So this is the first thing I see when I start up the episode… is this what we’re gonna do this afternoon, SAO? Are we gonna fight?

Plot summary: Kirito and Leafa reach Arun, the capital city of ALO. Since a server maintenance is about to start, the two of them decide to take a “short” break. Meanwhile, Asuna has broken out of her cage, and stumbles across a room full of trapped consciousnesses being experimented upon. She finds a console that could help her log out, but she gets caught by pink slugs (yep) and nearly gets tentacle-raped in the process (double yep). In the end, the pink slugs put her back in her rightful place as the damsel-in-distress. During this time, the ever-productive Kirito takes Sugu with him to visit Asuna in real life, but somehow, neither Kirito nor Sugu have yet to realize that they’re both playing ALO together. When they later log on to continue their journey, Yui suddenly tells Kirito that she can sense Asuna’s player ID above them, so Kirito takes off flying like a fucking idiot.

Notes:

• Well, we’ve given you the obnoxiously green, so here’s the obnoxiously bright:

World-building at its finest! Oh wait, you mean MMO players wouldn’t want to spend most of their time in a city so annoyingly radiant?

• Leafa: “That’s because you were showing off by giving all your money to Sakuya. You should have saved money for an inn.” Wow, that makes Kirito’s actions from last week even stupider than before! I’ve got my true love to save, but here, take literally all my money! How would you feel if you were in Asuna’s shoes right about now? The answer is nothing, because it was a trick question; Asuna only exists in the world of wish fulfillment, and thus she has no personality!

• But why is Leafa griping? Did she give up all her money too? Or did she just not bring any because Kirito was supposed to pay for it?

• Speaking of Asuna… you get to see her go full Solid Snake:

Only in SAO would the villain be too dumb to assign people to guard Asuna’s cage.

• I like how she freaks out at an empty hallway. Three cheers for our heroine.

• Here, I’ll take a break from bashing the show to do a bit of interpretation. When Kirito hears that Sugu didn’t get to bed until 4AM last night, he tries to play the big brother role but quickly realizes how hypocritical he sounds: “Don’t spend too much time on it. Not that I should talk.” As he says this, he stares into his own reflection in a bucket of water. He then reaches for it, but his reflection disappears as soon as the surface of the water breaks and ripples. Both his words and his actions, I believe, lead to two different interpretations that are both plausible, and because they are both plausible, for once, the anime actually delivers some sort of psychological tension.

One moment from the very beginning of the series has always stuck with me: Kirito admitting that he feels more alive in an MMO than in the real world. So here he is in real life, reaching for what is supposedly his true self, but it dissolves. Has he spent so much time online that his real persona barely exists anymore? I mean, this kid doesn’t even go to school or has a job. All he does is play games, but on that note, this is where the other interpretation comes in.

Think of how the reflective surface represents not just a mirror in this very moment, but how it also resembles a computer screen. Perhaps what he sees is not a reflection of real-world self, but one of his online avatars. Kirito tells Sugu that she shouldn’t spend all her time online, knowing fully well that he just spent all night playing yet another MMO. He wouldn’t warn Sugu, however, if he didn’t know at the back of his mind that spending all night playing some game isn’t right. So when he reaches for the reflective surface of the water, think of it as him trying to reach out to a computer screen — trying to reach out and touch his online persona.

So wait, you might say, either the reflection represents his true self or his online self. It can’t be both! But that’s exactly the point. This is where the tension comes from: Kirito doesn’t know where his true self exists anymore. It is neither in the real world, nor is it in some video game. At the start of the series, Kirito would’ve likely said his true self existed online, but now? He’s on a virtual quest only to save something very real: his true love. What would make this all extra poignant is if Kirito’s quest to save Asuna actually had sense of urgency to it. After all, what does the quest do? It cuts through the existential angst; the search for genuine companionship and love helps him get over his cynicism.

Unfortunately, Kirito doesn’t really seem like he’s in much of a hurry, so the end result is that it appears as though he doesn’t give much of a shit about Asuna or anything. I mean, the whole show has been one long series of missed opportunities one after the other. Remember how in SAO, your in-game avatar resembles your real world appearance? Imagine if this had not been the case. Kirito would’ve fallen in love with a female avatar without knowing whether or not it was really a girl in real life. Imagine, also, that after SAO ended, he never met Asuna at the hospital, but he embarks on his quest in ALO to save her anyway. Think about it… he lacks knowledge of his true self, but he wouldn’t know Asuna’s true self either. Yet this need to save and nurture another human soul — the sublime faith in love — helps him get over the fact that he doesn’t know what Asuna looks like or how she really acts in real life. And if he can do that for her, he could certainly do that for himself. His quest in ALO wouldn’t just be a quest to save her but also to save himself.

But y’know, herp derp, we’ll just have Gary Stu dual-wielding and bouncing ambassador tits instead. C’est la vie.

• Okay, enough being all serious and shit. Let’s go back to Kirito being a massive dick:

• The server maintenance is only from 4AM to 7AM. If Kirito really cared that much about Asuna, he’d be back online, but we get to see him and Sugu cook instead. Cool. In fact, he tells Sugu he’s going to head to the hospital. How is that going to help you save your e-waifu? Maybe after seeing all the ridiculous fanservice from last week’s episode, Kirito needs to remind himself why he’s bothering to save Asuna in the first place.

• Haha, this reminds me of the card crusher meme.

• I love how the creators of ALO literally programmed in a room full of floating holographic brains. Just because… it’d be cool and shit, man.

• What the hell? The experimenters have pink slug-like creatures (with teeth, I must add) for avatars? They also can’t just receive a bunch of data in the real world.

They have to log into ALO and stare at the holographic brains to see what the brains are thinking and feeling!

• Sugu: “Hey onii-chan, what about school?” Silly girl, Gary Stus don’t have to go to school. He’ll just become a pro-MMO ga…mer… yeah.

• According to Sugu, he used to get good grades too. Hah, Gary Stu online, Gary Stu in the real world.

• The way the show oscillates between seriousness and mundane domesticity is actually kind of funny. Here, we have Asuna trapped in some terrifying, maniacal brain prison, then we cut to Kirito sitting on a bus to visit his e-waifu at the hospital. If only Asuna knew what her e-hubby was up to, she’d be like, “Fuck, I’m trying to save lives here and you’re just jerking off to me in real life?”

• Whenever shadowy tentacles appear behind you in an anime…

You gotta be fucking kidding me:

So one of them tries to rape her. No, I’m not even joking.

• Sugu: “What a big hospital.” Kirito: “It’s amazing inside, too. Like a hotel.” Okay, guys, we’re not in an MMO anymore. You don’t have to try to impress me with a damn hospital.

• What’s sort of interesting is how the slugs don’t initially recognize Asuna. She’s just some pet project on the side for what’s-his-face… the villain so terribly interesting that I’ve forgotten his name already. Oh right, Oberon the Fairy King.

• Oh, it’s just Leafa crying because she can’t be with her brother. All my cares… nope.

• This grand, glorious music plays when the two of them come a little closer to the World Tree. Kirito even breathlessly remarks… “The World Tree…”

But if you’ll remember, he did the same shit at the start of the episode:

Sorry SAO, but you can’t double-dip. The majesty of the World Tree loses its impact when you keep mentioning it. I can imagine these two pausing after every step just to smack themselves in awe over some virtual tree. Meanwhile, Asuna pounds her fists on the bars surrounding her and screams, “STOP GAWKING AT THE DAMN TREE AND SAVE ME!”

• When you reach the top of the World Tree, you become an Alf. I don’t want to be an Alf. Why would you want to be an Alf?

• Dude, Leafa just told you that there’s an invisible wall to prevent you from flying up the World Tree. Way to waste even more time and energy.

We’ve got a hot babe to save.

Plot summary: Kirito tries to bust through the invisible barrier, but he fails. Somehow, however, Asuna manages to drop a keycard to him. Our hero finally decides to stop wasting his energy and brave the dungeon all by his lonesome instead, but he fails pretty hard. Leafa has to put herself in danger’s way to resurrect him, but since there’s no real death in ALO anyway, the scene loses much of its impact. After being revived, Kirito wants to throw himself at a thousand arrows again, confessing to Leafa that he has to save Asuna at all costs. It is at this point that Leafa realizes she’s been questing with her oniichan. Drrrraaaamaaaaaa~

Notes:

• Leafa takes off after Kirito and wonders to herself, “Kirito-kun, what’s wrong? The person at the top of the World Tree is that important to you?” It makes me wonder why she hasn’t once asked him about the purpose of their quest. Yes, they all want to climb the World Tree, but Kirito obviously isn’t doing it for some stupid perma-flight (or maybe he is…). Plus, this can’t be the first time Yui has referred to the person atop the World Tree as ‘mama.’ Such a thing has to pique her interest, no?

• In a cooler, sillier anime, Kirito’s determination would just pierce the heavens. But then we wouldn’t have a dungeon to crawl, now would we?

• Are you serious, girl? It looks like you can just slip your little twig body through the bars!

C’mon, what are you waiting for? Just go! Oh that’s right: Kirito has to literally save her. Some of you will object and say, “She’ll just fall out of the sky and die!” Nuh uh, looks like there are plenty of places for her to slip through the bars and plant her feet on solid ground:

• Remember how she pilfered some keycard last week? Asuna decides to toss it over the side and it lands softly in Kirito’s hands. I guess it’s a one-way barrier!

• Kirito pokes it like some kind of monkey.

• Aw what is this corny shit:

The holy trinity of anime: the Gary Stu, the former heroine turned damsel-in-distress, and the inexplicable loli.

• There are guardians in front of the World Tree that even raids cannot overcome. Oh boy, let’s just see how Gary Stu does it — probably with one punch too. It’s hard to highlight the differences between the SAO arc and this arc, because it feels painfully similar. Uber-important story quest >> Kirito pairs up with another girl >> Kirito does it all by himself and looks cool. What’s the contrasting element other than the fact that you can’t die in ALO? Flight? That’s it? No critical character growth?

See, this is why I would’ve liked Kirito to have some sense of urgency in saving Asuna, ’cause he dragged his feet in SAO despite the fact that his life was on the line. I mean, if your true love can’t motivate you, what else will? I also would’ve liked to see Kirito actually recruit help since he lone wolf’d it up last time and look where it got him. But there hasn’t been any character development since Kirito realized he loved Asuna. No, really. What has he learned since then? What has changed about him or his character since then? No, don’t list the wings. That’s superficial. The answer is nothing. Nothing at all. His character arc is a straight, horizontal line.

• Kirito: “And if I have to waste another second just standing around, I’m going to go insane.” Oh, now you’re in a hurry!

• I thought this dungeon would be interesting to look at, but uh:

Where did all the world-building go? Those of you who have played MMOs… you guys know that dungeons are fairly interesting setpieces. In SAO, however…

• Hey, I’ll give SAO credit for one thing: Kirito didn’t just waltz his way to the top instantly. Actually, one more thing: “Somewhere in my heart, I believed this world was just a game. Is this my punishment for that?” Is this finally some introspection? Does our Gary Stu actually have any pathos?

• Wow, the resurrection time is over 500 seconds. Ain’t nobody’s got time for that! I’m assuming he can’t just respawn at some home point or whatever? I mean, it doesn’t look like he got very far into the dungeon. All you’d have to do is have release and try again, right? But I guess in ALO, you gotta wait ten minutes to respawn or hope someone comes to save you. Speaking of which…

• Another heroine needlessly sacrifices herself for Kirito’s sake again ’cause he decided to brave the dungeon alone. I mean, c’mon now, it’s almost like we’re watching the same damn arc. It’s just that in the previous arc, your life was at stake. But think about it: what would Kirito do if Asuna dies or gets NTR’d? She’s his life now, i.e. his life with his ideal e-waifu is at stake. He has something real and tangible in the outside world to save, and yet people say that his true self lies only within MMOs. What a lark.

• Rather odd to me that his soul or whatever that flame is supposed to represent is located around his crotch:

Well, maybe it’s not so odd if you really think about it.

• I’m amazed 16 minutes of the episode have passed already and we haven’t gotten anywhere. Oh how the time flies by.

• I’d feel bad for Sugu… if it wasn’t incest, but since it is, I don’t give a damn. In fact, I’m not even going to analyze the last few minutes of the episode. Don’t care, don’t want to care.

• The sound effect when Sugu landed on her bed… aaaaaaahahaha, just listen to it again. A perfect ending to that eye-rolling “We are not literally siblings!” conversation. Kirito and Sugu simply grew up together, shared the same home, shared the same “mom,” referred to each other respectively as oniichan and imouto, etc. But c’mon, we’re not literally siblings. Just literally first cousins. *fartz*

What does Recon get for trying to look cool? A pointless death. Step aside, non-important character!

Plot summary: After the characters briefly look sad for a bit, Leafa resolves to help Kirito save Asuna anyway. With Recon’s help, they try futilely again to clear the World Tree dungeon, but they nearly fail until two armies show up to help Kirito. As a result, he makes it past the first part of the dungeon, but finds an impenetrable door. Good thing Asuna swiped that digital keycard…

Notes:

• Sugu: “But if I’d known this would happen, I wish you’d kept being a jerk.” But girl, he’s always been a jerk. By the way, this episode is subtitled “Bonds.” Bonds, yo. Incestuous bonds. Sad imoutos pining for their oniichans in the digital rain. As an aside, I can’t recall if it has rained once in this anime. I guess there are no weather effects in SAO or ALO.

• I get that some adopted kids feel like a stranger in their adopted families. This usually occurs when the kid is already… say, ten when they’re sudden uprooted from their home and stuck in a strange place with strange people. Kirito, however, was adopted when he was just one; he didn’t even know his parents, and he didn’t find out he was adopted by his aunt until much later in life. So y’know, I bet Sugu treated Kirito like a brother. I bet her mom treated him like a son. I doubt she got all the love and attention and he got nothing. For all intents and purposes then, Kirito is part of the family. As a result, I find his monologue here incredibly whiny.

I mean, look at the questions he is asking: “Who is she really? Can I honestly say I know her?” What a load of bullshit. She’s younger than him, so it’s safe to say he’s known her since she was a baby. Does he think he would’ve understood Sugu any better if he was her real brother? Ah, they’re already related, but they’re not super-related! That’s the magical key that unlocks this mystery called loving one’s family. Then Kirito goes on to say, “Maybe that strange feeling of not fitting in was one of those things that drove me to online gaming.” Look, you like games and you’re a bit of a self-absorbed loner. An addiction to MMOs just made perfect sense. Don’t blame it on your family life, which looks and sounds pretty damn cushy to me.

• Kirito: “That there’s no meaningful difference between a real and a virtual world.” Kirito’s referring to relations between people here. In other words, if he can develop friendships with people he’s never met in the real world, there’s no reason why he can’t accept his imouto. Of course, this makes us naturally wonder why he couldn’t come to this conclusion in the real world. When you go to school, for instance, your classmates are people you’ve never known before. You can presumably become close friends with your classmates. As such, why did he need SAO to teach him such a valuable lesson?

Plus, the show never actually does any comparing and contrasting. Since the story has been pretty much 95% in either SAO or ALO, it really only shows you one side of the debate: the virtual world. There’s no meaningful difference between a real and a virtual world? That’s not a stupid thing to say if you can back it up, but SAO doesn’t. Other than the fact that you can die in SAO, nothing in the anime has really shown me that the virtual world should be taken so seriously. I still remember when the anime was relatively young, and I was still rather optimistic about it. In one of the episodes’ cold openings, Kirito got into a bit of an argument with Asuna over whether or not they should sacrifice NPCs in order to defeat a raid boss. Unfortunately, that particular topic was never developed any further. And that’s the problem with this series as a whole. Nothing is truly fleshed out.

SAO never really explores the issue of the efficacy of simulation, but then all of a sudden, Kirito comes to the weighty conclusion that “there’s no meaningful difference between a real and a virtual world.” It just doesn’t work. Even though death was real, you never felt the palpable sense of mortality hanging over people’s heads. You never really see the video game nature of the game crumble as people got desperate to escape SAO. You never see strangers resort to forming, say, makeshift families to cope with their imprisonment away from their real families. Well, y’know, other than Kirito, Asuna, and Yui, but that was done in such a hack job way. You never see how people lived their daily lives in SAO once the novelty of adventuring faded away. Instead, the show has been one long quasi-harem for Kirito, so sorry, but SAO hasn’t actually done the work.

• Kirito: “What can I do for Sugu?” I dunno, what? “Sugu? I’ll wait for you in Arun…” Does that strike anyone else as hilariously insensitive? I know you’re in love with me, but hopefully, you’ll still help me save my e-waifu!

• Love confessions everywhere. Recon stalks Leafa all the way to the World Tree, then tries to plant a fat one on her. Bro, you’re not the Gary Stu. It was never gonna work.

• Do… do we have time for this?

Don’t we have someone to save?

• Kirito says that until he saves Asuna, he’s not back from “that world.” But he’s wasting time, so you kind of have to wonder whether or not Kirito really wants to leave “that world.” To compound matters, I thought he just said that there was no meaningful difference between the real world and the virtual world. It would’ve made more sense, then, if Kirito just said, “I tried to escape in the virtual world to avoid the responsibilities of being your brother, but I’ve learned that there is no real world or virtual world. There’s just my world where I have to save Asuna from being NTR’d. Once I do that, I’ll make it up to you.” It’d be honest, it’d show Kirito’s growth as a person, it’d fit in with the themes of the anime, and I could at least respect him for that. Instead, the anime just sounds inconsistent.

• Yui reasons that she doesn’t think the World Tree quest was ever intended to be completed. Well, this is an MMO after all. They want to keep you subscribed as long as possible, and if you can easily beat the game, you’d get bored and stop playing.

• This is where the game crashes because two many units are trying to load, right?

• Recon: “Why are they targeting us?” ‘Cause Kirito forgot to learn Taunt.

• I like how Recon says the enemies are now targeting them, but then he and Leafa share a relatively long conversation where no one gets attacked.

• Y’know those ambassadors that Kirito saved? And how he gave them a ton of money? They finally show up fashionably late to help out. Two things though. First, it would’ve been nice if Kirito had actually planned this, i.e. I’ll save these two nations so they gotta help me. Instead, he’s just stupidly lucky. How did they know he was even attempting to clear the World Tree at that exact moment? Secondly, poor dumbass Recon sacrifices himself just a minute too late. That’s hilarious. He blows himself up and for nothing. But I guess he got to look cool for a second in front of Leafa.

• It just seems kind of silly to me that Kirito ascends to the final level alone. If the bottom was so goddamn difficult, why assume that the top is any easier that Kirito can clear it all by his lonesome? I mean, I know he’ll succeed ’cause he’s the hero and all, but why is this necessary? Why not just have the armies continue going up with him? There’s teamwork in other shows… shows full of GAR. Why does Kirito have to lone wolf everything?

Man, it’s been twenty-four long episodes. Sadly, this still isn’t the end of the series.

Plot summary: Kirito and Yui manage to reach Asuna’s birdcage, but their tearful reunion is short-lived. Sugou appears out of nowhere, removes Yui to God knows where, and disables both Kirito and Asuna with gravity magic. He then tries to rape Asuna in front of Kirito, but our hero is somehow empowered by the late Kayaba. Yes, the creator of SAO. With his newfound admin powers, Kirito cruelly eviscerates Sugou and all is well… UNTIL WE INEVITABLY RETURN TO SAO FOR NO REASON! But until then…

Notes:

• So why is Yui now lifeloli-sized? Why does her attire change but not Kirito’s? Why can she just disintegrate walls? Maybe she’s rewriting the world’s code or something, but why couldn’t she do it before?

• Kirito: “This is the top of the World Tree? There’s no Floating City up here… Some Grand Quest! Everything was a lie. I won’t let him get away with this!” Kirito sorta has other things to worry about… like, y’know, the villain is a scumbag who wants to mindrape Asuna. But grr, the Grand Quest was a lie! How could they deceive us with this sham of an endgame!!! By God, he’ll pay!

• Holy hell, Yui has to remind him to save Asuna. This guy, man.

This guy.

• Sure, we have time for a tearful embrace. Let’s not hurry or anything, guys. I’m sure the villain isn’t lurking around the corner or anything.

• Asuna’s voice is so high-pitched. “Kirito-kun~~~~~~~~~” So moe.

• No you’re not. Don’t lie, bro. Don’t lie:

You took your sweet-ass time getting here.

• So Yui can just melt through walls but Asuna’s locked down by “complicated codes.” ‘Kay.

• Oh hey, guess what? The villain showed up while our heroes were busy chatting. Now, you could say they would’ve been caught anyway, but maybe they’d look a lot less dumb had they actually tried to escape.

• Here’s the part where the villain dawdles and explains his master plan to the heroes for no particular reason. Just to brag, I guess. Y’see, Sugou’s experiments in ALO will allow him to control a person through their minds! He’ll become a God!… as long as you connect to his MMO. But hey, he tried.

• Christ, is the threat of rape all that they can come up with?

Stay classy, SAO.

• So not only will Sugou rape Asuna in the virtual world, but he’ll make a recording of his virtual rape to shame her in the real world… whereupon he’ll rape her some more. Rape, rape, rape! Someone’s been reading too many doujinshis.

• No one’s saying that you can’t have rape in fiction, but let’s be mindful of what we’re actually watching. Yes, rape sucks for anyone. Yes, rape is traumatic. If you want to portray a horrible villain, it’s so easy to cry rape! But there’s something very orchestrated by the way Sugou tortures Kirito, and this sort of premeditation on his part — or perhaps the author of this tale — that seems to imply that the worst crime of all is that our fair maiden garbed-in-white will have her purity besmirched — besmirched, I tells ya! — in front of her very own man. This is why Sugou goes to such lengths as to assault Asuna in front of Kirito. If he truly and simply lusted for her, he could’ve done so hundreds of times over before Kirito ever manged to reach the birdcage. But no, he doesn’t rape her until now. He doesn’t do anything but tease her until Kirito actually shows up. In his sick mind, therefore, the worst thing he can do is not necessarily to rape a woman, but to “steal” her in front of her own man. So we have to be very careful when we are horrified by such a scene. Are we horrified because a woman’s autonomy is about to be violated? Or are we more outraged because Kirito’s woman is about to be NTR’d? The latter is a very dangerous mindset to have. It is the sort of mindset that leads Titus Andronicus to murder his daughter Lavinia in cold blood.

• Kirito: “Is this my punishment? For thinking that I was the game’s strongest hero? That I could save Asuna alone?” Yes. It ceased being a game once your true love was at stake. But on a more serious note, at least in SAO, Kirito could reasonably argue that the creator was obsessed with fairness. Remember how he kept going on and on about how SAO was inherently fair? That the creator would never allow people to cheat? Assuming those premises, Kirito can at least believe that he’d have a fair fight against Kayaba. I have no idea, however, why he assumed a fair fight would exist in ALO. Sugou has already made his intentions very clear from the very beginning of the arc: he was going to NTR Asuna. Why would Sugou be like, “Yo, you can duel me mano-y-mano! I won’t cheat!”

• Speaking of Kayaba, here he comes outta nowhere! This is some straight-up Dumbledore bullshit right here! Is it possible that some remnant of Kayaba’s existence was copied over to ALO? Maybe, maybe not. Who really knows? According to the anime, this is an “echo” or “an afterimage.” Whatever. In the same series, we’ve seen ghosts, so I guess this mumbo-jumbo fits right in.

From a psychological standpoint, it isn’t silly for Kirito to think back to his fight against Kayaba, and thus be inspired by how he managed to overcome such long odds. After all, Kirito was pretty much defeated, but he somehow came back and won, right? It’s just funny to see and hear inspirational words actually come out of Kayaba’s mouth. Y’know, the same guy who imprisoned ten thousand poor souls in his game against their wishes, allowing them to literally die should they venture outside the safe zones. These poor souls even included children and old people. Yes, I really want to receive your sage words, Kayaba. You sure seem like someone worth listening to!

• What? Why? If you have admin privileges, just fucking end this right now? Save your half-naked waifu and go home!

In the end, Kirito hasn’t learned anything. There is a time to play make-believe, and there’s a time to get serious. Now’s not the time to play make-believe and have a duel with the guy who was about to rape your true love! And don’t even say, “Oh, that would have been boring!” Pfft. If Kirito had done the right thing, all the fans would’ve written countless words about how he’s matured and become a better person.

• Actually, this part is pretty sick. Kirito pretty much tortures the Sugou in return. Basically, “eye for an eye” retribution shit. The reason why Kirito even duels Sugou in the first place isn’t to stop an evildoer from committing any more harm to either Asuna or others. If that was his main goal, he’d just delete Sugou out of existence. But no, he gives Sugou a weapon and forces the guy to fight and for what? To inflict as much pain as possible; it is no accident that Sugou exclaims at how painful it actually feels to be hacked apart. This isn’t justice; this is just childish vengeance. And look at how it’s glorified:

Digital blood and all.

• Kayaba is like a drug-dealer.

Heh, here’s another sampling of SAO! Trust me! This is pure, uncut shit, bro!

• Yui is conveniently okay. Oh goodie!

• What a long and Gary Stu journey this has been.

Sad Gary Stu in the snow.

Plot summary: The story ends long before the episode ends. There’s probably going to be a money-grubbing sequel.

Notes:

• Some pretty janky animation to open the last episode of the series. C’mon A-1 Pictures, step your game up.

• I think we can sit here and laugh at the idea that Kirito fights Sugou yet again, but there is actually a lot of potential thematic relevance to the scene that is simply not and will never be realized. The scene doesn’t succeed because the show fails to build up to it in a proper way. At first, the brawl strikes you as rather redundant. I mean, didn’t these two just fight last week? What’s the point of fighting again but in the real world? There is a point, but the story just didn’t make it.

After three years of blogging, I feel as though I tend to repeat myself, but some things are worth mentioning again. And what is that thing I am referring to? Battles are meaningful when they become an externalization of the conflict within the character(s). So how could this have played out in SAO? Ask yourself why Kirito spares Sugou’s life? Is it because it’d be murder? Is it because it’s the wrong thing to do? Is it because he’s so close to Asuna that he shouldn’t risk it? Yes, these answers are all plausible, but in the end, his character motivations are rather vague. As such, the climactic moment is anything but. The rising crescendo of the soundtrack plus the flashbacks of Asuna’s torture should serve as an excellent juxtaposition against Kirito’s mercy, but because his actions here are born out of such vague motivations, the contrast ends up being kind of… lame. And this is because Kirito lacks a truly compelling character arc.

Let’s say at the beginning of Kirito’s journey, he had been this wide-eyed kid who simply wanted to live out his fantasies in SAO. Because of his inability to protect his guildmates, however, he loses his innocence. He becomes withdrawn, a lone wolf, a mercenary who shows no mercy towards anyone he deems evil, etc. But then he meets Asuna, and slowly changes for the better… but not enough. His hubris leads to her “death,” but he learns that she is still alive. She’s just trapped. He goes and save her in ALO, but almost loses himself again to his anger, hubris, what have you. He has an emotional breakdown within the game (this is not a stretch because this sorta happened last week after he saved Asuna), then finally… we have this duel against Sugou in real life. Not in a game, but in real life where it actually counts. And this is where Kirito’s character arc culminates in his final decision to let go. Let go of everything: his anger, his desire to be the hero, etc. He spares Sugou and allows justice to do its job.

Unfortunately, we have the ending, but we don’t really have the body to support it. Some of the things I mentioned above did happen, but not in the way that really defines Kirito’s character. Yeah, his guildmates did die, and it did lead Kirito to lone wolf it up for a while, but the moment didn’t really fundamentally change his character. His personality didn’t change. The way he dealt with people didn’t really change. And this is what I mean: things happened throughout the series, but they didn’t feel impactful. Now, some of you light novel readers will probably chime in and go “It was more developed in the novels!” That’s fine. I don’t care though because I’m only judging the anime. And in the anime, Kirito’s character is poorly developed.

If you look back at Kirito’s journey, it’s really just a mish-mash of adventures that don’t really add up to anything. Even marrying Asuna didn’t really change Kirito all that much. Oh, he tells us that he’s learned people are important even if you don’t know them (or something akin to that), but he’s always been a nice, bland shounen hero throughout the series, so it’s hard to say how much he’s gained anything from his experiences. So when we get to the pivotal scene between him and Sugou, the tension just sort of deflates because it doesn’t feel as though Kirito has reached any sort of destination within himself. It’s just like, “Okay, I won’t kill this guy because… yeah.”

• Instead, we’ll have bullshit like Kirito hearing Yui’s voice in the real world. Yep, ’cause that’s important. That’s the main flaw of the show. It’s unwilling to develop anything. It just engages in superfluous nonsense in an attempt to shock and awe its audience with implied depth.

• I don’t suppose there’s much security at a hospital if a guy can just saunter in and visit any of the patients. Then again, he did just engage in a knife fight with some dude in the parking lot.

• Kirito: “The true final battle just finished.” Oh come on. Could you sound any lamer?

• More superfluous nonsense:

• Sandwich-maker in game, sandwich-maker in real life:

• Kirito: “…everyone at this school was an SAO player.” I was about to say, “Gee, there are a lot of guys in Kirito’s class,” but hey, this makes sense. ;v

• “We totally e-fucked, but holding hands in real life is so hazukashii, ne~~~~”

• This is one boring-as-hell epilogue. Who cares about Asuna’s dad? Who cares what happened to Sugou? It’s all just superfluous details. Characters we haven’t seen in more than a month are suddenly dragged out of the closet for some false sense of finality despite the fact that they contributed little to the narrative in the first place.

• This… this is the final episode:

A whole bunch of dull exposition that only hardcore fans of the series would give a damn about. What they should’ve done was package Kirito’s reunion with Asuna at the hospital into last week’s episode, and turn all of this boring stuff into a special DVD-only OVA. But I guess this is the best way to advertise a sequel. Just make everyone watch it.

• Then some incestuous vibes to round things out. Dancing cousins in the clouds:

Fantastic.

• It never ends:

It’s like The Lord of the MMOs: The Return of the Gary Stu. Look Frodo Kirito, look who’s come to see you!

• Asuna must have been watching when Kirito was e-dancing with his cousin. Talk about awkward. Also, what’s with the new hair color?

• But finally, it ends… wait, it’s over?!

And we’re back with more SAO action! Hey, don’t laugh! There’s going to be some action in this week’s episode! Right after we do some talking, but there’s going to be some action, I swear!

– I thought you guys said GGO was more like a Western shooter. So what am I doing here, watching some girl take aim at a giant armadillo in an underground dungeon? I assure you, I’ve never shot at a giant armadillo in any MMOFPS.

– Oh hey, the giant armadillo can shoot out fire from its tail. How very JRPG-esque.

– Eventually, Sinon takes careful aim, and hits the tiny weak spot on the giant armadillo’s head. A lot of smoke appears, then she takes careful aim again and hits the weak spot again. Whoops, did I say careful aim? I meant the monster just stood there, waiting to be killed. If the animators had any creativity whatsoever, the giant armadillo could’ve been on the run, passing behind several visual obstructions. The girl would then have to nail the tiny weak spot as it is moving. That would have been impressive, showing us what a crackshot she is. Would this have been enough to make the scene interesting? Probably not, but it’d at least show off Sinon’s skills. Instead, the monster sat in one place, it roared a lot, then it died. RIP.

– We’re not even in an interesting set-piece or anything like that. It’s literally just a grey, concrete room with grey, concrete pillars — pillars that the giant armadillo had decided not to hide behind. C’mon, man, at least try to make the MMO look exciting. What’s even sadder is that this scene is supposed to explain how Sinon came to possess her extremely rare gun, the Ultima Ratio Hecate II. A tense, life-threatening battle? Nope, let me just sit in one place and practically shoot fish in a barrel.

– The OP starts off with Kirito and Asuna having a nice, leisurely chat, but Kirito then looks away with that, “Oh god, I didn’t know real dates with real women would be like this… I NEED TO GO BACK. HELP ME, GIRL WHO JUST PASSED BY.”

– Is there any doubt that the girl is none other than Sinon from GGO? Naturally, the OP then cuts to her sitting on some a swing as ghostly figures of her in-game avatar surrounds her. Hint: she’s Sinon, guys! Have you made the connection yet? Let me spell it out even further!

– Sure enough, we see a shot of Sinon being dragged underwater by some purple tentacles. That’s… that’s cool.

– You’re probably like, “If Kirito and Sinon are going to have all of the fun action, what is the rest of his harem going to do? Oh, they’re going to be right here, sitting and watching. Watching what? Probably Kirito. Even though two of these girls had been great warriors in the previous game, and another girl was a master blacksmith, ain’t nothing for them to do now but sit there and watch.

– Take a look at Asuna in particular, though. Uguu, at first it looks like I’m slightly annoyed, but my true feelings eventually bubble to the surface… I-I hope he’s okay.

– Meanwhile, a door opens and Kirito bursts through it, spinning around like top because he’s that guy who just has to bring a sword to a gunfight.

“Yo, I’ll just shoot you in the head–…”

“NUH-UH YOU CAN’T MY SWORD CAN BLOCK YOUR BULLETS.”

“Uh, is this a JRPG that bends the rules, or a rigorous PVP game with a thriving e-sports scene, so as a result, bullets are too fast for you to block like some fantasy movie–“

“NUH-UH I MAXED OUT AGILITY SO I CAN BLOCK EVEN MACHINE GUN FIRE.”

Before anyone brings up Star Wars, it is stupid to block laser shots with your lightsabers. You know what makes up for it? Everything else Star Wars brings to the table. Plus, it’d be one thing if there were actually other people in the GGO universe who also used swords. But unfortunately, our hero has to be special, so as a result, he’s going to be swinging a glowing stick around when everyone else is stuck with guns. So basically, what this tells me is that the creators of GGO programmed into their game the ability to use swords and sword-like weapons, but every single player had ignored it until now. If you’ve ever played an MMO — any MMO for that matter — you’d know how much that makes no sense. If Kirito’s using a sword because it’s just so cool to be a sword-wielding top, I guarantee you a bunch of other idiots have thought to do the same as well. The only MMO stereotype that comes even close to being just as prevalent is a girl playing the pet class, but we already saw an example of that in the first season.

– After the OP, we cut to some ugly dudes camping in one place, hoping to gank a group of PVE players that will be passing through the area. It’s really just a continuation of a scene from the end of last week’s episode. In any case, a commenter in last week’s post has it right: why on earth is everyone playing as a male avatar in a game that allows you to have female characters? In what universe do MMO players choose to play as ugly men who look like this:

I’m not saying that male avatars don’t exist. I’m not saying that every male avatar out there looks attractive either. But the ratio of everyone to Kirito’s harem that you see here is ridiculous.

– The anime has the guy in the cowboy hat painstakingly explain to his buddy — and therefore the audience — how easy this gank will be because PVE players are total noobs. Christ, just show us the actual battle. After last week’s talkfest, and the only action thus far being a girl shooting away at a giant, immobile armadillo, you may as well call this Talking Art Online.

– Honestly, Sinon looks like Kirito, except the difference is that she has teal-colored hair.

– Well, the anime gets one thing right, and that’s male avatars will hit on female avatars without even knowing whether or not they’re talking to a real girl. There are so few girls in this universe, however, that you may as well assume every single female avatar you see is being played by a girl. Except our hero, of course. Boy, will it be awkward when people try to hit on Kirito!

– Now they’re discussing who to target first. I’ve played my share of PVP games. No one really sits around and plans this shit out tactically for minutes and minutes on end. SAO tries to make it seem like some hardcore, tactical battle, but c’mon, these are still just regular people playing a game. It’s the same problem as in the first season. Why are all the characters guys and ugly, old guys at that? And why do none of them act like actual gamers playing a game? Because the universe behaves like an MMO when it’s convenient, and like a generic action/fantasy anime when it’s not. Of course, it was worse in SAO when a guild was literally comprised of nothing but tall, muscled men. That was, after all, an MMO in which people had to play as an in-game avatar that matched what they looked in the real world.

– Sinon’s party members say they’re in position. Oh, trust me, the camera is definitely in position:

But yes, we saw this last week, so it’s not even a new shot. It’s the same scene, so why not see it again! Get used to it, because we’re going to be staring at that crotch all season long.

– Sure enough, the cloaked figure is not completely useless despite Dyne’s foolish assertions. He’s actually carrying a minigun on him, and he starts wrecking Sinon’s party with it. Not only that, he smiled! Gasp! Smiling? On the battlefield? Sinon wonders, “Does that mean he’s strong enough to smile…” It’s a fucking game, you asshole. Maybe it’s fun to smile, because you’re playing a game! But no, I get it. This is like srz bizness, and therefore, GGO players don’t smile at all! Again, we’re in an MMO when it’s convenient, and in a generic action/fantasy anime when it’s not. Therefore, these gamers are playing a game that makes them shit-scared.

– Dyne tells the rest of them to not allow the minigun guy to get any closer. According to Sinon, however, he has a movement penalty because the minigun is so heavy. If she knows that, then I’m sure others would know it too. So… why not flank behind the slow moving target and nail him in the back? Oh right, only the main character and his harems would be smart enough to think on the fly. That’s why we spent so much time on these throwaway characters discussing pre-battle strategy.

– Even though Sinon’s a sniper, she’s going to run headfirst into a hail of gunfire. It’s okay. She too has maxed out her agility. So much so that she can do a Matrix-esque leap over a bunch of shots from the minigun:

– Who’s the guy with the minigun? He’s none other than the infamous Behemoth himself. Yes, if you’re a throwaway character in GGO, your name perfectly describes the type of player you’d be. Behemoth? Must be a big, tall fella with a giant, fuck-off gun.

– After Sinon manages to catch up with the rest of her group, the characters are now sitting there, planning out their next course of action. Meanwhile, the enemy’s just… just…? Touching themselves, I guess. No, no, it’s okay. You guys just take your pretty, little time coming up with a battle strategy that’ll allow you guys to beat us. It’s not like we have you cornered or anything with our superior firepower.

– Why is Dyne about to cry? He’s literally sounds like he’s about to bubble. Again, it’s just a fucking game. I could understand it if this was SAO, i.e. dying in-game meant dying in real life. But this is literally just a game. This is literally just a potentially failed gank. Calm your tits and just play the game. The guy then says, “I’d rather log out then give them a victory.” That makes sense. No, really, it does. He’d just be rage-quitting, which is a common thing in online games. But that’s the thing. He should be rage-quitting. Instead, it’s more like a sob-quitting?

– Dyne then says, “It’s just a game… Don’t take it so seriously!” Uh…

– Wow, I don’t know if I want a girl like this in my harem. By the way, they’re still talking. What are the enemies even doing? Who knoooooowsss~

– Eventually, Dyne sacrifices his life in order to toss a grenade, which the enemies somehow fail to notice. Um… guy with a giant minigun has a movement penalty. Dyne had grenades all along. Yeah… can we get a new party leader instead? Anyway, the resulting explosion creates a giant cloud of dust, which allows Sinon to run up a tall-ass building in the hopes of sniping Behemoth. Why couldn’t she do this before? Who knows?

– Still, Behemoth sees her and manages to shoot off one of her legs. Therefore, we now see the girl twirling through the air as a temporary paraplegic. Y’see, she hopes to snipe him as she’s falling. It’s her last ditch effort! I had no idea you could twirl so fucking much in midair.

– So what now? She’s going to take fall damage and die anyway, right? Naw, of course not. The recoil from her sniper rifle will allow her to roll safely when she lands! What a beast!

– Afterwards, Sinon wakes up in the real world, and she kind of… shudders? Like I’ve said in the comments section last week, the girl apparently has a complex about guns in real life. Therefore, she wants to get stronger so she can actually smile on the battlefield. What a deep character study, huh?

– Elsewhere, Kirito’s haremettes are still playing their silly fantasy MMO… y’know, the one where a young, loli-ish character like Silica is constantly being beset by tentacles:

Silica tells the monster she’s not the weak character she used to be, so of course, the monster immediately powers up to prove her wrong. Yes, actually, you are the same shitty character you used to be. As a result, she’s hanging there in mid-air, desperately trying to cover up her modesty. Stay classy, SAO. Don’t worry. Her teammates eventually save her. Not Kirito and Asuna, though. They’re busy sitting together in some spot, gazing at the beautiful MMO scenery before them. The rest of the haremettes all sigh with jealousy. Uguu, why can’t it be us? Don’t worry, girls. In some fanfic or doujinshi out there, it is you! It is you!

– Kirito is suddenly reminded of Death Gun, so he snaps out of his love-induced stupor and announces that he has something to tell Asuna. Unfortunately, the credits start to roll right there. Gosh, do you think he ever gets around to telling her the truth about what he intends to do? Yo, babe, I’m just going to endanger my life investigating a potential cyber-crime. You cool? C’mon, I’m the only one who can do this! C’moooooon, I swear I won’t have an emotional affair with any of the girls I meet! I swear! I pinkie swear!

– I’m sure you’ve noticed by now that this episode was pretty much Kirito-less. In fact, it’s all about how awesome his future haremette is. Yes, Sinon is powerful. Yes, she almost won that fight all by her lonesome. Enjoy it while it lasts, though. After all, Asuna was strong at the start of the first season too, but we saw how quickly that devolved. Plus, did you really feel as though you got to know Sinon? Eh. She was determined to win an MMO fight, but what does that really say?

The way I see it, nothing we saw in this week’s episode really makes her stand out from any other action heroine. Had Asuna never met Kirito, she would’ve been just like that minus the whole gun complex. For a vignette, there was nothing all that revelatory in this week’s episode. Nothing that makes me think, “Wow, that’s an interesting aspect to the girl’s character.” Even when she’s trying to rally the troops against Dyne’s sobtastic pessimism, it’s no different from what any of us would’ve said in the same situation. Yes, it’s a fucking game. Therefore, play on. Sorry, but this vignette was a failure. I saw nothing to set Sinon apart from similar anime characters.

Yay, it’s Saturday again! So you know what that means! That’s right! We’ll be spending time with our favorite SAO characters as they proceed to spend time in the… uh… real world…

– I like how Sinon’s name in real life is just, well, Shino. Once again, SAO claims to love MMOs, and yet, it hardly tries to emulate MMOs. Kirito is merely Kazuto, and Asuna is literally Asuna. No one ever gives themselves a new, exotic name. Nope, that’s not what MMOs are for.

– So what’s going on? A girl, another classmate of Shino, has sent her lackeys to retrieve Shino. No, really, her lackeys. What for? Well, for money, of course. They need money for a karaoke bar. Now, why would Sinon allow herself to be put into this situation? Why wouldn’t she just say, “Yo, fuck off.” Well, duh, obviously the lackeys, despite being just high school students themselves, have strong-armed our heroine into coming along with them. High school girls are very scary, you see, and if they tell you to follow them, you follow them, no ifs and/or buts!

– The bully merely turns one of her hands into the shape of a gun, and this is, uh, enough to make Sinon’s knees buckle. Y’know, when I had read somewhere that Sinon had a complex about guns in real life, I was like, “Eh. I guess….” But I never realized it was this lame. I never realized the girl would literally piss herself scared over a hand shaped as a gun. But leave it to SAO to blow my expectations out of the water. But hey, this makes it even dumber that the girl would allow herself to be taken down a dark alley. That’s high school girls for you, though. They can be very persuasive…

“Hey, come ooooooooooooooon, come down this dark alley with us.”

“No.”

“We’ll be your friends.”

“No.”

“God, you’re so mean!”

“No.”

– In any case, Sinon would’ve given up all she had if someone had not come by and save her. This is just pathetic. I can sympathize with victims of bullying in most cases, but this was really pathetic.

– Who does she get saved by? I don’t know. Some random dude we’ve never met before. Well, if we have, I certainly don’t remember him. Kinda odd that he just happens to be nearby as she is getting bullied. I wonder if he’s going to get some kind of stalker subplot.

– Afterwards, Sinon proceeds to play GGO–… wait, no, she’s having coffee with the guy who saved her. In real life. I…I was told there’d be MMO fun in this series…

– Oh, what a big surprise. This guy plays GGO too, and he knows all about the girl’s latest exploits. Staaaaaaalker. Psst, he wants to steal your e-panties, install a smell plug-in, and go to town with them. Knowing this anime, if e-panties did actually exist, they’d probably force you to scan your real life panties just to ensure you wear the exact, correct panties in the virtual world too. But of course, Kirito would get special, crotchless ones.

– I like how the Behemoth guy from last week has no ranking, because the type of character he plays does really poorly in 1 vs. 1 battles. Okay, sure, but most robust PVP games nowadays have multiple game modes and thus a ranking for each respective game mode. 1 vs. 1? How ’bout 3 vs. 3? 6 vs. 6? If Behemoth was as fearsome in a group setting as he is said to be, then he’d be highly ranked in some form or fashion.

– Sinon aims to be the top PVPer in GGO! Surely, if she can do this, she will get over her fear of real guns. Wait, no, it’s not even that. She’s afraid of anything in real life that might even resemble a gun. Hell, it doesn’t even have to resemble a gun all that well! GGO could be the most lifelike MMO you have ever fucking seen, but the fake, e-rifle in Sinon’s hands won’t bother her one bit. Meanwhile, someone can make a shitty facsimile of a gun from one of their hands alone and it’ll be enough to make the girl want to puke. That makes sense. A kid could point a twig at her and she’d probably flip her shit. What’s even funnier is how she intends to overcome her problems. Merely handling virtual guns won’t do shit! You have to win with them, then magically, your phobia will go away because… because I said so. The logic checks out, folks! Just trust me on this!

– This Shinkawa guy whines that Sinon has left him in the dust even though he was the one to introduce her to the game. I wonder how that conversation played out: “Yo, I know you have a fear of guns, but how do you feel about strapping a virtual reality device to your head, and literally have thousands upon thousands of people per server appear to shoot at you with their giant guns?” In any case, Shinkawa goes on to whine that agility-type players like himself can’t go very far without a better gun. Boy, for a game with a thriving e-sports community, GGO sure does suck. You can’t even compete unless you get some rare drop from a dungeon. In other words, you can’t compete at the highest levels of PvP unless you grind the PvE aspect of the universe. That’s just plain stupid.

– Yep, it looks like this guy likes Sinon. Don’t worry, our Gary Stu will steal her away. Then of course, the bad guys will attempt to steal her too. Didn’t you watch the ALO arc? It’s just one big netorare fest! After all, the worst thing you can do to a man is to steal his woman and sully her purity! Sully!

– Afterwards, Sinon plays some GGO–… oh, I’m sorry, what I really mean to say is, “The girl comes home to an empty apartment, strips for us, stares at her desk, so on and so forth.” Yay, what an exciting anime about virtual worlds!

– I’m now watching the girl stroke a toy gun. Holy shit, she is stroking a fucking toy gun and I’m watching it. SAO II: SAO Harder!

– Afterwards, she drops the toy gun to go play some GG–… fuck, it’s a flashback scene about her complex. Jesus Christ, man. The problem is, the flashback doesn’t really add anything to the story. I don’t actually gain any deeper insight into Sinon’s character. No, really, I don’t. I already knew she was afraid of guns. How does it add any depth to her character at all to learn that she had specifically shot a robber in the past in order to protect her mom? It doesn’t. These are just empty details — like empty calories — for the audience to gorge themselves upon.

– The best part of the flashback was when younger Sinon knocked the gun out of the robber’s hands, and they proceeded to tussle over it for a short while before she ended up pulling the trigger. Meanwhile, all the adults were just like… “Let’s see how this plays out.” Then afterwards, the girl got multiple shots off… and you still don’t see anyone else in the room react!

– What was her mother doing this entire time? Just playing possom, I guess:

– Then instead of cradling her daughter and comforting her, the mom stareed at Sinon in shock. First, the adults did nothing, especially when the girl had to wrestle with the robber by herself. Then, the mom was completely, and utterly useless afterwards. I’m not saying that the mother’s behavior was unrealistic. I’m just saying that the whole thing felt so contrived in order to maximize the audience’s pity. If the writer could just pull it back a bit — a teensy, tiny bit — then I doubt I would’ve said anything. For example, let’s say the mother instantly rushed to Sinon’s side and told her that everything was going to be okay. Would that have really made the scene any worse? No, of course not. If anything, this would make the scene seem a lot less forced.

– I could say the blood that seeps towards the girl’s legs is overt symbolism for menstruation, i.e. this is the exact moment in time that she lost her childlike innocence, but meh… it’s SAO.

– I laughed:

Especially at the voice-acting too. Top notch work, lady.

– I’m not saying either that Sinon’s fear of guns is unrealistic. I just don’t buy the idea that the girl can stomach hyper-realistic gunfire in an MMO, and yet a hand shaped into a gun is enough to make the girl want to puke in real life. We talk about simulation and simulacra. Kirito even talks about how the only thing that separates MMOs from real life is the amount of information. Even so, there’s no fucking comparison between video game violence and a hand made to look like a gun. C’mon.

– After her little panic attack, Sinon collapses onto her bed and mutters, “Save me. Someone, save me.” The anime proceeds to cut straight to Kirito riding his motorcycle like a badass. Heh, don’t worry, baby. This Gary Stu’s comin’ to save ya! Hey, why even bother being subtle about it? It’s a Gary Stu world out there, folks!

– We see a flashback in which Kirito discusses some of his plans with the love of his life. He conveniently omits the part where he could, y’know, die. Apparently, he has to quit ALO in order to play GGO. No, really, he has to. Well, he could make a new account for GGO, but instead, he’ll go through some “reconverting” shit instead. I take it this means Kirito will transfer his ALO character over to GGO and thus retain his stats or something? What kind of fucking MMO is that, though? This literally never happens because MMO developers want you to spend as much time as possible playing their game. So of course, they would rather you just make a new account and start over from scratch. As a result, this scene is stupid. Plus, if Kirito’s working for an official government agency, why don’t they just supply him with a tricked out account? Surely, you can buy MMO accounts in this universe, right? I’ve been told that your character is tied to your real world ID or something, but I repeat, Kirito works for an official government agency. Can’t they just fucking make some shit up? No, of course not.

– But hey, we finally got a scene from within an MMO in this anime called Sword Art Online. It just took the episode fifteen minutes to do so. Not only that, it just so happens that this scene is yet another goddamn conversation between the show’s characters…

– But back to the real world — aw, already? — Kirito gets to his destination where he finds a hot, young nurse. And of course, the hot, young nurse walks right up to him and starts groping his ass:

Yep, chick magnet online, chick magnet in real life too. After all, who could resist such a chiseled physique:

– So finally, nineteen minutes into the third episode of the sequel, the main character finally enters GGO–… aaaaaand now we’re back to Sinon in the real world.

– Wait, come back! Where are you all going! I swear there will be MMO action later. I swear! Will… will this make up for it in the meantime?

Why is she naked? Uh… well, why not?

– Sinon thinks to herself, “Ever since the incident at the post office,* just seeing a picture or a video of a gun was enough to send me into a situational panic attack.” And yet a virtual reality featuring guns, guns, and more guns… Obviously, she’s using GGO to get over her fear of guns. But we’re talking about simulation and simulacra, right? So why is GGO somehow less scary and less traumatic than a hand made to look like a gun? “But strangely,” Sinon says, “when I’m Sinon in the game, holding a gun or seeing one pointed at me doesn’t trigger an attack.” But why? Merely saying that it doesn’t isn’t enough. You have to explain why. Otherwise, it’s just stupid how a person’s hand shaped into a gun can make the girl want to puke. I’d understand if she was still afraid of a real gun, but a hand shaped into a gun doesn’t even come close.

*Holy shit, the robber tried to rob a post office of all places.

– Alright, the scene with Sinon is over. Surely, we’ll now see either Kirito or Sinon in GGO, doing the cool shit that you would do in an MMO, right? Right? Nope. Instead, I get to watch as a bunch of static images talk to each other. We then see the bad guy open up an image of Sinon, then proceed to stroke his computer monitor. And just like that, the episode is over. In this week’s episode, we’ve probably spent less than three whole minutes in an online setting. Christ…

– Bad guy looks like the Shinkawa dude, though. Again, subtlety has never been an SAO‘s strong point.

Oh my word… we’re in an MMO! We’re finally in an MMO. Hallelujah, you guys! SAO has finally done it! After four goddamn episodes, the main character has finally set foot in GGO. T-they said it couldn’t be done, but I knew all we had to do with sit through three agonizingly slow episodes of people sitting around, talking to each other about their mental problems. I… I like to thank God… and my family… without you guys, I never would’ve been able to watch this anime!

– Huh, what’s with that long lock of hair? Is Kirito going to be GGO’s Fabio?!

Uguu, I’m a girl! But of course, this comes to no actual fucking surprise. Unless you’ve been living under an anime rock, both the promo materials and the OP have pretty much screamed at the top of their lungs what Kirito would look like in the sequel. But seriously, imagine if SAO hadn’t dragged its feet. Imagine if Kirito had entered GGO in the first episode, i.e. the one episode that doesn’t have the OP. Then for people who had never read the light novels, Kirito becoming a girl might have actually come as a complete surprise! But A-1 Pictures can’t even do that. It’s not like you couldn’t have Kirito enter GGO, then go back and show us all the mundane bullshit we’ve been watching in the past three weeks. Storytelling 101 is just that hard, I guess.

– The falsetto version of Kirito’s voice was pretty unintentionally funny though, I gotta admit. “Huh… HUH?!” Bro, who are you trying to fool?

– It would be something if Kirito learns a thing or about what it’s like to be a woman in online game (probably not). It would be something if people actually watched this, and started feeling bad for how they or their friends have treated women in online games (again, probably not).

– By the way, nothing about GGO’s setup makes much practical sense. First, you log into the game and you just get randomly assigned a character. Has nobody involved in the creation of this story ever played or followed MMOs whatsoever? Because if they had, they would know that MMO players would never agree to this. People want to customize how they look. Every time a new MMO comes out, a significant section of the user base will scrutinize the character creation process. This is, after all, their online persona that they’ll be adopting for the next… oh, I don’t know… the next few months. As a result, you have to at least like what your character looks like! I mean, you can’t seriously tell me a gamer out there is actually happy to play as this gap-toothed yahoo:

Come on, give me a break. Secondly, these avatars aren’t even on equal grounds. Kirito has himself a rare F-1300 type. No fucking userbase out there would be happy with this. Why? Because it’s pure luck. If I know my MMO peers, they absolutely hate it when luck is a factor. If you’re going to ever get your hands on a rare anything, it better be because you raided for eight hours a day, everyday, for the past five months. Meanwhile, GGO hands out rare user avatars randomly. That would piss so many real players off, but in fantasy SAO world, the gap-toothed yahoo treats Kirito like a curious, fascinating specimen. Right. C’mon, SAO, you claim to love MMOs, but it sure as hell feels like you know nothing — nothing — about how MMOs or MMO communities work. People would flip their lid if someone logged in and randomly got themselves a super rare avatar they can sell on the market for tons of gold. You mean I’ve been grinding every single day for hundreds of thousands of gold, and this fucker over here instantly got one as soon as he logged in?

– The gaptoothed yahoo offers two mega credits for our Gary Mary Stu’s account. What’s the exchange rate on two mega credits? 50 pretty unicorns?

– Apparently, if Kirito’s model is really a guy, then it’s even rarer! Male privilege at work once again, folks!

– I don’t know why Kirito grabs at his chest and thinks his flatness is sufficient proof that he isn’t a girl. Wow, dude, you think pettankos aren’t girls? Way to be a shitlord!

– Oh man, look at all these guys catcalling our hero:

Hey, it’s easy. Just make it so that your chat window filters out the /say channel. This way, you can ignore people who aren’t your friends or fellow guild members… oh wait, this is SAO, so you probably can’t do something that every MMO has had for the past decade or more.

– Despite all its flaws, however, GGO does have weird-looking cats sleeping in its alleyway. Oh yeah, that’s the most important thing for an MMO to have: cat immersion.

– Look how Kirito’s eyes light up at the sight of a new candidate for his harem.

– Kirito: “Damn, she totally thinks I’m a girl.” If everyone thinks you’re a girl, dude, just go with it. You’re supposed to be undercover, anyway. You’re here to investigate a potential homicide. Why the hell, then, would you care so much what your avatar even looks like? Seriously. Other people should care. They play for fun. On the other hand, this is your job.

– Why would you just come out and say you’re entering the Ballet of Bullet event? Don’t you think you’re potentially arousing suspicions quite a bit? Oh, I’m new to this game, but I want to PvP against its top players right off the bat!

– Christ, do I really have to listen to Kirito’s female voice for the rest of season?

– Kirito has focused his stats into strength and agility… hey, that’s pretty much the ideal stats for GGO! What a coincidence!

– All these guns though… look at our Mary Sue’s face as he imagines himself not using a badass sword for the first time in his MMO career:

I-I’ll have you know I was an expert dual-wielder in my fantasy MMOs! Therefore, I demand a sword in this gun-focused MMO!

– According to Sinon, the starting 1,000 credits won’t even be enough to get Kirito a used revolver. Why can’t Sinon just craft our hero a decent gun to start out with, then? Wait, does this game even have crafting? Do you really just buy and sell guns that you get from drops and drops alone?

– They really couldn’t give Kirito a hacked account with a lot of credits on it, huh?

– So there’s a game within this game where you have to run down a long corridor and dodge bullets:

If you succeed, you get all the money players have put into the game since… well, apparently, nobody has ever beaten it before. I’m inclined to think it’s rigged, but obviously, our Mary Sue will get the job done. After all, he’s in a hefty need for credits. Predictable much, SAO?

– “Paied.”

– Great, Kirito runs like a Narutard too:

Seriously, you can’t tell me you can keep your balance when you’re bent over like that.

– Y’see, the problem other players run into is that they don’t dodge until they see the predictive bullet lines, and as a result, it’s already too late. Our Mary Sue, however, is a genius who realizes he should start dodging long before the predictive bullet lines even show up! Yes, in the history of the game, no has ever thought to be elusive 100% of the time. Only a Mary Sue could ever think of such a tactic.

– Haha, he even does a dramatic flip to end the game.

– Sinon: “What kind of reflexes do you have?!” Baby, why don’t I show you later in my private e-room…?

– Kirito knows nothing about guns, which is understandable. No, really, it is. Nevertheless, Sinon goes, “You don’t even know that, but you have those ridiculous dodging skills?” I’m sorry, but since when did dodging and knowledge about guns go hand-in-hand? They’re not even intrinsically related to each other. You can hit a three-point shot, but you don’t even know why kids love Cinnamon Toast Crunch? What are you!

– “It goes back to the American M16…” Please… please don’t start doing this. Don’t start telling me details about assault rifles. I don’t care.

You’re goddamn right, it doesn’t.

– There we go! Kirito spies an energy sword, and he just can’t resist! The only thing more precious to Kirito than his haremettes is his trusty penis extension!

Whoa there, boy! Keep it in your pants now!

– Sinon: “Yeah, but no one uses them.” You just did it. You just gave our Mary Sue a reason to be the super special snowflake.

– Kirito wonders why nobody uses energy swords in this game. Sinon explains, “Well, because you can only strike at point-blank range…” But c’mon, even FPS games in my real, mundane world have melee weapons, ’cause guess what…? People panic when you get close to them. Their aim suddenly becomes erratic. You can have an advantage at point-blank range if you know what you’re doing. Sinon then adds, “…by the time you get that close, you’ve already been blown apart.” Au contraire, my future gun-fearing haremette! Will you be blown apart if you can use this energy sword to deflect bullets like some kind of shitty Jedi wannabe? ‘Nuff said, girl. I’m going to buy this energy sword! PAIED!

– Wow, it even hums like a lightsaber. Fucking RIP.

First, he anticipates bullet lines like a Jedi Master. Now, he wields a lightsaber. All that’s missing is the Jedi mind trick.

“You will be my haremette…”

“Yes, Kirito-chan… I will be your loving, doting haremette.”

“Wow, I didn’t even say you had to be loving or doting… I am the king!”

– By the way, have they even introduced themselves to each other yet? Y’know, learn the other person’s name?

– Hey, they could’ve called the bad guy “Darth Gun!” Alas, another missed opportunity.

– Sinon: “She looks surprisingly good with that.” Man, don’t you listen? He’s been going on and on about how he used to play a fantasy MMO, i.e. a game that’s likely full of swordplay. It’s not hard to put two and two together.

– 150,000 credits for an energy sword, good lord. Maybe RMTs have gotten to this game’s economy, too.

– Holy crap, this episode is hilarious. We’ve literally spent half of it just shopping. Not just any shopping, though. MMO shopping. MMO Shopping with the girls.

– Oh good, now we’re at a gun range. Let’s see if our Mary Sue is a crackshot as well.

Pfft, step your game up, son. Tatsuya of Mahouka would’ve hit it by now, and I don’t mean the bullseye.

– I love how Kirito and Sinon are now 10 minutes away from missing the BoB registration deadline entirely. Not only did Sinon, a veteran of the game, wait until the last minute to register, but apparently, Kirito’s bosses allowed him to enter the game without any clue whatsoever that he had only a limited amount of time to enter the contest. As a result, we now have this contrived race against the clock.

– No teleporters in GGO. No fast movement of any sort to speak of. Again, what a shitty MMO.

– No time to waste, baby. Hang on tight!

I knew owning a motorcycle in real life would pay off! Now I can ride in-game!

– She goes on to say, “…almost no one can handle them!” No one! Are you serious? Even Kirito’s ability to ride a bike is fucking unique. El-oh-el, guise, these bikes have just been sitting around collecting dust because no one can ride one! What’s next? Kirito’s the only person who can bullseye a womp rat on his T-16? As an aside, I like how the girl is groping Kirito’s chest already.

– The patented “bury my face in your back” anime move.

Noice. The seduction of Sinon has begun. Give yourself to the Mary Sue, Sinon. It is the only way you can save yourself.

Well, that was quick.

– Sinon: “Hey, faster! Go faster!” Keep this PG, girl.

– Boy, that was an exciting episode! What’s next? Eating e-caeki with my BFF? Accessorizing my cute armor with my BFF? Don’t hold back now, SAO!

Doesn’t Kirito just look dashing with his new haremette? And with that, we are back with yet another awesome installment of SAO.

– Wow, five minutes left till registrations for Bullet of Bullets are closed! Man, imagine if you could send in your application… oh, I don’t know… electronically? Unfortunately, this is a fantasy MMO, so to avoid ruining the show’s immersion–… wait a minute…

– Kirito is only here to catch the bad guy. I repeat, he is only here to catch the bad guy. As such, he doesn’t need to enter in his real name and address. Sure, he’ll be ineligible for the top prizes, but c’mon, we have more important things to worry about! First, he’s not exactly looking to win the whole thing. He merely needs to catch Death Gun’s attention. Secondly, it’s just not worth the risk. It’s silly to assume he could even win to begin with since he’s never played this MMO before. As a result, why put your real name out there? You’d potentially endanger yourself and the people you love for no good reason. Nevertheless, our Gary Stu sorely wants to enter in his real name and address. He just couldn’t do it because Sinon checks up on him, so he panics. But dude, I’m totally going to win this PVP tournament! Uguu, mah top prizes!

– Oh boy, Kirito and Sinon will face off in the finals of the qualifiers, assuming they both even get there. Of course, he’s the Gary Stu and she’s the Gary Stu’s babe, so…

– Sinon: “That’s why it’s almost entirely cut off from the real world. Because of that, it feels like the real me and the me that exists here are two different people.” Oh, okay. I don’t see how GGO is any more cut off compared to other online games. Nothing Sinon says really convinces me of this. More importantly, however, let’s not forget what this is all about: Sinon’s phobia. Despite being deathly afraid of guns in the real world — so much so that even a plastic gun makes her want to throw up — she’s, like, totally a different person in GGO. But here’s thing: even if GGO is cut off from the real world moreso than any other game — whatever that means — how does this affect the girl’s gun phobia? “Wow, I feel so isolated from the real world! I guess that means I’m no longer afraid of guns!” I mean, what? That doesn’t even make sense. It’s something that sounds fucking deep when you first hear it, but it doesn’t actually make any sense if you pause to think about it. There’s no causal link anywhere. How do you go from “MMO that is cut off from the real world” to “deep, unsettling phobia completely gone?”

– Look at all these people glaring at our Gary Stu. I’d glare too if I were them. Man, I gotta look like some sad fucker while our Gary Stu just randomly stumbles onto a rare avatar. This game sucks.

– Kirito actually covers his eyes when Sinon changes her armor right in front of him. Okaaaaay… I could see how this might be a problem if, y’know, he was staring at her real body. But it’s not her real body; it’s a digital body. This isn’t SAO where the VR unit had supposedly scanned their real faces or something. In GGO, your avatar might match your sex, but your appearance is still random as far as I know. Unless, of course, you want to tell me all those ugly characters we’ve seen are just as ugly in real life. Oh! You have a gap-toothed smile in real life, so let’s give your in-game avatar the same thing! My point is, this is equivalent to covering your eyes when you see any random MMO avatar without their armor on.

Uguu, avert your eyes, guys! This is so hazukashii~!

– Anyway, the truth is finally out. This Kirito ain’t no Kirito-chan. Let’s see how our gun-fearing sniper reacts…

Ohhhhhh, you guys are so stupid. But who am I kidding? Even though everyone else in GGO gets a random avatar, I’m sure Sinon got the one avatar that looks exactly like her in real life! Right down to her measurements too! That’s why she’s so embarrassed about this!!! Like I’ve been saying for weeks now, SAO may pretend as though it’s in love with MMOs, it’s not actually about an MMO. Rather, it’s just some bullshit playground for some sad sack to act out his Gary Stu fantasies. Go play any MMO out there, and you’ll always find “naked” avatars dancing randomly in the middle of nowhere. Why? Because no one gives a shit. And why should they? It’s just an online avatar. But y’see, if SAO had been accurate, then we wouldn’t have our precious anime cliche where the girl slaps the guy because he saw her in her undergarments.

God forbid you see my digital cleavage, which you could see anyway in when I put on my “battle armor.”

– In fact, she even says her GGO self is nothing like her real self! So is she only embarrassed for her GGO self? Is that what this is all about? Is her GGO self now ruined for marriage? Is her MMO avatar’s purity now defiled?

– Afterwards, Sinon wants nothing to do with our Gary Stu, but he continues to stalk her. After all, he needs a haremette in this MMO. He’s oh-so-lonely… Unfortunately for Sinon, there doesn’t appear to be an /ignore function in this game. But hey, that’s a highly advanced MMO feature. We’ll program it into the game one day, so please look forward to it.

– Sinon eventually relents and will explain the bare minimum about how the tournament works. That’s nice of her. That’s also funny, ’cause Kirito’s employer threw him into this game without, y’know, explaining the bare minimum to him. That’s responsible of them.

– Sinon tells our Gary Stu she wants to teach him one last thing: “The taste of the bullet that means defeat.” All because he saw her not-real character in her underwear.

– Spiegel, aka Kyoji from the real world, shows up to chat with Sinon. How come his in-game name is so different from his real name? Meanwhile, Sinon is really Shino, and as we all know, Kirito is really Kazuto. I’ll never call him that, though.

– “And I don’t want you calling me by name.” Then why did you give it to him, dumbass?

– She then gets mad ’cause he said he’ll make sure to meet her in the finals… right after she had told him to get to the finals.

What the fuck is wrong with this girl?

– Naw, it’s obvious. Y’see, you gotta follow anime logic. And in anime logic, girls are only ever this worked up about you if they actually like you. This way, all those times your classmates were making fun of you in real life, you can just pretend that they secretly had a crush on you! Likewise, Sinon has already fallen for Kirito. She just doesn’t realize it yet!

– Kirito: “Is it possible that she’s Death Gun?” C’mon, dude… one of your haremettes? Not even close.

– Why does Kirito’s battle armor even have that cape-like thing draped around his waist?

What function does it serve other than to possibly slow him down?

– I like how the entire time Kirito is taking cover and planning out his next moves, his opponent continues to waste bullets by shooting at a pillar. Where are your grenades, buddy? I know this MMO has grenades. We saw them in the second episode.

– Ho-hum, our Jedi Master proceeds to deflect every bullet and stab the guy. The heavy use of slow motion was actually really lame. And why does his opponent have such a prolonged death rattle? Is this all part of GGO’s awesome immersion? Yo, when your character gets stabbed, he’ll let out this guttural scream for a good ten seconds!

– Holy shit, he’s still screaming. How long does it take to just die in this fucking video game?

– Oh hey, it’s our buddy, Death Gun!

Oh fuck, it all makes sense now. Kirito’s a Jedi Master with a lightsaber. Death Gun breathes heavily like Darth Vader! Dude, your dad came back to life and is now playing an MMO with you! Then I bet Spiegel is like Emperor Palpatine or some shit. And Sinon is really Leia, a.k.a. his real sister he never knew he had, unlike Suguha, the fake-ass sister. I mean, c’mon, cousincest just doesn’t measure up to the pure, uncut incest!

– On a more serious note, Death Gun keeps asking Kirito if he’s the “real thing.” Man, don’t tell me Death Gun is someone Kirito knows from the previous two MMOs.

– Sigh, it’s someone he knows. That’s so fucking tacky.

– Kirito runs through all the potential suspects in his mind. Of course, they’re all guys. Yeah, Death Gun’s voice sounds male, but hey, you could do all sorts of digital trickery to alter your voice and appearance. Hell, just look at Kirito’s current avatar. Still, SAO has this weird hang-up where girls are never the primary villains. I remember one — just one — lady being a bad guy in one of the SAO arcs, but we’ve yet to see a female primary villain.

– Then naturally, even though Death Gun had taken such special care to conceal his true identity, a careless mistake gives Kirito a crucial clue:

Oh, you guys remember Laughing Coffin, right? Y’know, the PK guild in SAO? Well, they’re back! And somehow, they’ve figured out how to kill people in real life! What will our Gary Stu do now?

Hey, I found this neat piece of fanart out there on the internet! Alright, alright, let’s watch this terrible show.

– Dork Gun: “But whether you’re a fake using his name or the real one… Someday, I’ll kill you.” Alright, right there and then, you know this guy can’t kill people through the game. Why? Because what kind of loser goes, “Someday, I’ll kill you?” If you’re actually a badass who can kill anyone you want, you’d just do it. Why would you hesitate, especially if it’s the infamous Kirito? But Dork Gun can’t just kill you in-game. Dork Gun has to be able to track you down in real life. And hey, GGO allows anyone to put in their real name and address to receive prizes. It all fits! The only question is how can Dork Gun kill people in real life and also appear in-game at the same time, but this can be easily explained too: it’s a multi-person operation.

– Kirito is really shaken up by the encounter, though. Since Laughing Coffin wasn’t particularly well-developed in the original series, we now see a flashback in which Kirito and a group of people from the Aincrad arc had attacked Laughing Coffin’s base of operations.

– Just more reasons I’m disappointed with SAO:

Bad guys look like Death incarnate! But the good guys wear white armor! If you actually look at a real MMO, however — any MMO, in fact — people wear all sorts of outfits regardless of who they are or what clan/guild they belong to. As such, the first SAO was just a fantasy anime pretending to be about an MMORPG. And now, SAO II is a shitty, futuristic anime also pretending to be an MMORPG. Sure, it has competitive FPS elements, but it also has levels for people to gain? And stats to develop that no competitive game would ever have? Like honestly, who would watch an e-sport where the victor is simply someone who has done more stat-grinding than the loser?

–  If you take notice of this scene, it’s just the same animation being looped over and over. SAO still felt the need to show it to us twice. It’s hilarious that an anime as famous as SAO still needs to cut corners in its animation budget.

– Then at some point, the action simply gives up. Instead, we’re treated to still shots of people fighting as Kirito resumes control of the narrative, telling us flat-out what had happened afterwards. Yawwwwwwn.

– Sinon drops by to check on Kirito, but he’s still shaken up. She doesn’t know what’s getting to him, but seeing the guy… I guess triggered would be the right word, it reminds the girl of herself. And uguu, we can both be triggered together! Do I buy Kirito’s trauma? No, not really. I’m not saying it doesn’t make sense. I think most people in his shoes would react the same way. But the problem is that most of us aren’t Gary or Mary Stus. So y’know, we have real reasons to be scared. We’re not invincible. And you could argue that Kirito isn’t invincible either, but that’s only true in theory. He’s actually been quite overpowered in the story. So honestly, I feel like it’s cheap when a character who is overpowered 99% of the time suddenly starts shaking with fear. I feel like he’s only vulnerable when it’s convenient. In fact, you could argue that a personality like Tatsuya of Mahouka fame makes more sense story-wise. Tatsuya is overpowered, and he knows it, too. As a result, he acts and talks accordingly. With Kirito, on the other hand, he’s overpowered as shit, but we’re supposed to believe he’s also shit-scared of some chumps? Eh, I don’t buy it.

– Another thing that makes the GGO arc rather lame is that, well, the original SAO was at least an adventure. The characters would go from places to places, see different things, complete various quests, fight dragons and whatnot. Here, Kirito sits in a room until it’s time for his match. He is then whisked to some random battlefield we’ll never see again where he does the same thing he did last time: kick someone’s ass in a short minute or less. Ho-hum.

– Oh dear, our previously shaken-up Gary Stu has now gone berserk. So that’s what it has come down to: his one small window of vulnerability is just another reason to make him become even more overpowered than before! Sure, he suffers a few scratches, but he also wins in record time.

– Then immediately after this match, we see Sinon’s next match. It’s just not interesting or fun to watch. It’s just one series of drab matches one after the other, all in these boring, concrete-filled locations. It’s one thing to watch a competitive e-sports game play itself out on the same maps over and over. If you’re watching a CS:GO tournament, you’re not exactly there to admire the environment. You’re there to see the players’ skills and organization. Since SAO is not a real e-sports tournament, it makes no sense to admire the players’ “skills” unless you’re emotionally a child and are thus thrilled by Kirito’s displays of overpoweredness. The truth is, there’s nothing interesting here to see or look at at all. There’s no visual narrative whatsoever. Just pretty anime characters doing things in brown and grey locations.

– Uguu, Sinon can’t concentrate ’cause she keeps thinking about Kirito.

– And y’know, it’s boring enough playing a sniper in a real FPS game. We now get to watch Sinon win her match by taking a single shot. She literally wins by sitting in one place and pulling the trigger. Ex-citing.

– Finally, it’s time for Kirito and Sinon to face each othe-… alright, I officially declare A-1 Pictures unfit to draw any asses from now on. Please, stop. You guys are just ruining asses for all of us.

– Kirito ends up psyching Sinon out by walking directly at her. As a result, she misses her shot. The guy doesn’t even dodge, but she misses her shot. She then misses again and again and again. This has to be the dumbest way this match could unfold. It’s obvious that Kirito doesn’t want to fight, especially since Sinon is one of his precious haremettes. But how insulting! No, I get it. He only wants to make it into the actual tournament, so the results of this match doesn’t matter to him. He has nothing to gain from fighting her. But you know what? It’s called respect, man. Have some respect for both your opponent and the tournament itself. Even when, say, the Miami Heat had their playoff seed all locked up by the end of the season, they still sent their subs out to play the game. The subs still, y’know, tried. What Kirito is doing here is just a blatant slap to the face. And it’s hilariously dumb on another level: SAO tries to make it seem like MMOs and virtual realities are stuff we’re supposed to take super-seriously ’cause they’re just like real life, y’all, but then our Gary Stu goes and pulls this stunt. Not only does he not respect Sinon’s intent to duel him, he also makes a mockery of the tournament. Who cares if the results don’t matter? It’s called sportsmanship.

– Sinon then decides to run right up to her opponent to ask him, “Why?” What a great MMO, huh? You can’t even message people or talk in general chat. If you want to talk to someone, you have to get within hearing distance of them. Why, it’s almost like this is not an MMO. It’s like the anime’s just pretending to be about one!

– But then the guy fucking flip flops in a span of a minute. Holy shit, way to stand by your convictions: “It’s only a game. It’s only a single match. But that’s why we need to fight as hard as we can. Otherwise, we don’t have the right, or reason, to live in this world.” Gee, thanks for coming to that conclusion now rather than earlier so we could actually have some real action. You’d think he would’ve known this already from his experiences in the original series — hell, the previous MMOs were such serious business that he got a girlfriend out of the whole experience — but no, it took Sinon’s tears to remind him what he had always believed in the first place. He just conveniently forgot, that’s all. But please, fuck up the actual match instead, so that you and your haremette can have a tearful exchange in front of everybody. After all, this is Talking Art Online, is it not?

– So to make up for his blunder, Kirito proposes a duel to decide this match. Unfortunately, this is still dumb. Why? Because talk about wasted potential. I’m not even joking when I said there was actual potential here. After all, Kirito and Sinon’s fighting styles couldn’t be any more different. Armed with a sword and a handgun, Kirito has to get up close and personal to win a match. In reality, this shouldn’t be easy. Kirito would have to use the layout of the battlefield to his advantage. Instead, every single one of his matches have come down to the Gary Stu running headfirst at his opponents, blocking bullets with his sword like some shitty Jedi Knight.

Meanwhile, Sinon is a sniper, so she has to keep her distance, maybe even lay out traps so her opponents can’t get close to her, and plan out multiple escape routes in case they do. But like with Kirito, we don’t see any of this. She literally sits in one place, takes a single shot, and wins. So what happens when Kirito and Sinon meet up in the finals? It’s one magical shitstorm of un-creativity.

First, Kirito doesn’t even want to fight. Meanwhile, our sniper has the easiest target any goddamn sniper out there could ever ask for, but she can’t hit him! She magically can’t hit him, because she’s too goddamn psyched out. Who wrote this shit? It’s like watching a game of horse between the NBA’s best players, but when we get to the finals, Kobe (let’s assume he’s in his prime) pulls out a lawn chair and Lebron shoots airballs.

And now, they’re going to have a duel. They’re going to have a one-shot takes all duel. Between two contrasting fighting styles, the match comes down to a competition that doesn’t highlight either player’s strengths and/or weaknesses. Instead, it’s just another opportunity for Kirito to display his overpoweredness by cutting Sinon’s one bullet in half at such a short range. Then, he bullrushes her only to catch the girl with one hand, and shove his long energy sword in her face with the other hand. Meanwhile, people are spectating this shit. This is so unbelievably stupid.

– Sinon: “He’s strong! That strength goes beyond a virtual game.” OH BABY, JUST TAKE ME ALREADY. IF I’M NOT SCARED OF YOUR GUN, I WON’T BE SCARED OF ANY GUN.

– Sinon wants to be as strong as Kirito in real life. But he says he’s not strong. ‘Cause he doesn’t know if he has what it takes anymore to pull the trigger that will save the people he cares about (really?). But he can pull her closer…

…dokidoki…. YO ASSHOLES, THIS IS STILL BEING STREAMED TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD.

– But hey, I know why he didn’t tell Asuna about him playing GGO. Wouldn’t want her to be watching this shit, huh? It’s funny how the story even needs a new girl for every new arc. It’s like if we don’t swap out girls, we’ll get bored of them or something.

– Remember that thing I said about respect? Y’know, respect for both your opponents and the game itself? KIrito goes, “…would you surrender? Killing girls isn’t my thing.” Yep, more chauvinist bullshit. Can’t kill you, ’cause you’ve got a vagina! So please, just submit to me.

This is the most action-packed SAO episode yet!

– The episode is off to a slow start as we see Kirito stumble in his attempts to allay his loved ones’ fears. Apparently, Leafa’s (I’ll just use these characters’ online monikers for simplicity) has seen the name Kirito in an article about the latest Bullet of Bullet tournament. Her brother tries to pretend as though it is someone else with the name Kirito, which, as you can imagine, isn’t a very convincing argument. Baby, please… it’s a common name! Everyone wants to be me! I’m the hero! Seriously, though, I don’t even know why Kirito feels the need to lie. Just say he’s been asked to check something out, and it’s very official business that he can’t talk about in great detail. He doesn’t need to tell her all the details, but c’mon, I think we all deserve not to be lied to from our loved ones. Yes, he doesn’t want to worry her, but at the same time, he’ll worry his family and friends by simply lying and disappearing off to do god knows what for hours and hours everyday. He’ll also worry them by lying about online gaming, too. After all, online gaming is nothing, so if you feel the need to lie about it, it’ll just concern people even more. It’s like if I lied to my girlfriend about anime blogging. Anime blogging by itself is such a benign activity that if I feel the need to lie about it, there has to be something serious going on.

– Yeah, yeah, undercover cops don’t tell their loved ones when they go undercover, but Kirito is not an undercover cop. If he was, he wouldn’t have taken the name Kirito into GGO. I mean, c’mon, it’s not even remotely the same.

– Leafa says she has noticed how he’s no longer on her friends list. In response, the guy goes, “It isn’t as though you check that list every day.” I’ve played MMOs. I know I always use my friends list to see who’s online. Especially if it’s a close friend. Especially if it’s my own brother. But all of this talk is silly. Just tell the truth. Not the whole truth… but some of it to allay her concerns.

– Afterwards, pretty much the same thing plays out with Asuna. She’s far too nice and passive to make Kirito feel uncomfortable, though.

– “This is my problem.” Well, no, once you get into a relationship, your problems aren’t just your problems anymore. That’s just selfish talk. I’m not saying he should get Asuna to join GGO and help him battle Death Gun. I’m not even saying he should tell her about Death Gun’s experience. But the girl is obviously concerned about him and what he’s doing, so it’s her problem too already. Don’t minimize her feelings. Hell, he could even use her worries as a source of strength to strengthen his resolve or whatever cliche motivational bullshit he want to believe. The “This is my problem” line just sounds selfish and short-sighted.

– Holy crap, now Kirito’s back to talking to Leafa. This is indeed Talking Art Online. Can we please move on, already?

– The anime cuts to Sinon in real life, aaaaaaaaaand she’s kicking a pole over and over because she’s all worked up about Kirito. Good lord.

– Apparently, Kirito’s a sexual harasser because he saw her online avatar in nothing but its underwear. I repeat, he saw her online avatar. Hey, I’m the first person to bag on Kirito, but c’mooooooooooon.

– “Why would you come to GGO to use a sword, anyway?” See, now that’s a legit complaint. Obviously, Kirito’s a special snowflake.

– Sinon’s too worked up about this. I mean, who the fuck cares? Oh no, he pretended to be a girl! Big fucking deal. It’s like she’s never been online before. People pretend to be someone else all the time, and I’m not even talking about online games.

– This Shinkawa guy is obviously a bad guy — hell, the show hasn’t even been coy about it — but let’s pretend for the moment that he’s not. I think his suggestions make sense; if Kirito bugs her so much, let’s gank him in game! But the girl suddenly does an about face: sure, Kirito annoys her, but “the way he fights is so straightforward and honest.” As a result, she doesn’t want to gank him. It must be an honorable one-on-one duel! Groooooooan.

– Oh my god, the girl managed to shape her hands into a gun… in real life! What progress! Such breakthrough. Very therapeutic! This is fucking stupid. Realistic guns in my MMO? Meh, whatever. My own hands are now makeshift guns? WOAGHSHIT! And it’s all because of Kirito, too! He makes her so mad, it’s chipping away at her trauma! What a Gary Stu! Even when he annoys girls, he’s really healing their mind and body!

– “I think that’s who you really are. I’m sure that someday, the real you will be able to be like that, too.” Makes sense.

– Shinkawa acting real creepy now: “So I worry when I see you getting upset or mad over a guy like that. I’ll… I’ll help you!” He then tries to embrace her. Dude, chill out. But man, you gotta feel sorry for these girls. They either have to fall in love with the Gary Stu or deal with guys like Shinkawa. There are apparently no other males in this entire universe.

– But hey, it’s been 11 minutes, and all we’ve done is sit around and listen to these characters talk about their feelings. Woo, Talking Art Online! Obviously, there’s nothing wrong with a drama anime where the characters discuss their feelings in depth, but you kinda have to be good at it. It’s not like I’m sitting here, watching a fascinating character study. These characters’ problems are just so mundane. Uguu, I’m mad ’cause the Gary Stu pretended to be a girl in an online game! Also, I have the most ridiculous gun phobia ever! No, it’s not exactly Aku no Hana, now is it?

– Guess what? Now the nurse is trying to have a conversation with Kirito about his feelings. Christ. Kirito just goes from one girl’s arms to the next. Is this what this whole episode’s going to be? Is he really going to bounce from one hot anime babe to the other, talking about his feelings? Hell, it’s not even a bad thing per se for the characters to pause and reflect on their actions, their feelings, and what they’ve been through. But holy shit, an entire episode about it? One reflective moment after the other? Please, can you learn proper storytelling and space this shit out? Yes, these hot anime babes notice that there’s something off about Kirito, but it’s not like they must all talk to him at once. There’s no law that says, “Oh my god, the Gary Stu looks troubled! I must talk to the poor guy right now!” You can break these conversations apart and sprinkle them in between the show’s “exciting” action scenes. Instead, SAO opts to have these conversations all at the same time, back-to-back-to-back. The only thing here to break up the monotony of Kirito’s therapy session is Sinon’s own therapy session. Fucking ridiculous.

– “Sou da ne.” “Sou da ne.” “Sou da ne.” — SAO Nurse 2014

– Kirito’s distraught because, in his words, “I’m a monster who can even forget people I’ve killed.” Or, y’know, you’re traumatized, so you’ve dissociated yourself from your painful memories. But no, I’m a monster! I’m a monster because I don’t even remember these PKers’ face and names! Oh, the horror! How can you not remember a murderer’s face! Who’s the real monster now?! That’s it. I’m done, man. I’m tuning this shit out. I’m literally not paying attention until Kirito is back in GGO. Fuck you and your feelings. And if anyone actually tries to defend this episode in the comments, I will blacklist you. I don’t even care.

– 15 minutes in, still not in an MMO yet.

– Still tuning the dialogue out, but I have eyes. I can still see. So, uh, what are his hands clutching in this very scene?

– Random balloon.

– 16 minutes in, still not in an MMO yet.

– 17 minutes in, Kirito has entered the MMO, but the anime opts to cut to Sinon instead. Therefore, we’re still not in an MMO yet.

– Finally, at 17:36 we are in… uh…

…ALO to watch Klein babysit Kirito’s harem. What a nice guy. Since he’s not a Gary Stu, though, the girls aren’t very impressed. In fact, Asuna’s too worried about Kirito to even play the game!

– After defeating this salamander thing, everyone’s going to gather ’round and watch Kirito compete in the Bullet of Bullets tournament. At the end of the day, it’s still all about the Gary Stu. Speaking of which, we’re now 19 minutes into the episode, and we’ve yet to see Kirito in an MMO.

– Holy shit, 19:36 into the episode, we finally revisit GGO. Aaaaaand…

…we see Shinkawa confess his feelings to Sinon. Way to dump your feelings on her right before the big tournament, dumbass. Actually, screw it.

…and wetness is the essence of Gary Stu. Merman! It’s merman, Asuna, not mermaid!

– Exciting exposition at the start of the episode. Very exciting.

– After the OP, Kirito continues to bug Sinon, because the guy honestly can’t take a hint. He’s never had a girl reject him before, so I’m sure he has no idea what it feels like.

– Speaking of Sinon, doesn’t it feel uncomfortable to constantly have your butt crack exposed? Oh right, it’s just an MMO! Why worry about, y’know, people seeing your buttcrack, or you in your underwear… oops.

– Again, Sinon has to tell him to shut up, because there’s probably no mute function. But even if you give the show any benefit of the doubt, it just gets worse, i.e. if there is a mute function, then the girl is stupidly not using it for some reason or other. Probably because she’s an airheaded haremette.

– Could you imagine the game without a mute function, though? People love trolling the shit out of others in any online setting, much less a shitty VRMMO. So it’s looking more and more like there likely is a mute function, but this tsuntsun girl just can’t bring herself to mute such a godly Gary Stu.

– Kirito wishes to share information with Sinon before the tournament begins. Nevermind the fact that he knows nothing, so he’s just leeching off of her knowledge. Rather, look at this stupid and obvious attempt it is to get the characters to sit around and drone on and on about God knows what. Sinon even admits it’s going to be a lecture, so wheee… Strap yourselves in, boys. This episode of Sword Art Online‘s about to get crazy up in here.

– Kirito gasps as the doors in front of him open up to… to…?! This spectacle. A futuristic shooter sounds neat on paper, but the anime hasn’t shown us anything worth looking at. The previous two arcs dropped the ball a lot too, but at least we actually saw some new cities and environments. Hell, even the Extra Edition was more exciting than this… for the five minutes where they went underwater. Here, our Gary Stu has been reduced to gasping over grey and brown-colored bar. Fucking hell, guys.

– Oh yeah, it’s a complete sausage fest too. Are you really telling me Sinon is the only female player in this entire game? And no one’s harassing her? Yes, yes you are.

– Apparently, we’re supposed to be impressed by this room semi-full of people because “[t]he main tournament is always like a big party.” Whoops.

– “I’d love to be shot by Sinocchi,” said nobody in an MMO ever.

– Great, people are already scared of Kirito. First, he instantly became a beast in this game even though he had never played it, but it’s okay! His stats carried over! And now, his reputation is spreading throughout the land simply because he got through the qualifiers. The most damning part of all? Why the fuck are they even scared? What? He’s going to kill them? Even in the most hardcore PVP games out there, I have never seen anyone get scared of a PVPer even if he or she is legitimately awesome at the game. If you piss someone off and they gank you later, you want to know what happens next? You call your guild to gank them. They then call their guild to fight your guild. All of a sudden, you have a massive PVP battle in the middle of a zone for no other reason than that PVP is fun, because shit, you’re playing a PVP game so you should fucking like PVP. But hurr durr, please Kirito-san, don’t hurt us lowly assholes just standing here!!!

– Welp:

– You’d think this tournament would be a pure test of skill. You’d think that, wouldn’t you? After all, if real money is on the line — if this is honestly a legitimate e-sport — then why on earth would skill not be the number one concern? But apparently, the main tournament drops thirty competitors into a single map, and the last man standing is the winner. In other words, there a ton of things more important than skill when it comes to winning this shitty tournament. The ability to form alliances is suddenly important. And if you’re unlucky enough to spawn close two two people who have decided to team up for the time being, you’re screwed! Skill won’t help you beat a 1v2. Oh, but what am I saying? Kirito is Kirito, so he could literally go 1v5. Before you know it, his HP will regen faster than his opponents’ bullets can hurt him! Plus, he already has an alliance… with Sinon! The girl won’t be able to resist once the tournament starts.

– But hey, watch as these two sit there and talk about the details of the upcoming tournament. Holy balls, this is an exciting action anime!

– “Anyway, all of that was in the e-mail the admins sent you!” Baby, please. I was trapped in a game for two years. I don’t know how to read!

– “I d-did read it, but…” Yeah, “read.”

– “I wanted to make sure I understood it.” So… read it again? Look for discussions about Bullet of Bullets online, because it’s likely other people have questions about the tournament format too? Naw dawg, I literally gotta waste time talking to this hot anime babe, because there’s nothing fans want more than to watch me talk to a hot anime babe for significant chunks of the episode.

– Exposition! Exposition! Oh lawd, I love me some exposition!

– B-b-but E Minor, if they don’t explain how the tournament works, viewers will be confused and get really mad! Seriously? Do you really need the show to explain to you how a free-for-all really works? Even the satellite bullshit is something we could easily pick up as it happens. Say an alliance is after Kirito. He thinks he’s lost them. All of a sudden, a satellite flies by, and he now sees where his chasers are headed: for him: Gunfire starts raining down on his location. Bam, you instantly know what the satellite had done. But no, don’t show us any fucking action. Show me a fucking map instead as Sinon dryly talks about the nature of the game. Please, please, I invite you to bore the shit out of me.

– Kirito then asks if any of the BoB participants are new like him. He suspects that one of them might be the Death Gun he’s after. What if they’re all Death Guns? How do you even know Death Gun is one person? What if Death Gun is Asuna herself, having gone mad from her time in ALO! I’d go mad if I was assaulted over and over while my “true love” was busy dicking around with is cousin. Here’s where some annoying “I’ve read the books!” guy chimes in and adamantly insist to me that the virginal waifu Asuna was never assaulted, not realizing that I’m just being facetious.

– Kirito sounds like such a loser. Sinon is demanding to know what Kirito is after, but he’s just whimpering like a scared, little kid. Jesus Christ, are you trying to tell me Sinon is intimidating? That Miss Eternal Buttcrack puts the fear into you?

– Blah, blah, blah… more recaps of shit that had happened in the Aincrad arc. With that being said, is it that big of a deal if you just tell her you were involved in it? Later in the conversation, Sinon has to ask whether or not he was in “that game,” but she suddenly apologizes for even mentioning it. Apparently, you’re not supposed to bring “that game” up. Trigger warning, girl!

– But hey, another therapy session for Kirito-chan! We’re ten minutes into the episode, by the way. Let’s pick this shit up, already. In fact, in the past 30 minutes of this show, it has been nothing but people sitting around and talking about shit. Fucking Sword Art Online.

– Kirito won’t run anymore! He’ll face his fears head on! Then Sinon is all, “Dude, I totally empathize with you! I empathize with you, bro! Take me into your arms and ravage my butt crack!”

– “…if you let someone else shoot you, I won’t forgive you!” Whatever you say, tsundere girl.

– Guys, this is the hardest VRMMO. The hardest! That’s why we’ll have you rely on luck and diplomacy to get far in this tournament.

– Finally — final-fucking-ly — the tournament begins, and it only took us more than half the episode to get started.

– I just love these set pieces, though. Here are two idiots shooting at each other from this ridiculous distance. Don’t you just love that brown, barren landscape? Here’s a guy running away from his enemy in an equally brown and dusty-looking forest. Brown, brown, brown. This is a gritty-as-fuck VRMMO! It makes you wonder why these characters didn’t think ahead of time. After all, when we finally see Sinon, she’s in her bright-as-light clothing. How do you plan on being a top-notch sniper if you can’t even learn to camouflage yourself?

– “Uguu, I wonder if he’s still alive… but it’s not like I care about that jerk!” Boring. Boring. Boring. Boring. Boring.

– We see Dyne running away from an unseen enemy; it’s Pale Rider but we don’t get to see his face yet. All of a sudden, Dyne crosses a bridge and plops himself down at the other end of it. Cover? Who needs cover?

– Sinon is about to take her former ally out when Kirito jumps on her and pins her down. Oh boy! He has a plan, though!

– Actually, he doesn’t have a plan. He just wants to see what the Pale Rider looks like. And all Sinon can do is sit there and whine about her opportunity to fight Kirito for real.

– So here’s the Pale Rider, and he just walks headfirst into Dyne. But it’s okay, because as soon as Dyne starts opening fire, the Pale Rider suddenly becomes the Pale Gymnast. He starts twirling around in the air like some damn ballerina. It’s really quite ridiculous. Plus, the show has been semi-realistic up until now. No else remotely has the ability to do this. Hell, I’ve never even seen Kirito float around like this. But Pale Rider’s acrobatic skill is just really high! So high, it looks like he’s ignoring the game physics! So high, he can glide across the asphalt of the bridge! So high that the frictional coefficient is zero! The world’s hardest VRMMO, my ass. All I’m saying is that if the MMO is really this type of game, then fine, but we’ve seen nothing like this before so it just ends up looking silly as fuck.

– That perspective.

– So Pale Rider easily takes Dyne out, but before Sinon can take a shot, someone takes Pale Rider out. Who is it?!

– It even turns out you can hide from the satellite by swimming in the water. The satellite literally has to be able to see you. That’s just dumb as hell. So if you know the timing of the satellite (it’s every 15 minutes), you can easily avoid detection and camp out forever. Hell, the entire point of the goddamn satellite is to avoid campers from extending this tournament forever.

– B-b-but how can Kirito swim in the river with all that gear on him? Yeah, he took all of his clothes off. Apparently, this includes your fucking underwear too, because we all know how much underwear weighs.

– Screw it. Let’s get back to the actual subject at hand: who attacked the Pale Rider? Well, prepare yourself…

DUN DUN DUN!!!

– Surely, the admins are monitoring this game, because it’s the biggest tournament… right? Right?

– Kirito frantically tells Sinon to fire at Death Gun before Death Gun can finish off the Pale Rider. Obviously, he’s afraid the Pale Rider will lose his life for real. But honestly, they say these VR helmets are supposed to be safe. I-I don’t think dying in-game will kill you in real life. It just doesn’t make any sense that they would create yet more VR headsets that are capable of physically harming people. As a result, I think Pale Rider is dead even if he doesn’t die in-game. I think this has to be a two-man operation. I could be wrong, though. There could be mystical bullshit to explain why dying in GGO will kill you in real life, but would SAO really dip into that well twice in a row? We’ll see, I guess. Never underestimate SAO‘s stupidity.

– One more thing before I end this post… Y’know, the battle royale kind of thing has been done before. For example, the movie Battle Royale, which I’m sure the creator of SAO has seen. The Hunger Games are pretty popular too, but I have no clue whether or not their popularity extends to Japan. My point is, the idea of dropping a bunch of random people into a giant environment and have them fight each other is nothing new. It’s been tried-and-tested. And what we normally see in a typical battle royale scenario is that no amount of preparation will prepare you for the brutality of the actual thing. That’s where the tension comes from. I see no such thing in this episode, though.

– Oh yeah, the same conditions for commenting — the conditions I had laid out in last week’s post — will still be in effect. Why? ‘Cause I think it’s funny.

Welp, it’s that time of the week again.

– So Kirito’s harem is watching footage from an MMO tournament… in their own MMO. It’s kind of silly, really. I’m sure there are better ways to hang out with friends than to log online and sit in some virtual bar. Hell, if you look closely, they even have drinks in their hands. Drinks! What are you drinking? A virtual drink?! The sad part is, unlike most online friends, they actually live close to each other. They have the luxury to go outside into the real world and hang out with each other. But dude, hanging out in this virtual bar, drinking virtual drinks is just so fucking awesome! Yeah, we play MMOs so we can pretend as though we fighting fire-breathing dragons and whatnot, but let’s not pretend as though drinking virtual drinks with friends online is somehow better than the real thing.

– I like how Klein isn’t allowed to sit next to the girls. He’s here to make sure nothing happens to Kirito’s precious harem, but he better watch himself!

– Leafa: “Onii-chan’s not getting much screen time.” I think he gets enough, brocon girl.

– Klein: “[Kirito] may not seem like it, but he’s the strategist type.” Oh lord.

– Regarding the “Why didn’t Pale Rider use a sword if he likes to get up close to people” discussion from last week’s comments, eh… If I had those acrobatic skills, I wouldn’t necessarily use a sword just because I could. If you can get up close to someone, why not just use a knife for easy kills? I think a sword simply overdoes it. At that range, you have shorter, easier swings with a knife, and can probably hit more vital points than a sword.

– On the other hand, this is just a shitty anime, so who gives a shit what they use! I only make fun of the main character for using a sword because he wants to be super special.

– Man, we already saw this shit where Pale Rider gets owned, and yet for some reason, we need to rewatch it just so we can see how Kirito’s harem will react. It’s like one of those shitty Youtube reaction videos. Like yeah, sometimes they can be amusing if the person actually offers up some interesting commentary, but we’re talking about Kirito’s harem. And all they do is describe the plainly obvious. Oh, Pale Rider got paralyzed? Tell me more! “It’s like the wind magic spell Thunder Web.” Fantastic. I surely will appreciate the anime more now that I’ve received this knowledge.

– I like how the camera angles are all bad too even though we’re watching footage from another video game. As a result, you can put the camera anywhere you want to give your viewers a clear picture.

– Why does everyone react to Death Gun as if he’s scary? First, he looks goofy as fuck, but more importantly, they know nothing about him or the Death Gun rumors. They have no idea Death Gun can actually kill people in real life. As a result, they have no reason to be scared. They should just be like, “Wow, that guy’s a tryhard.”

– I like how Kirito told Sinon to take a shot, but he himself doesn’t try to do anything. What a badass hero.

– Oh my God, Death Gun even has to step on the “DISCONNECTION” sign. Grr, now you’re truly dead!!! Please, stop, you’re hurting my sides.

– Asuna and Klein both recognize the guy. Good for them. Too bad they’re not allowed to participate in the story, so this is all just empty talk. But hey, somewhere out in there in some alternate dimension, you guys probably get to be heroes too…

– So after seeing Death Gun, are Kirito and Sinon afraid? Are they going to move from their location to somewhere more secure? Nah, let’s just sit here and talk about Death Gun. I’m sure he won’t come after us. Of course, he won’t come after them because he can’t actually kill them; I’m sure he has to track them down in real life. Still, the characters don’t know this yet.

– Sinon can’t find the guy on her terminal, so she concludes that he must be hiding in the water just like how Kirito had done so in last week’s episode. As a result, the two of them can get a jump on Death Gun! But Kirito tells her to stay far away! What if… what if his virtual bullet can kill you too?! I mean, yeah, three people have died already, but this isn’t rocket science. Can these VR headsets kill you or not? Do they even have the capabilities of doing so? No? Then what the fuck are you scared of? And why haven’t you come to the conclusion yet that there are multiple people involved? It’s that simple.

– “That player in the cape, Death Gun, killed lots of people in the VRMMO I was once part of.” That was then, and this is now. Back then, the headsets could kill you. They. No. Longer. Can. Kirito, however, is just being a dense motherfucker as usual. It’s not just Kirito, though. It’s the people who have hired him to do this job. They, too, should have come to the plainly obvious conclusion that the deaths are the result of killings happening in the real world, and the online shit is just for show.

– Christ, just look at their bodies and how big their heads are in comparison.

– Sinon: “Someone like that is really playing GGO?” What does that even mean? Anyone can play any game.

– Kirito wants to split up, so he goes dashing off and running. Not at full speed, mind you, but he has quite a head start. When Sinon calls out to him and he turns around, however, the girl is right behind him. Makes sense.

– Look at this tsundere shit. Sinon’s going to team up with Kirito. D-Don’t get the wrong idea though! If he dies to Death Gun, they won’t be able to have their duel. That’s the only reason why we have a new girl instead of just stick with Asuna. She’s boring now. She’s all deredere. People want to feel as though they can conquer the tsunderekko, and it ain’t happening with Asuna.

– “I don’t like it,” Sinon says, “but it’ll be safer to work together temporarily and knock him out of the running.” Uh-huh, sure, you don’t like it.

– All of a sudden, the two of them come under attack from this Genghis Khan-looking motherfucker. I’m just laughing at the idea that some poor soul logged onto GGO, excited to see what he’ll be playing at, and this is what he gets. “Aw man… I guess I’ll just have to play as this ugly avatar since there are no other cool MMOs out there to play!”

– Sinon stares in awe as our hero… as our hero…

…yeah. In fact, this episode is just full of quality.

– Hey, let’s check up on Klein and Kirito’s harem: “In SAO, there was an unwritten rule to never let someone’s HP reach zero.” Of course… I mean, I would hope so! But hey, more flashbacks about Laughing Coffin! ‘Cause it isn’t enough to hear exposition about Laughing Coffin from Kirito’s perspective. We need Klein’s perspective too!

– Is it just me or is Leafa’s breasts just getting bigger and bigger with each passing episode? This isn’t even her real self, so the implication is that she paid for some character makeover service (for non-MMO players, MMOs let you adjust your character’s looks for a small fee), then slid her breast sliders to max.

– Asuna’s determined to get some answers from Kirito’s employers. I doubt she’ll get any answers, and I doubt she’ll play any significant role from here on out anyway. There’s nothing she can do. Log into GGO? You know that won’t happen. The story wouldn’t let her steal Sinon’s thunder. Walk away and try to live her life? C’mon, what Japanese waifu would do that! Her only option left is to sit and wait for Kirito to get the job done. I’ll laugh though if she literally goes to his bedside and waits for the fucker to wake up.

– Sinon and Kirito are in hot pursuit of Death Gun, and by “hot pursuit,” I mean they have no clue where he’s gone. But that’s okay, because Detective Sinon is on the case! “‘Gunner’ is like the ‘Gun’ of ‘Death Gun.'” Ooh, do tell! “And the ‘X’ is like the cross gesture he made. Or is that too obvious.” Gosh…

– There’s this awkward pause when both characters confess that their real life names are similar to their online handles. Uguu, I know your real name noooow. How hazukashii~

– “This is the only time I’m helping you, okay?” Sinon says this as she clutches her rifle tightly to her breasts. Yes, yes, let the tsundere flow through you, and soon, the Gary Stu will too.

– According to Sinon, “only Gunner X is in the city.” Kirito then quickly concludes, “In other words, Gunner X is Death Gun.” Hoo boy, I don’t think it’s that easy. It’s an MMO, after all. Maybe Death Gun has hacked the code somehow to make himself appear offline to the satellites.

– After all, the people running this game don’t even seem to care that this Death Gun guy is running around, killing their players. I doubt they give a fuck if Death Gun has somehow managed to bypass the satellites.

– It’s like a bad horror movie where the characters always feel the need to split up. Kirito has Sinon stay behind to back him up because this way, he can “fight without fear.” Oh, okay.

– Sinon suddenly thinks about how she and Kirito will go back to being enemies when they take Death Gun out: “I’ll never seen him again.” Oh, the horror! Luckily, Death Gun won’t go down easy; it appears as though he has gotten the jump on Sinon when a shot from offscreen hits and paralyzes the girl. Man, splitting up just so the Gary Stu could fight without fear sure was a good plan!

– All of a sudden, Death Gun appears out of thin air. Yep, he was invisible this entire time. It was so obvious, too. This is the one trope every crappy story falls back on.

– Once again, A-1 Pictures can’t get Sinon’s ass right. Either that or she’s taken a massive dump in her pants. I’m sure some fans are into that sort of thing…

– It even turns out Death Gun uses the same gun Sinon had used in real life to kill that psycho, so she gets triggered all over again. I don’t really care about her, though. And yeah, the fact that Death Gun is using that gun is just another obvious clue that her friend is involved, but people already figured this shit out anyway.

– The anime then fades to black as you hear a shot ring out. Yay, generic cliffhanger! Once again, SAO is not even trying.

We’re back once again. And what do we have? Oh, that’s right! It’s an SAO heroine lying around helpless, waiting for Kirito to save her! I don’t recall a girl ever saving Kirito, actually.  Remember how Asuna briefly saved Kirito’s life from Kuradeel only for him to have to jump back in and save her life just minutes later? The Gary Stu can never be topped, baby! Oh yeah, that was the moment he lost one of his e-hands. Wait a minute… he loses his hand…. he uses a lightsaber… a relative of his is in love with him… DEATH GUN?! IT WAS STAR WARS ALL ALONG!

– So Sinon sees the person she killed in the eyes of Death Gun simply because the latter is using the same handgun she had used to kill the guy. So… so what, actually? I just think the girl’s trauma here is unnecessary and gratuitous. It was always ludicrous that they had to provide Sinon with some super tragic backstory just to give her a reason to play GGO. Like she couldn’t just play the game for fun or something, y’know? She had to play GGO because she has a fear of guns, and this is like the world’s shittiest version of exposure therapy. Check that, Aldnoah.Zero‘s last episode had the world’s shittiest version of exposure therapy, but I digress. My point is that Sinon could’ve just played GGO for the sake of playing GGO, but naw, that wasn’t good enough for SAO‘s creator. We needed some ridiculous sob story about how she’s traumatized by any form of guns in real life, so she’s going to surround her with guns and a veritable sausagefest by playing GGO. Alright, fine, have it your way. Give the girl some stupid backstory. What gets me is this need to dredge up the girl’s drama in the middle of this Death Gun conflict. It isn’t bad enough Death Gun’s about to “kill” her, Oh no, we must add the girl’s trauma to the mix too! So in the end, you just get this jumbled, unfocused mess of a story. Is she afraid of dying? Or is she haunted by her past? Apparently both! This isn’t complexity, though. This is just a guy throwing anything he can at the wall and hoping it sticks. Someone whose brief success has made him think he has the storytelling chops, so he’s going to try his hand at telling some sort of poignant story about psychological trauma. Dude, it’s a harem in an MMO. Get a fucking grip.

– Even when a girl’s getting traumatized and shit, there’s nothing quite like a sweet crotch shot! I love how every curve around her taint has been so tenderly rendered. Stay classy, A-1 Pictures.

– So what’s going through Sinon’s mind right now? Uguu, I thought if I studied the Gary Stu carefully, I’d get the meaning of strength. But if I die, how will I study him?! B-But it’s not like I want to watch him or anything! I just don’t want to give up. Yeah, uh, I can tell you one thing. If I think I’m about to die, I sure as hell wouldn’t be thinking about some random asshole I just met in an MMO. How ’bout my family? How ’bout my unfulfilled dreams? Oh wait, haha, the Gary Stu and his flowing locks of hair are her unfulfilled dreams! My bad!

– Needless to say, Kirito saves Sinon at the last minute. Yawn.

– Oh my fucking god. With Kirito carrying Sinon in his arms, the girl now looks up with him with that doe-eyed expression and goes, “That’s enough… leave me!” I thought you said you didn’t want to give up, dumbass. See, the writer thinks he’s adding emotion to this scene, but he’s not. It’s just stupid. The girl literally just cried for her life a minute ago, and now that her safety is more than guaranteed ’cause she’s in the Gary Stu’s arms, all of a sudden she wants to give up. It’s not poignant, man. Stop trying so hard. Just embrace the fact that, at best, you’ve written a dumb popcorn anime series! But that’s SAO at its best. SAO in its current form is this pretentious, overwrought piece of shit that thinks it can be more than anything but an action harem anime series. Enough, Gary Stu-kun. Leave me to die! To die on this e-battlefield! Save youuuuurseelf!

– I love how this shot rings out and hits a sign, but the sign doesn’t even fall anywhere near our heroes. The anime had a chance to add some action to the scene, but it’s like, “Nah, nah… we don’t need action.”

– Conveniently enough, Kirito comes across a place where he can rent buggies or horses. Yeah, mechanical horsies. ‘Cause a real horse would’ve been too unrealistic, but mechanical ones make perfect sense in this futuristic gun MMO.

– Sinon even has to tell the Gary Stu that the mechanical horse is too difficult to control. Still, I seem to recall a certain somebody telling Kirito that GGO vehicles are too difficult to control only for him to prove her wrong. But it doesn’t matter. He ends up picking a buggy.

– With Sinon in the backseat, Kirito tells her to quickly destroy the mechanical horse. How does he know Death Gun would pick the horse? What if Death Gun picks a buggy? But anyway, apparently in GGO, you can destroy vehicles before anyone can even use them. But what’s funny here is that Sinon can’t shoot the horse. She literally can’t even! Seeing that handgun at the start of the episode had triggered the girl so hard, she now can’t pull the trigger! Oh my god, this works on so many levels! What a genius story! Anyway, I love how the girl can pick her rifle up, line up the shot carefully, and put her finger on the trigger, but when it comes to actually pulling her finger back just hard enough to fire a shot, she can’t do it.

– As Kirito drives away on their buggy, he tells Sinon to stay sharp. Too bad she’s useless now.

– Oh good lord, Death Gun does pick the horse. The fucking horse. I get it. He’s a personification of Death, and he’s riding a horse. If you’re going to go this far, why not just give the fucker a reaper while you’re at it? Oh right, right… only the Gary Stu is allowed to have melee weapons in this game.

– And the entire time this is happening, Sinon just continues to whine. Nande?! Naaaaaaande?! Every goddamn heroine in SAO just turns into this useless blob of helplessness. Have you noticed that? They always start off as these no-holds-barred female warrior only to eventually become a quivering mass of uselessness. Shit, Asuna spent an entire arc being useless. And all Leafa could do was whine from the get-go about how she couldn’t bang her cousin.

– RIP, tough female anime character. Here lies Sinon, a girl with a giant rifle in her pocket. We hardly knew ye.

– Kirito tells Sinon that she has to fire her gun and distract the bad guy long enough for them to get away. Sinon insists she can’t. Yeah, c’mon, Kirito. We just told you that she literally can’t even. So of course, he suggests that they swap places, and he’ll fire her gun. All of a sudden, Sinon’s all, “Uguu, Hecate’s a part of me! No one can fire her but me.”

– First, doesn’t Kirito feel fucking dumb now that he didn’t even bother to pick himself up anything but a lightsaber and a handgun? Second, of course it would take the Gary Stu’s words to give our anime babe the strength that she needs to overcome this ordeal. Nuh-uh, that strength’s not going to come from within. Rather, it comes from the Gary Stu. He smiles down on us all and provides us with his warmth.

– By the way, can we give it a rest with the shiny, sparkly guns? It’s like every time I see a gun, it has to sparkle in the sunlight.

– Kirito and Sinon proceed to have a goddamn conversation as they’re driving down this long, incredibly straight road.

Sinon: “I can’t fight anymore.”
Kirito: “No, you can. Everyone can fight. It’s just a choice of whether you should!”

Wow, such inspiring words! But whine, whine, whine, the girl continues on to say that she would choose not to fight. It’s a video game. For the love of god, something just occurred to me. Why don’t you fucking log out then? There’s nothing keeping you in the game. This isn’t the Aincrad arc. This entire time that Sinon is whining, why doesn’t she just log out?

– This road is so straight, Kirito can reach back and guide the girl’s hand. Baby, baby, I know you can’t shoot… but I’ll shoot with you. Use the force, Sinon. Use the Gary Stu force. This entire time, Death Gun is just riding straight at a rifle, not even shooting back or anything. Hmm, they seem to be talking over there! Durr, let’s just keep watching those two!

– Sinon wonders how Kirito can stay so calm. He’s the motherfuckin’ Gary Stu, baby!

– Good lord, everything goes to slow-motion as Sinon feeds us a corny-ass monologue. The Gary Stu gives it his all! The Gary Stu doesn’t make excuses! This is the source of the Gary Stu’s strength! Barf.

– So Sinon misses, but she conveniently hits the gas tank of a nearby, parked vehicle. The resulting explosion allows our heroes to escape.

Kirito: “Great shot, kid! That was one in a million!”
Sinon: “Aw shucks, it was nothing! I used to bullseye crazed robbers in my T-16 back home!”

– Well, with the Death Gun threat neutralized for now, Kirito and Sinon proceed to hide out in a cave. Why do I feel like a long, boring conversation is about to take place? Ah well, this is Talking Art Online, after all.

– Welp, it’s time to fill in the gaps in the story!

– First, Sinon wonders if there’s a chance Death Gun had died in the explosion. Of course not. According to Kirito, the bad guy jumped off his robot horse at the last second. Hilarious.

– Next, Sinon wonders how Kirito was able to return so quickly to save her. Apparently, not only is Gunner X really Musketeer X — yeah, really — it’s also a woman. And if you think Sinon’s outfit is silly, here’s Musketeer X’s get-up. Nothing like gunning enemies down in a mini-skirt and bikini top. Don’t hit on me, boys! I realize she has some kind of tight-fitting pants on underneath the skirt, but c’mon. Anyway, Kirito promptly finished Musketeer X off.

– Kirito tries to be nice; had their positions been reversed, she’d be the one saving him! Nah, knowing Sinon, she would’ve aimed for Death Gun at a distance, see that handgun, then proceed to freeze up anyway. Not that it would’ve mattered, mind you. We’ve already pretty much guessed that Death Gun is a multi-person team, and someone is running around in real life, killing people off. I doubt that someone has already tracked either of our heroes down, so the only thing they would’ve suffered is a disqualification from this shitty tournament.

– Sinon: “I’m being consoled by the man I thought was my rival…” First, no one rivals the Gary Stu. No one. Second, let the tsundere flow through you. You know you want the Gary Stu’s love. You know you need it.

– Sinon: “He knows I’m broken and weak. And he’s trying to console me like a child.” I don’t even know what this means. What’s consoling someone like an adult in this scenario?

– Holy shit, look at Sinon’s legs. How can she even stand?

– Kirito: “If he points that gun at me again, I might abandon you and run.” As if anyone would buy that. But anyway, Kirito claims he can’t just throw his life away, because he has people he has to protect in both the real world and the virtual world. Y’know, his waifu and his e-daughter. So knowing this, why did he take this dumb job? Naturally, the first argument is that he’s the only who can stop Death Gun, but I don’t believe that. That’s just a story contrivance.

– Sinon suggests that they just wait it out until the tournament ends. Kirito claims he can’t allow this, because who knows how many people Death Gun will end up killing if they just sit here and do nothing. Again, Sinon can’t help but think that the Gary Stu is super-duper strong. Well, that’s really heroic and all, but I seem to recall you sitting there and doing nothing as the Pale Rider took Dyne out. Sure, sure, the Pale Rider wasn’t Death Gun, but at the time, Kirito didn’t know that for sure. Plus, when Death Gun did show up, all Kirito could do was yell at Sinon to shoot her gun. A real hero would’ve jumped into the fray and tried to save Pale Rider. So again, don’t buy the Gary Stu’s bullshit.

– But whatever. Yo, if you can’t afford to sit around and wait, why not just win the tournament? Y’know, go around and take the other competitors out before Death Gun can get to them. Not only would you save their lives (not really), you’d also win the goddamn tournament. It’s fucking win-win, bros.

– Inspired by Kirito’s empty heroism, Sinon steels her resolve and claims that she’ll go out there and help fight Death Gun. They then argue a bit over this, because Kirito thinks she’ll just die. That’s when the girl drops the bomb: “I don’t care if I die.” Sinon feels she’s even weaker than when she was five years ago, so she’d rather die than be like this. Yo, why didn’t you come to this realization a few minutes ago, when you could’ve actually fought back against the bad guy? Sure is convenient to have an epiphany now in some cave!

– Kirito: “No one dies alone. When someone dies, the part of them that lives inside someone else also dies. You already live inside me.”

– Oh man, it doesn’t stop.

Sinon: “That’s impossible. I haven’t given myself to anyone else.”
Kirito: “WE’RE ALREADY INVOLVED, WOMAN”

I know they’re safe from the satellites in this cave, but could you imagine if Asuna could watch this entire conversation take place? Oh man, what would her face be like? Probably this.

– Wait! Don’t touch that dial! We’re just getting started!

– This scene just keeps going and going. Apparently, Sinon’s ruined for marriage ’cause she’s a murderer. Can Kirito really hold the hands of a killer? Can he?!

– So fucking poignant, bro.

– There’s just something quite transcendent about watching a tsunderekko cry as we stare at her bizarrely-shaped ass.

– Then afterwards…

Holy shit, when will this end? For the love of God, when will this end?

– Sinon finally tells her sob story to the Gary Stu. Yes, yes, confess your sins to the Gary Stu. Only then will you be forgiven…

– The girl is literally telling us she’s scared to die, but that doesn’t mean the camera won’t take the opportunity to lingeringly pan across her tiny, nubile body.

– Then Kirito tells his story to the girl. Alright, there’s nothing new here. I’m done, my friends. I’m fucking done. How do I feel about this week’s episode, you ask?

Sigh. Man, all of a sudden, it feels as though I’ve aged a thousand years. Oh, what’s that? It’s another episode of Sword Art Online II. Yip…pee…

– I thought that maybe we had moved on. It’s a new week, a new episode, a new start. Why not let bygones be bygones and put the past behind us, right? Wrong. This sappy scene is still continuing.

– WOMAN, PLEASE, I HAVEN’T GOTTEN OVER ANYTHING. I STILL HAVE NIGHTMARES!!!

– I just don’t understand how they can afford to sit there and talk about this shit. I thought we were in the middle of both a tournament and a mission. Like fine, if this conversation had taken place outside of BoB and maybe even GGO as well, it would make some sense. I’m not against characters talking about their feelings. I praised Tokyo Ghoul for focusing on Ken’s feelings. I just don’t think yet another discussion about Kirito’s goddamn trauma. Shit, we spent an entire episode on it. But more importantly, Death Gun is still out there. He can still kill people. I thought our “heroes” wanted to stop him and save lives. So why are we just sitting here, talking about our feelings?

– And again, it’s stupid how the two of them can just hide out in this cave, and it’s magically safe to do so because the satellites can’t see them. So how many of these “save spots” exist out there on this map? It was bad enough Kirito could just strip naked and avoid detection in the river, but this is so much worse because at least he was vulnerable doing that.

There’s no risk here! How many asshole contestants can just extend this game indefinitely by camping out in some cave for however long they want? Oh wait, lemme guess: Kirito’s the only genius in this entire game to think of hiding out in some cave, right? I just think the entire idea of Kirito and Sinon sitting on their asses, having all the time in the world to “recover” and talk about their feelings is incredibly ludicrous. This isn’t just some hastily thrown-together, amateur tournament. This is supposedly one of the biggest e-sport event in SAO‘s universe. This isn’t even the first BoB tournament. And yet, if Kirito and Sinon really wanted to, they could honestly just hide out in this cave until most of their competitors have died. Fucking skills, son! I totally proved I’m the best PvPer in the land by hiding! But really, if you’re going to write about MMOs, esports, and online gaming in general, for the love of God, get a fucking clue about them. Seriously.

– Kirito tells Sinon that he’ll never forget the faces and voices of the people he’s killed. Sinon then wonders, “What do I do?” I don’t know…? Get therapy? Stop trying to use an MMO as a form of exposure therapy? Don’t fall in love with the Gary Stu? Don’t mind me… I’m just throwing random things out there.

– Our Gary Stu then goes on and on about how he thinks it is necessary to never forget: “Doing that is the bare minimum of atonement I can do.” What atonement? This is so needlessly dramatic, and this applies to the fucking both of them. Believe me, I’m not the first person to defend the Gary Stu, but he killed a bunch of people who took joy in killing innocents. Laughing Coffin was a bunch of asshole PKers. Yeah, it sucks to have to take a life, but he did what he had to do to prevent more from dying. So y’know what? He should actually be proud of himself. That’s the hilarious thing about this whole thing! He should be proud that he had protected other people by taking out a bunch of irredeemable PKers. But I guess praise has become too passé for the Gary Stu. He’s bored of praise. He knows what really moves the hearts of the people, and that’s pity. Oh, woe unto me! I have killed (a bunch of evil bastards). Give me your pity, for I am a wretched murderer!

– What’s even sadder is that you can’t even compare his trauma to Sinon. Look man, he killed people in an MMO. So what happens when you kill someone in an MMO? They just disappear into thin air right? Right, because it’s an MMO. Yes, his victims died in real life, but it’s not like Kirito had to sit there and watch them bleed to death. It’s not like he had to listen to their death rattle. It’s not like he had to see his victims’ eyes stare back at him as life ebbed slowly out of them. That’s not the case for Sinon. She had to actually watch someone die right in front of her. The two situations aren’t even really all that comparable. I know the show wants to be all, “MMOs are just as important as the real world!” But I watched the first season. People did not die in gruesome, bloody ways. They just disappeared. There’s no visceral quality to death within the games whatsoever. So y’know, I can somewhat understand Sinon’s trauma, but fuck Kirito. It feels like he only even has any trauma so we can get on this trauma train, and ride it all the way to motherfucking Pitysexville. Baby, baby, please… I too know what it’s like… let’s fuck.

– After the opening, we’re still in a cave. Fuck me, man… In fact, Sinon’s head is back in Kirito’s lap. Whoo, the taming of the tsunderekko is complete. Trust me, I would never let some girl put her head in my lap when I have a girlfriend.

– Sinon: “Death Gun… Whoever is wearing that cape is a real person, who actually exists, aren’t they?” Thanks for this stunning conclusion.

– The anime keeps panning to this red-colored pool, because it’s like, “Shit, what do we even have to pan to? It’s a cave! Go back to the pool!”

– So Kirito and Sinon are just sitting there, wondering how Death Gun is managing to kill people by simply shooting them–… are you serious? Are you fucking serious? Somehow, Sinon’s ass gives the Gary Stu an epiphany.

– Yeah, yeah, Death Gun can only kill people by getting to them in the real world. We all came to this conclusion episodes ago. B-b-but how does Death Gun know where to find his victims? Why, at the governor general’s office, of course! Remember? You can enter in your name and address in order to receive a cash prize from BoB should you manage to win the whole thing! For some reason, Sinon initially thinks it is impossible that Death Gun could’ve stolen people’s sensitive information this way. Yo, the dude has an invisibility cape.

– But man, this just brings up yet another stupid thing about the MMO in this universe, and that is how they submitted sensitive information like their address by going to a terminal within the game. Like really? You couldn’t do this in a more secure way like say visiting a site outside the game where it’s harder for people to spy on you? You really had to go to some location within GGO? The whole setup for this universe is stupid. Like yeah, I can understand making certain things realistic to add to the immersion of the world. For instance, I’m currently playing an MMO where a cow mount will also take dumps in the middle of the road, and if player characters try to pick up the cow shit, they can pass out from the stink. It’s silly, but it harmlessly adds to the immersion of the MMO. Meanwhile, there’s absolutely no good reason why anyone should ever have to enter in their real world information by logging into GGO, walking to some terminal, and physically typing out their name and address. This is something that could have and should have been handled outside the game, but again, the writer doesn’t seem to give a shit about the logistics of MMOs, esports, and how the two of them should realistically operate. It’s all contrived bullshit to create his ludicrous story.

– More unnecessary shots of Sinon’s ass. Even A-1 Pictures is like, “Man, this scene sucks donkey balls. The viewers are going to be bored if we keep panning back to that pool, so let’s just stare at the girl’s ass.”

– But Sinon’s ass isn’t big enough for how long and boring this scene is, so sadly, we must inevitably return… to the pool! But there’s a lizard this time! And yes, by staring at the lizard‘s ass and noticing that the animal has two tails, Kirito comes to yet another brilliant epiphany: Death Gun is really a multi-person operation! Gaaaaasssssssp! I never knew asses could be so inspiring! SAO II and the magical asses that could!

– Double Death Gun? What does that mean…?! P-plus, how can the killers just break into someone’s home and kill them? Well duh, our victims thus far have been MMO nerds living by themselves. Oh no, who else lives by herself!

– It really does make you wonder why these headsets are so… well, unsafe. You’re completely unconscious in the real world when you log into any of these VRMMOs. People can literally break into your home and do whatever they want, and it’s unlikely you’d realize the predicament that you’re in. Why is there not some sort of detection system so that if you’re in game, you will be alerted if there’s any noise or movement around you in the real world? Or maybe just set up a camera feed, so that you can always check your surroundings while you’re in-game.

– Sinon’s only purpose in this entire scene is to offer up weak ass refutations to Kirito’s theories that the Gary Stu can easily shoot down.

– Haha, look at this corny ass shit.

– Guys, guys! What if doing the cross motion is just a way for Death Gun to check his watch? In other news, why does he even need to wear a watch? Even the most ratchet MMO out there has a clock built into the UI. BUT NOT GGO, DAWG! THIS IS THE REALEST MMO OUT THERE. YOU WANNA KNOW THE TIME? YOU BETTER WEAR A WATCH! IMMERSION, BITCHES.

– Kirito asks Sinon if she lives alone. Yeah, but the door’s locked! Oh no, the chain! The chain! Fuuuuuuuuuck. Kirito speculates that Death Gun’s partner could very well be in Sinon’s room right now! No, like right now! He (or she!… nah, who am I kidding, the major villain is always a woman in SAO) is just waiting for the go-ahead to kill Sinon! So this is where the girl disqualifies herself from the BoB tournament, logs out of the game, and makes sure she’s safe, right? Right? I mean, you can’t tell me some dinky esports tournament is more important than your fucking life, right?

– Uh, why did the anime just cut to this? Well, to be honest, this is the most action I’ve seen so far in this week’s episode.

– So Sinon starts freaking out and her heart rate goes up. Kirito then goes, “No, Sinon! If you automatically log out now, you’ll be in danger.” Uh, why? First, he doesn’t really  have any proof that the bad guy is already in Sinon’s room. Second, if they have a rule that they stick to so badly — and the rule is that the Death Gun won’t kill someone unless they can do it in-game and in the real world at the same time — then why would logging out be any less safe than staying logged in while your body remains unconscious in front of some asshole?

– Well, it’s time for a change of scenery, so let’s check up on Kirito’s harem! And guess what? They’re still watching the BoB feed even though nothing — absolutely nothing — is happening! Anyway, you know Kirito’s employer? The guy who recruited our Gary Stu into this whole mess? Yeah, he actually shows up at this bar to talk to the characters. No, you can’t log out and meet each other in real life. It’s much easier if the government official logs into his elf character to discuss these very important matters.

– The best part about this scene? It contains absolutely nothing new. This Chrys guy is just telling Kirito’s harem exactly what we had learned in the first goddamn episode. Would it have been too difficult for the anime to treat us to a time skip?

– More importantly, why is a government official even answering these kids‘ questions? So what if Kirito’s harem is oh-so-concerned for their Gary Stu? Like seriously, just because they demand to know what’s going on doesn’t mean he should actually tell them details about an active investigation. It’s just not how this sort of thing works. This is not how any of this works.

– Oh my God, this is all old information. Leafa is now telling us how scared her brother looked last night. But we just saw this episode a few weeks ago!

Do I really need a reminder already? SAO‘s pacing sucks ass. It’s so goddamn amateurish. Just random recaps and flashbacks for no apparent reason!

– Klein tells himself that he would’ve converted to GGO if he had known what Kirito was up to. Yo, you think the Gary Stu wants your ass around, stealing the spotlight?

– So after an extensive recap of the situation for no apparent reason, the characters have proceeded to suck the Gary Stu’s dick. The haremettes are all shedding tears, moaning on and on about how heroic Kirito is. Uguu, he didn’t tell us ’cause he wanted to protect us! What a manly Gary Stu!

– Lisbeth: “In fact, he’s probably protecting someone who’s supposed to be his enemy right now.” Really? Really?

– Asuna demands to know where Kirito’s body is currently located. And of course, the government official will spill the beans because why wouldn’t he! This anime babe in ALO is just so intimidating! So intimidating!!! Look how she stomped her foot and made dust kick up! Bwaaaah, don’t hurt me, little girl! I’ll tell you everything about the investigation, including the location of my agent!

– But oh god, Asuna’s going to now rush to Kirito’s side and just wait for him to log out, huh?

– Yes, yes she is. Action heroine Asuna was first reduced to a bird in a cage, and now this. Oh man… then when we move onto the next arc, Sinon can be just as useless as well!

– Alright, now that we’ve figured out what Asuna’s going to do for Kirito, let’s revisit the Gary Stu! Oh, there he is! He’s just embracing another girl!

– So what’s Kirito’s plan? It’s so easy! They just have to defeat Death Gun: “Then his partner will disappear, unable to do anything.” ‘Cause look, if I see my partner-in-crime about to die in-game, which doesn’t mean anything anymore because this isn’t Aincrad, I, too, would just disappear like a fart in the wind. I wouldn’t try to kill you! I wouldn’t think to do anything at all! I would just leave this defenseless girl lying there in her bed, every strand of hair untouched! But so help me God, if you log out before you defeat Death Gun, then I will kill you! Yeah, yeah, this logic makes perfect sense.

– The truth is, this is all just contrived bullshit to keep Sinon logged in at all costs. The tsunderekko is never allowed to leave the Gary Stu’s side! But shh, this can be a secret between the anime, my readers, and me.

– So what now? They’re going to leave the cave and prepare to defeat Death Gun, right? Wrong. They will sit there and discuss how formidable Death Gun is.

– Sinon then warns Kirito that other players will soon realize that the two of them are hiding out in this cave. So I guess there’s only one fucking desert cave, and everyone’s closing in on them.

– Kirito then has to fucking tell the girl that she’s a sniper, so she should stay out of sight during the actual battle. Good lord.

– Oh look, the live broadcast camera has found our two lovebirds. I hope Kirito’s haremettes are watching.

– B-baby, please! When I’m in GGO, it’s all about you! Actually, Kirito’s only response is, “Hurr, people will think we’re lesbos!” But our tsunderekko doesn’t mind, because this means less people will pursue her! Wouldn’t want others to get in the way of her love for the Gary Stu!

– They’re still talking! For the love of God, do something with the one minute of runtime you have left in the episode!

– These two are so boring, the live broadcast camera literally left.

– The characters wonder what Sterben means as a name, then the episode just… sort of ends. Not with a bang, but not even with a whimper either. The episode is just over. Whatever.

– Another week, another boring episode of SAO full of pointless chatter. And people think this season is superior to the first one. I’d take the first season’s uninspired world-building over this train wreck any day of the week.

A-1 Pictures made me watch Kirito and Sinon sit in a cave and talk my ears off for more than an episode, and this is the “payoff?” This is the best you could come up with for the pivotal fight scene of the GGO arc? For fuck’s sakes, guys.

– We see in the cold opening that there are only four people left in the game, and this includes Death Gun. Good lord, you just know our Gary Stu will not only defeat Death Gun, but win the whole tournament as well. And of course, Sinon with have feelings for him that she can’t resolve, because as soon as Kirito logs out of GGO, he’ll see Asuna dutifully waiting by his side. She may be old hat, but you just can’t beat a loyal woman with maxed out cooking skills, huh? Yep, that’s pandering at its finest.

– There should be five people left, but that fifth guy is probably already dead, so who cares? Let’s just get on with it already.

– SAO‘s excuse for no one showing up to look for our heroes? Oh, Death Gun has been busy taking them out! What a nice guy! As a result, Kirito and Sinon have been perfectly safe this entire time. They’re even safe from Death Gun too, who has been trying to look for them! Maybe if he had just followed his victims instead of shooting them the first chance he got, he might have found our heroes, but grr, I’m a grim specter of death! Fear me!

– Sinon: “Run and gun. A style where you run, shoot, and run again.” That’s a style? Really? As opposed to what? Stand, shoot, and stand some more?

– I like how this Dark Wind guy finished second in the last Bullet of Bullets tournament only because he lost to the champion’s “rare gun and armor.” The best part is how most players consider Dark Wind to have been the better of the two, but hey, what can you do when gear matters this much? Yo, this is totally a legitimate esport, you guys. It’s a test of skill where people can hide out in caves until most of the competition are dead, then they emerge to defeat you with their super rare drops. We all know the best CS:GO teams out there are the ones that grind for purps.

– Last thing you want to hear from a sniper: “I’ve always been good at closing my eyes to something scary.”

– Good lord, they’re still talking. Aaaaand they’re still talking about the missing fifth person, which I thought we had already covered at the start of the episode. Most of all, I just don’t know why A-1 Pictures couldn’t have these two do something — anything — as they discuss their plans for defeating Death Gun. Maybe our heroes could double-check the status of their weapons and armor. Maybe our heroes could make minor repairs. Maybe our heroes could make their way to the fight location. Goddamn, do something! But no, they can’t do anything. Kirito and Sinon continue to sit in a cave and talk our ears off.

– Blah blah blah, Death Gun might have two partners in the real world instead of just one. Great, whatever.

– Sinon wonders why there are so many people so hellbent on being player killers. Kirito speculates that it’s the same reason why he tries so hard to be a swordsman. So you’re telling me that all these people want to be serial killers? Not only that, they’re all young MMO gamers, they all play the same game, and they all live in the same approximate place? It’s such a stupid way to be a killer, too. Remember, according to Kirito, they must follow their one rule: a person must die both in-game and outside the game.

– Sinon: “But PKs have their own pride and resolve.” Uh-huh, there sure is a lot of pride and resolve in ganking people you massively out-level and out-gear, but that’s none of my business.

– Kirito says he has to fulfill his duty and stop these murderers from harming anyone else. Alright, that sounds cool to me. Stop murderers from murdering people! Who’s going to disagree with that? Unfortunately, our Gary Stu can’t shut up. He goes on to say he can only atone for his sins if he can stop Death Gun. What sins? Oh, the sin of killing those two Laughing Coffin members and defending yourself against the creepy Kuradeel. Give me a break, SAO. Once again, SAO tries to create drama out of nothing. Kirito basically killed two murderers, thereby preventing them from killing more people. As for Kuradeel, I’m sure he would’ve raped and skinned Asuna eventually if he wasn’t stopped. But oh no, I’m a killer! It’s one of those situations where the writer wants Kirito to have some sort of sin to atone for, but at the same time, he doesn’t really want to give the Gary Stu an actual sin. It’s like going to a job interview and claiming your biggest weakness is that you just work too gosh darn hard. In Kirito’s case, he has to atone for preventing murderers and rapists from doing the bad things that they do. Ugh, what a sinful bastard! How can he even come home to his bed full of haremettes at night? Seriously though, I’d have more respect for the show if it would just stop trying to be so deep and meaningful. By giving our Gary Stu this flaccid non-trauma, SAO is really just embarrassing itself.

– Let’s just casually center the camera on Sinon’s (non-)rack.

– Aaaaand now we have the fist bump of justice.

– As Sinon tracks Dark Wind from a distance, she sees that the guy is smiling. He probably thinks he’s about to win this whole thing. That’s another problem with the story: the rest of the players are apparently idiots. If Kirito can notice that the numbers just don’t add up, i.e. the mysterious whereabouts of the fifth person, then how come no one else has realized it either? Or, y’know, how come the tournament administrators haven’t already stopped the damn contest because something fishy is going on? The likely truth is that no one but our heroes suspect anything. Our heroes are just exceptional snowflakes.

– What’s A-1 Pictures strategy to show us that Kirito is engaging his keen sense and intuition? By putting this ugly filter on everything!

– Yeah, dude, just feel the enemy’s killer instinct. ‘Cause that’s one of the many things that is possible in VRMMOs. Ever since patch 3.49273, killer intent is now recorded and transmitted through the headsets.

– Do you like flashbacks? ‘Cause here’s another one! How many times do we need to see Kirito fighting those Laughing Coffin assholes? Not enough times, I’ll tell you what.

– Oh goodie, bullet time. That’s fresh and original. Not only that, the bullet is strong enough to destroy this structure over here. Yeah, a single bullet.

– Dark Wind is taken out so quickly, it’s not even interesting. If one of Death Gun’s partners is lurking nearby Dark Wind’s home, why wouldn’t he just kill the bastard anyway? I mean, he’s already a cold-blooded murderer. But ah, our one rule, you guys! We’re PKers have our pride and resolve too, y’know.

– Sinon soons spots Death Gun, but when she takes a shot at him, the bad guy takes a shot at her too. You guys already saw the silly bullet thing up above, so there’s no need to cover it again. In any case, Sinon and Death Gun simply manage to take out the other person’s sniper rifle. Sinon is now useless, and she can thus step out of the way and let the Gary Stu do what the Gary Stu does best, i.e. hog all the glory.

– This duel between Kirito and Death Gun will be easy right? After all, our Gary Stu has his badass sword and Death Gun doesn’t! Wrong. Death Gun proceeds to pull out a sword of his own (it looks like a rapier or an estoc). Yes, the final battle of the GGO arc will come down to a fucking sword fight. Who needs guns! Certainly not this gun-based MMO with the word ‘gun’ literally in its name!

– Look at Sinon’s concerned face as she sees Death Gun land a hit on her precious harem lead. It’s fucking anime. You can literally draw her in a way that makes her look worried, but A-1 Pictures can’t even hack that.

– Oh man, there’s just too much action in this week’s episode. Quick, cut to our dutiful waifu rushing to be at the Gary Stu’s side. Gotta have Asuna do something, y’know? How else is she going to prove her worth? But yeah, literally all Asuna’s done in this sequel is watch Kirito on a livestream, then run to his side. This girl started out as a warrior too, but once she took off her clothes in the original series, it’s been downhill ever since.

– This MMO battle is just so intense!

– Death Gun is so deathy, even his name is just German for death. Death death death. Do you see the symbolism? Do you?! DEATH DEATH DEATH!

– We cut back to Kirito and Death Gun, and surely, these two are engaged in a life-or-death battle, right? Right?

Death Gun: “Looks like you should have studied more, black swordsman. You can make it with the gun-blade skill. Though the length and weight can’t be much more than this.”

Are you kidding me? Are you two idiots really talking about crafting right now?

Kirito: “Then I’m afraid you wouldn’t be able to make a blade I’d like.”
Death Gun: “You still like blades with high strength requirements?”

Yo, the blade’s just not long enough for the Gary Stu. It needs to be big and heavy. That’s what MMO chicks dig.

– Death Gun is surprised Kirito even remembers anything about Laughing Coffin. Really? You don’t think the hero of Aincrad would remember the notorious player-killing guild?

– Fuck me, man. There’s no fighting here. Instead, these two are just going to stand there and talk. And fine, dialogue between the protagonist and the antagonist can be compelling. But these two idiots aren’t having a meaningful conversation. They’re just repeating shit we already know! Why the hell is Kirito even bothering to explain Death Gun’s modus operandi to Death Gun himself? Heh, lemme tell you how you really kill people!

– “You can’t remember my real name! ‘Cause I never told you my real name! Bwahahahahahahaha!”

– The bad guy then tells us that his sword is made from the best metal you can find in the game: space battleship’s armor! Wait, what the hell is space battleship’s armor doing in a gun-based MMO that, well, doesn’t have spaceships?

– Anyway, Death Gun lunges for Kirito again, and as you can see, the animation in this anime is just amazing. Unfortunately, the episode finally comes to an end, so you’ll have to tune in next time for the not-so-exciting continuation of this duel between the Gary Stu and some pathetic PKer. Having said that, we still managed to waste over half of this week’s episode on pointless conversations about stuff the audience either already knew or could have surmised for themselves. I thus can’t help but imagine next week’s episode will just be more of the same.

Rape Art Online part deux.

– The fight with the bad guy is finally underway, but please… please cut to Sinon and have her feed us a pointless monologue:

Sinon: “Right now, Kirito is trying to translate his words into action, by stopping the criminal named Death Gun, who carries the darkness of SAO.”

Ugh.

– Now back to the fi–… oh, we’re going to cut to Asuna instead, ’cause that’s exciting. Please, keep stalling. I don’t even know why everyone’s watching the fight with great concern anyway. There’s no threat to Kirito’s life. Even if he loses to Death Gun, he won’t die in real life (uguu, his heart rate is high!!!). Sinon’s the only one who is in real danger.

– According to the nurse, Kirito is sweating buckets! BUCKETS! He will literally dehydrate himself if this keeps up! Well, why isn’t he hooked up to a saline drip, nurse?

– She goes on to say, “We can’t have him log out temporarily, can we?” And disqualify himself from the tournament? SURELY YOU JEST! Winning this shit is far more important than my own life as well as Sinon’s!

– Asuna: “No matter what we say here, Kirito-kun won’t hear us.” These VRMMOs are beginning to sound more and more like a nightmare. They’re so goddamn unsafe. Obviously, we’ve covered how physically unhealthy these games can be. But man, you can’t even receive messages from people in the real world. What if your loved one just got into a car accident? Shrug, sorry, can’t hear you. What if the tornado siren just went off? LA LA LA, I CAN’T HEAR YOU. But seriously, do you think anyone would approve of such a device when it’s this unsafe? Of course not. There would be a huge uproar over this. But in the universe of SAO, everyone just accepts that this is how VRMMOs are. They’re plot contrivances to create drama.

– And it’s just like how GGO is operated by a foreign company, so you absolutely can’t receive any help from them.

“Hey, uh, we have concerns about something involving your game. We have plenty of evidence to support it, so if you don’t mind, could we open up channels of communication and discuss this matter in-dept–…”

“NO FUCK YOU THIS IS AMURICA WE DON’T GIVE A SHIT! NO CONTACT INFO! NO CONTACT INFO FOR YOU!”

It’s so mind-boggingly stupid, I don’t even know where to start. If GGO is literally as popular as the anime claims it to be, then why on earth wouldn’t the company listen to everything? If anything, it’s just good PR. People defended this shit, too. People who have no fucking concept how the real world works.

– Asuna has to explain that the Amusphere will shut off automatically if Kirito’s about to die. You’d think that someone would’ve explained this to the nurse beforehand before letting her oversee the guy’s safety.

– Yui then tells Asuna to take Kirito’s hand. Uh-huh. Even though he can’t hear you in real life, the warmth of his waifu’s hand will reach him in-game somehow.

– Yui lament, however, that she can’t hold her papa’s hands.

– No context necessary.

– OH MY GOD, IT’S EVEN DUMBER THAN I THOUGHT:

Asuna: “No, that isn’t true. I’m sure your hands will also reach him.”

SHE THEN PROCEEDS TO PUT KIRITO’S LIFELESS HAND ON THE FUCKING PHONE:

Don’t even get me started on how Yui even knows the hand is on the phone. Like how does she know? Y’know what? I’m dead. I’m dead, man. SAO has slain me. Instead of watching the actual duel between Kirito and Death Gun, this is what I get. This is what I get. DON’T WORRY, AI LOLI, PAPA CAN FEEL YOUR WARMTH TOO. GROPE THIS PHONE, BAE. YOUR FAKE E-DAUGHTER WANTS TO FEEL YOUR CARESSES.

– Yeah, yeah, cheer Kirito on together with your fake e-daughter. All Asuna gets to do in this arc is pray by the Gary Stu’s side. Wait, no, she may as well pray to him. I’m glad we cut away from the fight to show the world that Asuna is the perfect waifu! Take notes, ladies!

– Are you kidding me? Kirito suddenly links Death Gun’s red eyes to someone who had red eyes back in Aincrad. Are you fucking kidding me? Yeah, of the entire guild, only one of them wore a mask that had red eyes! That’s his look, yo. He’s the only one who was allowed to wear a skull mask with red eyes! Don’t steal it!

– And just like that, Kirito knows Death Gun’s real… uh, in-game name: Zaza. No, wait, it’s Red-eyed Zaza. Ain’t nobody else got red eyes! In truth, however, this just makes the villain come across as a complete idiot. If it’s true that he was the infamous Red-eyed Zaza, then WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU PICK A LOOK THAT GIVES IT AWAY? I’m going to kill again… and I’m going to look exactly like how I looked in SAO!

– Kirito: “This attack via prediction line is an illusion containing all of Sinon’s experience, insight, and fighting spirit! I can’t waste this last attack… THIS PHANTOM BULLET!” Snort.

– This… this doesn’t even look cool. You’d think they’d put everything in this climactic moment, and it looks like that. Holy fuck.

– And for some reason, Death Gun explodes. Okay.

– Death Gun’s body is cut in half, but he is still “alive” enough to say a few final words to Kirito. How come you don’t see this when other people die? Why does Death Gun actually get to lie there on the ground and keep yapping? Because once again, SAO has never been about being true to MMOs.

– Then Kirito has to coolly walk away from Death Gun’s lifeless body. Walk away to what? Shouldn’t he log out now? Shouldn’t he rush to ensure Sinon’s safety in the real world? Didn’t he say the bad guy could be in Sinon’s room right now?! Like right the fuck now?! No, I’d rather look cool and walk away from the camera!

– And now, he’s walking towards Sinon! LOG THE FUCK OUT. BOTH OF YOU. LOG. THE. FUCK. OUT.

– There are so many reasons to log out. So many reasons! Sinon’s possibly in grave danger! I gotta give the name Zaza to my bosses, so they can track the bad guy down! Asuna and my friends will probably want to see me in real life!

– THEY’RE SMILING AT EACH OTHER. C’MON.

– THEY’RE BROFISTING AGAIN. C’MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON.

– Remember: it doesn’t matter that Death Gun is dead in game. First, he can just fucking respawn and wait for them to leave the tournament. Secondly, he’s still alive in the real world. He still has people’s addresses. He could be meeting up with his accomplices right now. But please, let’s just stand there and marvel at how fucking beautiful the sky looks.

– Oh right, right… we can’t possibly log out without first deciding the winner of this fucking tournament. All of the things I mentioned above are secondary to that. FIRST THINGS FIRST, ASSHOLES: NAME THE WINNER TO THIS TOURNAMENT!

– Kirito: “With Death Gun gone, his partner that was after you should have left. So if you log out, you should be safe.” How would you know that? HOW WOULD YOU KNOW THAT? That is so dumb. Welp, my accomplice died in-game, so I guess I should just leave! No hard feelings, right, Sinon? Oh right, you can’t hear me! Hahaha, silly me! Anyway, I’ll just be on my way!

– But even if Kirito is right, that’s such a dumb risk to take.

– And again, Death Gun isn’t gone. He was defeated in the BoB tournament. That’s it. He’s not gone. This is so fucking stupid.

– Kirito suggests, “But it would be safest to call the police, anyway.” Sinon comes back with, “What would I even tell the police?” Kirito replies, “Huh, that’s right!” It doesn’t matter! Someone possibly broke into your house. Even if they hadn’t, they know your address. That by itself is enougLDELEKJRLJDSFOJUDLFK

– So Sinon leans in and whispers her name and address to Kirito. Yeah, she leans in. ‘Cause there are people around them. Save me, Gary Stu. Save me! I won’t call the police. Only you can save me! Yes, they’re still talking. Yes, it’s likely that everyone in the real world is still watching this entire shit unfold.

– Wait, wait. Let me fucking guess. She’ll log out, and her classmate will want to rape her, huh? C’mon, this is Rape Art Online, after all. If Kirito doesn’t save a girl from near rape, it doesn’t count! We’ve all seen the ALO arc!

– Oh hey, what a coincidence! Sinon even lives nearby. Tokyo is so small, haha!

– Kirito asks, “After I log out, want me to go there?” Sinon’s reply? “No, I’m fine. There’s a friend near me I trust.” And then the Gary Stu will literally save Sinon from this “friend” that she trusts, proving once and for all that you can’t trust other men. You can only trust the Gary Stu! Every other man is a rapist!

– Sinon: “Anyway, are you just going to have me reveal my personal info, and that’s it?” Who the fuck cares? It’s not like GGO will disappear. It’s not like Kirito will disappear. You fuckers can just log in tomorrow and share your shitty fucking info then. NO, I NEED TO KNOW THE GARY STU’S REAL NAME NOW.

– Jesus Christ, the giant heads and nonexistent shoulders. The animation in this show isn’t even good.

– Kirito says that before they log out, they need to end the tournament: “Want to have another duel like yesterday?” For fuck’s sake…

– So instead, the two of them have a lover’s suicide. Sinon pulls out a grenade, tosses it at Kirito, then hugs him tightly. Yep. This will ensure that they are both winners of the game. But, uh, everyone’s watching you. Everyone just saw how you conspired to make this a tie. This isn’t cheating… how? But of course, in this universe, nobody gives a shit. The spectators are cheering gleefully instead. There are fireworks all across GGO as well. What a joke. Smartest anime, my ass.

– So dumb. So, so dumb.

– We see Sinon log out and proceed to search her house for the intruder. She doesn’t call the police. She doesn’t call her mom. She doesn’t even have a weapon on her in case she needs to defend herself. She just nonchalantly searches her house for the intruder.

– Oh hey, it’s her trusted friend!

– Even if Kyoji was truly a trusted friend, why wouldn’t they leave this unsafe location? Even if Kyoji wasn’t one of the three bad guys, the bad guys still know where Sinon lives. But do we see any sense of urgency in the girl? No, she sits there all proud and shit because she just “won” the BoB tournament.

– But now that the tournament is over, Kyoji wants her to be his again. Uh oh!

– Never change, Rape Art Online…

Never change.

– Truth is, she could kick him super hard in the balls right now, but…

– Kyoji starts crying about how GGO was his life. Good lord. Ban all VRMMOs. Ban them all.

– Kyoji: “I’m sure you’re the only girl in Japan who’s killed a real bad guy with a real gun.” Yep, only her. You got it, buddy.

– This scene just keeps going and going and going. Kyoji has to reveal EVERYTHING. Bad people just love to sit there and yap incessantly about nothing. Why he singled Sinon out, why he chose the gun that he chose, why he killed Zexceed, etc. It’s just bad, cliched storytelling.

– Oh my god, here’s the saddest part. Sinon then fades away to the inner parts of her consciousness because she no longer wants to hear or see anything in the real world. Basically, she just gives up. But then she remembers how Kirito was going to come see her! She can’t be fucking assed to save herself, but the Gary Stu is what changes her mind. This is so pathetic. Sinon’s in-game self suddenly comes by to give her a pep-talk. Ahahahaha, whatever. It doesn’t bother me necessarily that Sinon gives up. Obviously, she’s been through a lot of shit. Obviously, she’s traumatized. Obviously, some people freeze up. It’s the Gary Stu’s presence that’s troublesome. Just the mere thought of him alone gives her strength to fight back. Otherwise, she would’ve allowed herself to be raped. Just think how fucking insulting that is.

– But Sinon can’t even save herself:

SAO won’t allow that. The haremette can’t be self-sufficient. All she’s allowed to do is buy time so that the Gary Stu can burst into the room and play the fucking hero.

– And that’s exactly what he does:

Tune in next time to see Sinon cry into Kirito’s manly chest.

Busy, busy day, so let’s just get Kirito’s delusions of grandeur out of the way. As you’ll recall, the author put yet another SAO heroine in danger of rape just so Kirito can burst in and act all badass. Sadly, we’re in the real world, so we won’t see our pathetic boyhero chop Sinon’s would-be rapist into a million little pieces like he did with Oberon the Fairy King. Instead, brace yourselves for Sinon burying her face into Kirito’s manly, manly chest, but nevertheless coming to the sad realization that she’s just a side-story haremette. With that knowledge, she can do no more but fade into the background as we prepare ourselves for a new arc. Hey, it happened to Asuna, and she’s the waifu!

– I know crazy people, you guys. And what they do is climb on top of someone and just repeat said someone’s name over and over until the hero can make his triumphant entrance!

– Why is he telling her to run? Where are the cops? Where’s Asuna? Did she drop by the hospital just to be by his side, but when Kirito decided to play hero, she’s like, “Okay, be safe!” Also, what did Kirito tell the nurse? Y’know, the nurse who’s supposed to be in charge of his health? According to her, he was really dehydrated, you guys. Did she just let a guy who’s been lying in bed for hours to just charge off by himself to stop a known murderer?

– Instead of calling the cops, Kirito tried to be a hero. Instead of kneeing the bad guy in the face then grabbing Sinon and run, Kirito tried to hold the bad guy back. So you’re damn right he got you.

– I’m not even amused by the fact that Sinon ran back to save her harem lead. Again, she would’ve given up in last week’s episode, but the thought of Kirito coming to see her gave her strength. So whatever, her character hasn’t undergone any breakthrough in my mind. She doesn’t act for herself.

– Sinon looks at Kirito’s wound; she even pulls up his shirt. Hm. Hm. Yes. Quite. Just one question: WHY HAVEN’T YOU CALLED THE POLICE? I’m not quite sure what I’m looking at, though. He got a condom stuck on his left nipple? By the way, psst, call the cops.

– Oh, Sinon wipes the liquid away, then puts her hand on the Gary Stu’s tiny, tiny chest. The cooooops. The cooooooppppssssss.

– Y’know, she hasn’t killed Kyoji. I’m not saying she should, but she hasn’t. So at any point in time, the guy could come to his senses and see his defenseless crush sitting before him. But hey, let’s caress the Gary Stu’s chest like we’ve got all the fucking time in the world, baby.^{The cops.}

– Sinon: “Hey, what is this thing that’s stuck to you?” Hm, hm, good question.^{The cops.}But thanks to that awesome question, Kirito bolts upright as if he’s perfectly A-OK.^{The cops.}Apparently, he still had an electrode from a heart monitor stuck to him!^{The cops.}So he didn’t get injected at all! Kyoji missed entirely.^{The cops.}Oh, the coincidences!

– Sinon starts shaking Kirito, because he had made her worry.^{The cops.}Haha, that scamp!

– Kirito: “Is he okay?” Another great question!^{The cops.}Let’s reach over and feel his pulse.^{The cops.}It’s the least we can do for a murderer and wannabe rapist. Then, let’s turn around and thank the Gary Stu for coming.^{The cops.}We wouldn’t want to be rude, now would we?

– Sinon starts sobbing, so Kirito slides over to put his hand on her shoulder. There, there… it’s okay. And with that, the scene comes to an end. I can only assume that they eventually called ^{the cops} but that doesn’t change the fact that this scene was incredibly dumb as hell. It’s amazing how these two idiots are the winners of some massive PVP tournament, because they have no common sense or survival instinct whatsoever.

– The next day, we see Sinon sitting alone as her bullies from school round the corner. Y’see, they had called her out, and she stupidly complied. But it’s different this time! She’s totally not scared of guns (read: penises) anymore! It’s quite simple, really. What? You think a girl joining a game full of guys and guns just so she can shoot down said guys isn’t symbolic of anything? You think the Gary Stu acquiring an androgynous avatar to get closer to the girl doesn’t mean anything either?

“B-but the author is too dumb to intend that!”

He doesn’t have to intend anything.

“What about Kyoji?! She was friends with him before he went all rapey on her!”

I’m not saying she was literally scared of men. I’m not saying she shakes like a leaf whenever she meets one. Obviously, this isn’t the case. I’m just saying she’s got unresolved issues towards the opposite sex ever since her traumatic incident at the post office. The gun is just a stand-in for something deeper: she has no fucking agency. If she had been a boy, everyone would call her a hero. But because she’s a girl, it’s all weird and shit that she fired a gun. This wasn’t a throwaway line in the previous episode: “I’m sure you’re the only girl in Japan who’s killed a real bad guy with a real gun.” Sinon’s supposed to be different, tainted, corrupted, and all that bullshit just because she’s shot a man with a gun. Her own mom was scared of her. She’s been robbed of her moment of heroism all because she’s a girl. So in the real world, she doubles down on being the helpless girl who can’t do anything as if to overcompensate. Then in the virtual world, she literally wields the longest penis (sniper rifle) she can find, which she then uses to penetrate men with her seed (bullets). So who is Sinon really? The shy, weak girl in real life? Or the badass, buttcrack-showin’ sniper in GGO? The answer is somewhere in the middle. The lesson — in theory, anyway — is that Sinon should just learn to accept herself instead of swinging from one extreme to the next. Her exposure therapy doesn’t work until she meets Kirito, because, well, guns were never the real issue to begin with. Why else would she be able to use guns in the virtual world and be shit-scared of a toy gun in the real world? In the virtual world, she gets to be the aggressor with anonymity. In the real world, she can’t stand up for herself, because everyone knows who she is.

So Sinon meets Kirito, who’s not like any of the other guys in GGO. He looks like a girl, he only uses a handgun (and even then, he barely uses it anyway), and he spends a lot of his time getting all emotional about his stupid feelings (we sat in a cave for an entire episode just to talk about his dumb feelings). And yeah, Kirito still uses a sword, which is a phallic symbol in its own right, but therein lies the rub. Using a sword allows Kirito to look fabulous. Guns are cold and utilitarian. You aim and you shoot. Done. With a sword, Kirito expresses himself. He twirls like a fucking ballerina. None of his movements are necessary whatsoever, but he gets to put his feelings on display. Anyway, despite all of Kirito’s flaws, he accepts who he is in order to save the day. So blah blah blah, watching the Gary Stu in action gives Sinon the courage to finally accept who she is as well, even if that means she’s a girl who had once pulled a trigger and murdered a man. But this isn’t an empowering story by any fucking means. In the end, she just allows herself to be saved over and over. Salvation is just tacit acceptance of your gender role: sure, sure, accept who you are, but afterwards, let the Gary Stu take care of you. And yes, she does technically save Kirito’s life in return. But again, she only acts for the Gary Stu, because of the Gary Stu, so on and so forth. When Kyoji was all over her and she could have honestly kicked him hard in the crotch, she didn’t do a damn fucking thing until Kirito showed up. Sure, she gains the courage to act, because her friend is in danger, but considering her trauma, her triumphant moment should have come on her own without Kirito’s help. Sinon should have been able to defend herself the same way she had defended herself at the post office: kick Kyoji in the dick, then stab him with the syringe. Instead, her heroism just gets robbed again.

And that’s the story. Buy my analysis or not, I don’t care. I already anticipate many of you guys to balk at what I’ve written above. Overthinking it, taking it too seriously, the writer couldn’t have intended this, blah blah blah. I’ve heard it all before.

– So is that an airsoft gun in the bully’s hands? I don’t know, I don’t know guns. I don’t care about guns. But again, that’s the point of this dumb scene. The bully merely steals her brother’s gun, but she doesn’t know a damn thing about it. Sinon knows what the gun is (1911 whatever), she even thinks the bully’s brother has good tastes, and she knows how to use the gun properly. Before, this would’ve troubled her, i.e. “Why can’t I just be a normal girl like everyone else?” Now, she accepts it, which allows her to stand up for herself. The only problem is that she should’ve had the same courage with Kyoji.

– Afterwards, she comes to the school gates just to find Kirito being all badass and shit. Seriously, he’s just standing there, leaning against his motorcycle. He’s even got his back turned to the school. Heh, I bet you girls want to know what I’m all about, dontcha?

– Unfortunately for our heroes, the third culprit is still on the run. Oh looooord, who wants to bet he shows up later to fuck with Kirito? Actually, this will so obviously happen, it’s not even worthy of a bet. I sure am glad we got this information through a boring, expository voiceover from Kirito, though!

– It’s just a matter of time before the third guy is caught, Kirito tells us! You’d think after all that our heroes have been through, maybe the government would put them under some sort of protection until the third and final culprit has been caught. But nah, that won’t happen.

– I don’t know why Kirito is now explaining to us again how the Death Gun trio went about stalking and killing their victims. Haven’t we been over this?

– More filler as Kirito painstakingly explains to us why Kyoji had gone mad. Great. The arc is basically over, but we’re still padding this shit out. I’m not going to discuss what Kirito’s saying here. It’s just old information. Even the resulting conversation with the government official is just more old information.

– I like how Sinon is also wearing a tie. How very formal.

– Here’s where we explain why the older brother did what he did: he had a weak constitution, and his father didn’t believe in him. How sad. So let’s go murder people! Man, the father must have believed in him even less when he got himself stuck in SAO like an idiot.

– Kirito pontificates on the dark side of VRMMOs: “Reality starts to seem less real.” And in a better anime, this would totally be a salient point. Unfortunately, this is SAO, so it’s painfully unexplored. The idea that reality becomes less real is merely something we hear about at the end of an arc after the bad guy has been caught. It’s discussed in a rather clinical way.

– Haha, sure, Kirito left things in the virtual world, and as such, there’s less of him here. Whatever, man. As for Sinon, she accepts that her reality is wherever she is, but we’ve been over that so…

– More talk about people’s realities. Kyoji apparently abandoned the real world to make GGO his reality. He then proceeded to kill people in the real world. He also tried to rape Sinon. He’s got an odd way of abandoning the real world. But despite this, Sinon even requests to see Kyoji in person. I’m barely keeping myself awake…

– Through a letter, Red-eyed Zaza taunts Kirito one last time. Time for a new arc?!

– But first, Kirito must properly introduce Sinon to the rest of his haremettes. Y’see, she’s got to have a place to stay safe while he runs off to yet another virtual world to gallivant about with yet another hot anime babe. So Sinon, meet Asuna. Asuna, Sinon. Just look how pleased Asuna and Lisbeth are!

– Dude even introduces his girlfriend as “the berserk healer.” You two had virtual sex, but just because a new girl is here, you neg her? That’s low, man. That’s low even for you. Plus, since when did she become a healer? I thought she was a capable swordswoman.

– It turns out Kirito blabbed all about Sinon’s trauma to his friends without asking for permission. That’s… that’s pretty fucked up. Then Asuna and Lisbeth went to Sinon’s old hometown to drag someone from the past back into the present. What the hell? You guys are a bunch of nosy assholes. Yeah, yeah, they have good intentions, but man, you don’t force your good intentions on people like this. But all of a sudden, a mother and her daughter enters the room. The two of them then thank Sinon for saving their lives back at the post office that day. But what did Kirito and company do? Just ask around the post office about that day? Yo, remember when a girl saved you guys from a gunman? Anyone want to come all the way out to some bar to give her thanks? Anyone? C’moooooon, she’s all traumatized and shit! Who wants to be nice and give her thanks! What a dumbass way for this arc to come to an end.

– Bunch of tearjerking stuff follows, but I don’t care. Let’s go watch something else.

I guess we’re back in fantasy land for now.

– Right off the bat, we’re not in an MMO, but at this point, I’m pretty sure everyone’s expectations have hit rock bottom.

– Apparently, someone has found an incredibly rare sword in ALO. It’s not Kirito, because he was too busy finding hot babes in other games. But the funny thing is that the damn thing has only been found. Nothing else. No one’s actually gotten it. I remember how Absolute Virtue in Final Fantasy XI remained this unbeatable boss for years and years, so it’s kind of the same thing. Absolute Virtue’s loot drops were “found,” but not actually acquired unless you managed to glitch and kill the boss. Too bad that also landed you in GM jail. Long story short, it wasn’t until Square-Enix dropped a ton of hints after a ton of player backlash before people knew how to properly beat the damn mob. Even so, I don’t think I mind this sort of thing in MMOs. I kind of like the idea that there are pieces of equipment so rare, only a few people would ever have access to them. It adds to the mystique of the world. The only problem, of course, is what do you do with the dungeon? Suppose someone eventually clears the dungeon and gets the incredibly rare sword? Now what? Are you really just going to leave an empty dungeon sitting there? It doesn’t make any sense to any MMO developer from a practical standpoint.

– We finally see scenes of an MMO, but… it’s a slideshow. And Kirito’s just narrating. C’mon, A-1 Pictures. Don’t pull a Terra Formars on me. I’ve seen enough slideshows today. No, really, this is an embarrassment. This part can be a montage all you want, but holy shit, at least animate it. You’re a fucking anime.

– So they find a giant humanoid thing attacking a giant jellyfish thing. Leafa, in her infinite wisdom, tells Kirito to save the one that’s being bullied. Sure, these mobs totally have complex AI and can understand what it feels like to be picked on. No, I’m not even being sarcastic. I totally, totally acknowledge that something like this might be possible. Seriously, what if we had the ability to populate our virtual worlds with virtual creatures with intelligence to what you might find in the real world? Wouldn’t that be fucking neat? Wouldn’t that raise moral questions about killing these virtual creatures even if they’re not real and any GM can spawn them? It’s analogous to the Yui being a fake virtual child who nevertheless has real feelings. It’s analogous to Kirito feeling sorry for the NPCs when Asuna wanted to use them as bait in the first season. Remember that? I sure do. But here’s the part that I do quibble with. Again, this part of the anime is a fucking slideshow. Not only that, it’s being narrated in a rather dry, as-a-matter-of-fact fashion. Explore the idea of treating MMO creatures like virtual pets, and whether or not we can feel the same level of attachment to them? Naw dawg, make it a fucking slideshow.

– So they fly up to the sky where they find the golden sword we had just talked about. Just look at Kirito’s face. I wonder if ever looks at Asuna like that.

– Wait, what? He’s been spending all his time in New Aincrad? I don’t know how people have the time to play more than one MMO anyway. By nature, these games are such grindfests, I don’t think I could devote my time to multiple characters across multiple games like that. But hey, this guy is such a poopsocker, they literally had to represent it as him being trapped within a game for years and years. I guess this sort of thing should come easy to Kirito.

– I don’t know why Kirito is so perplexed that other players could find Excalibur, especially when he just sat there and told us how he found it. What? Are other people not special enough to save a jellyfish and ride it to the sky?

– Kirito: “Sugu, there’s more to a VRMMO than looking for rare items.” Yeah, especially when you can build yourself your very own harem — a harem that includes your cousin!

– But then he immediately goes back on what he just said: “But I think Tonkii wanted us to find it, and that’s why he showed it to us.” Yeah! I’m not getting the weapon because I personally desire it. I’m getting it for Tonkii, our flying jellyfish! It wants us to clear the dungeon. So as you can see, going on this quest to get the sword would be a selfless action! Man, I’m such a gracious Gary Stu!

– Seriously though, I like how he has more urgency here to get some fucking sword than he ever had during the entire ALO arc. Remember, kids… a golden sword is far more important than your e-waifu.

– Seven people can ride Tonkii, but they don’t know who to stick in the last remaining spot. Kirito’s rattling off a bunch of names, but it’s fucking obvious who he wants to come with them. He’s just making Leafa bring her up first. Hey, hey, it wasn’t my idea to bring Sinon along! Leafa suggested it! But anyway, it’s to be expected that Sinon would now tag along with the rest of Kirito’s girls like some doll in his collection. This is a harem, after all. And of course, Klein’s there as the best friend who will never get any.

– Yes, let’s talk to Asuna… who just happens to be completely naked. So what does she even do in this sequel? Run to Kirito’s side and get naked, I guess. The duties of an e-waifu are hard. You stay-at-home waifus know nothing!

– The whole scene is dumb, anyway. She bemoans the fact that she wants to see him one more time before she goes back to Kyoto. Obviously, she wants to spend quality time with the guy. She’s then super happy when he tells her about the quest they’re all about to embark on. Can’t she also play VRMMOs with him in Kyoto? So what difference does it make? My point is that this quest isn’t really quality time. The fact that she alludes to her physical location should have been played up more. No matter how real these VRMMOs are, you can’t make up for the intimacy that comes from being together in the real world. She can go on quests with him no matter where she is. That’s the entire point of MMOs. Friends across the world can play together. Sword Art Online should’ve instead explored the idea that she perhaps feels as though their relationship isn’t deepening, because they don’t put enough of an emphasis on what they can do as a couple in the real world.

And it’s okay to include a subplot like this even though I constantly complain about the fact that the Sword Art Online sequel often features its characters outside of an MMO. After all, you’re drawing a sharp contrast between what the virtual world can offer and what the real world can offer. How are relationships impacted by the advent of simulation? Will people start taking certain traditional aspects of relationships for granted when they can rely upon the virtual world for everything? This would be an interesting topic to explore. But as usual, Sword Art Online drops the ball. We simply see the dutiful waifu beam with happiness when she gets a call from the Gary Stu. Besides, even in her private, most vulnerable moment — she’s literally naked and taking a shower — she’s just thinking about the guy. Asuna is a terribly written character.

– New OP time, I guess. This song is less annoying than the previous one, but it’s still not very good.. I don’t care enough to sift through it for clues about the upcoming arc, though. I just think it’s pathetic that we continue to see Kayaba being featured in a less than villainous way. I guess it doesn’t mean dick that he trapped a bunch of children in a video game without any remorse.

– Since Klein’s helping Kirito get the Excalibur, he asks Kirito to help him get another weapon in return. But our Gary Stu just whines, “That dungeon’s so freaking hot, though.” It’s my show! I don’t want to help you get a penis extension!

– In fact, he’s got such a one-track mind. Sinon would also like to receive a legendary weapon, but he complains that she’s only been playing for two weeks. Dude, this is what you do. You help your friends get cool shit, because helping them makes you feel good. But so far, two people have asked for favors, and he’s done nothing but whine.

– Yui finally arrives to tell her “daddy” that no one’s gotten to the mid-air dungeon yet. Don’t worry, Kirito. Your shiny golden dick is still sitting there waiting for you to retrieve it. Please don’t beat your daughter anymore.

– Asuna: “And evidently, it isn’t a very peaceful quest, either.” I wouldn’t expect a golden penis to be easy to get.

– Oh lord, this is incredibly cringeworthy:

Yeah, everyone’s posing with their stupid weapons as a rock song plays in the background. Sinon’s the only one not smiling. Silica’s weapon gets to be on her ass, I guess. Asuna doesn’t even get to pose with her own boyfriend. She’s on the same level as Leafa, the cousin who wants to bang her “onii-chan.” Naturally, the badass Gary Stu stands alone.

– Lisbeth: “In RPGs, the samurai has been a “warrior plus black magic’ class for a long time.” What? That’s not true in any of the games I’ve ever played. What she’s describing sounds like a ninja, not a samurai.

– And now Yui’s explaining sword skills to us. Great. Look what you’ve started, Klein. What does the guy do? Run to Kirito for help. I guess he’s a haremette too. Hey, why do you think Kirito wants to add yet another sword to his collection so badly?

– It’s hilarious how he looks across the room and sees nothing but female faces staring back at him. No, no, no, the hilarious part is how they’re actually females in real life too. Uh huh, sure.

– Kirito thanks everyone for coming. In fact, he’ll find a way to express his gratitude in the future. Oh, like helping your friends get the weapons they want? Just a thought…

– This is what Sinon has been reduced to: a mere catgirl that Kirito can now toy with whenever he pleases. Man, Asuna, you were right! This sure is quality time that the two of you are having!

– Still, I’ll give credit where credit is due. We actually see a potentially captivating MMO locale in this week’s episode. That was one of the big problems with the GGO arc. MMOs are full of interesting locations, but GGO had nothing. And sure, you can call it an MMOFPS all you want, but at least have some nice set pieces for people to look at. Unfortunately, the previous arc was unimaginative from start to finish. It’s not like the frozen landscape you see above is mind-blowing either, but at least it’s a fucking start.

– Leafa simply whistles and this calls Tonkii to her. Hm, she’s lucky no one’s killed it yet.

– Yo, this thing ain’t even cute. But still, even this blatant rip-off of an elephant is something different to look at. I’m not saying GGO should have had flying elephants, but c’mon, at one point, Death Gun rode a fucking horse to chase our heroes down. Where’s the imagination?

– You can totally fit more than seven people on this mount. Of course, we only arrived at the figure seven because that’s all the haremettes Kirito has for now. Yes, I now consider Klein to be a haremette after what we just saw in the previous scene.

– As they fly to the dungeon, they see players taking advantage of a jellyfish-tyrant duo to hit the jellyfish. I would expect this sort of thing to happen all the time in MMOs, though. Of course, the point here is that everyone feels sorry for the jellyfish, but why? This is a question that Sword Art Online should try to answer, but it seemingly can’t. It merely touches on the issue and nothing more.

– Plus, who is Sinon talking to? Leafa’s boobs?

– All of a sudden, this lady appears behind them. She’s Urd, Queen of the Lake, and she has a quest for them. She wants them to save the land from the tyrants that we see everywhere. Yui suddenly interjects to say how this NPC isn’t using a set response. Oh my, this NPC’s request is coming straight from her e-heart!

– Again, if this is something that’s totally possible, i.e. emergent AI within a complex VRMMO, I really wish Sword Art Online would actually delve into it. Can simple NPCs suddenly just “evolve” like this and acquire sentience? I don’t know, but it’s the sort of sci-fi topic that captures the imagination, doesn’t it? In Sword Art Online, however, topics like these are merely touched upon and nothing else. There’s just so much wasted potential in this goddamn universe.

– Case in point, Yui flat out tells Kirito that Urd has acquired artificial intelligence. It’s just something that’s stated. It’s not explored, it’s just a matter of fact.

– Then we get some backstory about the location, how Excalibur came to exist in said location, blah blah blah. Just standard RPG lore, really. The problem is that this lore ends up taking up a significant chunk of the second half of the episode.

– What is happening during this scene, though? Is Tonkii just floating still in midair?

– Oh, but it gets worse! The evil tyrant king wants to eventually cover all of ALO in snow! And other adventurers have been tricked into doing his bidding. He didn’t offer them the chance to win Excalibur at all. He’s just using them to commit mass jellyfish murder. In other words, talk, talk, talk, talk. But hey, I wouldn’t have expected any less from Sword Art Online.

– Of course, I can’t help but think that Miss Urd here needs a better advertising campaign. If you’re in such a dire situation, why are you appearing to just one group of adventurer? Even if you argue that the other players won’t believe her, it doesn’t hurt to try.

– Finally, our heroes reach the floating dungeon, but the episode is practically over. We’ve done a whole lot of talking and touched upon some interesting ideas, but that’s pretty much does it for the new SAO episode. Plus, I’m not sure we saw Asuna and Kirito interact with each other whatsoever. So much for that quality time.

Time for some dungeon-raiding inaction.

– So what do we get? Infodumping right off the bat. Sword Art Online never ceases to impress, does it?

– Yui tells us that the MMO has the ability to automatically generate quests by gathering “the traditions and legends from all over the world,” throw in some fancy magic, and voila! Quests! Infinite quests! Okay, I suppose an advanced enough algorithm could do such a thing, but it still feels lazy. Why? Because these are automatically generated. No matter how advanced your algorithm might be, it won’t make for good storytelling. And trust me, some MMOs have decent stories nowadays. I’d rather have a good story than infinite quests.

– Besides, if the game is auto-generating quests, then what are the developers even doing?

– And way to make one quest — the one quest that our heroes are on — magically super important. Most quests in an MMO are whatever. They don’t mean much. But the fate of the entire world hangs in the balance here! If we fuck this one up, flame giants will literally burn down the entire World Tree! But again, should that come to pass, then what? What will the developers do? Are they going to literally let the server die? Or will they just reset the game, because without the World Tree, we don’t have an MMO? Even Leafa expresses incredulity: “There’s no way a game system would destroy its entire map.” Nevertheless, Yui assures us that the Cardinal System can! In fact — and despite how stupid this sounds — they can’t even load a back-up of the current field data! If the world gets destroyed, it’ll never come back! So we really, really have to win or we will lose ALO as we know it! Yeah, I find that pretty fucking hard to believe, but fine. Let’s pretend they can’t bring back the old ALO if our heroes fail.

– Let’s see it, then. Fuck the quest. I rather see this novel possibility over yet another run-of-the-mill, happy ending. I’m not being sarcastic; I would really like to know what happens. But you know we won’t get to see what happens. Y’see, SAO doesn’t go far enough. It wants to us to take these MMO elements seriously, but it won’t follow through with its scenarios all the way to the end.

– The point is, it would actually be more interesting to see our heroes fail. All bets are off if they fail. This would actually make the show unique, y’know? In the current state of MMOs today, we don’t have a world-changing quest like this. We don’t have a quest where, if you fail, all the cities in the world be razed to the ground. This is the one thing that would make SAO’s story rather novel and different. But the anime merely raises the possibility of complete and total change… but it won’t go there. At the end of the day, our heroes will beat the quest and Kirito will get his dumb, golden penis extension.

– Klein: “I haven’t met the person I’m fated for yet.” You have… you have, my friend. His name is Kirito. Why would any woman come close to you? She knows she’d just get sucked into the manly black hole that is the Gary Stu!

– They can’t even call a GM because it is outside their support hours. Uh, what major MMO doesn’t have 24/7 GM support?

– After the OP, our heroes are locked in a battle with two minotaurs. One has high physical resistance, the other one has high magical resistance. Needless to say, our mage-less group isn’t doing so hot. But I always laugh when the UI appears like so. Our characters are literally hunched over on the ground, panting. It’s pretty obvious to anyone that they are low on health. Nevertheless, the anime feels the need to show us their health bars anyway. It’s just redundant information. Also, way to not dodge a simple line attack.

– Then we have to painstakingly watch those bars fill up when Asuna heals her party. It’s stupid.

– How would this quest be different in, say, Log Horizon? Well, part of the problem is other adventurers helping the bad guys out by killing those floating squid monsters, right? I feel like Shiroe would somehow rally all the adventurers to his side, then everyone would raid the floating castle together. He wouldn’t risk the fate of the whole world by trying to accomplish everything with just seven people. But to be fair, Log Horizon would also come complete with a ton more exposition, glasses-pushing, and internal monologues. So I’m not sure which anime would do it better, to be quite honest with you.

– You… you don’t expect me to take this seriously, do you?

– Wow, the party balance here kinda sucks. The majority of them are melees, and no one seems particularly tanky. And again, they lack a long-range mage, because Asuna has somehow been pigeon-holed into the healer role.

– I like how they all charge the yellow minotaur, and the black one simply and conveniently doesn’t exist for the time-being. I mean, what is it doing while its buddy is being killed? These bosses usually fight in tandem, you guys. Why even have two bosses if they’re only battle our heroes one at a time?

– Boy, I sure do love hearing our heroes grunt over and over.

– But to be fair, I suppose, the rest of Kirito’s party members are suddenly frozen in place. Why them and not Kirito? Oh well. In any case, it’s all up to the Gary Stu to look cool and fight by himself for a good thirty seconds. It’s like a shitty solo in the middle of what was already a mediocre song.

– And the longer this scene continues, the more I wonder about the black minotaur and what it’s doing. Twiddling its hooves, I suppose. Anime is so stupid.

– And it’s always lame how the MMO elements aren’t consistent. We see the yellow minotaur’s health bar drop down to just a sliver, but is the boss panting and hunched over like our heroes were before? No, of course not. Instead, it gives us a shit-eating grin as it swings its axe at Kirito.

– Suddenly, our healer jumps into action to put the yellow minotaur out of its misery. Yo, way to kill steal, babe. Gawd, girl gamers!

– Then after the yellow minotaur dies, the black one steps up to fight. It’s so stupid. It dies in much the same way, too. Just faster. And even lamer.

– Kirito is so special, he had used a non-system skill. Okay, whatever. This isn’t even funny anymore. Just eye-rollingly bad. Asuna even realizes that something like this has happened before, but Kirito just tells her she’s imagining things.

– If you only have a limited amount of time, why bother to clean out the third floor? But it really doesn’t matter, because the show has no imagination. We just see the same thing over and over. We don’t really see floors, per se. We just see the same, drab-looking boss room. Anyway, they kick this thing’s ass, then move on. Nothing special whatsoever. Well, for once, the side characters get to pose for the camera.

– Since Asuna got her time in the spotlight last time, I guess it’s now Silica’s turn. This doesn’t really make up for having to be a useless character for 99% of the time, but I guess the haremettes will take what they can get. Plus, Kirito still got to land the finishing blow this time. You think he was going to let his haremettes disrespect him and kill steal again? Hah!

– On their way to the last boss, they come across a prisoner. Yo, it looks like she’s thin enough to slip through those bars. Just sayin’.

– Even though his friends tell him it’s likely a trap, Klein insists on freeing the hot anime babe from her prison. Yo, it’s a goddamn NPC. It’s not like she won’t be there after the final boss is killed. I guess he’s just so desperate to free himself from Kirito’s harem that he’ll risk the entire mission for an NPC. He stupidly insists that saving her is what he has to do even if they all end up failing as a result. Minus 50 DKP, buddy.

– The freed NPC then says she can’t leave until she retrieves her family’s treasure. Naturally, they have to drag her all the way to the final boss’s room. That sounds like a good idea! Let’s have a stranger in the same room, so that she can potentially fuck things up for us! I hope it’s like that maiden in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, where sunlight reveals that she’s an evil ogre. Then she NTRs Klein away from Kirito.

– But Kirito is too much of a softy. He just can’t resist it when his haremettes do the Asian whine. One “Hey, Kirito~~~~~” from Klein is enough to convince the Gary Stu to let the former do whatever.

– Look at how his haremette beams with happiness. This is what being a harem lead is all about, folks. Those special, heart-melting moments when the haremette looks at you with that doe-eyed expression!

– When Klein moans shortly after the hot anime babe presses her breasts against him. Kirito mutters, “Don’t give Yui any weird ideas.” Yeah, says the guy who spent much of the ALO arc cavorting around with his cousin and giving money away to hot babes just for the sake of it.

– So the hot anime babe’s name is Freyja, and she even helps the party by buffing their HP at the start of the final boss fight. That’s neat. I guess she won’t be betraying them. Somehow, the characters are astonished to see a spell that increases your HP. Then again, they don’t have a single tank character, so…

– Oh well, here’s the final boss. He looks kinda lame. Just a blue-tinted giant. You’d think they could put a little more effort into this.

– The final boss makes them an offer: tell him where to find Urd, and they can have all the gold in the room. Or, y’know, they could just kill him and have all the gold in this room. That’s not really an impressive offer, buddy.

– Klein: “A samurai doesn’t eat. He just laughs!” What does that even mean?

– Apparently, the final boss also wanted to make Freyja his wife. At least he has the decency to not force it, I suppose. But God, does her face look ridiculous right about now or what?

– Talk, talk, talk, talk, talk. We all know the show’s just buying time until the episode ends, so we can leave the final battle to next week’s episode. Meh.

– Klein tries to talk big in his defense of Freyja, but I suspect she’ll just disappear at the end of this arc anyway, leaving him woman-less and trapped in Kirito’s harem forever. But anyway, Thrym throws a punch and that about does it for our episode. Tune in next time to see how our heroes will inevitably save the day and resolve this story in just about the most boring way possible.

– I wanted to see the World Tree get burned to the ground, but that ain’t happening.