SAO, I’m expecting good things to come from Kirito and Eugeo’s bromance. Maybe they’ll even become the next Naruto and Sasuke, though I doubt it.

So other than Kirito and Eugeo failing to chop down the Giga Cedar, what else happens in this first part of the episode? Alice brings the boys some lunch after her classes, and the trio contemplate why hot food spoils faster than cold food. Riveting, I know.

This conversation reminds them of a legend about a knight who went to steal a sword from a dragon in a cave, only to fail. This story isn’t important in any way yet, but it likely will be in the future. For now, the important thing is that the legend mentions that the cave was full of icicles.

Because they’re kids in an anime, they decide that going to this cave that’s supposedly home to a dragon simply in order to gather ice to keep their food fresh for longer is a good idea. Surprisingly, however, it was a much easier journey than I expected, and they find the ice without a problem.

However, inside the cave they also find the skeleton of the dragon from the myth, along with a pile of treasure which included the sacred sword the knight had tried to steal. Again, this isn’t important for the time being, but will likely become very important later on, unless Reki Kawahara forgets to tie it back in.

When they attempt to leave the cave, they get lost and end up exiting on the opposite side of the mountain range. While getting lost so far from home is an issue in itself, the villagers are forbidden from crossing the mountains.

Conveniently enough, there’s a line on the ground which marks the point which the children are forbidden to cross, and so they’re safe for now. From the safety of the cave, they watch two knights fighting on dragons, and when one of them is defeated, he looks towards the children.

Alice, for whatever reason, is drawn to the dying knight and accidentally trips. When she falls, her fingertips cross the line and a portal opens up with a face that says something about reporting the incident. The three children then hurry home, hoping that nobody will know what happened.

The next day, the knight who won the battle shows up in the village and orders Alice to be given to him for her crime of crossing the mountains. He says that the punishment for her crime is death, and none of the villagers other than Kirito even try to argue for Alice’s sake.

Alice is taken away by the knight, and this is where the first part of the episode ends.

Underworld Part 2

In the second part of the episode we learn that the entire first part took place within a new virtual reality game which Kirito was play-testing as part of his new job. The fact that play-testing games is Kirito’s full-time job is just another way in which SAO panders to its target audience.

From here, the whole SAO gang gets back together, because what brings people together more than shared traumatic events? That’s right, Asuna and Klein are back from part one, that weird girl who had a dragon as a pet is back from part two, and even Sinon from SAO II is back. Oh, and one other girl who I think is Kirito’s cousin, but I’m not quite sure.

If Ordinal Scale was a sequel to season one, then Alicization appears to be a sequel to season two. Sinon has the rest of the gang help her try to defeat a professional GGO team, and while they don’t end up winning, they don’t end up losing either.

It’s then revealed that one of the main antagonists from SAO II is still on the run and will likely be a major antagonist in this season as well. I thought SAO II’s arc wrapped up, but I don’t really remember how it ended, so I’ll just go along with it.

Oh, Asuna uses a light saber in GGO too now. Hers is red though, so I guess she’s roleplaying as a Sith lord while Kirito is roleplaying as Mace Windu.

Towards the end of the episode Kirito decides that he’s going to move to the US because that’s where the best virtual reality technology is located. When he asks Asuna to join him, of course she agrees, but I have my doubts that they’ll actually get there.

More than likely, just before they’re about to leave, some big event takes place and forces them to stay in Japan so that they can either save their friends or get to the bottom of some mystery. If something were to go wrong with the technology Kirito is play-testing, there’s no way he could leave the country.

It really amazes me how drawn to virtual reality games Kirito is, considering that his or Asuna’s life was in danger in literally every single one he’s played. In SAO he was fighting for his life, in ALO he was fighting for Asuna’s life, in GGO he was fighting for his life again, and in OS he was again fighting for Asuna’s life.

I’m sure a lot of other things happened in this second half of the episode, but it was so uneventful that I don’t really remember what they were, and it’s only been a couple of days since I watched it.

Conclusion

Before ending, can I just point out how stupid the subtitle “Alicization” is? You can’t just take the name of a character and turn it into a non-proper noun like that. Does this mean that someone can be Alicized as well? Is Alice a verb now too?

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My review of the next episode is available here.