Impression
After a fairly sluggish first half, the tension has now spiked with the encounter between Death Gun and Kirito – I loved how there was a sudden jarring change in the OST when Kirito got stabbed. Adding to the suspense was poor Yamikaze, whose decision to engage Kirito ended up being his downfall – it was Death Gun’s initial bullet towards Kirito which unwittingly lured him into getting sniped by Sinon. Maybe I might have taken his alleged abilities more seriously had he not been outfitted with a stock character appearance. Sinon’s short showdown with Death Gun was cool as well – it was a pity she had to contend with shooting despite having a bullet line, but she still managed to take out his rifle despite that! Part of me wanted her to keep shooting even without a sniper scope, but this would have had the unfortunate possibility of accidentally hitting Kirito, which wouldn’t have been good. Ultimately, that one encounter saw both sides effectively losing their sniping capabilities.
I suppose it wouldn’t be SAO without some meaningful display with swords in some shape or form, regardless of the game! Having been exposed to Kirito a lot, I sometimes forget that it’s likely for other SAO survivors to also be proficient with swords – Death Gun is no exception, and the fact that he was a high-ranking member of Laughing Coffin makes that all the more certain. It’s a bit more unusual for Kirito to be struggling, though I suspect that’s because he’s now realized that, despite having confirmed his identity, he in fact does not know the name of Death Gun’s previous avatar. What must really hit hard is the fact that this was entirely his own fault! Regardless of whether he manages to beat him or not, not knowing who he is in real life renders his entire plan pointless – it’ll be hard to track the perpetrators, he’s still anonymous and Sinon’s still in danger. I’m sure we know the eventual outcome though, and if in doubt we only need to believe in the Yui who believes in Kirito. As for tracking down Death Gun(s), the live stream recording will probably be helpful, as will Asuna’s presence – for all her lack of involvement in this arc, she seems to know which Laughing Coffin member wielded an estoc back in SAO.
Quite a nice change of pace from last episode. This one had a lot of action and it was awesome to see a sword fight, since it didn’t happen since the end of season 1.
I don’t know about people in general, but for me, the GGO arc was kind of a disappointment. Felt really rushed at some points(especially the fact that Kirito entered the game and signed for the BoB in one day, and was already fighting in the other( owning people playing the game for months, just to be said) I mean, I know it’s Kirito and all but still… At some other points it felt really slow( mostly episodes 10 and 11), so much talk, especially Kirito remembering the exact same scene( the fight with Laughing Coffin) about 5 or 6 times, I understand it wanted to picture the trauma he got from SAO but I think they showed it a little too much to be honest.
Just glad this arc is ending, don’t exactly know how mother’s rosario is going to be, but from some summaries I’ve read it picked my interest more.
Obs: Hi Vantage, don’t know if you remember me, I used to post on your SAO season 1 and AW reviews.
It’s been a while! Glad to see you’re around for the second season.
Putting aside Kirito being an overpowered onii-sama, his stint in GGO is exactly what it is – a stint. It’s only meant to be a temporary conversion to fulfil Kikuoka’s request, so it’d be strange if too much time was spent on worldbuilding GGO (which I suspect has a significant focus on PvP anyway). I agree with what you said about the cave and flashback scenes – it felt like they were trying to ramp up Kirito’s trauma to the level of someone like Sinon’s. Apart from that though, the pacing’s been solid overall. Not sure I’d go as far to call it a disappointment, although a lot of the novelty has indeed worn off for me – plus I much prefer a cool and strong Sinon compared to the one who’s all over Kirito. It feels like this tends to happen to many of the girls he comes in contact with…
Mother’s Rosario is a very nice arc. We’ll probably get a side-story first though, so it’ll be a couple more weeks.
Glad that you remember.
Anyway, maybe Kirito is just OP in any VRMMO in general, there is not much to complain about this fact this long in the run. The feeling of disappointment also probably comes from the fact I’m not that fond of shooting games as much as I am of the ones like SAO and ALO, so there is that. I agree too, that the strong Sinon was better than the one of the last few episodes.