We’re finally back into the world of reality, jumping out of Kirito’s upcoming fantasy adventure and into the real life consequences of Kirito becoming comatose. We’re given a much more Asuna focused perspective of the events, which reveals some interesting points. The first of which, is that she can still strongly remember Kirito saving her during the raid against the PK’ers in the original Sword Art Online. This memory flashes through her head as Kirito is injected, and no doubt adds the weight of guilt onto her shoulders. This isn’t the first time Kirito has saved her, and it likely won’t be the last. In hindsight, the number of times Asuna has been the maiden in distress for our Kirito to save is a bit absurd. 
Kirito’s taken to the emergency room, and we’re met with Suguha and Mrs. Kirigaya. Mrs. Kirigaya is surprisingly cool headed, considering the circumstances. After all, this isn’t the first time that Kirito’s been in danger. I’m curious as to how she feels towards Asuna, but I highly doubt that’ll be touched upon. No one watches Sword Art for family drama.
Mr. Kikuoka arrives as well, looking awfully normal for someone who’s employee has become comatose. He offers to move Kirito to an advanced facility with the necessary technology to treat him. Now things are fishy right off the bat and it gets even worse when Asuna and Suguha are barred from visiting. This connects the mystery of how Kirito ended up in the Soul Translator machine, which Kirito’s friends deduce as well. Eager to find the location of Kirito and the Soul Translator machine, Asuna exploits her heartbeat tracker. I was a bit surprised to see Yui being the one narrowing down the locations, but I suppose it’s a way of giving relevance to a character who’s long lost her charm. It’s also a bit crazy how Yui can keep track of helicopter lift off in reality, while still being tied to her virtual self.
The possibility of Kirito being flown off to a different country was much bolder than what I expected. This prompts Asuna to almost give up, but thanks to Yui’s motivational words, she finds her will again. With this motivational push, her brains goes on nitro mode and connects Kirito’s case to Kojiro Rinko, a former colleague of Kayaba Akihiko. We’re given some interesting development on Rinko, such as the fact that she was Akihiko’s lover and the way he told her of Aincrad before its fruition. Being such a giant in her field, she’s flown out by Mr. Kikuoka to Rath’s HQ IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OCEAN. Now that seems a bit nuts for a tech company to have such heavy collaboration with the military (as evidence by the personnel on the Ocean Turtle), but considering the potential of Soul Translator tech, this shouldn’t be surprising.
The surprising part however, comes from Rinko’s connection with Kirito himself. It’s revealed that he gave her the “World Seed” from Akihiko, earning her respect and gratefulness. Now Rinko returns the favor to Kirito by bringing Asuna disguised onto the Ocean Turtle. I was a bit surprised by how Asuna managed to sneak into this, but Yui’s a tech god, so there we go.
Overall, the episode offers a much needed explanation from reality. It’s a bit insane and the sequence of events was a lot of Yui ex Machina, but we’ve finally got the explanation! I’m secretly hoping we return to the fantasy world though.
I’m really fascinated by how they’re treating all of this material, considering what they included and what they kept out. It’s different than the light novel, but that’s what makes it more interesting, especially seeing them with Augma. That’s a really nice touch.
…..I’d say Yui hasn’t lost her charm at all. She’s just….relegated, but still adorable.
I was told by three separate friends to read Alicization before it aired, but I kept putting it off. My punishment now is not knowing how the adaptation is diverging from or recontextualizing the source material. So far it seems to be doing pretty well though!
Given what they left out and what’s to come, I wonder if they’re not shooting themselves in the foot by the details. Perhaps in the end, it won’t even matter, but hopefully if you guys remember this, it might be interesting to do a compare/contrast of the arc and the novel to see if certain details are better left omitted.