Sword Art Online - Anime Spoilers & Speculation (for SAO Novel Readers only)

[sky black swordman]

Originally Posted by Utsuro no Hako

4 Kirito and Asuna napping under the trees.

It's an easy scene to cut out, like Asuna and Kirito's first meeting in Aria, but man that would be butchering their relationship.

I think they will include this scene in the Episode . Maybe change it a lilttle or cut a piece.

Originally Posted by novalysis

I really hope they don't squeeze murder into One episode. Please. Don't.

I think you may have to accept they will.

[styr]

So after Murder next episode, will we get the Lizbeth side story before we finally reach the bulk of Vol 1?

That's how it looks to me, anyways. I wonder if they plan to reveal dual blades in Lizbeth's story or wait to reveal it 2-3 episodes later when Kirito destroys the level 74 boss..

[Awrya]

Lizbeth story after Murder, if they stay true to the story he will reveal Dual Blades in two episodes, though Kirito will mention in Murder that he got that (an unique skill) in his skill list.

[styr]

Even though it isn't canon since it only showed in ep 4 of anime, one of Rosalia's thugs was dual wielding axes and even activated a dual weapon skill (both of his axes glow pink/magenta). I wonder if that is one of those "rare" skills like Cline's katana skill, didn't Kirito mention how something like only 10 people each knew those rare skills?

Maybe the studio was just giving the characters some liberties with different weapons and didn't think much of it..

[kyp275]

Originally Posted by styr

Even though it isn't canon since it only showed in ep 4 of anime, one of Rosalia's thugs was dual wielding axes and even activated a dual weapon skill (both of his axes glow pink/magenta). I wonder if that is one of those "rare" skills like Cline's katana skill, didn't Kirito mention how something like only 10 people each knew those rare skills?

Maybe the studio was just giving the characters some liberties with different weapons and didn't think much of it..

most likely. There is only one dual wield, otherwise it wouldn't be a "unique" skill. Or maybe the axe comes is simply comes as a set even though it only counts as one weapon..

[Clarste]

There are 10 unique skills, but they never mentioned how many rare skills there were. The rare skills are supposedly unlockable though, in that anyone who meets the requirements will get them, and this information is shared between players. Unique skills are unique.

I suppose it's possible that "Dual Axes" is a merely a rare skill unlike "Dual Blades" but I think it's more likely that the anime staff just didn't think about it very much.

[novalysis]

Could it be then, that that was one of the 10 Unique Skill users? But what is someone like that doing in a Orange Guild, rather than being in the Clearer Groups? Unless of course Unique Skills does not necessarily equate to leveling ability.

[maelstormCaT]

I think the dual axes is the anime staff don't think much about it either.
It's a tiny lack of detail, but it's a glaring problem... can it be overlook?

[Clarste]

Originally Posted by novalysis

Could it be then, that that was one of the 10 Unique Skill users? But what is someone like that doing in a Orange Guild, rather than being in the Clearer Groups? Unless of course Unique Skills does not necessarily equate to leveling ability.

Well, we've only seen two unique skills and one of them was a GM skill so it's hard to say if there's a pattern. Kayama seemed to want to fight them as his own "final boss" though, since he told us what he imagined the role of the Dual Blades user to be. So they should probably be high enough level to participate.

On the other hand, Kirito was supposedly given Dual Blades because he had the best reflexes of anyone in the game. Assuming that it's actually true that he has the best reflexes, it was probably measured by the NervGear somehow rather than Kayama choosing someone he'd like to have it. In which case some skills might have been given to someone who never even stepped outside the first town, depending on what other "Outside System Stats" they are based on.

[Ray]

Originally Posted by maelstormCaT

I think the dual axes is the anime staff don't think much about it either.
It's a tiny lack of detail, but it's a glaring problem... can it be overlook?

How is it a "glaring problem"? We were never told what the other unique skills were; and that bandit could've very well been the person who got the dual axe unique skill..

[styr]

Originally Posted by Awrya

Lizbeth story after Murder, if they stay true to the story he will reveal Dual Blades in two episodes, though Kirito will mention in Murder that he got that (an unique skill) in his skill list.

Speaking of that scene/scenes around it, I can't wait to see Heathcliff eating those Algade Noodles and being disgusted/revolted afterwards.

Originally Posted by kyp275

most likely. There is only one dual wield, otherwise it wouldn't be a "unique" skill. Or maybe the axe comes is simply comes as a set even though it only counts as one weapon..

Kirito never had the unique skill dual wield, it is called "dual blades" and implies dual wielding swords. It is certainly possible that a dual axes/dagger skill is also available and could be one of those rare skills like Katana or even another unique skill. I can't recall any scene where anyone mentions there only being 10 unique skills, only Holy Sword/Dual Blades. I do remember Kirito talking about rare skills and there being ~10 or so people who knew them. Perhaps Silica's familiar skills are also rare skills like Cline's katana? Hard to say although it is mentioned that they are quite rare although no numbers are given.

@Aprah/others - Can you specifically quote the scene where someone mentions there being 10 unique skills? I've heard that rumor for a while but have not found it, I did however find the scene where he mentions rare skills:

Spoiler for Vol 1, Ch 12:

Weapon skills that didn’t have clear conditions for appearing are called extra skills. They were sometimes even called random conditions. An example would be Klein’s «Katana». But «Katana» wasn’t all that rare and appeared quite often as long as you kept training the Curved Sword skill.

Most of the ten-plus extra skills that had been found up until now, «Katana» included, had at least ten people who used each of them. The only exceptions were my «Dual Blades» and one other man’s extra skill.

These two were most likely limited to only one person, so they should be called «Unique Skill». I had hidden the existence of my unique skill up until now. But from today, the news that I was the second unique skill user would spread throughout the world. There was no way I could hide it after using it in front of so many people.

[Hmm....]

Only thing I recall is (too lazy to check LN right now) there is 10 secret skill. Secret skill we know so far are katana, battle healing, meditation, matial art. Two of them are unique holy sword and dual blade. I don't know about original Japanese name but I do believe that dual blade mean dual wield. There shouldn't be any dual axe/dagger etc. but that is just my opinion.


EDIT: yes that was what I recalled

Originally Posted by styr

Spoiler for Vol 1, Ch 12:

Weapon skills that didn’t have clear conditions for appearing are called extra skills. They were sometimes even called random conditions. An example would be Klein’s «Katana». But «Katana» wasn’t all that rare and appeared quite often as long as you kept training the Curved Sword skill.

Most of the ten-plus extra skills that had been found up until now, «Katana» included, had at least ten people who used each of them. The only exceptions were my «Dual Blades» and one other man’s extra skill.

These two were most likely limited to only one person, so they should be called «Unique Skill». I had hidden the existence of my unique skill up until now. But from today, the news that I was the second unique skill user would spread throughout the world. There was no way I could hide it after using it in front of so many people.

[Clarste]

Originally Posted by styr

@Aprah/others - Can you specifically quote the scene where someone mentions there being 10 unique skills? I've heard that rumor for a while but have not found it, I did however find the scene where he mentions rare skills:

I believe it was mentioned in several places, but one of them is in the Calibur short story. Kirito mentions in the narration that the programmers of ALO had removed 10 suspicious skills without clear conditions. This was in the context of explaining why his Dual Blade skills no longer existed.

Spoiler for text dump:

Why did the floating castle Aincrad's creator Kayaba Akihito create the system of «Unique Skills» with such deviated power?

Until now I still couldn't grasp the real reason behind it.

The skill «Holy Sword» that person possessed could be clear example. Being the leader of the strongest guild Knights of the Blood, the paladin who stood in front of many players with his absolutely unbreakable crossed shield, and those legends would be turned up-side down at the 95th floor, when that man would turn himself into the worst demon king of all RPG last bosses in existence.

In that moment, the «MMORPG with the main story driven by player's action» would be realized. An Incarnating Radius —— realized world. In order to achieve his purpose of the world creation, it was necessary for him to continue being the absolutely strongest paladin. Even with «Holy Sword» and «Immortality properties», he also had to depend on the irregular power that was the «Over Assist».

But if just the unique skill such as the holy sword were sufficient, it would not be necessary to have an MMO where 'The Hero was the only one who could confront the demon king'. Of course, it would lead to a difference in the player's battle power, which wouldn't be appropriate based on the rules of fairness.

Yet, he still gave «Dual Blades» and probably a few other unique skills to the players.

Those abilities outside of rules resulted in the unequal distribution of the resources, that guy even understood that it could distort how the world would progress along his plan. In fact, during my duel with Heathcliff for Asuna's withdrawal from the guild, if I didn't have the «Dual Blades» skill, he could have won without having to use the Over Assist. Recalling that moment of irregularity caused me to realize Heathcliff's true identity on the 75th floor. By giving me the unique skill, his imagined world —— his story had to end at just three-quarters of the way.

In ALO's world, in the rare moments that I held two swords, I always had a thought in a corner of my mind, Why?

At the same time, there was also a bit of guilt. Of course, I defeated Heathcliff on the 75th floor —— It was a victory I didn't regret. If the game hadn't cleared at that point, the victims of the incident would certainly have increased even further. Among those might be people dear to me. Or perhaps, even myself.

However, I couldn't stop thinking about it. 'Was it alright like that?' and 'Mustn't we climb to the 100th floor and fight with the demon king Heathcliff there?' No, not 'must'. It was what I wanted to do, it was just my egotism, the worst egotism. That was why I hesitated equipping two swords in Alfheim.

——However, there was no «Unique Skill» in this world. The new management team had verified the enormous number of sword skills and removed some suspicious conditional skills from the system —— rumors said about ten skills were removed.

[styr]

Originally Posted by Clarste

I believe it was mentioned in several places, but one of them is in the Calibur short story. Kirito mentions in the narration that the programmers of ALO had removed 10 suspicious skills without clear conditions. This was in the context of explaining why his Dual Blade skills no longer existed.

Spoiler for text dump:

Why did the floating castle Aincrad's creator Kayaba Akihito create the system of «Unique Skills» with such deviated power?

Until now I still couldn't grasp the real reason behind it.

The skill «Holy Sword» that person possessed could be clear example. Being the leader of the strongest guild Knights of the Blood, the paladin who stood in front of many players with his absolutely unbreakable crossed shield, and those legends would be turned up-side down at the 95th floor, when that man would turn himself into the worst demon king of all RPG last bosses in existence.

In that moment, the «MMORPG with the main story driven by player's action» would be realized. An Incarnating Radius —— realized world. In order to achieve his purpose of the world creation, it was necessary for him to continue being the absolutely strongest paladin. Even with «Holy Sword» and «Immortality properties», he also had to depend on the irregular power that was the «Over Assist».

But if just the unique skill such as the holy sword were sufficient, it would not be necessary to have an MMO where 'The Hero was the only one who could confront the demon king'. Of course, it would lead to a difference in the player's battle power, which wouldn't be appropriate based on the rules of fairness.

Yet, he still gave «Dual Blades» and probably a few other unique skills to the players.

Those abilities outside of rules resulted in the unequal distribution of the resources, that guy even understood that it could distort how the world would progress along his plan. In fact, during my duel with Heathcliff for Asuna's withdrawal from the guild, if I didn't have the «Dual Blades» skill, he could have won without having to use the Over Assist. Recalling that moment of irregularity caused me to realize Heathcliff's true identity on the 75th floor. By giving me the unique skill, his imagined world —— his story had to end at just three-quarters of the way.

In ALO's world, in the rare moments that I held two swords, I always had a thought in a corner of my mind, Why?

At the same time, there was also a bit of guilt. Of course, I defeated Heathcliff on the 75th floor —— It was a victory I didn't regret. If the game hadn't cleared at that point, the victims of the incident would certainly have increased even further. Among those might be people dear to me. Or perhaps, even myself.

However, I couldn't stop thinking about it. 'Was it alright like that?' and 'Mustn't we climb to the 100th floor and fight with the demon king Heathcliff there?' No, not 'must'. It was what I wanted to do, it was just my egotism, the worst egotism. That was why I hesitated equipping two swords in Alfheim.

——However, there was no «Unique Skill» in this world. The new management team had verified the enormous number of sword skills and removed some suspicious conditional skills from the system —— rumors said about ten skills were removed.

"Suspicious" skills could possibly also refer to rare skills, since they also number around/slightly above 10. Even Kirito says "probably" in regards to other unique skills, either he doesn't know or he is being unreliable narrator again. Personally I believe they would have deleted OP skills like battle healing along with unique skills, as once unlocked they give an undeniable huge advantage.

[don_Durandal]

Originally Posted by Hmm....

I think Murder case is a good choice to be introduction episode for Heathcliff, show that Asuna finally join a guild and continuation of pk issue. My personal issue would be I'm not too fond with tsun Asuna of Murder case, I hope she's not too much of generic tsundere character here. I'm also not too fond with detective story in general, which is perhap a good thing because I wouldn't care too much what is cut and what is not

The obvious issue still remain. There is no way they can fit the whole murder case into 1 episode. That's why I believe we don't have to worry about Heathcliff being "too knowledgable". I doubt the anime will go deep into game mechanic anyway. If they are going for dere dere Asuna of volumn 1, they can cut much of tsun scene here as well. As for the murder story itself, well, shouldn't be any worse than RNR should it ??

Same feelings here. I really disliked Asuna's personality in Murder Case. It felt like a different character.
Still, it's about time they reintroduce her in the story. Also they can't introduce Lizbeth without the connection between Kirito and Asuna been done.

If they plan to adapt this story in one anime episode, they better do some very good editing. Unfortunately I'm quite pessimistic after taking episode 2 and 3 into account.

[Clarste]

Originally Posted by styr

"Suspicious" skills could possibly also refer to rare skills, since they also number around/slightly above 10. Even Kirito says "probably" in regards to other unique skills, either he doesn't know or he is being unreliable narrator again. Personally I believe they would have deleted OP skills like battle healing along with unique skills, as once unlocked they give an undeniable huge advantage.

How exactly is healing OP? It heals a tiny amount. It's even less OP in ALO where healing magic is common. And, well, they do have katana skills in ALO. Even Lyfa uses one. So clearly they didn't just delete all the rare skills. How exactly are rare skills suspicious anyway? Skill trees are a staple of gaming.

Also, this isn't the only place they mention it, it's just the first one I found. I find your skepticism kind of disturbing honestly. Why do you want so hard to believe that there aren't 10 Unique skills?

Edit: The Battle Healing gives him 600 HP every 10 seconds. That's 60 HP per second. He has 14,500 health. That's about 0.4% per second. It would take 4 minutes to heal himself to full. That's like... nothing. I played a troll in World of Warcraft. That kind of regeneration is a joke that you laugh about with your guild whenever you randomly survive an attack with 1 HP.

[styr]

Originally Posted by Clarste

How exactly is healing OP? It heals a tiny amount. It's even less OP in ALO where healing magic is common. And, well, they do have katana skills in ALO. Even Lyfa uses one. So clearly they didn't just delete all the rare skills. How exactly are rare skills suspicious anyway? Skill trees are a staple of gaming.

Also, this isn't the only place they mention it, it's just the first one I found. I find your skepticism kind of disturbing honestly. Why do you want so hard to believe that there aren't 10 Unique skills?

Someone has to be the skeptic, right? I haven't read every volume/ch yet so that is mostly why I ask. I haven't read Caliber so that above quote was interesting to me and I plan on reading it today, hopefully it gleams more info on the unique skill system.

Battle healing aka auto-HPregen is mostly OP because it removes any need for Kirito to buy non-instant regenerative potions (which also saves him a little money as well), massively boosts his effective HP, and gives even "squishy" DPS like Kirito a massive buff to prolonged grinding. Rare skills are only suspicious because per the quote from Caliber, the requirements to unlock them are not given/vague at best. Also, in the Black Swordsman when Kirito says he heals 600 every 10 seconds from Battle Healing although we aren't aware of what his BH skill is. That was ~8 months before the game was cleared, and we do know what skill level his Battle Healing was at when it was cleared: 944. Source is ME2.

edit: About your edit, watch the anime again and you see he heals in ticks of what appears to be 5-10s, although we aren't sure exactly it can be assumed that it isn't every second. It might be a joke in WoW since some skills are normally guaranteed to hit with high enough hit rating (not counting certain cooldowns/skills) and isn't based on players having full manipulation of their character and thus is overall a poor analogy. If you were someone like Kirito who could dodge/parry 95%+ attacks in WoW something like troll regen would be quite good to heal up what little damage you do take. Luckily for Kirito there isn't +hit rating and dodge is based on personal skill and not a diminishing return system..

[Clarste]

Originally Posted by styr

Battle healing aka auto-HPregen is mostly OP because it removes any need for Kirito to buy non-instant regenerative potions (which also saves him a little money as well), massively boosts his effective HP, and gives even "squishy" DPS like Kirito a massive buff to prolonged grinding. Rare skills are only suspicious because per the quote from Caliber, the requirements to unlock them are not given/vague at best. Also, in the Black Swordsman when Kirito says he heals 600 every 10 seconds from Battle Healing although we aren't aware of what his BH skill is. That was ~8 months before the game was cleared, and we do know what skill level his Battle Healing was at when it was cleared: 944. Source is ME2.

He also has more HP later on. So 944 is also nothing. If he has 20,000 HP, 900 every 10 seconds is basically useless in any situation where his life might actually be in danger. Yes, over a very long period of time it could help him out, but having to sit around and wait 4 minutes between battles is the exact opposite of leveling efficiently. You're better off buying lots of potions. It's not like he has any shortage of cash. No serious gamer would recommend a skill like that. At best it would be an unconventional deviation from the standard build. Hardly OP.

edit: There is +hit actually. It's an option for upgrading weapons. Kirito doesn't like it because the feeling of the blade being moved on its own towards the target makes him lose his balance.

[Nightengale]

It's surprising to me that we're discussing the total no. of Unique Skills put in place in the system.

Quoted from the man himself.

Spoiler for vol 1:

“…I had expected that you would be the player who would stand against me in the end. Out of the ten unique skills, «Dual Blades» is given to the player with the fastest reaction speed, who would then act out the hero's role against the final boss, regardless of whether he wins or loses. But you have shown me strength beyond my expectations, be it your speed or your insight. Well…I suppose that such unpredictable developments are part of the essence of online RPGs….”

The way he sentenced it also clearly implies to me that in his mind, he has made his 'Group of Ten' a highly exclusive group ( intended for teh JRPG drama), and highly unlikely that he set parameters that any random grunt could had obtained them.

[styr]

Originally Posted by Nightengale

It's surprising to me that we're discussing the total no. of Unique Skills put in place in the system.

Quoted from the man himself.

Spoiler for vol 1:

“…I had expected that you would be the player who would stand against me in the end. Out of the ten unique skills, «Dual Blades» is given to the player with the fastest reaction speed, who would then act out the hero's role against the final boss, regardless of whether he wins or loses. But you have shown me strength beyond my expectations, be it your speed or your insight. Well…I suppose that such unpredictable developments are part of the essence of online RPGs….”

Thanks, was looking for it. Feel like a herp derp now too, haha.

Originally Posted by Clarste

He also has more HP later on. So 944 is also nothing. If he has 20,000 HP, 900 every 10 seconds is basically useless in any situation where his life might actually be in danger. Yes, over a very long period of time it could help him out, but having to sit around and wait 4 minutes between battles is the exact opposite of leveling efficiently. You're better off buying lots of potions. It's not like he has any shortage of cash. No serious gamer would recommend a skill like that. At best it would be an unconventional deviation from the standard build. Hardly OP.

4 minutes is assuming he is healing up from 1 hp, which isn't likely. I would assume that usually he only needs to heal up a bit after each fight, if at all. 4 minutes to heal his entire HP bar sounds like a long time until you realize that Kirito has probably grinded levels for thousands of hours. If it was such a bad skill why are Kirito/Asuna/Heathcliff using it, three of the best players in SAO and four if you include Cline..

My apologies for all the posts, but he's another couple screencaps of the dual wielding axe thug:

pic 1 pic2

His axes also look... quite different in those pics to when he was just standing around... makes me think it was the animators fault after all! It also seems the weapons change shape between pic1 and pic2.