10 Second Anime - Sword Art Online II - Episode 18

Sword Art Online II - Episode 18



Asuna is happy to reclaim her digital family's house in the New Aincrad levels. A new character has high level swords skills and is even stronger than Kirito.

Meh.

What's the point of describing this Zekken sword fighter in genderless pronouns, using a big, bearded guy in the characters' recounting, but still put some cute, short girl in the opening and closing credits that we've never seen before? Some people actually pay attention to the anime they watch...

Heh.

I didn't know Yui could turn back into her regular SAO form. I got a little emotional when Asuna, Kirito, and Yui stepped through the door of their old home. That was a neat bit of storytelling right there, especially after Asuna's and Kirito's conversation with Agil about how he met his wife in a videogame.

The girls made a pretty good point about Kirito never really fighting for real unless the stakes were outside of a normal game's parameters. In SAO, he was fighting for his life, but nowadays, ALO is just a regular game. Except for that part on New Year's Eve where the whole game could have imploded...

Isn't it always the way? After some MMO's update, some new guy comes around and just starts pwning everyone.



Speaking of opening and closing credits, the opening is a little different, telling us we're in the Mother Rosario arc, and we have a whole new ending, with some not tall, not bearded sword fighter hanging out with Asuna.

Hmm.

Agil and Kirito had a shared experience in SAO, where their motivation for survival was to get back home to their families. Asuna contrasted that by forming a family she really cared about inside the game. Back in real life, she has to deal with her actual family obligations, including perhaps an arranged marriage, and balance that with the family she brought with her from inside SAO. Kirito had to rescue Asuna from a fiancé, so I'm curious why Asuna's family is trying to arrange a new one, or what they think of Kirito. It will be interesting to see if the producers explore this intersection of online life and real life relationships.

It's a bit refreshing to see Kirito get put in the backseat for this new act. They even made him sleep through most of the episode and drew a mustache on him. It's about time we were reminded how good Asuna was with her own sword skills. Let's see what she does with this "Absolute Sword."