Impression
Kirito is like an overworked husband off on his first foreign business trip. He’s on long hours, is stressed out about his job, and comes home with a scary look on his face. He’s made foreign news, and goes for regular health check-ups. His family are worried about him. As it happens, he’s not on good terms with a kuudere female colleague, while another member of the firm is trying to fire him (or fire at him, rather). He’s even being paid overtime for his efforts. If he succeeds, he’s got a promotion waiting for him – and by that I mean another unrequited love interest. Hang in there, Kirito-chan!
To be honest, when Sugu brought out a newspaper clipping at the breakfast table I almost thought they were going to stop GGO for that side story, but then I realized that couldn’t possibly be the case. For some reason, I also recall that moment with the nanocarbon shinai from the novels – and the fact that they’re supposed to be really expensive. Damn you Sugu! You made me remember something completely useless! At any rate, it’s become more personal than it’s ever been for Kirito, and as far as we know he hasn’t done any in-depth dwelling on deceased SAO players since Sachi died in the original series. I’m liking how they’re still managing to tie in this whole theme of death despite the fact that Kirito is no longer stuck in a death game – I’m talking about real death, the tragedy behind it and its aftershock by the way, instead of the baseless rumour stirred up by Death Gun in GGO. This is something that’ll continue on into a couple of the later novels which will hopefully -no, must be- adapted after this is over. He killed a few people in SAO, and it’s eating away at him – even though they were murderers in their own right, it doesn’t change the fact that they were people too.
Meanwhile, on the Sinon front… well, we had both Sinon and Asada Shino this week. I’m loving how Sawashiro Miyuki subtly varies her tone when voicing them both, by the way. I felt that those scenes weren’t so much about Sinon herself as they were about Shinkawa and his relationship with Sinon – which is already rapidly deteriorating after his aggressive advances towards her. He knows she’s a timid girl in real life, and yet he’s still being so forward – he’s like a pushier Recon, and I have no sympathy for him. Admittedly it was probably triggered because of Kirito’s arrival in her life – it’s the first time Sinon’s displayed any sort of real emotion towards another guy, or even anyone else for that matter. But it doesn’t change the fact that the kept coming onto her really hard, and I think it felt even more desperate when he tried a second time right before the BoB main tournament was due to start, despite Sinon clearly hinting that she wasn’t interested, or at the very least wasn’t comfortable with it for now. In fact, this sort of thing just reeks of a potential yandere backlash or something. “If I can’t have Sinon, then no-one can! takes out knife with vacant expression“