Sword Art Online

Watching the majority of this episode, I was surprised to discover that it was in fact, not terrible. They hit on the right points of the aftermath of such an event, Kirito recovering, having a bit of an "I know Kung-fu" moment (which given the circumstance and immersion of the NerveGear, makes sense), but it partially failing thanks to him being used to auto-assist, etc.

And then...

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Originally Posted by Ryllharu

The only way they could possibly make it worse is if he stole Asuna, locked her in a castle, and dared Kirito to save her, because only Kirito could possibly have such a perfect wife/girlfriend to the point that everyone else would want her, wishing they could be Kirito.

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Son of a bitch!
(and no, I had not read this far.)

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Originally Posted by MFauli

Yes, girl, the boy you grew up with for your whole life turns out to be your cousin instead brother. It´s totally okay to fall in love with him now.... WAIT, WHAT?! (And that reaction is leaving aside the confusion over WHY SAO needed an incest subplot. sigh).

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Cuz.

What mediocre-at-best harem series would be complete without an incest option?

Romantic attraction isn't limited to non-blood relatives. (though I think there are studies which show animals generally preferring to mate with non-siblings so you can argue that there's at least no affinity for mating with those with close blood).

The whole idea that you can't fall in love with your brother is because any detrimental/recessive genetic material is more likely to be expressed as a phenotype in your resultant offspring.

The natural order in which things should actually happen would be:

1) fall in love (implusive, involuntary)
2) decide whether you should act on that (logical, voluntary)

Even if we swap the order around, #2 is simply done in advance to suppress #1 when it happens. The purpose of #2 is still dependant on the existence of #1.

That said and all, I like the sister. What I don't get is how Asuna's "soul" is maintained at the moment. SAO's data is supposedly deleted.. so what is left? The Nervgear's connected to somewhere, and assuming Fairy Land is Akihito's "SAO v2", they'll have to link the two together somehow (and thereby expose Akihito's whereabouts/trail).

I can see the sister following him into the dive this time.. and having a run-in with Sachi? Asuna won't be the only one they're trying to save I'd imagine (though she'd be the top priority no doubt).

Kirito could show Asuna's dad the picture and get him to post-phone the "wedding" until she's rescued.. but with that scumbag controlling the virtual servers things could get pretty dangerous for the both of them (Kirito, Asuna).

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Originally Posted by Ryllharu

They hit on the right points of the aftermath of such an event, Kirito recovering, having a bit of an "I know Kung-fu" moment (which given the circumstance and immersion of the NerveGear, makes sense), but it partially failing thanks to him being used to auto-assist, etc.

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This was the only genuinely good part of the episode. While Kirito has past experience of RL kendo, he still thought a bit too much of himself based on his long game experience (although he was wise enough not to boast aloud).

However, the scumbag dude wanting to marry a girl in a com was the weakest part. He must be thinking he's still living in the feudal era. Even if he did bribe some judge to be able to wed her, surely he should understand the first thing Asuna would do upon waking up is a divorce. That ought to be an exceedingly humiliating fact for anybody. Unless he intends to make sure she will never wake up. But if that's the case, he should have a concrete plan of silencing Kirito as well. But being stupid enough to talk to Kirito about his plans speaks against his level of intelligence.

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Originally Posted by kraco

Even if he did bribe some judge to be able to wed her, surely he should understand the first thing Asuna would do upon waking up is a divorce. That ought to be an exceedingly humiliating fact for anybody. Unless he intends to make sure she will never wake up. But if that's the case, he should have a concrete plan of silencing Kirito as well.

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I brought up a topic similar to IRC by raising my confusion about that dude's primary objective with all this. Is it:

a) Wanting to bang the comatosed Asuna, or
b) Wanting the unofficial title of "husband" and being heir to the Yuuki corporation empire.

He could secure his position well enough given some time if it was B, even if Asuna wanted to divorce afterwards.

Given that this isn't "medical" and that her coma is due to her "dying" in some death-game with unknown mechanics, he's probably putting his money on her not waking up for a long, long time with Akihito (assumingly) on the run.

Since several people are actually praising the way Kirito´s rl-kendo skills have been portrayed, I guess I´ll have to elaborate on why I hated it:

ALL skills within SAO were just that: "skills". RPG skills. Automatic skills. We had an episode where Kirito himself said that level is everything. THe higher your level, the stronger you are. Whatever fancy moves he showed within SAO were move patterns the game granted his "game character" due to rising in level. There is ZERO he could have taken to reality from that, because he didn´t learn how to move like that - he learned to activate the skills that MADE him move so.
When the episode started, I kept thinking "please don´t go there, please don´t go there", as I feared they´d put such a bs stunt and have him use his in-game skills in rl. And then it happened. Kinda disheartening that I´m the only one who found this to be ridiculous.
Of course, it´s made even worse since he spent 2 years in coma. He keeps telling his sister that he needs to re-grow muscles, but he certainly didn´t show - moving lightning-fast and almost beating the girl that´s a highly skilled Kendo-fighter herself.

So, that´s that. Guess it´s only me who had a problem with that scene. *shrugs*

Then there´s the whole "guy who´s planning to marry comatose Asuna"-plot line. WTF?! Agreed with Kraco: How does this guy picture his plans to work out? Unless he´s into corpse fucking, there´s no way Asuna would ever accept him. Though it´s similar ridiculous that Asuna´s father agrees with these marriage plans.
Oh, but that was not enough: The author had to make this guy into some super evil, disgusting pig, licking his tongue in best Orochimaru-manner, sigh. That is leading to my general criticism for how things went:

WHY was it necessary to fill this anime with about all existing anime tropes? Even though there were a lot of silly things during the SAO-part of the anime, the rl-aftermath had such great potential. Why go with these already-been-there-elements (incest, evil guy, transferring vr-powers to rl), when this could have portrayed a realistic world and how these characters that we´ve only seen as their online-personae interact within this different, less fantastic environment?

To give some details as for what I would have liked:
Kirito being physically frail, mentally depressed, and showing what a nerd he is (which I totally don´t get, when he has such a sweet, caring sister. Whatever). Trying to find Asuna. Asuna not being in a coma, but also looking for Kirito. Them meeting and feeling awkward. From here, the show could turn into something like CLANNAD After, where we see how the both of them manage real life, experiencing weird situations again and again due to their SAO-past. Then, at some point, when we´ve seen how different rl is for the hero-couple, the main plot could return, being about finding Kabaya, involving new virtual worlds, but without being trapped inside them. Would have been extremely neat to have both rl- and vr-events intervine, like ... Asuna fighting her way in some new world created by Kabaya, whil Kirito is somewhere in Tokyo or whatever place and investigates stuff. They could then communicate through emails and such. Over time, the lines between rl and vr would start to fade and it´d all became just one big playground.

Yeah, that´s what could have been. Instead the plot takes turns that make me even angrier than Sasuke´s weekly Sharingan-upgrades. :/

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Originally Posted by Kraco

This was the only genuinely good part of the episode. While Kirito has past experience of RL kendo, he still thought a bit too much of himself based on his long game experience (although he was wise enough not to boast aloud).

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It wasn't all past kendo experience though, and he gained a considerable skill thanks to the game. Kirito has become quite good at dodging attacks by the narrowest margin (a key to any martial skill). Due to his lack of muscle, his weakness is in attacks, parrying, and clashing weapons.

At least he's not so much of an ass anymore. He was actually willing to start up sparring with Sugu, something he selfishly forced her to do so that he wouldn't have to (per the Silica episode).

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Originally Posted by Buffalobiian

I can see the sister following him into the dive this time.. and having a run-in with Sachi? Asuna won't be the only one they're trying to save I'd imagine (though she'd be the top priority no doubt).

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Sachi? That's a tiny Yui sprite in his pocket during the OP.

The only question is who the blond in the elf game is played by, but it's probably quite obvious given Sugu's line after they finished sparring (around 8:50). He was willing to restart kendo, and Sugu also started an activity that she's keeping a secret for now. Oh...whatever could it be in an anime about online games?

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Originally Posted by MFauli

ALL skills within SAO were just that: "skills". RPG skills. Automatic skills. We had an episode where Kirito himself said that level is everything. THe higher your level, the stronger you are. Whatever fancy moves he showed within SAO were move patterns the game granted his "game character" due to rising in level. There is ZERO he could have taken to reality from that, because he didn´t learn how to move like that - he learned to activate the skills that MADE him move so.

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Wrong.

As much I have criticized it previously in this thread, they were quite clear that regular attacks and dodges are all the player's own movements, and skills are activated by rudimentary mimic movements of what you want to accomplish (basically, an appropriate waggle on a Wii game). It was only a skill when the weapons glowed. That's why Kirito's line made sense. He's good at the dodging, but the actual skill attacks are his new weakpoint. He got too used to being lazy and doing them only partially. The foundation is there, but he can't follow through because of the auto-complete once a skill is activated.

He could dodge and swipe at Sugu, but once he tried something fancy, he sucked.

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Originally Posted by Ryll

Sachi? That's a tiny Yui sprite in his pocket during the OP.

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When I wrote the post I meant Sachi. Since she died in SAO, they would probably run into her in whatever game world Asuna is in right now.

But that doesn't matter now because the "one who looks like my sister" character was actually Silica..

Nah. It's been years. She's probably dead. It is my understanding that Kirito didn't die and was able to log out only because they beat it right then. The Brain-Fry Timer was a minute longer than the Auto-Logout timer due to victory. Asuna was also spared the Brain-Fry Timer too, but didn't get to log out.

We know there was a difference between in-game death time and brain-fry time thanks to the Never Used Resurrection item. With a key restriction that it must be used within a couple minutes after death.

Which reminds me... they didn't specifically talk about any SAO-attributable deaths this episode. The "news" segments were shown in earlier episodes, but there has been nothing so far to confirm whether or not it actually happened.

If they really died.. you would have thought we'd be shown a segment with Kirito visiting Sachi's grave or something.

I wonder if he even cared at that point. He said he traded all the information he knew in order to find Asuna's whereabouts.

They have plenty of good reasons not to give out anyone's real name and location now that they've gotten out, unless there was a very good reason, or they brokered an information deal. I'd bet there are a lot of people who would happily murder each other for actions taken in the game.

Hell, people do that IRL. Rarely enough, but it happens. They usually get arrested before they do anything though.

Kayaba confirmed that the dead people are dead. About going to find Sachi, Kirito doesn't even know her real name. I bet he could find her name if he really tried since he knows that whole computer club died at whatever school those kids went to. He has more pressing issues at the moment, and I don't think you can really blame him for not wanting to dig up those painful memories.

Regarding his imouto, at least Sugu is way more mature about her bro/cousin-con than just about every other anime involving little sister romances. She's trying to deal with her feelings and not trying to jump his bones, like the standard trope.

Even though the sword skills are all automatically triggered, after doing something thousands and thousands of times and having your body move that way, you're going to be able to reproduce it. It might not be fast or perfect, but you could do it.

Suguo Nobuyuki is definitely made to be hated. It is a shame he plays the classic "Nothing you can do to me, hahaha" type villain.

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Originally Posted by Ryllharu

They have plenty of good reasons not to give out anyone's real name and location now that they've gotten out, unless there was a very good reason, or they brokered an information deal. I'd bet there are a lot of people who would happily murder each other for actions taken in the game.

Hell, people do that IRL. Rarely enough, but it happens. They usually get arrested before they do anything though.

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Makes you wonder about the red guilds and "murderers". Are these people actually trackable, and can you bring them to trial for their in-game crimes? (If there are trials, how do you protect any witnesses while still making sure a group of witnesses aren't making stuff up out of spite for a particular player?) Or are any surviving members out in the public? If it's the latter case, that's kind of scary.

SAO and all the data associated with it got deleted like Kayaba set it to when he died, so I'd guess no. They're still roaming about, and there's no proof they had ever murdered anyone at all.

I'm sure the police blame every death on Kayaba.

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Originally Posted by Ryllharu

SAO and all the data associated with it got deleted like Kayaba set it to when he died, so I'd guess no. They're still roaming about, and there's no proof they had ever murdered anyone at all.

I'm sure the police blame every death on Kayaba.

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So it's safe to assume that everything that has been done in SAO is considered actions under duress by the authorities ?
In that case a whole lot of SAO PKers got out with the taste of blood and that could make an interesting detective oriented sequel.

It's more of an issue with lack of evidence. The only data they have is information provided by the players themselves. While their appearances were reverted to their physical ones, their names were never revealed to each other. Any data logs of:

- Player 09245 "Kuradeel" killed Player 08121 "Bearded dude" at time hh:mm:ss on Day/Month/Year with regular attack.
- Player 00157 "Kirito" killed Player 09245 "Kuradeel" at time hh:mm:ss on Day/Month/Year with ____ skill.

Went with Kayaba and all his server data. Evidence like that would be extremely damning. One player with a grudge against another with a claim that they murdered their friend is less so.

Then again, this is the Japanese justice system we're talking about. Prone to over-reliance on confessions extracted from suspects under duress at police stations and prosecutors with unbelievable 95+% conviction rates (with a certainty of some innocent people sent falsely to prison).

I'm not so sure that all the data surrounding SAO would just disappear like that, even if the people on the outside wasn't able to do anything to influence the game it's not impossible that they at least made backups of the data or analyzed it. Another thing would be the knowledge of Kirito, granted it's just Suguo that's mentioned it but even so if some people know about him and that he ended the game it's not too much of a stretch that there's some kind of record of every character. Lastly this new MMO should at least be partially built upon SAO since I doubt they made a new VRMMO from scratch also since Asuna seems to be in that game there should be a connection between the two games.

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Originally Posted by fireheart

I'm not so sure that all the data surrounding SAO would just disappear like that, even if the people on the outside wasn't able to do anything to influence the game it's not impossible that they at least made backups of the data or analyzed it.

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They could try.. but it doesn't sound like it lead to any beneficial results.

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Originally Posted by fireheart

Another thing would be the knowledge of Kirito, granted it's just Suguo that's mentioned it but even so if some people know about him and that he ended the game it's not too much of a stretch that there's some kind of record of every character.

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The fact that people know about Kirito doesn't mean anything about remnant character profiles. Kirito gave up all the information he knew about SAO. It's a given that all those interested would know about the "Beater" Kirito.

I think the new MMO would be built on SAO as well, but I don't think that means SAO's data is available to anyone other than Akihito. There the question of whether this new MMO will be an underground project by Akihito-in-hiding, or something by the current server owners. I would guess it's the former.

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Originally Posted by Buffalobiian

They could try.. but it doesn't sound like it lead to any beneficial results.

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True it may not lead to anything but having backups of the data is a natural thing to do, if nothing else because that's what you do for an MMO game incase something happens to the data so not everything gets wiped. For example if the servers for some reason malfunction so that not every player gets killed they should have a backup. Also not trying to analyze the data to find a way to get them out would be irresponsible unless Akihito made it perfectly clear that if they tried people would die.

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Originally Posted by Buffalobiian

The fact that people know about Kirito doesn't mean anything about remnant character profiles. Kirito gave up all the information he knew about SAO. It's a given that all those interested would know about the "Beater" Kirito.

I think the new MMO would be built on SAO as well, but I don't think that means SAO's data is available to anyone other than Akihito. There the question of whether this new MMO will be an underground project by Akihito-in-hiding, or something by the current server owners. I would guess it's the former.

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No it merely opens up the possibility of character records, it doesn't have to be that way like you said but why would they listen to Kirito? Especially since he's known as a "beater" they would hardly have the most positive attitude towards him, testimony's as Ryllharu says isn't the most reliable and Kirito as the biggest beater would have more of a bad rep to him so it wouldn't really do him good.

I'm mostly assuming based on the fact that it's only been 2 years, so someone would have to made the game in this timeframe despite the huge backlash SAO generated and I doubt many would jump at the chance to do that. Probably useless to discuss it since they probably won't ever touch on how these games are made and the process but making a MMO shouldn't be that easy given the new tech but if they had the SAO engine and NervGear tech making the graphics should at least be a lot easier than designing/making one of their own, which would explain how the game came out within the 2 years. But yeah it seems more plausible that it's Akihito since he made the whole game on his own in the first place.

Edit: Thinking about it the plausibility of a random company making a new VRMMO without any code from SAO in that timeframe doesn't matter considering what we've seen up till now.

Episode 16 - HS




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I didn't foresee myself posting such a thing, but in order to be objective, I have to confess I found this episode quite decent, and above all fun. Maybe it's because not too much didn't make any sense and I really like scarce scenes of a (hidden) badass character kicking ass when nobody expects it. Despite the fact I disliked the whole Yui arc, her tiny pixie form was cute, as well.

I do find Kirito's profile accidentally being carried over something of a stretch, but for all we know it could have been perfectly intentional or it was a real accident created by the whatever process that transferred Asuna from SAO to Alfheim. Either way, that didn't trigger my unbelievability-o-meter.

Regardless, Kirito still seems to be an MMO girl magnet.

I didn´t have much of a problem with this episode ... except for one biggie: WHAT mother would let her son play this kind of game again, after he was trapped in VR for over two years? Bull-fucking-shit!
At least work out some elaborate plans of how to hide your NervGear-usage from other people.
Also, of course, Kirito is the only person to realize that this game is basically a copy of SAO. WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG, using the data of a well-known death-game?!

Other than that, fun episode. Well, Kirito showing off at the end seems unnecessarily risky, but whatever.