[Esebian]

A really nice episode, although as novel reader like me, you can see that many things were left out but those were either unimportant or spoiler scenes, so no hard feelings for that The only big cuttet scene was the one with Grimlock but well, time was nearly up and a third episode for that SS would have been over the top

Originally Posted by Sphire

I can only give an anime-only view, but I expected more from SAO then what we've gotten so far. So far it's focused a lot on 'other' stories kinda like how Kino's Journey or Dantalian no Shoka are, except way less interesting.

Maybe once the main story picks up I'll be interested again. So far only ep 1 was really interesting. Ep 2 was okay content-wise but seemed rushed as hell. The rest have been those side-stories. And color me surprised at just how much time passes in the show. More than a year already? Seriously?

What do you mean by 'other' stories? I mean even while those last episodes were sidestories of the novel, they are part of the main plot, too, as there are many references to them in the first volume.

Also the death ingame = death in real life was present in every episode so the main point of the whole series is included as well

And for the long time, actually they are now 1 and a half year in the game captured, but I belief that's pretty normal, isn't it? Imagine yourself in the same situation, do you belief you could clear the game in less time? 100 floors, each floor with a strong boss at the end and in a survival game, I think these are enough reasons for a slow progress ^^

Originally Posted by Guardian Enzo

In principle I agree, and I do fully acknowledge that in terms of plot and world-building, I may not fully understand the context of how this episode fits. However, I am prepared to say:

Grimlock killing his wife because she stopped being a Yamato Nadeshiko was lame.
Grimlock breaking down like an imploded building when Asuna points out the obvious was even lamer.


I agree with the notion that Kawahara may just be better at designing MMOs than writing about them. That's the difference between he and someone like Hosoda Mamoru, who's great at both.

Well even from anime-only perspective you can easily see how the behaviour of Asuna towards Kirito changed from the beginning of the last episode to the end of this one, so its main focus lays on character development for both Kirito and Asuna (while it ofc also again explains some game mechanics like marriage ^^).

Ofc the reason for Grimlock to kill his wife was lame, that was the whole point from the beginning on But if you look in Grimlock's face while he says that, you can easily guess that he has gone mad, then you don't really need a proper reason, or?