Sword Art Online - Episode 9 Discussion / Poll

[Krono]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Spoiler for Novel Comparison:

Ah, that makes sense in that case. It was clear to me that there wasn't much of an opening, but it makes even more sense realizing that whole thing was one long single skill. Still it's a little bit "not only does he get a dual-wield ability that no one else has, but he gets an uninterruptable 32-hit skill to use it with"... he said the game was fair? Only partly serious...

Spoiler for Novel Comparison:

Uninterruptable is actually a bad thing. The opponent will still have the potential to dodge or block, and when the skill ends you're frozen in cool down and vulnerable. Or like we see this episode, you take damage that would call for falling back and healing but you can't because you're locked into the skill.

Originally Posted by AC-Phoenix

@ Kirito didn't Solo the boss
Yes and no.
He would have if he had taken his dual swords out from the beginning.
You can assume that he had already lost between 25 and 50% of his life when he took them out will the Boss was probably down less than 20.

One of the boss's HP bars was gone, and they'd started on the second, and it took more hits before Kirito switched to dual blades. If each of the bars was supposed to represent 25% of it's HP, then it was at less than 75% HP when he started. Kirito's was down to about 66%-75% last we saw it. Unless Kirito overkilled the boss by a substantial amount, if both were at full HP, and Kirito was dual wielding from the start, Kirito would still be dead. He'd finish the skill, the boss would still be alive, and he'd be frozen in cool down, while the boss would have a free shot that almost certainly would finish him.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

All in all, solid ep. No major complaints. Regards Asuna, the impression I get of her is that her "weakness" in these two arcs is because she's being a normal girl, as opposed to the clearing-obsessed leveling monster she was prior to Murder Case, where she was only sleeping 3 hours a day, had nightmares, and was obsessively levelling every single bit of free time she had. That nap she had was the first time she'd slept for eight hours.

But Kirito can relax and be strong at the same time. Why would Asuna need to become a damsel in distress just because she's learning to relax?

That implies the girl can only be strong when she's obsessed, when she's putting up a front, a facade.

That would mean the real Asuna is indeed emotionally weak.

[Shinji103]

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

Spoiler for Comparison to the novels:

All in all, solid ep. No major complaints. Regards Asuna, the impression I get of her is that her "weakness" in these two arcs is because she's being a normal girl, as opposed to the clearing-obsessed leveling monster she was prior to Murder Case, where she was only sleeping 3 hours a day, had nightmares, and was obsessively levelling every single bit of free time she had. That nap she had was the first time she'd slept for eight hours.

Spoiler for Response to spoiler:

Except, as far as the anime-only viewers are concerned, none of that ever happened. Because that was all cut out of the Aria arc. You can't just suddenly bring up stuff from the novels that never happened as far as the anime is concerened. That super-crunching of the Aria arc is finally coming back to bite, I guess. The anime-only viewers wouldn't know any of this to see the true comparison.

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

What made you think this isn't a typical shounen show to begin with? I mean, it reeks of shounen tropes so it's kinda hard to see it in any other way IMO... not that that is necessarily a bad thing. It all depends on the execution.

Shounen has way more fighting, lots more standing around in the middle of fights talking and posing, etc.
Just as Toaru Majutsu no Index isn't shounen, but seinen; SAO is clearly much more Toaru Index than DBZ/Bleach.

I do agree with you that defeating the boss through team work (even if the team was only Kirito and Asuna) would have been better.

Exactly. It definitely would have been fine, and meant more than just showing off how powerful they are, if Kirito and Asuna had teamed up to take down the boss together like we see in the OP, rather than Kirito suddenly soloing the boss just to look cool.

[Clarste]

Kirito's also emotionally weak. He froze up when watching the boss kill the soldier guys. Asuna's the one who made a decisive action.

[Krono]

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

At the end of the day... Cut the poor girl some goddamned slack. She's seventeen. Shee's done well to keep things together for so long - an occasionall emotional stumble is to be expected, is proof that she's human, and once the emptional crisis is over she picks herself up and carries on.

In addition you have to remember, they've all been going out, and fighting life or death battles on a daily basis for the last two years. That sort of thing takes it's toll even on trained soldiers, much less untrained people in their mid teens that never expected to be fighting life or death battles.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by Clarste

Kirito's also emotionally weak. He froze up when watching the boss kill the soldier guys. Asuna's the one who made a decisive action.

True, but Asuna is a lot more dependent (emotionally speaking) on Kirito than the other way around. She said so herself, "what would I do if you die"?

[GDB]

Awesome episode. Glad to see Klein again. He's a fun character.

As far as unique skills go, I assume you have to either do some string of obscure, seemingly useless quests to get an awesome reward (see: Linken's Sword of Mastery in WoW), have a specific skill set and level it up a certain way (can't think of an example off hand, but let's go with Tales of Symphonia's S/T exseed system), or handicap yourself in some way (again, Tales of Symphonia, you get an amazing Title (determines your level-up stat gains) for Lloyd if you use his starter Wooden Swords from the start until about 20-30 hours into the game).

Odds are, for Kirito and Dual Wield, it was some combination therein. Likely the latter two combined.

[Rising Dragon]

Hell I think I'd be more worried if they DIDN'T have issues in their situation (trapped inside a game for two years and going).

[Clarste]

It doesn't matter how it gets explained, it's still ridiculous that he killed the boss that fast by himself. Way too much dps. Although if you completely ignore the animation and think about the principles of duel wielding, it would let him attack and defend at the same time so I guess that could add a lot of dps. It seems like they spend at least half the time dodging or parrying in most fights.

[lightbringer]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

I do agree with you that defeating the boss through team work (even if the team was only Kirito and Asuna) would have been better.

Soloing a boss is likely not outside the realm of possibility in a twitch-based game like SAO since it's not purely a number grind. Also, Kirito has soloed a lesser boss previously - he soloed Nicholas the Renegade back in episode 3.

But yeah, it's definitely a bit too hax. The thing is, the author has stated previously that he played MMOs himself but was never part of the "elite" and was always looking up to those kinds of people. So with Kirito's characterization I think he is often channeling his infatuation with "top" MMO players, whether warranted or not (since, in many MMOs, progression is arguably a function of time rather than skill).

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Kazu-kun

But Kirito can relax and be strong at the same time. Why would Asuna need to become a damsel in distress just because she's learning to relax?

That implies the girl can only be strong when she's obsessed, when she's putting up a front, a facade.

That would mean the real Asuna is indeed emotionally weak.

Well, to be fair to the show, they actually did imply this right at the very beginning of the story; that at first, Asuna was so traumatized by the game that she hid in her room alone and scared. But eventually, she came out of hiding and decided not to lose herself to the game. Then she met Kirito and he obviously inspired her -- thanks to him she joined a guild, and because of him she realized that food in the game could taste good (episode 2) which inspired a year-long in-depth study (episode 9). But she was so focused on the guild and clearing the game that she was causing herself lots of stress and it was taking its toll on her (episodes 5, 8). I think we could say that she's drawing on Kirito as a sort of refuge from her stress, and we see pretty clearly (episodes 6-9) that there's a growing personal connection there.

So... all that to say, even though I sort of started this conversation, I can sort of see both sides of it. On the one hand, I think the net effect is true that Asuna's being "nerfed" a bit to allow Kirito to shine more. But, on the other hand, I think this isn't necessarily inconsistent with the characterization shown so far, and it's not that I think it's wrong that she shows any sign of weakness.

I think we basically have to judge based on where she goes from here. She probably does need some time off to get things back under control and to regain her balance (she's reverting a bit to her initial scared self that I don't think is the real her). In some ways it's already true that her strength makes up for Kirito's weaknesses (even in this episode, she's the one who dashed in to help when Kirito was hesitating), but I hope they keep developing that further. We'll have to wait and see.

[Clarste]

Originally Posted by lightbringer

Soloing a boss is likely not outside the realm of possibility in a twitch-based game like SAO since it's not purely a number grind. Also, Kirito has soloed a lesser boss previously - he soloed Nicholas the Renegade back in episode 3.

But yeah, it's definitely a bit too hax. The thing is, the author has stated previously that he played MMOs himself but was never part of the "elite" and was always looking up to those kinds of people. So with Kirito's characterization I think he is often channeling his infatuation with "top" MMO players, whether warranted or not (since, in many MMOs, progression is arguably a function of time rather than skill).

He also soloed the dragon on the mountain. Point is, those were on lower floors. It's unclear exactly what level a seasonal boss is supposed to be, but it's unlikely it was as strong as something on the front lines.

[Neosovereign]

Did anyone notice that Kirito WOKE UP for a moment?!!? He saw his sister yelling at him. I guess you could write it off as him imagining it, but...

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Neosovereign

Did anyone notice that Kirito WOKE UP for a moment?!!? He saw his sister yelling at him. I guess you could write it off as him imagining it, but...

How do we know that's his sister (wait, I thought he only had a cousin and not a sister)? I thought for a second it might have been Sachi that he was imagining there (given the flashbacks before). I also figured it was just his mind playing tricks on him (perhaps a flashback to something that happened in the past).

So yeah... I don't think he actually "woke up" at all.

[Kazu-kun]

Originally Posted by lightbringer

Soloing a boss is likely not outside the realm of possibility in a twitch-based game like SAO since it's not purely a number grind.

I never said it wasn't possible. It's just not as interesting and cool as having both Kirito and Asuna fighting against the damn thing side by side IMO.

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

So... all that to say, even though I sort of started this conversation, I can sort of see both sides of it. On the one hand, I think the net effect is true that Asuna's being "nerfed" a bit to allow Kirito to shine more. But, on the other hand, I think this isn't necessarily inconsistent with the characterization shown so far, and it's not that I think it's wrong that she shows any sign of weakness.

I don't think it's inconsistent with her characterization either. I just don't like that she has to be weak around her man regardless. It's a trope I just don't look at kindly even if it makes sense with her character.

[Clarste]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

How do we know that's his sister (wait, I thought he only had a cousin and not a sister)? I thought for a second it might have been Sachi that he was imagining there (given the flashbacks before). I also figured it was just his mind playing tricks on him (perhaps a flashback to something that happened in the past).

So yeah... I don't think he actually "woke up" at all.

Kirito kind of skimmed over it really fast in episode 4, but he has a cousin who grew up with him as a sister (and doesn't even know she's his cousin). So presumably he has a complicated family situation involving adoption of family members at an early age, either him or his sister, which is of course most commonly due to some kind of parental abandonment (either dead or otherwise can't raise their own child). There's a lot of drama implied in a few short sentences, but it's hard to see how that's relevant inside the game. Maybe it's supposed to explain Kirito's personality?

[SilverSyko]

Okay, THAT was an awesome episode. Very intense and I liked seeing Klein again. (Btw, his guild's name "Fuurinkazan" is awesome.~)

Couple of interesting things that were revealed, especially Kirito's dual wield abilty. If he's the only one in the entire game who has it, I'm almost certain it's something that exists outside the normal parameters of SAO. Who could have granted him that ability then? I guess that shall remain a mystery for a while.

Also, there was that part where Kirito was opening his eyes after collapsing with 1 HP left. The girl he saw there was definitely NOT Asuna. Who the heck was that?

And we finally see the guildmaster of the Blood Knights, Heathcliff. Looking forward to his duel with Kirito next week but I imagine it's fairly obvious who will be victorious already.

This episode is finally starting to give me .hack vibes from this series. I approve.~

[Clarste]

Originally Posted by SilverSyko

Also, there was that part where Kirito was opening his eyes after collapsing with 1 HP left. The girl he saw there was definitely NOT Asuna. Who the heck was that?

At first I thought it was his sister, but it's been pointed out that she has a mole under her eye like Sachi, so it's probably Sachi. And therefore probably his imagination.

[Divini]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

How do we know that's his sister (wait, I thought he only had a cousin and not a sister)? I thought for a second it might have been Sachi that he was imagining there (given the flashbacks before). I also figured it was just his mind playing tricks on him (perhaps a flashback to something that happened in the past).

So yeah... I don't think he actually "woke up" at all.

Watching it a second time, it was definitely Sachi. The mole below her right eye(?) gave it away.

[RDF2050]

Originally Posted by SilverSyko

Also, there was that part where Kirito was opening his eyes after collapsing with 1 HP left. The girl he saw there was definitely NOT Asuna. Who the heck was that?

Sacchi. This is the girl you see in episode 3 and the one who Kirito regret not saving.