(L) Hai to Gensou to Grimmgal

[DXMichael]

I think I have a good way to describe this anime after this episode. They're not trapped in a gaming world, the gaming world instead became real. In usual games like this after slaying a monster the body poofs away and an XP bar appears granting you the right amount of XP and loot.

This anime does not do that.

Instead, Goblins, which are apparently the weakest monster in the game, are no longer hindered by level differences, it's an actual Goblin with no doubt big differences compared to newbie humans. It takes several attempts to take it down including one of the main characters to have to injure himself to even land a proper blow to the thing. Once an enemy Is dead, it's dead, but the Goblin instead played dead, or perhaps was even knocked unconscious for a while which isn't usual for a game, you either kill it or you don't. Eventually it made it's move again and our cast of heroes who know what the world is like, know what their objective is and even have weapons finally take it down before realising they had just taken a life for 18 copper each.

What makes the scene so much more grim is the entire time this Goblin has been fighting for his life as if it had a personality. In a game a Goblin is a Goblin, you can kill one in Runescape for 2 gold pieces and some bones and it'll respawn, it has no personality. This Goblin was screaming and jumping around desperately trying to fight for it's life and even trying to retreat which is not normal for enemies in a lot of games.

It's a powerful scene really and potentially a view changer. That's where I got my deduction from that they're not stuck in a game, but instead the game became real. Everything is so much more real and these characters are going to have to come to terms that it is literally kill or be killed, upset one creature to cheer up another.

[RDNexus]

Erm... That only happens in the Anime adaptions of MMO genre LNs, like Log Horizon & DanMachi. A censoring of sorts, I guess?
In the LNs, the creatures remain on the ground and the "players" have to scavenge through the carcasses to get the resources and loot.

[GDB]

Originally Posted by jpwong

steal

One of the most useful abilities in standard (non-MMO) RPGs.

[Iron Maw]

In addition to what Jwong said, moreover the most piratical reason to have a Thief is scouting. Someone who's lightfooted, can pick locks and do area survey's is absolutely invaluable for surviving in the wild or assaulting heavily guarded places. Of course the ability to swipe things should be discarded as GDB points out.

[Nicaea]

Originally Posted by jpwong

Thieves can generally run around a lot quietly because they aren't wearing all that heavy armour the warrior classes tend to wear. Things like chainmail and platemail can weigh loads. Thieves basically only wear leather armour so they have battlefield agility and better armour than mages (and I guess in this world clerics since it doesn't look like they're headed down the mace wielding, heavily armoured combat clerics that can stand toe to toe with some warrior classes route). Plus normally they have stealth, steal and ambushing skills. Can disarm or set traps, backstab people.

I can see it going two ways, either they're going to come to the conclusion the thief class is useless and Haruhiro will switch to something else, or else they're going to run into the exact situation that needs someone with those skills. I'm betting on the latter since there's no way the guild could survive if they weren't particularly useful in this world.

I'm not sure. Maybe Manato can go armored cleric or even bishop class, but he doesn't have the experience yet. Same could go for Haru. We've seen thay Manato and mage girl have abilities, so maybe he can get one too. I mean, Rabta got one too in fact.

What I don't understand is why Haru didn't keep the goblin sword, isn't dual wielding better for thieves?

Originally Posted by Iron Maw

In addition to what Jwong said, moreover the most piratical reason to have a Thief is scouting. Someone who's lightfooted, can pick locks and do area survey's is absolutely invaluable for surviving in the wild or assaulting heavily guarded places. Of course the ability to swipe things should be discarded as GDB points out.

I fiel like that kind of set tasks also apply to rangers, which prompts me to the scene with Haru and the girl.

[king12354]

Wasn't expecting this type of show but it has really been a very nice surprise so far.

[Random Wanderer]

Originally Posted by Nicaea

What I don't understand is why Haru didn't keep the goblin sword, isn't dual wielding better for thieves?

Have you ever tried to swing two swords at once? With any sort of actual control, responding to attacks with both of them that make them more effective than just one? For that matter, have you ever tried just using one sword in that manner? It isn't easy. Adapting that to work with two swords is many times harder, and not a task for a beginner. In fact, most trainers will tell you to give it up and put the other sword down before you kill yourself with it. Unless you have trained for a long time on how to direct your hands and your vision to focus on two tasks and two targets at one time, you are pretty much guaranteed to fight worse trying to use two blades than when just using one.

[Iron Maw]

Originally Posted by Nicaea

I fiel like that kind of set tasks also apply to rangers, which prompts me to the scene with Haru and the girl.

Right, but Thieves are better spec'd for those tasks. Especially when dealing with fortifications and forced close combat encounters. Rangers are usually more about tracking and hunting anyway. That said if anything Yume would be good support Haruhito in espionage missions and the like.

[Diluc]

Originally Posted by Random Wanderer

Have you ever tried to swing two swords at once? With any sort of actual control, responding to attacks with both of them that make them more effective than just one? For that matter, have you ever tried just using one sword in that manner? It isn't easy. Adapting that to work with two swords is many times harder, and not a task for a beginner. In fact, most trainers will tell you to give it up and put the other sword down before you kill yourself with it. Unless you have trained for a long time on how to direct your hands and your vision to focus on two tasks and two targets at one time, you are pretty much guaranteed to fight worse trying to use two blades than when just using one.

Of course he won't
This is modern world, do you think people still walk in the street by hanging sword?

[Wandering Soul]

Originally Posted by Nicaea

What I don't understand is why Haru didn't keep the goblin sword, isn't dual wielding better for thieves?

You realize that dual wielding is actually pretty difficult and actually takes a while to learn. Haru is still getting use to using one knife and is barely handling himself. He is no where near ready to start dual wielding.

[aakun4]

Ep 2 was a really beautiful piece of art.

The 3 main scenes of the episode (Haruhito x Manato talk, goblin, insert song) were all so beautifully convened... I can't remember the last time I felt something was as good as this episode was in what comes to expressing feelings and getting the viewer immersed into the story and to relate with the characters. And on top of that, it was as visually gorgeous as last week. Just wow.

[Random Wanderer]

You know, that bit with Manabu carving out a wooden airplane... Right now, he wouldn't have any idea what it was that he'd carved. Somehow he did it on instinct.

Just a random thought.

EDIT: Another random thought. When they all met up again near the end of the second half, Yume came up over the side of the bridge, carrying the cat-ish-thing.



But that bridge is not something that can exactly be climbed from the side. There's too much distance to the ground below, and no real way for her to have gotten out there from the edges. How the heck did she do that?

[FlareKnight]

Originally Posted by MartianMage

Well to be fair for other shows in the same trapped in an MMO setting... they explicitly say it is a game world... the characters know that they are in a game world... and yeah mobs just explode into pixels...

Very different in this show's case where the characters don't even know they're in a game.

edit: ok I know I'm just assuming things so far but... this is a "trapped in an MMO game" setting right?

It probably is....may be hard to know for sure though.

I presume it is, but it could just be a fantasy world with game-like elements that just make up that world. Could be a literal game world. Could be a world based on a game and created by some power beings. Probably doesn't matter though since for the characters this is very much real.

Originally Posted by PreSage

I'm also expecting Haruhiro to break down soon. Based on his conversation with that thief guy (can't remember his name), I sense that Haru is trying to keep his cool for the sake of the others, whom I suspect are younger than him. But he began showing his limit during that conversation.

I'm also assuming it's that same setting as well, but I think it's more real than what was portrayed in SAO or Log Horizon.

I believe Haruhiro is the thief guy . But yeah, I think Manato might break down soon. Maybe he has been. He talked about going drinking to gain information. But maybe he just went drinking to get away from his troubles. He's basically the leader of this group and knows their lives rest on him making good decisions. The stress and pressure might already be getting to him and it's just not obvious.

After all if he was really just going for information...would he be going so secretly to get drunk? Maybe, but maybe not.

[Nicaea]

Originally Posted by the one above all

You realize that dual wielding is actually pretty difficult and actually takes a while to learn. Haru is still getting use to using one knife and is barely handling himself. He is no where near ready to start dual wielding.

Fair point, I just thought of it being more fitting for a thief and disregarded whether Haru had the skill for it or not.

Originally Posted by FlareKnight

I believe Haruhiro is the thief guy . But yeah, I think Manato might break down soon. Maybe he has been. He talked about going drinking to gain information. But maybe he just went drinking to get away from his troubles. He's basically the leader of this group and knows their lives rest on him making good decisions. The stress and pressure might already be getting to him and it's just not obvious.

After all if he was really just going for information...would he be going so secretly to get drunk? Maybe, but maybe not.

I kind of feel bad for him. The group barely got to terms with living in a world where they have to kill to survive, they're not ready to fully understand the trouble they're in and the tasks that need to be done for the group.

Seems like Haru's question could have helped a lot (or it could have caused Manato to snap at the worst moment) but he couldn't put it into words. If someone can help Manato it's Haru, but I suspect that he doesn't know of the signs on purpose for the sake of plot.

[jpwong]

Originally Posted by Nicaea

I'm not sure. Maybe Manato can go armored cleric or even bishop class, but he doesn't have the experience yet. Same could go for Haru. We've seen thay Manato and mage girl have abilities, so maybe he can get one too. I mean, Rabta got one too in fact.

What I don't understand is why Haru didn't keep the goblin sword, isn't dual wielding better for thieves?

I fiel like that kind of set tasks also apply to rangers, which prompts me to the scene with Haru and the girl.

It's possible, not sure why the guild supplied weapon is a staff. I mean sure, it's traditional, but it seems way less useful given the way they're fighting.

Rangers may have advantages outdoors, but thieves are generally going to be more versatile at it unless all your battles are going to happen outdoor in largely natural areas. And that's purely for stealth and recon. Lockpicking could realistically be quite important if they run into any sort of large scale ruins or organized monster civilization.

I'm also kind of wondering, there seems to be no reason (so far) why one couldn't join another guild and pick up additional skills. If this truly isn't some sort of game world or VR program, they shouldn't lose anything they've learnt from the old guild, so outside the cost, I'm wondering if there's any sort of downside to multi-classing (like everyone secondary classing cleric), seems like it would give you a huge boost, especially if clerics and mages have casting limits or some sort of mp pool (mind fatigue or whatever you want to call it).

[Sacredus]

Originally Posted by Random Wanderer

EDIT: Another random thought. When they all met up again near the end of the second half, Yume came up over the side of the bridge, carrying the cat-ish-thing.



But that bridge is not something that can exactly be climbed from the side. There's too much distance to the ground below, and no real way for her to have gotten out there from the edges. How the heck did she do that?

She jumped from stairs to the edge of bridge? As Hunter she shouldn't have too much problem with that.

[kuroishinigami]

This one is a nice surprise for me this season. Although IMO, the story in the first two episodes are still good but not great level, the artwork used in the background is just stunning. Even if the story for the rest of the season turns out to be crap, I'll be sure to watch it just for that water-ink painting like quality of the background artwork.

[zeross87]

Spoiler tag added thus removing this post

[Toullaty]

Some details about the guild system or world history have not been put in anime. This isn't really spoilers but it helps to understand their situation.

[zeross87]

Originally Posted by Toullaty

Some details about the guild system or world history have not been put in anime. This isn't really spoilers but it helps to understand their situation.

No matter how minor it appear to be anything not in the anime deseirve spoiler tag for me :/