Sword Art Online II Episode 4: GGO

Impression

It’s a trap! And unfortunately, Sinon has fallen straight into it. I don’t exactly blame her, either – for all intents and purposes, Kirito-chan is a girl in GGO, and he’s managed to make use of that fact to its fullest. Although it might come back and bite him in the ass later on. No prizes for guessing that Sinon wouldn’t have been anywhere close to friendly had Kirito approached her with a male avatar – from what we’ve seen of GGO in this episode, males make up the vast majority of the game’s population, with Sinon literally being the only female player walking those streets. Kirito-chan has confounded normality yet again in having the system assign him as a girl – brainwaves of some sort are used to determine gender, and only very rarely does it get things wrong. It’s a strange development to include, but it’s a pretty feasible way for Kirito to run into Sinon without the latter being scared off – and it’s nice that Sinon’s the one helping out Kirito during their first meeting instead of other way around. He’s thrown away his pride as a man by going along with this masquerade, though. Interestingly, Kirito-chan just as easily attracts attention from the opposite gender as he did in SAO and ALO, although this time it’s not so subtle and it’s for all the wrong reasons.

Even from Kirito’s point of view, GGO is no less dusty or grimy than it was with Sinon – however, A-1’s wonderful scene setting and backgrounds week on week have started to make me think that it’s beautiful in its own way. It certainly feels different – it’s very Western, and almost gives off this hardened atmosphere not unlike Sinon’s own in-game personality. I suppose that’s the perception it intends to give off, though – and if I remember right, the main headquarters of the company that runs GGO is in America to boot. The shooting game was fitted with a stereotypical blonde cowboy (“I’m gonna blast you from here to the moon!”) although Kirito manages to defy gaming logic once more by predicting the prediction lines that aid defence strategies in GGO. I actually don’t think that’s as much of an asspull as that audience seemed to think – that sort of thing is almost to be expected of an SAO survivor, especially a solo player who lived on the front-lines. Sinon’s being tactful in not pushing for exactly which “fantasy game” Kirito played, but I’m sure she has an inkling at least. The entire SAO incident must have been widely publicized, and Kirito ended up performing Vertical Square in front of her with his new photon sword as well. Without system assist! Many future hijinks await for Kirito and his new Mace Windu-coloured lightsaber. He also happens to be a master buggy racer, so it was nice to see that he wasn’t a sudden natural with guns even after Sinon’s guidance.

I liked this episode’s friendly Sinon. I know it was more or less because she thought Kirito was a girl the entire time, and still does, but it’s nice to see a more open side to the ice sniper, if only out of some sort of sympathy. It’s not something we’ve seen from either Sinon or Asada Shino thus far. She almost looked content in thinking up BoB strategies for Kirito – and at the very least, it was clear that she knew an incredible amount about guns, most of which just passed over my head 😀 Maybe it’s to be expected of a GGO veteran with a rare sniper rifle, but it’s a bit weird when the same girl suffers from trauma and an irrational fear of guns – after all that immersion in this environment, even a finger gun is enough to terrify her in real life.

Also, was her hair always this bright?