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Originally Posted by Nightengale
I liked ep2.
Spoiler for length:
Sure, as an adaption of 'Aria', it wasn't very good. But as an episode-onto-its-own? I thought that it ultimately managed to convey what needed to be there, and did it well.
Regarding Asuna's characterisation, it's true that a lot of nuances was lost. The way I saw it, I felt that the story was purposely ignoring those aspects of her characterisation early-on, both in consideration of the minor story friction (retcon, if you will ) regarding Kirito's impressions of Asuna. In many ways, it actually made sense to downplay the weight of their first meeting together.
Whether or not downplaying it was the right choice or not, I don't want to get into that discussion. As a romance-buff, more KiriAsu moments will make me a happy bugger and I'm biased that way. Say what you will.
As for other parts of her character, there's a degree of consistency maintainability that I felt should be taken into consideration. Asuna felt a lot less guarded as a character? That's reasonable, since they've trimmed down many of her focus scenes anyway, trying to extrapolate that aspect of her character just for the sake of it would be awkward. Likewise with the bread scene. It lost some depth compared to the light novels, but it made sense because it had become a discussion that was possible between 2 real strangers altogether already.
As for Diabel, it's kind of a lose-lose situation.
The anime painted him in a far nicer light ( still keeping part of his underlying motives ), and because his sacrifice was seen as an inspiration and a point of regret for Kirito in the episode, it was very easy for non-light novel reader to see and understand why Kirito did what he did and pulled the Dark Knight "Beater" card.
And that's the important point. The changes were clearly made both in consideration of the single-episode limit, but also to make the transformation of 'Beater' Kirito very obviously driven by an sense of altruism to protect the other Beta Testers that can be seen from a glance.
Just few seconds of him reminscing of Diabel and the split-second where he swallowed his saliva to prepare for his 'act.' Those were good imo, because of 'show, not tell.'
Keeping all of the deeper stuff, would had required a more in-depth explanation of why Kirito did what he did, and that would not be possible in one episode. Even if it was, the sequence and pacing would all be horribly messed up.
As for other parts of Aria that didn't make the cut... they hardly mattered.
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This is pretty much how I feel about ep2 regarding my problem with Asuna. I'd say it's more of a pity than "no it sucks now" sort. Would have been nice, but since I just don't see how they can split the episode without the first part being "boring and dragging" for the generic audience, I'm satisfied with how the episode turned out. On a side note, I quite like how they cut the KiriAsu chat scene at the end. The way Kirito responds to Asuna's question by silently leaving the party adds quite a bit of depth in him.
Regarding Diabel, I don't mind the "white knight" change in the anime. I don't think it would make much of a difference in terms of development: Kirito is gonna take the blame for the beta-testers whether Diabel is genuine or not. In fact, I find the anime portrayal effectively cuts a lot of long explanation work and still easy to understand for first time viewers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DurararaFTW
I dread what they'll do to Murdercase.
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I wonder if they will animate the Laughing Coffin incident. Sure we got a glimpse of it in the GGO arc as a flashback but wouldn't it be odd if you skip out such an important "dark and troubled past" in Kirito's character during SAO arc?