Sword Art Online II Ep. 5: Kirito, meet Death Gun

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?