Summary
On the 74th floor, Kirito manages to somehow obtain an S-class ingredient, the meat of a Ragout Rabbit but has no way to cook it. Enlisting the help of Asuna, who maxed out her cooking skill, the pair go to her house to have it in the form of stew, despite the protests of Asuna’s KoB bodyguard, Kuradeel. The next day, after extracting a promise from Kirito to party with her, Asuna is being pursued by Kuradeel once again, who challenges Kirito to a duel and quickly loses. When Kirito and Asuna find the 74th floor boss room, they decide to go in and are met by a huge blue demon, the Gleameyes.
Impression
=__= I feel so cockblocked now. Evidently I have the order of events slightly messed up in my head, because the epic thing I was referring to last week actually applies to something NEXT week, which I’m sure of especially now that we’ve seen the floor 74 boss, The Gleameyes. It’s also a “dance of black and white” in a sense, which makes it even more of a troll from studio A-1 Pictures and their terrible naming sense.
In this case it probably refers to the one and a half minute match between Kuradeel and Kirito, though to be fair it wasn’t so much a dance as it was a well-timed strike by our overpowered, yet still extremely cool protagonist. Kirito continues to prove himself as a very badass individual, both in dungeons all by himself and out in the field – he makes throwing needles at frightened rabbits look epic. Just for future reference and if anyone wants to know, that one-handed sword skill with the square after-image is named <Vertical Square> by the way xD I love it when all these swords glow different colours; everything becomes so much more flashier and surreal.
Allow me to be all butthurt at the title just once more – while “black” and “white” referred to Kirito and Kuradeel respectively, it’s kinda ironic that really, it should be vice versa. Kuradeel has the makings of our first proper antagonist in the show, and while he’s not as bad as Accel World’s Nomi, you can tell that he’s the kind of guy that has a really hateful attitude and would easily hold a grudge from the look on his face after he was rejected. Just by the rash action he took to challenge Kirito for no proper reason, it’s obvious that he believes himself superior just because he’s a Knights of the Blood member – well, superior to a trash Beater, anyway. I don’t know how that kind of guy got into KoB, or why he was picked as Asuna’s bodyguard, but as someone who’s clearly obsessed over her, I’m sure he felt more cockblocked than I did, after spending an entire night stalking her outside her house.
I was sure they’d skip out the Ragout Rabbit scene, but after the episode I’m glad they didn’t for two main reasons. Firstly, as we’re now starting a linear storyline and there aren’t going to be any more awkward time skips, having a scene as mild as cooking stew kinda affirms the slower pacing and is an unofficial promise to not have any more Zetman-style bullet train pacing speeds. Hopefully. The second reason is that we get more romance to-be between Kirito and Asuna, even if it was disappointing for a major event like visiting Asuna’s fancy house to not have anything happen. Knowing Kirito’s nature and status as a solo player, they can’t be meeting that often, and it wouldn’t be like Kirito to make the first move, let alone propose to her. Remember though, at this point Asuna’s already crushing on him (since this is after Lizbeth’s side story) so it’s only a matter of time~
After two years in SAO, people are starting to forget their lives in the real world, which is easy to talk about, but scarier to imagine when you actually think about it. You know how you commonly get these background people in anime, that have standard faces, hair and designs? They were there in Kirito vs Kuradeel too, and when you think about it, each one of these guys is actually a real person that got stuck in this virtual MMO. Seeing them being all excited at a solo beater fighting a KoB member, or talking about how cute Asuna is even though it’s true is really different to their faces back in the Starting City, when everyone was screaming after Kayaba Akihiko’s announcement. It’s as simple as moving to a different country, where you slowly become more comfortable and adapt, forgetting things and learning to live with a new life. The concept of dying that was so scary is now more of a “oh, it’s not so bad after all” mentality. But hey, there’s a big bad boss just over there. There’s no better time than now to spice things up with a little screaming and crying, right?
I don’t see how they can skip the rabbit scene since its like the first time Kirito visited Asuna’s house… if I recall correctly anyways.
Hahaha it’s me and my inner desire to get on to the ALO arc I think. But very true, if there was no rabbit scene or house visit then there would be no invitation to party from Asuna.
Isn’t Black being Kirito while White being Asuna?
That would be one way to look at it, but the title mentioned a dance as well, which would be closest to a sword fight – meaning it’s Kirito and Kuradeel. I dunno, it could also refer to that last scene while they were fighting in the dungeons, but both the match and the partying were so short that you couldn’t really tell xD
=w= This episode pleased me with the couple aura between those two during their dinner. heehee~
And um Kuradeel: ¬.¬l||| Stalker much?
There’s this thing called the that stops rape and the like in SAO, which is probably the only reason why Asuna could sleep that night with Kuradeel stalking her house. But after all that stuff about sleep PKing in that murder side story, I’d still be scared shitless if some creepy older guy was outside my house all night.
That Vertical Square is awesome!! (^^)/
I’m so excited for the next ep, since we’ll get to see more of Kirito’s awesome skills (^^)/
Btw, seeing Kuradeel here, I wonder why does Yusa Kouji always voiced ‘this’ kind of character -_-a
It will be awesome, and we will all fangirl together xDD Plus, it’s the first boss they’ve shown since uhh, back in episode 2 I think it was ^^
A faithful, and nonrushed adaptation. It was a really enjoyable episode; they covered it well, albeit they skipped the mechanics but that’s unavoidable. The “fan service” in this episode wasn’t as brusque and forced as it may have seemed to light novel readers; it happened in the light novel, so by all means, it’s a “faithful” adaptation. The ass shots from the previous episode on the other hand, was unique to the anime [not complainin’] ho ho ho.
Still, a huge credit on Kuradeels Guarding cough Stalking cough Ability!
Btw just wanna ask what’s your thoughts to the slight ending changes. I’ve read some reviews too but they(too) didn’t share their thoughts about those changes. Just curious what’s on the minds of those who have read the original material
Ending changes? I’m not sure what you mean there…
About the Army. I’m not sure if they’re adding the Army in the next episode, considering they encountered them first, prior to entering the boss room in the light novel (may be a change)
They should add the Army later on – they probably skipped them out this time since Kirito/Asuna never met them directly. The Army is crucial in the order of events though, since (SPOILER WARNING) they are the ones that go to the boss room recklessly after using Kirito’s mapped data, who then need saving from Kirito and Asuna after they hear screams coming from the boss room. If they never appeared, Kirito would never have had a reason to engage the boss.
But yeah, definitely strange that something important like the Army never got an introduction.
This episoded started tense, then it was a lot peaceful, as if Kirito and Asuna were a couple living their lives in peace, but then again the episode had a considerate amount of action in the end. But man, they look so cute and fit to each other together, the house scenes were cute and Asuna’s knife skills were funny(as well as when she hit Kirito).
I guess it really emphasized the aspect of the people who gave up to clear the game, and thinking well, people can’t really blame them, after all they seem to have been gone through.
Ah, and as usual, Kirito is as op and baddas as usual, beating Kuradeel with what seemed to be no effort at all.
WANT…NEXT…EPISODE!(Altough the boss seemed op too, maybe somehow Kirito and Asuna will end up soloing the boss as showed in the opening,hm?)
Kirito and Asuna would be the knight and princess living together, while if it was with…I dunno, Kuradeel, it’d be the unhappy, forced arranged marriage xD As for next episode…there’s some truth in what you said, but I won’t be giving the game away ^^