Kirito is out of the game, but the game is not out of Kirito.
What They Say:
Kirigaya is adjusting to his life outside of the game, but he hasn’t forgotten about Asuna. A recent visit to her in the hospital, he meets Sugou Nobuyuki.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
With the series taking a rather surprising twist for me in the previous episode by ending the game and bringing to resolution the entire in-game level clearing storyline, Sword Art Online now has me in that curious place where I’m really excited about what it can do. While it took some easy routes out towards the end in how it dealt with the characters and their difficult win, it’s something that’s easy to let slide since so much of what it did before that was just plain awesome. Few shows really get me fanboying over it, but Sword Art Online really won me over in marathon form, so coming in at the end like I did there worked really well. And wit hthe shift to some real world material here in the wake of events suits it all perfectly.
With Kirigaya back in the real world now, he’s having a lot of memories coming back to haunt him about the incredible life he built in the game, particularly with Asune. The bonds built in there were surely real and the loss of her is intense. One of the things he’s doing to distract himself a bit is to do more with his cousin/sister, Suguha. She’s continued to do her kendo in the time that he was down and out in the game and has progressed well and he still harbors guilt over that since she took it up as he passed on it all. We get a really good sequence with him taking up kendo for a bit with her, showing that his sword skills in game don’t translate to real life, but also offering potential that that he might train again, much to her delight. It shows their newly reinforced bonds well.
But Kirigaya is still very much lost in a way without Asuna. As we see, he does continue to visit her in the hospital, having gotten her information. She’s one of some three hundred people from the game that has not yet awakened and is still in this comatose state. It’s welcome to see that her father is glad that Kirigaya visits and holds no issues with him over what happened in the game. There’s a danger that lurks there with an associate of his, Sugou Noboyuki, who has his own intentions towards Asuna that sets Kirigaya off instantly and intensely. Through a bit of finagling, Sugou is in charge of the group that keeps Asuna and the others alive via the servers they’re connected to and he intends to use that to worm his way into the family through marriage to the comatose Asuna. With what’s happened in the game being off limits for discussion in the real world, it makes things very complicated.
There’s a really great bit that follows it though as we see the true and honest emotions from Kirigaya over it as he’s comforted by Suguha, something that really paints her as a very good character with a lot of potential while showing that he really is effected by things. But there’s more to the story here about what’s going on with Asuna that’s to be revealed that will give Kirigaya opportunity and really make it clear why his time in the game world isn’t over. Discovering an online image of Asuna in some other game as sent to him by Egil after he discovered it gives him a new sense of purpose in life and you can see how it’s going to drive him forward again and into the game world.
In Summary:
While something of a transitional episode, I really came away loving this episode of Sword Art Online. There’s some good closure to certain aspects of how the world went while everyone was trapped in the game and how the government clamped down on things. I do think an opportunity was lost in having events in the game viewable to the world though as it would have been a fascinating “big brother” type story that could support its own series by those that become engrossed in it. The main focus here though is to show us more of what’s happened to Kirigaya after coming back into the real world, the newly strengthened bonds with his cousin/sister and making her a distinct and potentially really fun character to have involved in the mix. The threat is presented, the tease is there and you can see where it’s going to go, making it exciting and leaving you craving more.
Grade: A-
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
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.
