Sword Art Online 02

Episode Synopsis:

Two months have passed since the 10,000 ‘lucky’ players got to log into SAO have been unable to log out and finally they have found the boss room for the first floor. Kirito and a group of other players have banded together to beat the first boss and start the slow and arduous journey that will be clearing the game.

This raid party has been put together by Diabel, a competent leader who managed to find the boss room and put together this group of parties and organize them to get the job done.

This is how Kirito meets Asuna but more importantly this is where we learn that a number of players have some trust issues with the Beta Testers who exploited there extra two months of play and took all the best stuff early on. After this little disturbance is put to bed the merry band enjoy some pre-battle festivities and then march off to fight the boss. A fight which they win, only after Diabel’s death who like a idiot tried to take on the boss himself at the final stage just to get a rare item and died for it as he didn’t notice a change in equipment that Kirito did.

I once again thoroughly enjoyed this episode, the pacing seemed good and getting us to the boss fight quickly without dwelling on long and dull tactical discussions. I do however feel like there hasn’t been enough character development. Kirito still strikes me as a loner who after 2 months still hasn’t made any actual friends in the game and all we really know about Asuna is that she doesn’t want to just sit and wait for the end.

I actually did a little digging and saw another blog rant about this and apparently this weeks episode cut out a boat load of stuff, such as how Kirito and Asuna actually first met and how he subsequently changed her attitude towards the death game they are stuck in. Personally I am hoping this will be included in a later episode and that the producers have changed this in order to make the show work better for TV.

The beater stuff has also reportedly been changed, the term is still being used correctly as the elite of the Beta testers but they have omitted the creator of the guide book ‘Argos’ or something like that and not enough attention (in others opinions) was drawn to the fact that Kirito is taking a hit by mocking beta testers and regular players in order to minimize the potential fallout and deaths if the two groups don’t get along. I personally felt that it was quite obvious but then again I watch far to much anime, tv and films… so yeah.

The battle was also something I really enjoyed watching, yes a few shots were a little on the static side, but I’d rather they cut a few corners now so that later battles can be as epic as they deserve to be. However the best moment had to be Asuan’s reveal. I can’t think of any way they could have given it more impact. Well they did by making her and Kirito’s synchronization simply a joy to watch.