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(Asatsuyu no Shoujo)
“The Girl of the Morning Dew”
This week we follow Kirito and Asuna as they take a break from the chaos of frontline combat. Heathcliff is completely right – they’ll be back, how could they not? If they were to up and leave the battlefield now and never look back, why then have they been fighting for so long? They may have each other now, but Asuna at the very least is not an overly selfish person. I doubt she’d be able to bear the idea that others were fighting while she spent all her time having fun with Kirito. Heck, we can actually see a little bit of discontent from Kirito at points during the episode – he’s probably itching to get back to fighting solo – and Asuna’s attack on the child-molesting Army members doesn’t feel like it was entirely because of her distaste for them. With all they’ve invested in clearing the game so far and the prospect of getting together on the outside, there’s even more reason for them to get back out there and continue pushing forwards with the other clearers.
Speaking of getting together on the outside, I find it strange that Asuna would feel the need to ‘fall in love with [Kirito] again’ outside the game – given that their artificial avatar appearances are long gone (and much of the feeling of anonymity with it) and they’ve been in this world for two years already, it feels hard to believe that they’d be drastically different people outside the game. Surely the Kirito she’s fallen in love with here is also the real Kirito? Unless she’s secretly afraid that he’s some horrible lecher in real life and this game world was his chance to start afresh with a new life! But no, it’s hard to imagine people acting so differently from their true selves in such a reality. At least I find it that way. Especially when they managed to feel strongly enough to consider Yui (Itou Kanae) a surrogate daughter.
Asuna derives amusement from Kirito’s sometimes childish naivet, but it’s pretty evident she has a childish side of her own. Her constant desire to go out and have fun with Kirito and wanting to ride on his shoulders to be higher up both seem a little out of character for someone of her age. Or maybe it’s just relieving some of the stress from spending two years fighting (that doesn’t make it less childish though)! But Kirito’s idea of a ‘fun outing‘ is rather twisted, especially in comparison to hers. Ghost hunting? In a dark, creepy forest? Sure sounds like the perfect date! It does give us a chance to see a side of Asuna we’ve not seen much of though – a side I’m not particularly fond of if I’m perfectly honest. Since early in the series, she’s always been portrayed as strong and independent, always capable of standing up for herself. But the moment Kirito appears, her default becomes to hide behind him when faced with any real or perceived danger. Sure, she usually ends up fighting her own battles, but that initial reaction just doesn’t sit right with me.
SAO has one of those concepts that make very little sense from a design standpoint – it’s physically possible to pick up NPCs, but doing so will give you a harassment warning which could potentially lead to jailing the player. If you’re not allowed to do something in a game, why make it possible in the first place? Why not just disable it altogether? It’s like one of those honeytraps where they try to tempt you into doing something because there’s nothing stopping you, only to lash out at you for actually doing it. It’s a little like banning people for looting chests. Well, not actually quite as bad as that, but still not exactly right.
Once again, we get to see the despotic actions of The Army. Just as when they appeared the previous two times, they’re up to no good, demanding what they believe is rightfully theirs from players. This time it’s taxes. Sort of. Well actually it basically comes down to forcing young children to strip. Can you paint these guys as worse people? Probably not. Had Asuna and Kirito (mostly Asuna) not arrived in time, things would likely have ended up much worse for Sasha (Fujii Miyako), and the trio of children, Mina (Akari~n! Ahem, sorry Mikami Shiori), Gin (Muranaka Tomo), and Kain (Mori Yuko). Heck, maybe it would have cumulated in them being dragged outside the barriers of the safe zone. Would they have gone that far? Maybe. Quite possibly.
tl;dr: @MoombaDS – A week of romance as the lucky couple go off on their honeymoon. Wait what? #SAO
Random thoughts:
- I’ll leave speculation as to what happened towards the end of the episode up to those who haven’t already read the novels. In a way, I envy you guys!
- Plenty of great scenes for Yui fans out there!
- ‘Oh god I’ve been sleeping with someone who’s a fourteen year old in body!’
- Asuna can be pretty scary huh?
- Not related to this episode specifically, but check out the editorial I wrote (with some collaboration from Stilts) on what might change if SAO were written today!
Full-length images: 05, 10, 19, 21, 28, 30, 35, 36.
Preview
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End Card
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Yui: Papa~ Hug~ I…I think my heart just exploded… *death by moe*
is this real lyfe?
SAO is quite the opposite.
SAO is quite possible….some day.Bring on the death game, future! For a real life Asuna, my body is willing!
Don’t worry, I got the reference. Well done, sir!
Is this just fantasy?
.hack//Sign
Yes guys, Kirito has a beautiful wife, awsome unique skill and now a daugther. What more could a man possibly ask? kirito, please leave a little happiness for the rest of us!.
A loving imouto, a cool computer loving mom, a nice black bartender friend, access to prototype full dive systems, 6 more people that will become part of his harem that I shall not disclose the identity of.
Dont forget his best pal Cline. Yes Kirito, we understand that you have the entire happy life package. Jelous anyone?, because Im crying blood out of pure envy here.
Asuna: If we ever make it back to the real world, I’ll find you and I’ll fall in love with you again….anyone else kind of tear up after this part?-raises hand- I did.
I rise both of my hands, Kirito and Asunas relationship is by far the most adorable Ive seen in light novels, manga and anime, throw Yui into the mix and you have a true family full of love.
I kinda lost count of the number of times my eyes teared up while reading this series already…
Surprisingly enough, I’ve got some of coolest family too: cool computer-loving mom (she plays MMO!), and an otaku imouto. And I have some awesome but unpractical combat skills in RL. They are unpractical mostly because there is no full scale war going on and therefore I’m happy to not have to use them.So I won’t make show of envy towards Kirito. But, still I could use some of DAT WAKE-UP! SS# 06
Moe levels rising to critic levels!.
I wonder if there is such thing as “Death by moe” in the Monument of Life…. Yui can give those girls in Papa no Iu Koto o Kikinasai! a serious run for their money 😛
I shall leave these animated versions of Yui here. Beware of moe overload.“I want the same as papa~”*chomp* “It’s good…”
Great episode does anyone know if they will show the ALfheim Online arc?
At the rate they are going, most likely.Now we can only hope for a second season, to cover GGO and Mother’s Rosario.
Why do I have a feeling that GGO and Rosario are gonna be OVAs?
I gave up on Rosarioas Asuna became the type of female lead that annoys the hell out of me. Just leave the house and live with Kirito, job done.
There should be no way an ALO character(which appears as Leafa, not even Suguha) comes the 3rd(just after Kirito and Asuna) on the official homepage’s CAST list if we won’t have the arc.
Never actually thought this would have any relevance.
Last week episode was decent, decent only relatively to the fiasco that was episode 1-10. Yes it was good, maybe above average, but nothing too groundbreaking. I had nothing to rant about. Just as I thought this show might actually get better, this week SAO has let me down, yet again. Well I no longer expect anything great from SAO, so I wasn’t too surprised from another drop in the quality of the story. This week keyword is: CHEESINESS. Sorry guys, long list this time.- The dialogues were painfully cliched. Heard it a thousand times before. Good job SAO!- Asuna, I said this before, and I am going to say this again. If Asuna was replaced with Shana, SAO is going to be more or less the same. Asuna-chan, if you want to be a real tsundere, YOU SHOULD AT LEAST TRY TO BE UNIQUE AND STOP COPYING SHANA!!!! I like Shana and all, but if every tsundere is gonna be like that, IT GETS OLD, ANNOYING AND STUPID. It’s called a cliche! I think I might shoot myself. Good job Asuna, good job!- Also Asuna-chan, you should learn when to stop being a tsundere. Sure this episode is more about dere-dere than tsun-tsun. However, is the tsun-tsun necessary when Kirito and Asuna’s relationship becomes crystal clear and official? Come on Asuna, YOU HAD SEX WITH HIM!!!!! Why are you too embarrassed to say “I love you” straight to Kirito’s dorky, womanizing, punchable ugly face? YOU HAD SEX WITH HIM!!!!!! Why are you embarrassed if he accidentally gets a peek at your panties? Totally stupid…..- The scene where Kirito carries Asuna on his neck…. It looks ridiculous. Let me remind you Asuna, you are a big woman now, it’s unsightly. Hanging on his back is okay, that’s really cute. But the neck? No, just no…..- Those fishermen at the lake, are they NPC’s? If not then WHY THE HELL ARE OLD MEN PLAYING MMO? And Kayaba, you heartless bastard trapping these old men in your full of crap game!- Asuna, are you scared? Is that supposed to be cute? D’awwws that’s so cute Asuna-chan, NOT! Great, another cliche…. It could have been cute. However, the setting and logic doesn’t allow this scene to be cute. Let me remind you my cute Asuna-chan, that you are inside A FRIGGING VIRTUAL REALITY!!!! It’s a word of 0’s and 1’s, no ghosts.- Asuna, why were you freaking out like a baby? Then you proceed to hiding behind Kirito’s back. I thought you were a high level badass babe, unlike the other crybaby girls that Kirito met so far!!! Not to mention you are one of the strongest members of the supposed top guild in SAO. Furthermore, if I remember correctly, in the last episode YOU PROMISED TO PROTECT HIM and now you are letting yourself to be protected, or a burden. WTF WRITERS AGAIN???? One more thing, they were on the 22nd floor, what is there to be afraid of? Low level stuffs. Endless stupidity and humor! I might have laughed if SAO was a comedy….. If I was Kirito I would say: “Weak, next babe please!”- KIRITO MET YET ANOTHER MOEBLOB!!!!!! I am sick and tired of his interaction with females already. Where are the men? I would love to see more Kirito x Klein bro-bonding. What’s more? Yui acts like Mayushii, innocent, air-head and child-like. Isn’t that the most cliched freaking thing ever? What’s that? Family? Mama and Papa? Wait a minute, is SAO trying to be CLANNAD? SAO failed at trying to create depth….- The army….. Their characterization is stupid, ’nuff said. Just weak faceless mooks. Why would the Army bother with the Town of Beginning? And why do they even try to rule over other players for senseless drama? Makes no sense. Again, SAO is trying to hard to be intellectually deep. Well, it’s not!
to summ the above comment up….. Is this real lyfe???????????
i think he/she is trying out to be a randomc writer? :3
Almost everything you said is true, but you see, SAO is the new hype, so depreciate this anime is a mortal sin … then you was unhappy in trying.
I’m not unhappy. It’s actually fun to take it apart. 🙂
What does the new hype mean (Is it a new needle, alternate definition)? That statement is highly confusing shouldn’t it be the new thing or something along those lines. Also I never heard of Sword Art Online until I read about it here and it sounded interesting so I read the light novel so to me there wasn’t any hype for me but the concept was intriguing.
You should do that more often.
Not gonna discuss most of your points, for each their own tastes.But as for why there are old men in the game?Just search for some mmorpg demographics you’d find some interesting info like in this two links:http://blog.rjmetrics.com/Who-Plays-MMOs-An-Analysis-of-MMORPG-Player-Demographics-and-MMORPG-Player-Stereotypes/http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/gateway_demographics.htmlIf you play one, start knowing people and start asking how old are them or what they do in real life, it pretty much comes down to this:
Did you see them? They look like they are at retirement age. I don’t think their slowly-deteriorating brain would be able to handled SAO. Not too mention getting a heart attack from all the excitements. Old people needs a lot of maintenance in their bodies.
Your eloquently worded arguments make me feel like an old man smacked you around as a child.I dunno about the old people you hang around with, but some of the craftiest people I know are senior citizens. If their brains were deteriorating as badly as you seem to think they should have, it’s a miracle they didn’t take over the world when they were younger.
According to the light novels, there are about 50 or so old men in SAO because they were executives or customer service reps from Argos who decided to log in to see the world created by their company.
@PassingBy
Given the game reproduces a simulated reality and doesnt actually require physical strength many old/sick/bedridden people will likely feel liberated in such a virtual reality. A slowly deteriorating brain might not respond as quickly to stimulus but they can still live and if they could function in reality a game that simulates it should not be impossible to operate. This is an active area of medical research as a brain to computer interface is very useful for various non-gaming applications.Fishing isnt exactly the most heart racing activity (depending on what type of fishing you are doing). They are in a hospital or medical long term care facility so that maintenance is not much of an issue nor do they need to actually be concerned about it while in game as they are mostly decoupled from reality.
Glad you are so brave, isn’t anyone who puts his point of view about an popular anime like this… and just to remember I agree with “almost” everything you said… SAO is good, but it’s not ALL THAT… but when you say what you thinking, people generally don’t like it, especially when an anime is hype. (I predict more dislikes here LOL)
Nothing wrong with a person expressing their opinion, but I think the generally faceless nature of the internet has taken the “brave” out of the equation.
I would prefer if you elaborate on your “almost”. I am just interested. Maybe it’s some plot points in the novel that the anime skips over and thus I missed it. It’s always nice to have a civilized debate.
Civilized debates are nice, but your “rage against the machine” means the other side is going to have to take the high road, and where’s the fun in that?
Rage? I am not. Just being overly-dramatic while failing at being funny. Where there are praises, there would also be criticisms. It’s part of life.Criticisms are valid unless they are simply out of blind hate and don’t have any evidences to back them up.
@PassingBy
In other words your trying to say your not just being a troll. But normally civilized discussions don’t start with such emotive all caps and repeats. Which many people would downvote you just on the presumption of trolling given the way the post was written bring attention to things like,
If one where to just read the all caps text it doesn’t sound like your trying to initiate a civil discussion but are the later point of the first sentence of this post. Also using language like ” ’nuff said ” is another telling sign.
Part of it was me failing to be funny, and part of it was to call attention to the point. And did you see that my all posts afterwards have NO CAPS (oh shoot I just did it again.) How does “nuff said” indicate anything? It’s the internet, not my English exam, ’nuff said. Grammar Nazi is not cool!How am I a troll? Just because I point out the flaws in everybody’s favorite anime? Nothing is flawless, you can go ahead and pick out all the flaws from my favorite shows, there is nothing wrong with that. Learn to accept different opinions. A forum is a place of discussion, not exclusively to praises. Where there are praises, there are criticisms and flaws. As for me, SAO could have been so much better with its potential as a story, and they messed it up. I don’t know if it’s the fault of the anime or the original novel. But going strictly by the anime, it does have a lot of things that can be improved.If you want to make a case for yourself, give good reasonable counterarguments to mine.
@PassingBy
This isn’t your English exam but if you want to get into the logic of your statements then we shall examine things closer. You stated before that evidence is required but ” ’nuff said” is normally used when further explanation or evidence is not felt to be important and only the stub is apparently required. My reference to indications has nothing to do with English or grammar rather your personality. A grammar Nazi would point out your double negatives which I don’t feel like that means anything it is more about the context and content your posting that is significant not the syntax.And in more detail you say,
Your first sentence says that they are stupid and that is it pretty much. Then you say they are weak and faceless and why would they rule over a town of the weak and starter players. Well, light novel spoiler time,The army originated from the starter town which actually makes a lot of sense because it is composed of people who were too afraid or weak to go out on their own but with larger numbers and leadership that fear could be overcome. Throw in some early success and many of those weak leaders will suddenly feel empowered and emboldened. The taxes and gang like bahviour can occur when a group gets too large and politics happen and end badly. Without effective management corruption takes hold and senseless drama occurs even in real life. Makes a lot of sense and if covered in anime the Armys orgin and leadership will be explained in more detail.Now for the spoilers,The army was started by a game magazine editor who was trapped in the game he formed a guild for people from the starter town to help protect them. Good intentions at the start but since there were countless people sitting things out in the starter town the growth of the guild was uncontrollable and the top management couldnt effectively police its own members. Throw some top level infighting and failures later in the game and over time corruption takes affect and some groups within the Army take advantage of their position as the peoples protectors and become more of a gang.
Funny thing is I never said you were a troll just you are not making a good case for making civil discussion with the virtual yelling and random highlighted points with emphasis repeats on the sex. Usually trolls do go highly on the defense on even the passing mention but I never actually said you are a troll just you might appear to people as one even though you do claim to be promoting civil discussion.My post from before is a civil suggestion that initiating a civil discussion should not look like a troll like post and I’m assuming youre not being a troll unless you are one? (The negative votes could have been avoided if your critique were more well formatted, as I don’t think Rasen was down voted into oblivion for his sticking points even if I did go on for about 10k+ words in counter)
Already did and I don’t feel the need to respond on all points as Rasen already covered a number of them. Posting two walls of text in response might be a bit excessive. So I just added my two cents and said a generally agreed with Rasen (this time, if you look at early episodes we didn’t agree about a number of things) But if you want I will consider producing walls of text time permitting, this being the first wall of text in earnest.(Definitely not an English test)
“- Those fishermen at the lake, are they NPCs? If not then WHY THE HELL ARE OLD MEN PLAYING MMO? And Kayaba, you heartless bastard trapping these old men in your full of crap game!”Assuming they don’t include it as an episode after Yui’s arc go read chapter 18 of the LN.Not all of the players in SAO were kids or young adults logged in with the intent of playing the game. You have some much older people who worked for companies connected to the game developer there to test connections and other technical aspects as the game was going into full release.
Amen, my friend, and screw all the downvoters. 🙂 Just because a show is super shiny and has shiny tsunderes, doesn’t mean it’s impervious to criticism.
How would a tsundere NOT be like Shana? By not being a tsundere? And you’re going to shoot yourself? Be still my heart!
Someone sounds jealous~ At any rate, find a girl who will sleep with you. Then stick your head up her skirt in public. Tell me how she reacts.
What are you, the fashion police?
I imagine they’re playing for the same reason as I’ll be playing when I’m wrinkled and old. Because my grandchildren won’t have time for me and I love videogames. And the Breath of Fire series had fun little fishing sidegames that I wasted far too much time on.
A virtual reality that kills people. Also Griselda would like to have a word with you.
Everyone has things they don’t like or are afraid of. If there’s ever a giant-sized boss clown, you better believe I’m going to freak out regardless of my level. Or a roach. Or anything Silent Hill.
Have you ever played a game, and encountered a special boss/battle that was just too hard for the area? And that you could only beat it after massively leveling up and getting the right items? (Similar to the trap area that got the Black Cat guild) Now imagine that’s in a game that could kill you, and doesn’t allow saves. Just saying.
And you call HIM womanizing?
How dare a child character act like a child!
Putting aside your question about the Town of Beginning because you’d have to have read the LN to know why, the answer to your other question is that because people can be jerks. Especially in a group. And that makes a LOT of sense.Hey, you’re right! It IS fun to take things apart!
Sorry that I don’t know how to quote.1. Tsundere that are not similar to Shana? Makise Kurisu, Kuroneko or Kallen Stadfield, those are good examples of non-Shana tsundere.2. He did almost stick his head up her skirt, somewhat in public. Look at those fishermen! Though the place seems pretty secluded that it’s not really a problem.3. Your mileage may vary, for me it still looks pretty weird though. Asuna is huge xD4. About the fishermen, I was joking, it’s possible. Just fun to point it out.5. Grisela’s ghost is a problem of its own in terms of plausibility.6. Good point. However, Asuna must be used to facing death by now. Why is she freaking out? To be one of the commanders in KoB, one would expect her to have a little bit more composure.7. Another good point, okay.8. That was sarcasm. If you have not realized, did you see how every single girl that Kirito has met all fell for him. He doesn’t return any of their feelings except Asuna. This is because he cannot bear to have his friends/guilds die on him hence he goes solo. Kirito even told Lizbeth straight to her face to “Get back in the kitchen.” Then he ended up having Asuna accompanying him and it seems like she is desirable to him because “she can’t die on him” and isn’t a burden to him (like Liz, Silica and Sachi were). To be honest, Asuna has nothing that sets herself apart from the rest of the girls Kirito has met so far, rather than being a badass. What does that imply about the other girls? Is it bad for girls to be terrible fighters? That is very sexist. I think that’s a pretty shallow way to get Asuna and Kirito together, they need much more development rather than Asuna being an empty shell of a badass, a good virtual cook and a tsundere. Read here for more (do note that the article is messed up as of today because it has recently been overhauled, at least it got the definition down, somewhat): http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealWomenDontWearDresses?from=Main.RealWomenNeverWearDressesHence the reason why “Weak, next babe please!” because Kirito’s characterization seems to shape him to be that way. I think it is more suitable to have more romantic developments between Kirito and Asuna (that means more than just episode 8 and 9) or give Kirito a male companion like Klein.9. Nope, she is just another piece of moe. Yeah she acts like a child and nothing is wrong with, but she is too excessively moe about it. It is clearly away to reel in cheap reactions.10. We anime-only people never really get an insight on how the Army operates, thus it doesn’t make a hell lot of sense. They say they are the liberators, but they are forceful and go at it in a stupid way (episode 9). That is all I know about the Army.
I dunno about Makise, but who is Kuroneko supposed to be tsundere with? Kirino? And I’m not sure Kallen has a ~dere side. She never really had a soft and marshmallowy-center.
Exactly my point.
Fair enough, but as a point of criticism it was entirely based on personal preference.
But then you doubled down on it by saying old people’s brains were melting out their ears.
This is a game that digitizes people’s minds and represents them with data. That there would still be remaining bits of that data isn’t that odd-seeming.
At the end of the day, she’s still just a teenager. One doesn’t get over one’s personal fears that easily. Regarding her being the vice-commander, I like the explanation the 4-koma had: in the middle of the elections she served everyone food and then won by a landslide as a write-in candidate.
As a criticism of the series, this one is fair. The author has admitted this is a problem he has.
You’re oversimplifying. The reason the other girls are “burdens” on him is because they aren’t frontliners. They aren’t terrible fighters, they’re just underleveled compared to him. I guarantee there are even more boys in the game that are underleveled compared to him.
Well, she could also go full-on brat, but then the cheap reaction is to smack her up and down the 100 floors of Aincrad. Given a choice of cheap reactions, I’d like the one that makes me feel all fuzzy.
Have you seen TV’s portrayal of street gangs and the mafia? That claim they collect “protection fees”? There’s nothing deep about the Army’s portrayal, but there’s nothing odd about it either.
1. Kuroneko is tsundere to Kyousuke. Watch the OVA. Kallen has a dere side, in R2.4. Eh, I am a young adult and looking at a computer screen for the whole day already hurts. I can’t imagine how having that thing stuck on your head would be physically and psychologically taxing as an old man. But we can agree to disagree.5. Fair enough, makes sense. Though highly improbable, I’ll take that as a valid counterargument.6. I am not convinced. I guess whatever.8. Not quite a good excuse for all the sexist undertone. Who cares about the underleveled males who don’t show up at all in the story. There is no real evidence to back that up, neither is it a valid counterargument. Sachi, Silica and Liz all gave Kirito troubles in some ways. A very negative portrayal of non-combat women.Look, imagine what the game would be like without the support of the merchants and blacksmiths. Without people like the bald guy who sells potions, weapons and crafting materials, or Lizbeth, everyone would be stuck doing weapons crafting/enhancements and farming for items without being able to focus entirely on clearing the game. Thanks to Liz’s sword (and plot armor), Kirito was able to survive gleam eyes. Almost nobody seems to appreciate her for what she did. Everyone remembers the frontliners as the special people rather than the one who silently supports them and take parts in making it possible in the first place. So almost indirectly, Liz saved Kirito’s life. This is also similar in real life MMORPG’s. On any difficult boss runs, the credits always go to the attackers with the best equips. Not many remember about the healers, the buffers who made the whole thing possible in the first place. Not to mention many treat them like slaves. Being a healer in any game is not easy, some games require healers to be experienced to keep the party alive. If a run fails, people usually blame the supports. Same for sports. If the team wins, fans will say it is because of the awesome players. If they lose, it’s because the coach sucks. Pretty fair isn’t it?How is Asuna anymore special than Liz (who sort of saved his life), or Silica, or Sachi for that matter? A good love interest in a harem should be convincing and stand out from the male lead’s supporting harem. The writing for the romantic build up is insufficient. Asuna doesn’t have enough of what it takes.9. Your mileage may vary. I agree to disagree.10. I can’t differentiate between the Army and the Guilds. They are weaklings but they have gigantic egos. I read parts of the novel where they explained the solo, the guilds, the beaters, the suicides and etc…. They describe the Army as weak, which I don’t really understand. I only got to chapter 8-ish. Don’t have time. Though you do make a valid point, I think the portrayal of the Army can be better.
@Rasen Re: Point 5, Also later (Super duper light novel spoilers) it is pretty clear that you can store people’s minds or fragments of it with the brain scanning technology, given that Kayaba successfully transfers his mind sort of into the game world (The full process was apparently destructive though). As a result it isn’t impossible to have traces of people stored in the game server even after death. Otherwise I concur in general with Rasen’s responses here. And @PassingBy your use of all caps yelling is a telling sign. (Blockquotes can be done by looking at the blob of text directly below the comment box the end tag for a HTML tag is the same just with “</" instead of "<")
Thanks for the helpful info.All caps =/= yelling. It is to attract attention to those particular arguments that I was trying to make.
@PassingBy
Try using Flux (Adjusts the color temp over the day to make things more “natural”, not for color accuracy though) and adjusting your screens brightness or backlight level. You will get headaches if you stare at an extremely bright white screen all day against a highly contrasting background. (It is called eye strain). Also the brain to computer interface shown in sword art online is not a regular display technology. Technically speaking those people are in an artificially induced dream which is sword art online and as such you are actually there from your brain’s perspective. Nervegear != Head Mounted Display, Nervegear = Direct brain to computer interface.
Weaklings in real life can have gigantic egos it isn’t unreasonable. Even more so when you make huge groups of them. The Army is basically something that got too big for its own good which can happen a lot in life and game societies without good and effective management.Also all caps is used from getting attention in the same vain as yelling is used for getting attention in speech. A particular point should stand on its own without requiring highlighting.
Just to join Rasen’s response this link leads to his reply down there somewhere. A link back is also located down there.http://randomc.net/2012/09/15/sword-art-online-11/comment-page-1/#comment-871519
@PassingBy Spoilers compress text and contain spoilers abound as well as a wall of text.Re: #comment-871464
I never knew there was special flavors of tsundere which in any case would get types on tvTropes and could be used in any number of works.
Even if a place is secluded randomly sticking your head up your wifes skirt in reality randomly would end badly. It isnt like people are going to accept totally random behavior just because they are in a relationship.
Then as a YMMV point it isnt really a relevant point nor a fault of the show, although your mileage may vary. TV tropes puts things into a separate page for a reason.
How are we supposed to tell the difference between joking, poking, and actual criticism. It is quite hard to gauge what your trying to say if many points are jokes, inane comments, and completely random.
Covered above or below not sure but with a direct brain interface it may be possible to store parts of your personality in the server. Or even an after image of cached information. (Data ghost, mmm)
Again people can have irrational fears or fears of mundane things. Most insects dont kill you but many people are deathly afraid of them. While other are not it isnt unbelievable for fear to exist in a strong character.
Wait your first and second sentences dont seem to follow properly. I dont think he doesnt return the other girls feelings because he cannot bear to have his friends/guild mates die on him. I think it is pretty clear Asuna and Kirito formed a relationship and he doesnt deviate.And it isnt like they are not capable fighters themselves. The anime doesnt fully convey this but if they were all exactly the same as Asuna that would be even stranger wouldnt it and make even less sense.Also Asuna does wear dresses and so do many other female characters in SAO not exactly strange though. There is a limitation on time and they cant devote unlimited time to develop a characters relationship and I dont really think it is being underdeveloped in any way.
Why do you hate moe? It isnt done poorly by any stretch.
You will or may get to see more about the Army as the anime progresses along.Re: #comment-871501
None of those people are non-combat women only one of them actually has a primary interest in non-combat activities. Each character was different under varying circumstances, yes most of them needed help but it also serves as the plot drive for the side stories.Im not sure why plot armor is bad if everyone just died now it wouldnt be much of an ending would it. Obviously there are works where not having plot armor work can also be used as a plot mover but this isnt one of them and it isnt really a fault you can make on it either.Also hypothetically if people didnt make weapons or items there are still regular NPC vendors it would just be more difficult to redistribute and sell collected items and materials without people to help. Plus many support minded people dont care about recognition and some take up support roles in real life because they dont want recognition but still want to help so sword art onlines game world offers quite a lot of diversity in terms of what you can do within the game world. Everyone remembers the clearers because they are a very rare class of people with only a small fraction of the server population actually fighting on the front lines. Also Ive play in the support role and if a group treats you like a slave you could easily make things go sour for those you dont particularly like and put it off as you had to prioritize. Plus in SAO a wipe on a boss run means everyone is actually dead so no one to blame or even talk to about the failure.Also your making some broad generalizations because many times sports fans will also blame players they see as not performing as they should or making stupid mistakes. While people might not always place rational blame it isnt always the case.Asuna was the first and Sachi is dead so that cant be a good love interest. Liz already knows Asuna as a friend so that would be very awkward if Kirito actually dumped Asuna right there and then. Also Silica is 13 years old which is the wrong direction for Kirito who is 16 years old (Asuna is 17 years old).What does it take for you to accept a relationship exists (An entire season or series could be devoted towards a love story but the anime isnt just about that to cover more you cant just focus on a single relationship)
Hmm, I don’t think that Asuna is a tsundere. Especially at this point, where the both of them are being pretty open and honest with their feelings.
The reason why Asuna was hiding behind Kirito’s back was not because she was afraid of ghosts but more like playing around with him.
There’s no indication in either the anime or the LN that she was faking her nervousness.
Hey PassingBy, another set of critiques again? :D- Do you think the dialogue are cliche? I thought it was fitting for the moments 🙂 The on the bed one for example.. That was unique- Asuna is not a tsundere, unfortunately, and throughout the series she’s not. She’s really loving actually, and I think she loves Kirito more than he loves her, and that says a lot because they often show Kirito’s love for Asuna. That said, she doesn’t have any ‘urusai’ trademark as well 😉 So yeah, I don’t agree of any similarity between Asuna and Shana 🙂 I mean, she’s the one who basically pushed herself onto Kirito since early o.o From floor 1!- Btw, she never had sex with him 🙂 Just so you know~ The novel, until the end, never mentioned intercourse :p- On the back is piggyback. Regarding on the shoulders, it’s actually a play on the ‘STR’ stat. And this episode forces contrast between Asuna’s maturity and childish side. Maturity being the housewife, taking care of Yui, defending the kids at the end, her bed talk at early scenes, and the childish scenes I assume are obvious for you.- The fishermen are an important aspect, though they do play little role. If you read around ch18 in the novel it will be explained, and also it signifies a turning point of the story, as well as opening up as well as strengthening Kirito’s and Asuna’s view and resolve, respectively – Nope, Asuna is meant to be scared. The reason that’s is scary is exactly that. There SHOULD NOT BE any ghosts, but in the LN they tell you the complete info on the ‘ghost’ that they mention – it’s not a mob, it’s not an NPC, it’s not a PC, it’s not a quest – so what is it? Is it simply the game’s environment? It’s this unknown factor that scares people. And yes, as I mentioned earlier, it’s part of Asuna’s childishness. It is meant to force that Asuna can appear to be weak, even though in a way she’s stronger than Kirito (leadership etc)- I’m sorry you don’t like Yui, but Yui is central to the next story. She will play more role than Asuna in the next story. She is also considered very much important to Asuna – The Army is meant to be faceless. They are meant to be mobs. Stuck up mobs. Not only in animation, the novel illustrations depicts them like that also. You will see more why the Army bother with the Town of Beginning, and you can read the novel for more. They were meant to do it for the good for others in the beginning, but they grow more and more corrupt. They also don’t really train and can be considered weak. In fact, the Army they sent for suicide mission to that Gleameyes boss, is their attempt to show that they’re doing something, but they are weak, so that. Unfortunately, yes, they do
– Asuna is not a tsundere? I mean, with all the physical abuse that she did on Kirito, it seems pretty tsundere to me o.o Then she made lunch for him and they get married. Did I miss anything?- I heard about the infamous chapter 16.5 and the GLOP meme, are those just rumors? Besides, Asuna got naked last episode. Anyway, I think you missed the point. What I meant was, Kirito and Asuna went the furthest in their relationship as any couple can go with the kissing and sleeping. I pretty much expect Asuna to be more comfortable with expressing her love for him. It was weird that she still kept her tsuntsun act going (or red-faced embarrassment, since you don’t think she is a tsundere).- Um, I still find it jarring considering how Asuna promised to protect him in the previous episode. Did she really mean it? Even if she was scared, she needs to keep her promise.- lol everyone is telling me to read the novel, wish I had time xD I’ll get to it eventually. Kind of uninteresting how the Army doesn’t even pose a real threat because they are all low levels.- To be continued in your next comment.
Oh I forgot one thing. It’s not that I don’t like Yui, but there has been enough female characters. The series is so blatant with using moe as its selling point that another moe girl no longer works her magic.
@PassingBy
I think it was said because she promises to protect him when it actually matters not in any situation no matter how minor. They are many floors below the front lines and the probability of a life threatening incident occurring is low.
I don’t think they are all low level just not a lot of high level members nor the skill, strategy, and organization to effectively operate on the front lines. It is interesting the variety of guilds that exist, as the Army is just one that caters to the people from the starter town.
– I don’t know.. I don’t know why I can’t view Asuna as a tsundere.She’s simply a girl who’s not completely honest with her feelings, but she is much more honest than most female characters across animes.. She doesn’t deny her feelings for Kirito, which is what tsunderes usually do.- No, 16.5 is not canon. There was never a statement that they did more than just sleeping together. The (normal) LN does not have mature content. I don’t see any tsuntsun act that you usually see in other animes. The reason they don’t go further is these two:1. Psychological pressure due to being in the game, and them being in the foremost of the front lines.2. The author wants to make this age-friendly, so no mention of such advances in relationship are there even until Volume 10.- Asuna does protect him, you will see at the end of the SAO arc (before ALO)- Don’t worry, the anime covers the LN quite well, albeit taking out some details, but still leaving the important ones. I’ll help cover questions about the LN parts too. But yes, Army doesn’t pose a real threat to Kirito, BUT remember! 30% of players are in the first floor! A lot of the army can subdue them! Not everyone are as strong as Kirito! Kirito’s, let’s say, top 1% or so, at least the novel makes it sound like so (that Kirito is – literally – at the front lines – e.g. Gleameyes – he’s the first one who opened the door)
(NOTE: My post got cut off. I think I accidentally pressed tab+space) the Army’s role in the LN is to try to rule over the beginners/people who are scared to leave the first floor, and for the drama.SAO does NOT try to be intellectually deep. It’s to be something that viewers may enjoy, and it tries to bring the psychological aspect in, showing what WILL happen, when you leave thousands of people trapped in an isolated area over 2 years.Actually, this is a modern version of these stories:- Lord of the Flies- Infinite Ryvius- Uninhabited Planet Survive- maybe Lost?In those stories, there are two elements. Protagonist getting out of the situation, and changes to the environment as people are driven to the brink of sanity.There are two issues with your comments this time that I see. The first being, you’re comparing these to less appropriate animes, such as Shana. This is a different creature, in fact they share minimal elements. The other, you are trying to view everything as cliche – as if on purpose. There are differences between cliche and plot tools. If you think they are cliche – it’s because that’s the only way the author can incite a certain image/emotion/expression from your mind. That is the most appropriate method of relaying the information. And that is more of a plot tool than a cliche.I’ve read quite a number of novels – novels from back in the 50s (e.g. Lord of the Flies) and recent novels still share same elements – these are plot tools. Some things never change, after all, the English language didn’t evolve much since then, and Japanese has only so many characters, a number of puns, and expressions that has been used repeatedly.I suggest rather than purposely finding faults, try to enjoy the story. I like your comments back when the main story just started, but this time I don’t see any critical views from you. It’s more as if you’re trying to pick on the story.But if you have further questions, I’ll be glad to answer and maybe quote some of the LN stuff for you. I sincerely hope my answers makes you like the story more 🙂
– I was not comparing SAO to Shana as a series. I was comparing Asuna to Shana as characters. They are very similar, and there are plenty of Shana clones exist already. As I have mentioned for the past few weeks, lack of romantic development makes this worse.- I don’t see the plot tools. And you can be very creative with cliches. SAO does not have that.In a nutshell, I will describe the cliches: Everything goes so smoothly for Kirito and Asuna. Kirito is presented as a powerful character and gets a unique ability that everybody is jealous of (this is played so straight like any folktales heroes, therefore it did not subvert the cliches). If Kirito has been SHOWN (not grinding) to worked hard to get to where he is right now, that would have been good. He also needs to overcome adversities, none so far were a challenge except for the God of the SAO world itself (I have been spoiled T.T). The GleamEye battle doesn’t count due to plot armor. Then he is loved by many females, and ended up with one of the most beautiful girl in SAO, with a talent in virtual cooking and a very competent fighter. The development is bare bones, he needs to be shown to have worked hard to get the best girl and not take her for granted. Then he was forced to battle the guild leader in order to get together with Asuna. Girl being fought over like a prize, TWICE. Where have I seen that before? Can’t Asuna just ditch the guild? That is another sexist undertone. When they start living together, a girl shows up and they adopted her. Too many “coincidences”. I am not purposely picking at the negative. I only speak of the negatives because I simply cannot find many good things to talk about SAO, except episode 10. Nothing can be absolutely original. Everything is a source of inspiration for everything else. Many mecha anime copied Evangelion in some way or another, but are they really similar to NGE? Most mecha anime are legitimate original works (saves Guilty Crown, which is way too much of a mash-up between Code Geass, Evangelion and somewhat Macross). That is my point. Madoka Magica deconstructs the magical girl genre, using the cliches from the genre itself. SAO is cliched, but does nothing to hide the fact that it is. Cliches can be entertaining if they are executed well, even if they are nothing revolutionary. I do not want to take things for granted. There are many ways for an idiotic shounen hero to growth, hence the shounen genre has not fallen out of favor of anime fans. A competent hero always has room for more growth, Kirito has not grown from episode 3 following the death of Sachi.
@PassingBy
Not sure how there is a lack of romantic development.
Given that you use the term “your mileage may vary” or YMMV and refer to TV tropes which is basically a storm of tropes for all media in general. You should refer to that definition which is much clearer on the subjectivity of what a clich is. Given that many people do not see SAO as a Clich Storm and judging by the circular nature of the articles around tropes themselves we can say.http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TropesAreTools?from=Main.TropesAreNotBad
Everything does not go smoothly, otherwise they would never be in life-threatening situations (Which isn’t a good definition of a smooth carefree life). Plus if you want to get all troperific you should be referencing tropes directly and saying why its written badly, overused, not good.It is a bit unreasonable to not expect the main character to survive the story in most cases so I’m not sure why you think all the battles don’t matter because they are done fairly well in general and build the required tension even if you know he is likely going to make it. It would be another whole series of tropes which are used often if countless characters started dropping like flies including the protagonists.
Things gets subverted too later technically speaking but that is spoilerific!He did show that he worked hard to get where he is unless we wanted to watch months of solo play grinding his way up that would be a bit boring and unrealistic to expect the viewer to sit through. It was said in the first episode that he wanted to get a head start on the grind.He does help a lot of them and isn’t like a lot of other people in the game and it isn’t unreasonable to expect there not to be many people like him.They cannot show everything as there is something called time and money limitations and given what they have shown and the time frames between episodes it is pretty clear what needed to happen for his level to be so high and him to discover his unique skill. Remember that this is happening over months not hours.Not to mention the duel had more to do with Heathcliff wanting to have Kirito under his guild than fighting over Asuna as I highly doubt Heathcliff is competing with Kirito for Asuna’s affection. Not to mention the guild is the top front line guild out there and both of them are committed to clearing the game leaving the guild on bad terms might make it difficult to work with the same people you pissed off. Taking a break is much more logical and amenable.
And then were on into your mileage may vary zone of your own which is all just opinion and conjecture which we obviously don’t agree upon as it doesn’t seem clichd or poorly executed to me personally and probably many others.You may argue that Sword Art Online is a big mess of poorly written clichs but how many shows have old people fishing in an online virtual reality mass multiplayer online game that were trapped their because they just wanted to make sure the network they designed worked well. Or the good application of the sci-fi technology and how it is actually plausible the way the people are trapped and why they can’t get out. (Without resorting to pure fantastical magic) Liquid gallium is the a way but I digress.Even with the strangely high concentration of females around the male lead, the emotions and his dedication to Asuna are present and the other characters don’t just vanish from existence either.Also I dont think SAO is a Shonen like work as it skips fights, cuts filler, and generally has more to deal with the world and people than the fighting and action. Otherwise it would be a bit jarring to not have any action in a game with combat.You may not be purposely picking out only negatives but that doesnt change the fact that you already think there is nothing good to come out of Sword Art Online which could easily prevent you from seeing anything good of it. Also it is not a clich if it is well executed as I believe your actually using the word good use of a trope and bad use of a trope. And Kirito definitely isnt an idiot he is probably more of a justifiably Mary Sue which is on the opposite end of idiot.
Ha! You expected too much in that sense then :DSAO is actually a pretty easygoing story. Here are the worst/rage-inducing parts so far of the 10 volumes of the LN:1. Kuradeel’s PK attempt2. evil protagonist in ALO (2nd arc)3. Betrayal in GGO (3rd arc) Pretty much that. Not much, eh? It’s pretty smooth sailing nearly all the time. Not crazy up and downs like Shana, or even Zero no Tsukaima. ZnT has tons, tons more drama than SAO.Regarding Asuna and Silica, there are not many competent female gamers in the game, which is pretty much what MMOs these days are like too. Asuna can’t ditch the guild, unfortunately, because everyone’s eyes are on her. The same like the psychological pressure by the Army on the beginners, they can put pressure on Asuna and Kirito. It can be as simple as blocking portal gates, luring mobs while they’re training, starving Asuna/Kirito when they’re gathering materials, or even blocking the gate when they’re running away from boss battle. There are many things that can go wrong if the official procedures are not followed.Or even simpler – Kuradeel wants to kill Kirito and exploit Asuna after. Things can go wrong.I think what I can say in conclusion is – don’t read too deep into the story. It was written back in 2002. That was when I was playing iRO (international ragnarok online), and I think the beta was ending at that time. The light novel was first published in 2009, and the anime in 2012, but there are old concepts. I think the fans are not impressed by each detail, each anime episode, but the concept of the whole SAO. Back then, MMORPGs were not as creative as now, and it takes imagination to detail a world like SAO (and the later worlds). The author is relaying the story, not each one in detail. However, contrary to the stories nowadays which has so many twists and turns, each detail in SAO is subtle. It may be cliche for you, but each of these actions, connect to a future occurrence. So things starts interlinking together. I think that’s the charm in SAO. Make sure you remember each of these cliche elements and add them up to character developments in future events.Oh, on the topic in Shana, Shana was from 2002 too 😉
@AcolyteI like the way you look at it! Anyway, once again, I acknowledge that your points are perfect and I have nothing to come back at you. I guess it is just the different ways that we view the world. You’re a good debater!
@
Episode 5, she slept, Kirito guarded her. Not much interaction. Afterwards is the detective stuffs.Episode 6, the talk about marriage, it was rather awkward and out of place since Asuna brought it up out of nowhereEpisode 8, Kirito found rabbit, she cooked for him, they have dinner together and that knife pose. Then they talk about game stuffs. Then he grabbed her breast by accident. Afterwards Kirito fought with Kuradeel and won, then they dungeon date together.Episode 9, they had lunch together. Then fought Gleam Eyes to near death. Asuna cried.The romantic developments have been awkward up to this point. Not much happened between the two. There is no chemistry being shown whatsoever. We are supposed to take it for granted. It might have been better if the story just starts off as establishing Kirito and Asuna as the official couple right off the bat without the needless harem and bare bones development. So the lack of developments can be excused then instead of giving us little developments just for the sake of having developments and not being too overly shallow.Episode 10 is where the good romance happens. It was almost perfect.
The inverse is also true.All tropes can be written badly.All tropes can be overused.A cliche manipulate in a clever way is no longer a cliche, it becomes an asset. After all, when all you have is a hammer, there is only so much you can do with literary devices and story premises. The content is what matters.We can agree to disagree here. Everything does not go smoothly, otherwise they would never be in life-threatening situations (Which isnt a good definition of a smooth carefree life). Plus if you want to get all troperific you should be referencing tropes directly and saying why its written badly, overused, not good.It is a bit unreasonable to not expect the main character to survive the story in most cases so Im not sure why you think all the battles dont matter because they are done fairly well in general and build the required tension even if you know he is likely going to make it. It would be another whole series of tropes which are used often if countless characters started dropping like flies including the protagonists. Well, it is way too convenient that Kirito pulled Dual Wield out of no where! Talk about Deux Ex Machina! It is also too convenient that he barely survive, while soloing most of the healthbar. And Asuna pulling a BigDamnedHeroine just in time before he dies (again!)I am not saying that Kirito should die in one third of the way into the series. But they abuse the plot armor way two times too many, effectively breaking my willing suspension of disbelief.
Pulling a Dual Wielding out of no where is not working hard. Why is he the only unique one? Gary Stu! What about the other frontliners who worked as hard as he does, but doesn’t have any visible unique ability of their own? Asuna mentioned that Healthcliff has that absolute defense thing, that’s not even unique. That may be because he has good skill and equipment (plus hax as God power). Informed Ability much?
You make it sounds like nice people are a rare commodity or something. Did you forget Klein? I would have been okay with the harem if there was depth and Kirito was really someone out of the ordinary. Not just some angsty anti-social top-tier gamer. Silica fell in love with Kirito fairly quickly. Kirito has a new record with Liz, it took one day! That is way too shallow, their whole characterization revolves around being in love with Kirito, that is not a good way to write a harem. Either take time to make it believable, or do not write a harem at all! Time and money restraint is not an excuse for a poor adaptation. They do not have to adapt one third of the novel and cramp it in 25 episodes. They can break it in three seasons like Shana. Why rushing through everything? The merchandise would still sell, everybody still loves Asuna, so I don’t see why not?<Not to mention the duel had more to do with Heathcliff wanting to have Kirito under his guild than fighting over Asuna as I highly doubt Heathcliff is competing with Kirito for Asunas affection. Not to mention the guild is the top front line guild out there and both of them are committed to clearing the game leaving the guild on bad terms might make it difficult to work with the some people you pissed off. Taking a break is much more logical and amenable. I am not implying that Healthcliff wants Asuna for romantic reasons. Asuna is a grown woman, she should be able to make her own decision. The point you make about leaving in bad terms is good, but I think it would be more reasonable if Heathcliff has said “Either you join us to be with Asuna or you continue to solo without Asuna”. If Asuna finds that too unreasonable and if she really loves him, she can leave.
You read the novel, I have not. There is a difference. While you can dismiss some of the stuffs because you know what is going on, the anime has failed to keep me engaged. Besides, everything we both have posted so far are opinions, you are entitled to keep them. Since all I see is praise, praise and praise (which are opinions), I just throw an analysis in the mix so people can see both sides of the coin. Remember, I have not read the novel, neither do I have time as of now to read it due to schools and all that jazz.
Though it’s pretty unrealistic to not have some genius hired by the government to try and disable the Nervgear, it’s possible with the right skills and knowledge. But I’ll let that slide. About the fishermen being programmers, is the anime supposed to explain them later on? Or will that be all the screentime they get? If they will be explored later, then I take back my comment. I heard something about the scene was supposed to solidify their resolves or something, I guess it’s just not in the episode.
Yuki Kajiura for music, LiSA for OP. With those two involved in any anime production these days mean automatic attention. I expected to have quite a ride. So it’s unfair to say that I expected nothing good out of SAO. I only lost my interest after the 7th episode.And I never called Kirito an idiot. I said he was a “competent protagonist who has room to growth” instead of just being a Gary Stu.Anyway, I think I might stop commenting here, this can go on forever.
@PassingBy
I think you misunderstand the meaning of plot armor. Being shot by a cannon between the eyes and still living, THAT’s plot armor. If his life bar goes down to zero and he still lives, THAT’s plot armor. Surviving because he dealt enough damage in time, or because someone saved him is NOT plot armor.
Pulling the dual wielding from no where (and it’s actually not, because it’s hinted at in Lizbeth’s story) is not working hard. However did you consider what he might have had to go through in order to EARN the dual wielding? Games generally reward you by making you work your butt off for them.And by what measure do you assume that other players work as hard as he does? Kirito is largely unique in that he is a soloist on the frontlines. For safety reasons, everyone else has been forming teams and guilds so that they have other people to cover their mistakes. In short, that means he’s risking his life more than pretty much anyone else in the game.
I’m confused. First you’re upset that Kirito is getting special treatment, now you’re upset that said special treatment can apparently be negated by a regular hard-working player?
No. No she’s not. Every one of her actions when she’s not fighting comes across as a teenager, which is the age at which people EXPECT you to do stupid things. Many times.
You called him a Gary Stu at the very beginning of the above post. In fact, I just quoted you on it.
@PassingBy Re: #comment-871821Contains spoilers, Very Long
Question, what genre is this series under. I dont think there is the word romance used in the tags for this series. I believe under the preview it has the tags of (Adventure, Fantasy, Sci-Fi). So under these lines their relationships develop during the adventure, fantasy, sci-fi world of SAO not the other way around.Dating while fighting for your life in an MMO might not work out the same why as you envision it.
Just because the inverse is possible doesnt make it the default and you havent been providing much support for your blanket all the tropes here are badly written.Your misusing the term clich, a good clich in your terms, is just a trope. A clich is a poorly written trope that feels overused and tired. You also seem to have directly posted a duplicate of my post without block quoting it. Was a bit hard to understand what was happening when I started reading my own writing mixed in with your own.Didnt wonder why Kirito would need a second roughly equivalent sword back in Lizs episode? And how exactly is it too convenient normally boss fights should be easy and they should leave with most of the HP bar intact. This fight was not well planned and as a result he almost died, sounds plausible to me. Not to mention the switching and deflecting for a downed ally occurs even in episode 2 which is probably a really good and valid strategy otherwise what else are they going to do let him get pummeled to death and switch in afterwards? All the front line players are supposed to be more than capable of taking on the floor bosses and a lot of safety margin is left so they basically explicitly say why survival is so high. Not to mention they wouldnt be able to progress without some good certainty of surviving and this is explained quite a bit by their levels shown. (I think the levels in the normal game would normally correspond to the level of appropriate difficulty but in the death game getting tens of levels above the current level can greatly increase survivability)If you dont want to give the show a chance by not even watching it properly then there is nothing I can do to change that fact. Not everything is going to be explained in great detail due to the time restrictions of the anime but basically all the required information is either said, shown, or acted.
He did work hard he was mastering other weapon skills and happened upon the unique skill and then mastered that one as well in private (Meaning an awful lot of grinding if you know anything about weapon mastery skill progression)Why is he the only one well it is called a unique skill after all and I think there are more than just him but others just have different skills.Also in reference to your Marty Stu or Gary Stu or Mary Stu, he isnt glaringly out of context with the rest of the people playing the game as he is part of the few hundred front line players. Who many of which probably are also very skilled, powerful, influential, etc We just get to see it from his perspective. He is part of a group of players not a unique player but the writer can write them all and the way it is structured does not make him a totally perfect, error free individual.Actually absolute defense is a unique skill. And they just dont cover every single front line player out there.
Wait if this is an MMO that just came out in Japan how many non-top-tier gamers are going to be in the top tier (probably very few). Also to be a Harem they have to carry on their love attempts well past the first encounter which doesnt happen although they all do become good friends. The Harem Genre revolves around a single guy being competed for by a group of girls but Kirito doesnt seem to do anything more than have them all as good friends with him and Asuna.Uh I think youre missing the point that Healthcliff really just wanted to fight Kirito first hand. You do seem to know who he is but dont seem to understand what he is doing or why.
Actually a number of my points are pointing to contradictions or factual inaccuracies with your posts which isnt opinion but anyways. If you dont want to watch or have any intrest in Sword Art Online then why exactly are you here and bashing it. Are you just a passingBy troll? Because your basically admitting over the course of this civil discussion that your being sarcastic, joking, not serious, etc
Ive posted this a lot of times but to try and disable the Nervgear carries the risk of getting everyone killed for attempting to tamper with the system as a whole. No government is going to take that kind of risk when the do nothing option has most of the people likely surviving and pushes the actual outcome well past their immediate concern. (Mess up everyone dies, do nothing most live, what would you choose)The light novel as a medium has a lot more opportunity to explain things in much more detail than would make sense in an animated version. The demographics of real world games should be enough as a reason some old people are playing.
P.S. Nevermind my last point – I contradicted myself – of course if you can’t understand the purpose of the actions then it’s justified that you pick on those.. And that was the point of me replying to you.. Apologies if I came off as rude -.-
No apologies! I enjoy your replies, I wasn’t offended in any way. I respect you for giving appropriate and thoughtful counterarguments with plenty of evidences to back them up. I like your consistency and how every time you are able to bring up the good points and enjoy them, which honestly, I couldn’t. You are kind of correct, I pick out all the bad things because honestly I cannot find many good things to say about it, saves for episode 10 which was really well-done. So kudos for you! Granted that I can be too harsh on SAO sometimes. Though I think I am somewhat justified, as this anime has been praised to hell and back, skepticism kicks in, hence raising the bars. But again, you were great! 🙂
And that’s what happens when anything is overhyped and you fall victim to it. You go in with the bar set too high and end up disappointed. And instead of trying to enjoy it, you try to dissect it and find all it’s fault to justify your dissapointment.
In the novel, Kazuto sees the shadows of “Kirito” and “Asuna” in the real world, ghosts in the game is quite tame compared to that.
I dont think SAO is that great but your posts are fucking retarded and full of faggotry. Raging about cliche lines is stupid when the anime is mostly following what was said in the light novel verbatim. I cannot believe the old age of MMO players in SAO bothers your peanut sized brain that much. Its a fucking anime, sometimes things dont have to make perfect logical sense to sit down and enjoy. Also if you want more boy on boy action than go watch Naruto and shoot ropes faggot.
@PassingBy Re: #comment-871395 (Top Level Post)Note: This spoiler may contain spoilers and may also be redundant, but PassingBy asked for a direct response about evidence so here it is. This may or may not directly repeat already discussed points.To try and not duplicate things the initial response will address the claim that I am not pointing out a lack of evidence.
{Lack of evidence, examples needed} Provide at least a good sampling of dialog repeats that you heard thousands of time before.
{Likely contradicts reality} Both Sword Art Online and Shana were written in the same year with Shana being published in November 2002 which makes the probability that Asuna was copied low. Maybe later there was some influence as with all areas of art/media but it doesnt look like direct plagiarism is occurring.{Contradicts other posts by poster} You mentioned later that you dont mean SAO is copying Shana but is somehow copying Shana as Asuna but that would be copying still so doesnt make much sense.
{Not relevant} Also committing suicide over a perceived clich appears to be an extreme exaggeration.
{There doesnt appear to be constant tsundere occurring} Non-Tsundere from the start and she does have her own personal space and it isnt like Kirito isnt awkward socially as well. (Various points in various episodes him getting punched or verbally punched are pretty justified)Episode 1, Shy agrees to join his party no sudden flips or signs of tsundere just a good representation of what a person who didnt want to interact with others would do.Episode 5, After she criticize him for not taking a nap on a sunny day and subsequently does so herself her embarrassment is understandable but she offers him a meal and thanks him anyways which isnt exactly harsh or a tsundere moment.Also reviewing the episodes it seems like there are some moments you might be able to call tsundere but not her entire character development which is good because variety is the spice of life or was that pepper according to one airline. Also I believe there is an actual line saying Kirito would grind for a week for a level so he doesnt magically get stronger (Related to one of your other posts). And she is fairly frank about their relationship throughout its development.
{Not internally consistent with your last point} having an episode being mostly one side doesnt really support the whole too much tsundere point.
{Not present in the animated version} I think your referring to a LN chapter that isnt cannon nor is it included in the anime (It was written as before it was published and obviously got put as a .5 chapter which isnt really a chapter because that isnt an integer) Not even sure the author even admitted writing it although the screen handle was one of his aliases or something back then. Not 100% sure about that. Although it definitely didnt happen in episode 10
{Evidence is composed of Just No} Wait why is just no, it is a virtual reality game and anyone with enough strength can carry things that normally would be quite difficult to do easily. Technically Asuna could be carrying much more than would even be realistic as they are both high level characters and games dont scale like reality.
{Contradicted by real world demographics and written explanations} Already covered but those old men were mostly told that they didnt need to check in on the game at launch but some were too dedicated at Argus to not check it out and they seem to be doing ok so it isnt like they cant just wait things out and have some fun while waiting. The game world isnt really full of crap as many people are shown getting lost in the world and it is sort of the intention of the mad scientist that such things happen as there isnt really any purpose other than to see what happens. Also demographics disagrees with you in the real world, the light novel explains things in more detail, and the first episode shows older people as well. If years of work went into creating a virtual reality game wouldnt you want to see it first hand?
{Virtual Reality can = Reality if you get stuck there} Your sarcasm levels are too high in this block to create a valid response. A virtual reality where people can die and artificial intelligence works and your brain is directly connected to simulated universe. So all those 0 and 1 are really close to those digital signals running around in your brain or is consciousness just virtual reality. Im going to assume you mean world of digital information but at some point enough digital information can represent analog domain very well and our brains signal digitally as well so what does that mean.Why is it unreasonable that a fully immersive virtual world doesnt generate superstition, fear, awe, and various emotions in general. Even movies, games, that are not totally immersive can evoke various emotions including fear and they are really just 0s and 1s on a screen displaced from you. Hell if a book or radio drama can make people scared then a simulated reality could easily do that and more. It really is a,
{It is a reality of sorts} Which is quite interesting isnt it? So real you can get confused about what is real.
Asuna isnt really in a combat situation and it isnt exactly life threatening so it isnt the same thing as an actual fight so behavior may vary. Also in the last episode where she PROMISED TO PROTECT HIM she basically did follow through and protect him with him also protecting her and circle of protection fun times. Not really applicable in this situation as neither of them is near death.Kirito isnt exactly the type to say things like next babe please as he doesnt even when surrounded by females. Also there are many different reasons to be afraid and just because someone is scared of a fly doesnt mean it is going to kill them as the reason they are fearful. Irrational fears or fear caused by non-life threating circumstances is real and not a purely comedic element.Again your being contradictory by saying why isnt Asuna protecting him in a low level area (not needed).
It isnt like it is done horribly and the author already apologizes to you for doing it too much but it is just his style I guess. But aside from that Yui isnt exactly a normal character. Also in the next episode it should be pretty well explained why she is acting a little light headed and childlike. And no she isn’t a satellite that got lonely but her role is fairly novel in terms of her position in the game.It seems like you are not even giving the source material a chance with these sorts of sticking points. And the last point of your first post I already responded to a while ago so Im not going to repeat myself directly. If you want to reply please use blockquotes or it will get really messy really fast. Also please contain your response within spoiler tags so this first comment page doesn’t explode into some insanely long page.
Here you go. That whole “Is our relationship real?” and “Find you and fall in love with you again.” conversation. Then another problem with this conversation is that Kirito’s real self might be drastically different compared to his virtual self. Kirito is only badass and brave inside a game, because he is good at it. The world of SAO is perfect for him. Nobody knows for sure if in reality, he isn’t just some NEETs, obsessed gamer, a loser or a coward who is disconnected from reality. It has been shown that he is quite antisocial and lonely in real life so if their relationship has taken place in the real world, it can be very different. Then comes the game, where he gets all the girls because he can showcase everyone his virtual badass side. Heck, the first episode has him saying something along the line of “I feel more alive in SAO”.
SAO is written in 2002 as a webnovel. It stays in the relatively unknown realm of being a web novel until 2009 when he was encouraged to publish it following the success of Accel World. In the process of publishing, there are the editors and meddling executives that might have changed the work to pander to certain demographic when it could have been better off without the pandering and be a unique work of its own. And I never said that SAO copies Shana in the first place. I was saying Asuna is just another clone of Asuna. That is two completely different statements.
Learn2sarcasm. Was it that necessary to dwell so much on it? Moving on!
Physical abuse is usually a sure sign of a tsundere character. Even the lines she said, though she doesn’t have any “urusai urusai urusai” thing going, it is very typical of a Shana clone tsundere. For example, in episode 9 when Kirito said that he wants to monopolized her cooking, she said while doing that typical tsundere red-face and frown: “I’ll cook for you if I feel like it” (something along that line). Let me refresh your memory from the Shana, Taiga, Louise, Nagi other famous line: “I am not doing this because of you or anything, so don’t get any ideas”.Her entire character development is that she is independent and braver and more badass than the other girls (they ruined it when she is fought over like a prize, twice). Real women never wear dresses indeed because Kirito picked her over other girls. I will echo what I have been saying for the past few weeks: “Is it bad to be feminine and no good-fighters?”. So are we to believe that strong women are more desirable to non-combat more feminine ones. Asuna needs much more than just being a frontliner to stand out from the rest of the females.Another character trait that makes Kirito falling for Asuna is her virtual cooking. The irony of the whole thing. Let me remind you that in episode 2 Asuna said: “I didn’t come here to eat good food.” Then 2 years later we learned that Asuna has spent a year to learn about all the ingredients when she could have invested that time into some other useful abilities to strengthen herself as a fighter and helps beat the game already. So basically, she contradicted herself. That is not good character development, that is BACKWARD development.Now I will discuss SAO as a whole. Why do people bother to spend money on food like that S-rank rare rabbit thing? They are being tube-fed in a hospital, so why do they even need virtual “nourishment” in the first place. They can use that time and money for better things. People take it way too easy in a game of death. It is not appropriate to the setting of the story.
She still has her rather obvious tsun moment this episode, even when it is no longer necessary. Which was my original complaint. She hugged Kirito in his sleep and whispered “I love you.” He woke, cues her turning, red, tsundere frown, and she looked down. “Did you hear that?”. Excuse me, it might have been cute if they weren’t in a relationship, but THEY ARE! They kissed, they got married and live together, sleep in the same bed. It is as straightforward as night and day, so why is she getting embarrassed now?
Okay, let’s just say it’s not canon despite the fact that we were SHOWN that she took of her clothes then woke up naked. That’s not important. The point I was trying to make is the same as above and only used episode 10 as an emphasis of how official their relationship status has become. They kissed, they sleep together, she should stop getting embarrassed saying “I love you”.
Looks weird, but if you guys think it’s cute, then it’s no problem. I shouldn’t dwell too much on that minor problem. I admit that I was unjustly being a little harsh. Moving on.
I was joking and over-dramatizing. Anyway now the fishermen makes sense, thanks.This a a response to your other post about the “dream-like” state. I have no real evidence to back this up, but I am just throwing a conjecture out there. It’s not really important anyway but the concept seems rather interesting to explore.- The world and images of SAO are manufactured, they are artificial. The Nervgear is tampering with your brain. It is unnatural. Think of studies about the cellphones signal can give you brain cancer (this topic is a hot debate, no absolute conclusion has been drawn yet, so don’t fret, and this can be averted if you use the speaker or earphones, NOT bluetooth). SAO is the first Nervgear game, so I think it would have some negative impact on the brain, however small, despite all the testing and refining since it is realatively new. Going by reality, SAO would be targeted towards the teenage/adults demographic. Hence the Nervgear might have been designed to not put so much stress on the brain of youngster, but that might not hold true for the elderly. And the fact that the Nervgears have been running for two years straight is scary to think about. It can be overheating and releasing heat directly into your head, continuously, that can damage your brain. I would be a severe stress on the brain to be playing non-stop. The sleep feature might help, but I don’t think it eliminates the problem completely.
Good point, fair enough. I will back off on this one, though I think it is highly improbable.Just one thing, radio, movies and other media do not tamper directly with your brain, I don’t know what you were getting at, but SAO was meant to be a survival game and not a horror game, the horror and fears comes from dying, not from supernatural beings. If a ghost shows up in SAO, it is likely part of the 0’s and 1’s intended by Kayaba. Anyway, we should agree to disagree.
She doesn’t need to get scared in the first place in the low level area, which was what I was saying. Someone mentioned that it might have been a powerful secret boss, so I think we can drop the “Floor 22 can be dangerous” argument.Anyway, I don’t know how to link picture. Count down to the 7th image in the middle column. Sure, she got scared, but THAT? Someone in her position (Vice-commander of KoB), who made that promise to the man she loves, why is she coiling up, closing her eyes and covering her ears at the first sight of danger and creepiness? Out of character. Like I said before, she must have been used to facing dangerous and far more horrific situations already compared to the ghost rumors. I think they tried too hard to show Asuna as a normal girl.
I think I mentioned somewhere that I will give the LN a try once of these days. So don’t fret. Though “go read the novel” is not quite the appropriate response when the anime doesn’t keep skeptical viewers like me engaged.Yui is not a bad character. But it bugs me that she can serve her exact same role with no derailment to the story, as a boy and not just as another source of “HNNNNGGGGG”, I think we have quite enough. Yui notwithstanding, is it really necessary to have every girl falling for him? Is that how he tries to create depth for Kirito? The novel might have handled it better, but the anime is a mess in its own entity. I know for a fact that Kirito’s harem did not show up until the second volume, so it might have been better to have the sidestories as the OVA, and not parts of the main anime.I heard there is going to be much more later on. Kirito doesn’t even need to have a harem in the story when he already has Asuna. It just comes off to me as insincere to write a harem when the official couple is already established. Maybe two girls thrown in the mix is understandable, but not more.”The sex ratio changed drastically”. Yet, we only see girls showing up in Kirito’s life, save Klein.
@PassingBy
Putting aside the notion that you seem to think people have no choice in who they interact with or make friends with, you are also forgetting Egil and the other members of the Black Cat guild. That’s six male friends and 5 female friends (6 if you count Yui). And then there are the non-friends in Kirito’s life: Heathcliff, Kuradeel, Godfree, Kleine’s friends, the Army, Silica’s fans, Kains, Grimlock, the Laughing Coffin, Rosalia’s underlings, etc., etc.
@PassingBy Re: #comment-871807Contains spoilers! + Is very very long
Im not sure you know what a dialog repeat reference means. You cant just pull quotes from Sword Art Online without pairing them with at least two or more extremely similar quotes from other works. Otherwise your point is just a personal opinion that the lines are overused and misplaced.But anyways if you dont want to answer the question properly we will just address the points you have. Well, is their relationship real it is just a game after all? I think youre missing the character development that is occurring over the course of the years they spend in the game. Many of the characters change because of their life in SAO over the course of two years many of the characters and even some not yet shown change in response to the events that occur. The way SAO was setup helps prevent people from hiding behind a virtual avatar as they look and feel almost the same as they do in reality. This coupled with the long timescale and you can start to see the persons real world ideals and personality regardless of if they are playing a game. Just like this with enough discussion I can gain a rudimentary understanding of a persons behavior and traits. Just imagine how much easier it would be in a fully immersive virtual reality where you cant even hiding your emotions or expressions. If body language and actual voice are conveyed in game then it is highly relevant to reality even if it is a fake world. This is another reason why it is an interesting concept.If he really was a completely obessed gamer, loser and coward, who is disconnected from reality then why would he seek out company, progression, helping other, etcPlus there is a certain someone who falls in love with him while he is asleep and isnt even in SAO so your point is even moot.Plus consider if you were paralyzed from the neck down wouldnt a virtual reality game where your strength and disability didnt mean anything? I think youd say those exact lines and it wouldnt be too unreasonable either.
People still have the original web novels as well so your point is not relevant and sound like you are attacking the very authenticity and professionalism of an entire group of people. Im fairly certain that it is easier to assume that the editing was not as severe as to replacing entire main characters and rewritten the story to clone another work.
I dunno but your exact words (emphasis yours),
Also how as Asuna a clone of Asuna this is making very little sense right now.
Learn how English works and it might help a lot in your writing style. Learn2scarcasm implies your saying learn to sarcasm [sic] which is not the same thing as learning to see sarcasm. Except your statement wasnt even sarcastic (definition: The use of irony to mock or convey contempt) How is committing suicide ironic in reference to the topic? It is more of just an out of place random point you make in response to a perceived issue.Examples would include: “This is my brilliant son, who failed out of college.” (academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/english/melani/lit_term.html)Orhttp://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4384734.stm
Usually and is are two different statements. Your basically being open to the fact that this isnt a purely tsundere character as you so imply earlier. You also seem to say that she doesnt say the typical lines, her lines are somehow clones. (Please provide a few examples and cross references). Again it seems like you are taking the English meaning highly out of context. When Asuna says Ill cook for you on my terms she is correct in saying that it is her skill not his. Now youre giving me absolutely no context on your Shana, quote so I cant even say if they are even in the same context. What are they doing is it within their domain or are they being spiteful.You seem to be missing the point the Tsundere are two emotional states and it isnt like people cannot exist within these states unless you want emotionless characters. For a Tsundere character development process to exist it has to start in a particular way and flip flop around consistently which it doesnt. Overall Asunas relationship with Kirito is pretty direct and open regardless of the minor and justified incidents along the way.
She is wearing a dress in the above screen shoots. (http://images.randomc.net/Sword%20Art%20Online/Sword%20Art%20Online%20-%2011%20-%2010.jpg)Wait this block of text read strange and doesnt seem to have anything to do with her being Tsundere.
You seem to have missed the point of the unsaid words of episode 2. What happened after she applied the butter substance to her bread (She ate it in about a second). This is a strong indication she liked the taste of enhanced food. Not ironic, highly purposeful I guess.Let me remind you that the quote you are using was 2 years ago and a lot happens over that time. The second part of the quote relates to how she doesnt want to give up her own personality. And I guess after her Maslow’s hierarchy of needs was satisfied as she progressed through the game her inclination to cooking food came back. (After she leveled up, joined a guild, became highly respected, she could do what she wanted, or hit lv 5 on the pyramid) Time skips might make it seem sudden but it isnt too hard to believe the progression as she just started playing technically so good food shouldnt be a priority at that point. (Not that she doesnt like good food even then)So in reality it is proper character progression.
Why did Cypher in the matrix betray his people just for some good old virtual beef. It is all about the mind you seem to forget that the people are effectively living in the virtual world and their mind is almost completely isolated from the real world. As such your brain makes you feel hungry, sleepy, tiried, ext even if you actual body isnt. It is all basically in your head (You can use drugs to suppress feelings of hunger, sleep, fatigue up to a point but your brain will go haywire if you dont perceive the meeting of many of these basic needs). Well Im fairly certain sleep actually lets your brain sleep.Also there is no real money transactions in Sword Art Online the currency in game is only for in game use. (Look at the special post before SAO existed before these concepts were popular). The game can simulate taste and people like tasty things so I would hard to believe why they wouldnt want to eat good tasting food even if it is fake. If anything thats even more encouragement as they cant even get fat off it. The whole point of the Death game wasnt everyone must storm the 100 flour ASAP. They were given no time limits and few restrictions of what they could do. A majority of the population probably never left the starter city or even fought a single monster. Boredom makes people seek out entertainment and if youre trapped in a virtual world wouldnt it be funny if you wished you could play another game within the game to pass the time. (It happens, funny moments)If everyone was on edge for two years then they would all be insane after the game and be cooped up in a mental asylum forever. (The human brain isnt designed to only work continuously and nothing else)Food is highly appropriate to the setting of a fully immersive virtual reality. Imagine if the Matrix had no virtual food because they didnt need it. (How long do you think that would last)
The point stands that you say she is more of one side of the tsundere trope than the other which subverts the trope itself. Your confusing legitimate embarrassment being overly harsh against the love intrest
Did you watch the episode and understand the dialog. From what I gather nothing happened regardless of fan service stripping. We didnt see any ethics mode off so it didnt happen.Your imposing your own reality onto the story which isnt how it supposed to work and just because it is different than what you think is cute, good, etc doesnt make it horrible or good. Not to mention they are both still teens as well and are getting married in a virtual game without the direct knowledge or approval of their respective families.
If you admit to being unjustly harsh this throws into question a lot of your points including your intent behind your original post. I cant exactly move on before pointing out the irony that you ask for a civil discussion without being open to the fact that you might be unduly biased which you are admitting to here.
If your joking and over dramatizing why did it take so many posts to make sense if it was just a joke on your part? Otherwise I cant assume youre joking constantly because that is assuming youre a troll.It is pretty important the fact that the nerve gear sci-fi tech is not just a computer display rather a direct connection to your brains senses and motor functions. For you to not move it is explained that the nerve gear prevent movement which can be easily done by inducing muscle atonia a unique feature of dreams where your mind is awake and moving in your head but your body does not move. If your dreams were acted out this would be known as sleep walking.
Not sure how this is relevant. (But radio waves dont cause cancer and we havent found a link for many years, but in the abundance of caution we still place limits on exposure. If radio signals caused cancer then an MRI machine should definitely show signs of causing cancer since it uses signals so strong it can magnetically image your water molecules temporarily (they are not magnetic just dipoles so the field strength is insanely high). So I dont fret.
You are now entering an area that you cannot actually say anything definitive or in other words youre in the authors domain now that were talking about is the Nervgear safe for long term use. There isnt enough information described about how it works in practice to be able to make any conclusions as your mentioning. But studies with similar low resolution TMS systems that use extremely strong electromagnetic signals to influence your brain seem to have a number of positive effects. You can not conclude that the Nervgear is not compatible with old people because it makes them tired when they are playing the game for year in the book without issue. Im all for nitpicking but there isnt anything there to pick on really.
You are also missing the point that this technology is also design to work in a medical situation as well for the old and sick. If you can use the same tech there then end of life care can be revolutionized and everything is fun sad game time. (Read later novels). Again your putting words in the authors mouth as there is nothing to suggest only teenagers were meant to play the game or even use the technology.The problem is the NervGear isnt part of reality and the only tidbits we have about its real relation are slim and do not offer a very large attack surface yet.
I highly doubt the Nervgear uses 2.4Ghz microwaves to interact with your brain as this is the resonant (heating) frequency for water. And since your brain is mostly water it would be highly inefficient and deadly to be using the frequency as the communication band. (Maybe for the death mode operation but not for tx/rx data)If they wanted to get enough resolution and data into and out of the brain, absorption of the radio energy by the tissues would have to be extremely minimal and frequencies would be chosen to maximize efficiency. Not to mention your brain gets hot on its own so it can cool itself as well. The amount of energy being absorbed by the brain cannot be significant if they want a good brain to computer interface.As a result it is probable to conclude that the Nervgear does not induce microwave heating in normal operation as this would be deadly and is not what occurs to surviving players.
Im saying that if non-immersive media can induce fear then a fully immersive one should also be able to so and probably even easier than other forms of media. You dont have to be a particular genre to generate a scary situation especially when your mind is essentially in that medium. A lot of the SAO is not directly controlled by Kayaba so he doesnt have his hands in every incident.
Your again assuming that your fears are the only fears people can have. Some people who are strong willed people can be deathly afraid of tiny inconsequential things. (It is called a phobia after all or an irrational fear) Not to mention Im arguing that it doesnt need to be dangerous to be a fear inducing situation. There are countless things that people fear that cant harm them physically (Even presenting a power point slideshow can make people faint even if they are just practicing).Out of character is assuming you know their entire character. We havent learned about her real life backstory or anything yet either. This first arc is really just an introduction and you cant call people out of character before you actually figure out what their character traits are from observing what they do. Just because she is a strong willed sub-leader doesnt mean she has no fears at all.Fear can be caused by any number of things including danger by not exclusively. I think you are missing the point that she is still a normal girl she technically is completely unfamiliar with mmo game concepts as well.Rasen covers the last blob so I think I leave this wall of text at that.
Forgot to mention that the main characters (Kirito and Asuna) are basically two Mary Sues. It seems pretty apparent that this author’s stories are just some kind of wish fulfillment. His main characters in Accel World and SAO are social outcasts (or at least socially awkward) and can only really shine in video games. Therefore, they get put into a convoluted situation that forces the reader to suspend their disbelief (Seriously, 10000 people around the world trapped in a video game and not one government, army, or programmer is seen working on a fix?)to show themselves off and become the most super special awesome character ever.
Even if they are very observant characters it not like it isn’t explained or reasonable in the situations that are setup. And I’m not sure how Asuna counts as a Mary Sue. Not going to deny the appeal of the circumstances you set out but to address the realism issue.All works require some level of suspension of disbelief or nothing of significance could occur and it would have to be a work of non-fiction to not require any suspension of disbelief.10k patients is about <0.5% the total beds (2002 estimate) available in Japan for care so it is easily feasible to care for that many people (coupled with the public health care and ease of care for basically healthy individuals)If one government, army, or programmer attempted a fix to the problem then they risk the legal liability of accidentally killing ~10k people at once. No government or company is going to take that risk lightly. If anything the slow progression and rate of deaths that when spread out over the course of the game would lull the public's response. If they failed the news story would be government kills ~10k people accidentally which could result in massive unrest and extreme civil lawsuits.Consider it this way. The terms were that if the players in the game beat it then everyone left lives. Given that the game should be possible to beat, attempting to interfere and risk killing everyone is a highly undesirable path to take. Sure the government probably would be monitoring the situation of the game and seeing if there are any opportunities but they don't know how the game was modified by the lead programmer and you can't recompile the game while its running. Nor could the tamper with the servers or user terminals.In the light novel it is explained that they couldn’t do anything to the servers lest they risk having everyone dead, and the game is supposed to be self-maintaining and the AIs that run the game could easily just kill everyone if certain fail deadly conditions were met (Killing only GM, server tampering, unauthorized user logout, etc…). The only real way to get everyone out would be to simultaneously disconnect every player and somehow shield them from the consequences of doing so. The only thing I could think of is the use of liquid Gallium but its quite farfetched, astronomically expensive, and a logistics nightmare. So my suspension of disbelief is intact with that as my only solution to not high an extremely high chance of everyone being dead afterwards. (Gallium is a liquid at body temperature and is also a good conductor so it would block microwaves and short out any electronics while creating a liquid metal RFI/EMI shield around the persons head, provided they are dipped head first)Other non starter alternative I considered,Killing GM, Fail Deadly on death, everyone dies, and technically not critical to keeping everyone trappedDestroying all the servers, Everyone diesHacking the servers, AIs running game are hard to predict and reverse engineer without detection so everyone could easily die, could take years to verify the 100% success rate. Using active attack probes against the server could cause everyone to be killed as well. Secure system design would further complicate this.Remove power, Batteries/Caps still everyone diesNetwork hacking, Might work on a few players but to do it simultaneously would be impossible as cracking the encryption may take years in itself. If a secure processor design was used the probability of success is low within a few years.Hardware hacking, Might work on a few players but this would also require extensive reverse engineering and a deep understanding of the traps and keys used by the lead programmer. Again if the system uses a secure architecture this could take years and still carries a risk that the system could detect things over time and kill the remainder. (Hardware spoofs would require the simulations modification of 10k devices which is a bit hard to believe.) EMP Kill power, EMP may need to be so strong it might cause the brain damage already as the helmet has rx/tx systems that could get coupled by the EMP pulse and blast the brain anyways. And even if you fry the control electronics it could be a passively deadly system with high energy capacitors that discharge into the RF tx portion and fries your brain with a loss of control.Throwing people into extreme high concentration of dissolved mineral water, unlikely to work as the RF portion was likely designed to penetrate the same fluid filled mineral solution that makes up our body. So only a metal would likely be the only way to shield people.Stick between the helmet and people. Impractical in practice as simultaneously fitting something without the user terminal detecting tampering would make the probability of success slim.Kinematic separation, would work and might save a number of people but the separation forces might kill a number of users as well. (It might snap people’s necks as it would have to be removed fast enough as to not be within range to damage their brains)Plasma gas, sticking people into a cold plasma atmosphere would short out electronics and the microwaves but would be toxic to the patient and highly energetic. Tuning the system may also be an issue and the person would have to be temporarily be placed directly into a vacuum. Chances of deadly complications high and success rate would be low. Costs would also be beyond astronomical. The main problem is that because the death game is a centrally managed system and is bent towards failing deadly tampering becomes difficult without the risk of a fail deadly trap occurring.
Anyway, I’m done here. Not gonna spend another hours to reply to everybody though I would really like to address your arguments. Just read:http://thecartdriver.com/sword-art-online-episode-10-the-plot-could-certainly-use-a-hand/#more-20088
It was nice discussing and I’m sure you’ll still be reading the responses. Interesting how you cut things off just when things are getting interesting. I’ll get some more walls of text for your responses.
and the Saimoe winner of 2013 is Yui-chan.Congratulation!
Dat Asuna riding…XDJust a great episode, with all the cuteness factor.Can’t wait for what’s to come.
I’d like to have Kirito and Asuna as parents.And Asuna IS older than Kirito.. right?
I think Kuroyukihime from Accel World is possibly a relative of Kazuto Kirigaya due to their obvious similarities and Black Lotus using Vorpal Strike in this week’s AW.
Still no confirmed connection between the two series.
Actually SAO IS related to Accel World. Go check out the last few episodes of AW, where they showed the old NerveGear setups which was used much earlier than the current Neuro-Linker. And if u read the LNs, you’ll find out even more =)
Until I see that mentioned in the LN, that’s fanservice. If you watch Ookami-san, you can see Misaka Mikoto and Shirai Kuroko.
Also, if you’re referring to the sidestory in Accel World, I was in the middle of an epic argument where I advocated the two series might be connected, and I was more or less told that said sidestory is not considered canon.
Actually SAO IS related to Accel World. Go check out the last few episodes of AW, where they showed the old NerveGear setups which was used much earlier than the current Neuro-Linker. And if u read the LNs, youll find out even more =)Oh wait Final Fantasy games are from the same company, most have chocobos and summons and crystals and attack names, they must be connected they are continuations of each other! /sarcasm.The author hasn’t confirmed that AW and SAO are connected, so far! That some elements or names are shared could be just the author’s “trademark” just like in Hollywood some directors just like to cast the same actor again and again, or insert the same fictitious brand or the same basset hound in all their movies no matter if they’re completely unrelated.As for crossover, they aren’t any proof that they’re in the same universe. Most of the time is just for fun or marketing. Just because there was a DBZ x One Piece or One Piece x Toriko or Street Fighter x Tekken crossover doesn’t mean they’re in the same universe.
does anyone know how old Asuna is compared to Kirito (who is I think 16 years old)
To me both seem to be 14, the truth is the character designer of them is childish.
Well that would be correct for when they started playing SAO and they got their faces scanned and the initial calibration, but 2 years later…
As Asians, we age MAGNIFICENTLY.
Proof: In To Aru Majutsu no Index, Stiyl and Kanzaki are ~18 yrs old.
maybe a silly question, but how ARE there kids in SAO? if Kirito & Asuna are baffled at Yui’s age, then why not at the trio of misfits? they look to be drawn about the same age… Even if they are a bit older, then what kind of “kids” are younger than Kirito’s ripe ol’ 16 years such that they have a sensei?
It wasn’t that it’s unheard of for kids to be there, it’s that it’s unheard of for them to be outside the City of Beginning being taken care of by the people who aren’t clearing.Yui was on the 22nd floor, that’s a pretty non trivial distance for a kid to reach alone.
There are some things that got a little condensed this episode. By simple length of chapters, they could have used 3 episodes for this arc which is probably going to be wrapped up here with 2, so some things got condensed, like the the explanation of how events were shaping in the starting town (they noted the missing people but mentioned nothing of it) and the explanation of the children. Also the explanation of the army’s mentality which lead to part of an interesting discussion up above will probably get cut as well from next episode,Children explanation There is an age minimum on SOA of 12 or 13 (I can’t remember which) Realistically someone could probably lie and get around it if they wanted to (like I’ve known people to do for email addresses in the states), but the children in this episode are considered to be of that age which is only a year or 2 younger than Kirito. Kirito has always seemed to be drawn older to me than what his outward appearance is supposed to give off. But conversely, they drew these characters younger for what was likely some form of emotional response from the audience towards “the army”
Well, I guess…”You can’t never have enough lolis” KC and SAO just filled my Sunday morning with moe, good lord that was bad for my heart.But sadly for SAO (even though I Itou Kanae), KC’s handle their moe-fied loli story much better.
Ah,They didn’t show the fishing story (or are they planning to?). I would have liked to see that at least animated. Anyways, I enjoyed my fill of SAO and KC at Crunchyroll. KC was hilariously funny this ep!
I think the fishing story will happen afterwards, since they return to the main plot just after that.
I thought they’d be done this arc within 1 episode. I wonder how they’re going to fit in ALO in the 24-26 eps they get.
Actually I believe that alo will get about 10 eps or so.
They will probably be able to wrap up SAO here by 16 with their current rate, if not earlier. That will leave the remaining 8-10 episodes for ALO.
Oh, Asuna… *facepalmAnd this is why Sinon is the girl character I’m most looking forward to seeing in this show. I only hope the anime gets that far in the story, though. It’d be a shame to not see her animated!
Not unless there’s a second season.
GGO will likely be turned into an ova series… or if they plan for ALICE, 2nd season would be up for grabs
Don’t forget Mother’s Rosario.
Glad they did The Army story as it will really show how bad it has gotten in The Starting City after 2 years in “captivity”. And it essential for Yui to get some expounding.Hopefully, we get to see the fishing episode XD HehBesides, the next arc isn’t as long as the other arcs since most of its side stories are post-you-know-what.
They took out Kirito’s fishing, FISHING IS FOR REAL MEN (
(_) now i have calmed down, YUUUUUUUUUUUIIIIIIII <3 <3 <3
If you consider the timeline of events, they didn’t take it out.
oh wait… woops, i jumbled up the events, a table was flipped out of ignorance. ><
so that mean, the fishing is after this episode. i thought it is before they found Yui.
Remember At the end of 18 they get the summons back to the front line. Therefore fishing -> after this
Its kinda confusing to be sure. The fishing was in the original book and Yui wasn’t retconned into the plot until the side stories so I just assumed they found her after the fishing. :/
Just a quick note: At this point Kiirito is not 14, he’s 16. They’ve been in the game for over two years, and the time passing is 1:1. Thus, his body is of a 16 year old as is his mind, not as bad as it seems!
They only have their ‘data’ from when they did the body scan, so his body -in game- is still that of a 14 year old.
Why do I get the feeling, after this arc, we get to see a new OP and END?
The second ending will be sung by Luna Haruna, the theme is called Overfly. In the regard of the new opening, it is belived that LISA will also be incharged of it. There are way to many diferences between the arcs, they had to use new videos no matter what, thats all I say without any spoilers.
You got ending 2 right, but Opening 2 will not be LISA this time. It will be Eir Aoi with her single “INNOCENCE” for Opening 2
“Since early in the series, shes always been portrayed as strong and independent, always capable of standing up for herself. But the moment Kirito appears, her default becomes to hide behind him when faced with any real or perceived danger. Sure, she usually ends up fighting her own battles, but that initial reaction just doesnt sit right with me.”which is kind of why i don’t like the ALO arc too much. i understand it’s so they could have a new female lead step in, but i dislike damsel in distress characters. it was soo bad in bleach -_-
The thing is…Even as a damsel in distress, Asuna never gave up and just waited for Kirito to come save her. She resisted at every opportunity, spitting insults at her captor, and helped her own escape by stealing the card key. She did everything she physically could.Also, she never became a useless character with just a pretty face. In the Mother’s Rosario arc, she was arguably the main character, rather than Kirito.Bleach, on the other hand…yeah… “Kurosaki-kun…” >.<
You said it, Asuna is not the usual push over that falls into despair or sel-sacrifice, shes the queen of female leads in my eyes.
Why can’t Kirito get the damsel in distress treatment for once, or twice, or thrice? Why does it have to be girls who get saved?
He is the “damsel in distress” so to speak in Alicization, considering what happens to him, being near dead and what not.
He was the damsel in distress last episode…
Well, this episode was Boooorrriinnnggg!!!! Augh!!!! Cliched to a “T”!!!! Kirito’s sooo boooringg!!! Yui’s a maggufin man. she’s the key to this whole thing. I know it. She’s the Server in player form. Calling it!!! Asuna pokes more people!!! poke poke poke poke poke!!!Kayaba’s going down in three episodes!!!! Klein will land the final blow on Kayaba!!!! Go Klein!!!! Wooooo!!!!
Actually sort of no.If you really want to know (Light novel spoilers),She is an AI (Not the server AI, just a AI psychologist) but an underused one that technically suffered from a physiological breakdown due to the ironic nature of her purpose. Originally the game was suppose to have self maintaining functions and hers was suppose to watch out for players with physiological problems and help them. Except just before the death game began she was forbidden from interfering with the game and went a little crazy watching all the suffering without being able to do what she was suppose to do. Kirito and Asuna though were very interesting so she broke from her instructions to go check them out. Basically an orphan AI and not the maggufin in the grand scheme of things. Technically the game’s main AI will enforce the rules if found out so she can’t to anything without consequences. Although some IT knowledge might come in handy later.
Next time I suggest not explaining those stuff early (even in spoilers) – I don’t think he cares about your explanation :s After all the anime will explain it to him a few episodes later and he’d forget his comment 🙂
Not sure exactly why you can’t post spoilers in a spoiler block. A prediction was made with great confidence and I am saying if the poster wants to know if the prediction is correct he can read the spoiler.I am not going to presume that a person will not read anything or not remember even posting here. If you read something that you rather not have please don’t open spoiler tags that specifically mention they are from the light novel.
Nah was just being sarcastic – was thinking it’s better to wait until it’s explained in the anime, so that the story’s progression is nicer :)There’s a reason some stuff are explained later in the story – for easier appreciation of the facts 🙂
@acolyteYour high face concentration is a little unnerving for some reason \:):(:):(:):| don’t mind the punctuation not sure what it is for but it seems to have balanced things out with the semi-duality it has.Usually it is better to just see the story as it is shown but some people want spoilers and thrives on predictions. In either case I think its covered now (:)
The problem that I’ve found with SAO is that a lot of people are not appreciating or undertanding those facts before or after even if they’re spoon-fed.
What Kamui said. Well that proves how sucky my English is, so hard trying to relay my point.
damn they skipped a chapter of the side story’s but oh well who cares it that important lets see what happen to Yui-chan I did not read this part on the LN since i wanted so it animated it first so hope next week ep is at good as this one or better
Which one did you think they skipped? If it’s the fishermen, I think it might be one or two more episodes.
I know it was supposed to be more laid back given it was their honeymoon, but yikes the first 15 minutes were boring. And even the ‘twist’ at the end was telegraphed from the start. After finally trudging through the world building episodes (that lasted too long) I was hopeful the show was getting to the real plot. Yui might be part of that, but the execution was just terribly boring. As an anime adaptation this has been really mediocre. I guess I’ll have to get around to reading the novels since the story has so much potential but it’s not really being realized in the anime.
Actually, I really love the laidbackness. I don’t think you can rate how well an anime adaptation is if you didn’t even know how was it adapted from. I think it’s pretty well executed, that said, if you’re disappointed in this part of the anime, then you’ll be disappointed in the LN.That said.. It is considered an LN. The first volume went wayyy fast, no slowing down yo.
“I dont think you can rate how well an anime adaptation is if you didnt even know how was it adapted from.”I would argue that as an anime only viewer with no preconceptions or foreknowledge I am actually MORE capable of judging the anime as its OWN ENTITY, which was the point of my post. Any adaptation not only should remain true to the essence of the original, but also has to stand on its own within the confines of the new medium and the inherent strengths and weaknesses that exist.For example, I feel that many of the characters (even Kirito and Asuna) don’t really have truly compelling characterizations that have made me feel attached to them. I’ve seen many comments about how certain scenes make more sense in the novels because you see the inner thought processes and can fully grasp the motives for certain actions. But again as an anime viewer, if those aren’t somehow otherwise expressed on screen I can only judge the characters given what I see and hear. So to that effect the writers and producers have not done a good job of creating an adaptation that can stand on its own for me as a new viewer. Of course it’s all going to change for each viewer. I’m simply expressing my stance as someone who came into this with no expectations, got really excited by the first episode, and subsequently have only been mostly disappointed in the execution thereafter. Again my opinion might change if I read the novels, but as an anime SAO has been rather mediocre.
Yeah you can judge the anime as its own entity, not as an adaptation. You sounded like you were saying that the anime wasn’t adapted well from the original source. In fact, it is the original source that is like so.Regarding about delving the ‘main story’, the animators has some issues to face:- They want to keep the story chronological- They want to keep as many details as possible. The main LN uses partial flashbacks to support argments- The first volume of the LN is really fast. It might as well become Naruto style, all action and limited character development (sorry fans)So they countered this by stretching it out.And yes, they kept the story, so they kept the essence. The weakness of the LN was the pace. So they try to slow it down in the anime. One of the strengths was the side stories, so they made sure to include the stories.I think the animators answered your expectations.. With regards to LN -> anime adaptation.Try to read the LN, and see if you like it. If the original material is not to your liking, I think you don’t like the story, not the adaptation.I don’t feel as strong attachment to Asuna/Kirito as characters in other animes. I feel like Asuna/Kirito’s characters are quite generic. So I agree with you. It may be a weakness, but I like it the way it is. That way, you don’t expect too much from the characters. I feel like this is in contrast to works such as Naruto, One Piece, Bleach, which pulls the readers to the charas.Lastly, the challenge wrt to adaptation for charas:- There are tons, tons of details in SAO, quite a number of monologues. It’s impossible to animate them all. The same can be said for Zero no Tsukaima and Campione, for example. I think those shows falls short of the quality of the original source. Shakugan no Shana went really fast, in that sense I feel that it’s similar to SAO. The animators are challenged to pick out the important parts to keep the story going. They are not bogged down to have to worship the characters, and focus on the story instead.In conclusion, as usual, seems like the greatest enemy of adapting SAO to an anime is, thr lack of time to allow explanation of the details.- I agree that SAO as an anime may not expose the full potential of the novel.- The novel itself, while I think it’s great, I think if you don’t like the anime, you may not like the LN as much. It’s not a mainstream story, less twists and turns than the mainstreams these days.- Finally, I think the animators adapted the story from LN into anime well – disregarding the LN/anime’s quality. I think they picked up the correct important points, for character and story development. When I watch the anime, these are what I keep in my mind ‘Could they cut this part out?’ ‘Why didn’t they include that part?’ ‘Why didn’t they explain this part?’ ‘Could it be done better?’ ‘Did they spend too much time on these?’ ‘Why didn’t they spend more time on these?’ – so far, I’ve been satisfied with the results o_O
*excuse me, considered a side story – so it’s meant to be slower
All 10 episodes before moved story too fast with high pace.So one slow pace episode is cool for me.Anyways,Kirito get number 1 for male character of August from Newtype while asuna get number 5 for female character of August(this is first time she standing in top 10).Hope next month both got number 1. Banzai!
Well, might as well toss in my beef with this episode. In the LN, Asuna spends three minutes smacking around the Army. I wouldn’t have wanted to see all three minutes animated, but I still think at least a quick abstraction(pan camera angle away, commence sounds of violence and screams of agony) of it would have been nice (and funny) to illustrate that under certain circumstances, Asuna can go absolutely berserk.
Agree with you, Asuna just by whipping one Army thug’s ass would scare the rest of them felt kinda ridiculous. I wouldn’t have minded the rest rushing at Asuna and her just showing why she’s the Flash. Just a few extra seconds of her quickly poking them into oblivion would have made the scene more believable.
I agree with Moomba regarding Asuna’s current reactions and how they are contrary to how she was portrayed. It just felt a bit off and was very easy to notice. However, I have to temper that by remembering that she has been in a ‘fighting mode’ 99% the entire time. Her mindset was that of a fighter, not one of a normal girl so although it struck me as out of character, we really don’t know what her character is and it is only starting to be shown to the viewer.
I see what you did there, Kirito!
MrRei does it again, but OH SNAP. 0_0
That’s a good “what if”. Nice one MrRei.
Now tht you bring it up, Yui does look a lot like Sachi….. Coincidence or unintentional??Or does Kirito take a liking to Yui cuz she reminded him of Sachi?? The mystery deepens…
This episode is is just meh. This whole honeymoon thing is supposed to be sweet and romantic but I just don’t buy it. The whole relationship between the leads is just too rushed to make me believe they’re all labu-rabu already. It once again feels manufactured, like its deliberately trying to squeeze some emotion from me. (Look Asuna is scared of ghosts! Please go HNNNNNNGGGGGGG!). Just to make it more manufactured add a moeblob girl as their surrogate daughter (Please go HNNNNNNNNG!)SAO is a seems to come so close to being great by concept alone. But it’s constantly being undermined by resorting to the broadest cliches and pandering.
I’ll cede Kuroneko, but as for Kallen? That’s like calling a pitbull that hated you and you gradually bribed over to your side a “tsundere.”
There is a fair amount of evidence for it, actually. The ratio of boy to girl gamers in SAO is not even close to 1:1. And as evidenced by the Black Cat guild, the male members gave Kirito troubles too. If there’s anything sexist about Kirito, it’s that he is apparently willing to put aside his “no party” rule to play with girls occasionally over the years. And that’s what we call being a healthy young heterosexual male.
First, Kirito as much as says outright that he appreciates what the merchants and blacksmiths do. Second, I’m not sure where you were going with that whole block of text except it sounds like you’re criticizing SAO for realistically portraying that there are celebrities and stars and there are under-appreciated people. Also, this was a central part to that epic argument so long ago: Asuna and Kirito actually have had a good, long-standing relationship, ever since the second episode (you couldn’t tell because it was cut out of the anime). It was only recently romantic, but his relationship with Asuna predates his relationship with other girls by quite a large margin. Like it or not, she is the most realistic romance option for Kirito.
aw nuts….exhaustion strikes again.PassingBy, the above is for you.
I tried to post a link to the referenced comment but it didn’t work. And then I got strange errors pages.
http://randomc.net/2012/09/15/sword-art-online-11/comment-page-1/#comment-871501
Ok I guess I didn’t format the HTML tag properly but the link above is what Rasen is talking to.
oh hey, a2002000, as long as you’re here, were you the one who told me that the SAO/Accel World crossover story was non-canon?
I think someone else from back then said it not sure though I don’t remember or feel like searching through the hundreds of comments from the first few episodes. But I think the cross over between the two worlds is just that a crossover not an actual solid link.And a quick Google search seems to say that the author says the crossover is non-canonical (Just for fun). Haven’t found the authors words directly though.
You mean that long civil discussion. I only remember that as being a part of it with a lot of it about the feasibility of the medical system accommodating a SAO like incident. (Further Googling resulted in I think a result that SAO adds a patient load sub 0.5% (2002) of the beds in japan which isn’t a large enough to cause major problems so the author either did his research or just was lucky 10k people fits easily into the system)Technically it was a side story so the first book never had that content to begin with but each unto our own at this point. I think the author actually did make Asuna the clear choice even without using the content from that side story.Basically a carbon copy from my wall reponses to PassingBy but1) Sachi is dead which unfortunately makes her a poor love intrest2) Liz is Asuna’s good friend and Asuna introduced Kirito to her and that would be beyond awkward at that point3) Silica is 13 years old and in the game is basically considered a very young player. Definitely not the right age direction for Kirato who is 16 years old.I agree mostly, plus this makes Asuna a pretty clear choice as well possibly depending on your point of view.
“Ill cede Kuroneko, but as for Kallen? Thats like calling a pitbull that hated you and you gradually bribed over to your side a tsundere.”http://images.randomc.net/CODE%20GEASS/CODE%20GEASS%20R2%20-%2022%20-%20Large%2025.jpgYou should probably cede this one too.
damn now i want to start a family. congrats asuna…kirito…with yui here your life feels complete
I guess people don’t like this episode as much~I’m quite happy with how the Yui episode is animated, and I’m glad that it’s being stretched over two episodes. It’s worth it, really.Now two things I noticed strongly in this episode:1. They emphasized the wedding rings over and over again in the first few minutes of this episode. It’s one part that they didn’t repeatedly mentioned in the novel, which I think is lovely.2. They also emphasized Asuna’s height over Kirito for some reason in the early parts. It’s most noticable in this episode, and that bed scene, even compared to the novel, impressed strongly on Asuna’s maturity. (shoulder-carry aside! That was one cool backflip though!)Ehehe.. there’s also a squirrel.. I’m a sucker for squirrels..Also, the noise effect at the end was nice, kinda like .hack 😀
@Moomba btw, the Army isn’t as bad as you made it sound. First, they won’t strip the kids down of their normal clothing. Just their armor. In fact, they might force them to work but not like a sexual predator. I can’t say the same for the nun though >.>And yeah, the weakness of a safe zone is psychological pressure, but that’s what Asuna did pretty much on them too. You make an interesting point regarding NPC harassment. In fact it reminds me of the manhwa 1/2 Prince where Yureka pulled out an NPC from their ‘area’. Rather than saying ‘honeytrap’, I think the author’s purpose (Kawahara Reki, not Kayaba Akihiko) is to give an environment that is as ‘real’ as possible. Maybe the reality’s parallel is, if you’re harassing someone, a law enforcer could come at you, but it doesn’t stop you from initiating the action.Regarding the ‘falling in love again’, there are some points that can be used to validate Asuna’s feelings:- SAO is a game- Loss of memory- Physical/Time distance that may make them impossible to meet- Kirito & Asuna’s post-game rehabilitation and how it changes them viewing the worldAnd don’t forget. The in-town PK setup where the husband planned his wife’s death.There’re lots to worry about. It is not real world inside. They’re living their days hoping to get out of that hell. For some, they might feel that ‘I want to get rid of anything that reminds me of that hell.’ I could think up of other reasons, but then it would take too many logic leaps. It’s an interesting view, actually.
I agree with your NPC deal. Is it just me, or did Moomba say that he likes more invisible walls in his video games? In real life, you can pick somebody up, it’s not allowed, but still altogether possible. That’s not really a trap.. otherwise you could commit any stupid act and use the defense “It’s possible! You’re just tricking me into doing it by making it possible!”. A little over the top, I know. Still hilarious.
What you’re advocating is essentially an invisible wall, only worse. Instead of stopping you before you can proceed, it lets you continue onwards only to say ‘Oh by the way you’re not allowed to be here, bye!’ and then forces you out anyway.
@MoombaIn terms of preventing players from interacting with things they should not or being places they should not there are a number of implementation methods I’ve seen in games.Invisible walls, immovable NPCs, clipping through non-player non-interaction objects. (Sometimes the walls are implemented with real obstacles to make things look normal or abnormal as the world/stages usually have strangely high or cliff like walls)Out of bounds warnings (insta-kill walls, damage over time, automatic teleport, automatic direction control, NPC infraction in SAO would probably fall under this category)In terms of why games use different methods would have something to do with realism I guess. For games that use the warnings and eventual reactions it sort of does trick you into thinking you can go wherever upto a point. I think Fable and fallout series you can lead NPCs away from their intended places in many cases or sometimes they just randomly fall through the ground (In Fallout 3+).Technically your right in that invisible walls and warnings are not good things but necessary evils in games when the developer doesn’t think of absolutely every possibility. What would happen if a game didn’t want you to pick up an NPC but you tried?Of the things I can think of it would be (In context of the VR thing),Infinite mass NPCs, could be dangerous as they could cause physics glitches if they collide with you. (Read infinite mass pool ball hits ~0 mass person, resulting velocity approaches infinity) Havok physics would be a poor choice for SAO as I’ve stepped on loose debris in games that use it and fly off at infinite velocity while in a insane death ragdoll animation cycle.Ghost NPCs, you attempt to do anything but you would just phase through them. Downside in the VR simulation is you can’t actually interact with them normally either. Plus it might be a bit unnerving when you get to a town and the NPCs walk through you.Rubber-banding, Teleporting NPCs, you can move them / trick them but they will just run back or if too far teleport back to their original path. Might be a bit strange and would allow for some location based exploits. Often used to steal stuff. (Or just put baskets on their heads and the chickens…)Red card people, let you move them but make it basically illegal if the game has NPC guards then they would aggro you or something else. If properly implemented this would actually make a lot of sense. And depending on how it works you may or may not get notice that displacing NPCs is not allowed.There may be more alternatives and the above is not an exhaustive list. I’m also not in the game development profession so this might not be accurate.
Didn’t they miss out a big part of the plot in this ep? Which is important for later? Doesn’t the old man tell them about the ghost? The one that tells them later about ALO?
Nope, this episode is a side story, so they haven’t skipped anything yet. Which old man are you talking about?
Asuna is just as cute as ever, but OMFG Yui is HNNNG. While I would’ve preferred new loli-expert seiyuu Ogura Yui to voice her, Itou Kanae was just as good in the role.Must have been tough for the low-level players like Sasha, who only intended to play SAO with her young relatives/friends on a casual basis, but ended up being swindled into participating in a death game. It’s understandable that they would opt to camp out in the Town of Beginning until someone clears the game. But these people are also equally vulnerable to exploitation by ill-willed stronger players like the Front members as their levels would be too low to resist them.In a nutshell, it’s better to level up a bit and camp out in the middle-levels: You won’t have to worry about risking your life in the front lines, but you’d still be strong and fairly wealthy enough to resist harassment and bullying.Off topic: For some reason, I totally dig Sasha in her priestess-like costume. Reminds me of Ragnarok Online’s priestesses. <3
The risk in the middle levels are the PKs, since they would logically avoid the lower floors because of the Army and the high level guys in the frontlines.
As Kirito and Asuna’s honeymoon gets fully underway, Sword Art Online dishes out a nice breather episode. While I concede that Heathcliff has a point, that the pair will eventually return to the frontlines, I believe that it’s for the best that they leave and take some time off and be with each other. Considering the roller coaster ride that was the last few episodes, taking a break is probably the best thing for maintaining their mental stability in Sword Art Online. I can’t right well fault Asuna for acting a little childish in this episode. After spending so much time towards a singular goal, with little time to relax or focus on anything else, Asuna finally has some well deserved R&R so she can let loose and at least make an attempt to get back the teenage years she lost in the game. She finally has Kirito all to herself and is enjoying it to the fullest, to the point of even making Kirito exhausted. Away from quests, planning for the bosses, and the craziness that seems to be her Guild, Asuna can let herself go and have the time of her life with the man she loves and experience the joy of being a newlywed. A newlywed who only now questions the age of her spouse, to hilarious effect, though considering how Kirito goes from acting his age to being mature enough times, I could see how anyone would have trouble telling how old he really is. Though in the end she truly loves him, which in my opinion is far more important than age in a relationship. Most of the time anyways. But even though she’s taking the time to enjoy herself and her marriage, when needed Asuna can revert back to the “Flash” and dish out some high speed attacks with her rapier. When she gets serious, she has no need to stand behind Kirito when she can very well take care of herself against a bunch of lowlifes. Sword Art Online has forged Kirito and Asuna into warriors, and that’s something that won’t go away, and something that will inevitably draw the two back to the frontlines. Asuna’s reaction to the ghost is a typical teenage girl reaction to the concept. Considering how a ghost is not as easily rationalized as monsters in a video game, I can see where Asuna would feel afraid. Kirito probably would’ve been scared to, if he wasn’t just messing with her at the time. As cute as Yui and her interactions with the lovely couple were, it didn’t deter from the fact that something about her is off. From her baby like personality to the game world seemingly coming apart during her small breakdown, Yui is definitely not just another player in the game. Going off what’s been shown so far, I’d say she’s intrinsically connected to the world of Sword Art Online but not in the way an NPC is. Yui being an A.I. would make sense, though I question why Kayaba would even bother putting such a thing in the game if he did so at all. I can only hope nothing bad happens to the couple and their “daughter” as a result. We finally get a glimpse at the conditions of those stayed behind, as they’re mooched off of by the Army. It looks like Cobert wasn’t the only bad egg among their ranks. Considering how the Town of Beginnings seems to be made up of the youngest and oldest in the game, people who have no place living in a death game like Sword Art Online, I can’t help but emphasize with what they must be going through as being of the weaker breed in Sword Art Online, they are abused by the so called “Liberators” of the game. All in all, a good way to slow things down for a bit, with plenty of cute moments abound.
Yui’s here! Yay! Even though she isn’t really Kirito’s kid that ash black hair makes it looks like she is.
Yui episode and a ChanxCo end card…My life is complete.
They can just exchange home address right? They make it sound like it is gonna be impossible to find each other…
Well they could, but addresses in Japan are kinda a bitch to remember. Except for major regional divisions and avenues or important streets, the rest of their divisions and streets are a fuster cluck of numbers. But on the other hand they would exchange phone numbers, but so far the future is uncertain and we don’t know what would happen to them after they escape from the game.
Also remember some of these:- It’s been 2 years.- They’ve been exposed to intense psychological pressure.- They might not remember their home address- Their real bodies are currently in hospitals- They might have moved- Their phone service (e-mail address) may have been disconnected- They are afraid of meeting each other in real life- They have to go through rehabilitation after the game is over- Finally.. They don’t know if they can ever escape the game
This episode feel like great arc in the making!Yui join the cast to increase moe power of SAO. Now all we missing is to bring back Silica the dragon tamer, and we shall have the moe-overwhelming pair. =PBTW Yui having one of the most imbalanced team in the game as her parents, imagine what will become of her if she stay on with them and tutored into a fighter…Lightning-Fast-Dual-Swordsman ?(o.O)
And the result is this
YUUUUUIIIIIIIII!!!Loved this episode 😀
your strength parameter should be able to deal with it!
Is it me or is that lodge over waterfall in the Grizzly Hills in Northrend given cameo?
Btw, did any1 noticed the circles surrounding the pillar in the ED has increased compare to previous episode?? Is it like completion rate?? Kirito+Asuna+Yui = HAPPY FAMILY!!! Well it was a nice change of pace and our newly wed couple rly need a vacation. After all they have been clearing levels for two years… Also kinda interested to see more of SAO and I too wonder wht has happened to the starting town. Abt ALA…. they really are an @$$… First force others to share the map, now taxes!!?? And I don want to know wht will they do to the kids and the Nun if Kirito and Asuna arrive late…..(Speaking of guild base, how do they get one again?? Do they just hog the available location or do they need $$$ to buy it?)Also, dat chanxco end card.
If SAO implements death there must be taxes.
Guilds need money to buy a guild hall.
Man SAO brings out the Trolls almost as hard as AKB0048A good episode, well handled, and a nice run into more story behind the Army and the Yui arch. To the haters, stop watching it, I’m not in your bed room with an axe shouting “watch SAO now or I cut off your legs!”