The battle gets underway and Haru may have some unknown tricks up his sleeve.
What They Say:
The identity of Cyan Pile is revealed to be one of Haruyuki’s closest peers, who has been consumed by the power to accelerate.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the revelation that Kuroyuki is hooked into the hospital net and thereby making her accessible to her foes, Haru at least acts quickly to try and stave off things knowing that Cyan Pile will assuredly try to get her finished off at this point. It’s a big positive in his favor after some very good scenes between the two in the previous episode before the “accident” as it showed just what kind of interest there is. Though there is still something nagging at me that says that Kuroyuki is using Haru to a large degree even if she does come around to what kind of good guy he is and how much he might end up meaning to her in the long run.
Discovering that Takumu was Cyan Pile was certainly a surprise to Haru, but a lot of it made sense as it progressed and Haru called him out on his successes being attributed to his ability to get to the Accel World. A good portion of the episode is devoted to the fight between the two in the Accel World in their mechanized forms, which I still find to be the weakest part of the series overall. The show does a decent job of it here as it shows us the two going at it in the ruins with some solid CG animation to it while also making sure to give us lots of looks “inside” where we see the real people, framed by the circuitry designs, making sure that we do still maintain that connection to the real character underneath.
While Haru of course takes his licks here and is beaten down a fair bit, with Cyan Pile really claiming a strong victory before things are over and hoping to sway the audience, it’s not a surprise that everything shifts as Haru really starts to understand what it is he can do when in this place. He’s used his abilities to some degree so far, but he hasn’t grasped how the combat system truly works and what’s possible. But what he does here with the abilities is to take it a whole order higher as Silver Crow. While he’s bloodied and beaten, he’s not down and puts through something that actually shames Cyan Pile and turns into him into a furious opponent. Which is almost more dangerous to have when you get down to it. There’s a lot to like with how the battle unfolds in the second half, but you have to get through the predictable first half as well.
In Summary:
With Kuroyuki taken out of the picture here for the most part, what we get is a good showdown between Haru and Cyan Pile. The show has played at the battle scope of this particular game world of sorts in the first few episodes but didn’t really tap into it in a big way. With what they do here, it’s made more clear but still feels like it’s being somewhat limited in thinking with what was originally possible versus what they can do. Seeing how quickly simple games change in the online world in the present, the here and now, it’s hard to imagine things not moving as swiftly in this kind of hyper reality that the generation has access to. Taking that out of it though, we mostly get a good action piece that finally uses the designs well, even if it does feel a bit forced to me, and gives it a life that felt flat before something more. I’m still not sold on the big CG action side of the series, but this is starting to soften it a touch.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Viz Media
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
