Sword Art Online - Episode 8 Discussion / Poll

[Unknown Soldier]

Originally Posted by Kafriel

The rabbit stew cooking was also played out well imo, I wonder if high-rank rare food also increases max stats or something...it sure tasted good though

It's implied that food can't be used for temporary buffs or stat increases in this game. Which would then make sense as to why Kirito would never bother leveling cooking and why he was trying to sell the rabbit meat item drop at his favorite shopkeeper guy's store.

What I didn't understand was Kirito's progression. He told Asuna he's a slacker who grinds while keeping a safe margin, but we saw him in 74F at the beginning of the episode AND at the end, with the boss room intact, meaning he's actually in the front lines. Maybe he's LV85 or something...

The show never implies that floor and character level have much to do with each other. As a solo player, Kirito obviously needs to be over-leveled compared to a group player if he wants to solo mobs that most people kill in a group. That said, Asuna does note to bodyguard guy that Kirito is probably 10 levels higher than him.

I like how Aincrad is becoming a good world to live in, rather than the prison that it was in ep.1...less than 500 people now give everything they've got to clear the game and nothing is pointless - they'll be here for a long time, so getting your own house, cooking or just walking around all have their own meaning. I wonder if Kayaba's goal was to see how many people will want to escape his world, eventually...

Less than 500 people currently clearing the highest floor they have reached. At the time of this episode, there are still roughly 6,000+ players in the game IIRC, over 2,000 died the first month but then the decline slowed rapidly as the people who survived through the free trial month were more likely to keep surviving for obvious reasons. This is pretty reflective of how people play real MMOs as it turns out. The number of hardcore people in a long-running MMO who are always trying to clear new content when a patch or expansion is released is relatively small compared to the people who like to craft or fish or whatever.

[Xaturas]

Originally Posted by Kafriel

What I didn't understand was Kirito's progression. He told Asuna he's a slacker who grinds while keeping a safe margin, but we saw him in 74F at the beginning of the episode AND at the end, with the boss room intact, meaning he's actually in the front lines. Maybe he's LV85 or something...

Its basic response. He is just ashamed. You know you shouldn't really be proud talking about how NoLife you are. If he told her that he exp 24/7 (save for some girl eps) she would think that he is strange.

Though I wonder why is he so poor. She bought a house worth 4kk or was it just 1 room and furniture for it.
And he has like only 4kk money saved. Either he can't earn to well, or his drops are worth shit as solo player. I would think that he would be one of the richer people in Sao, save for hardcore pr0 merchants who swim in gold/cor.

Originally Posted by Dengar

I still don't see how Asuna doing the cooking is sexist.

Kirito contracted Asuna for some cooking. She did some cooking. How is this sexist?

Because for most of us its not. He hunts she cooks. Not to mention that they made a contract, it wasn't Kirito going to her and demanding a cooking session. They made a proper trade where he gave her half of items for her service.
You can see that in normal mmos for example you give your friends mats to make some potions/scrolls and in the end you give him some payment, like 10-20% of produced items or some other benefits. Of course he can do it for free, but we talk about trade agreement here.
Making it out into a sexism is funny at best.

[Kamui04]

Originally Posted by Xaturas

Though I wonder why is he so poor. She bought a house worth 4kk or was it just 1 room and furniture for it.
And he has like only 4kk money saved. Either he can't earn to well, or his drops are worth shit as solo player. I would think that he would be one of the richer people in Sao, save for hardcore pr0 merchants who swim in gold/cor.

Spoiler for Comparison to the novel:

It's omitted in the anime, but in the LN he mentions he could have saved enough money if he didn't waste it buying whatever equipment he fancies to test it.

[Eratas123]

Hold on. By the way they reacted after eating, they at least seem to feel full after eating the stew. Does this mean that "Wizard needs food badly" is in effect and the players need to eat to survive or is it just psychological?

[lightbringer]

Nowadays you can't sneeze or fart without it being sexist. Really, since Kirito either doesn't have a cooking skill or it's very low (not saying which to avoid spoilers, from the episode it's obvious that it's one of these two though), him trying to help Asuna with cooking would only ruin the ingredients (Agil said as much). Plus, we have no indication about whether crafting in SAO can be a team activity (normally in most MMOs it is not).

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Have a later episode begin with something like...

Asuna: I don't get why you're so insistent on being a solo player. It's like you had a bad experience with guilds or something...

That could easily segue into a flashback episode showing everything that was shown in Episode 3.

This approach wouldn't really add anything except screwing up the timing and drastically interrupting the flow of the story, since the discussion would have to be at the start of the episode with the rest to follow just like how it did already. Those trigger events may not line up, either. For instance, Asuna and Kirito talked about guilds this time, and this could be the trigger, as you say, for them to discuss his previous guild (note I am not saying that it was or was not, or that they ever talked or did not talk about it) - but this trigger came halfway through an episode. And if it would have delayed the "next morning" events by one episode, we'd be wondering two weeks later about who Kuradeel is and why Asuna is running from him

Spoiler for accel world ep 17-20:

Actually we need look no further than Accel World episodes 17-20 to see why this approach sucks. They put a 2-episode side story right after a major cliffhanger and everything went to shit.

The way I see it, there's really only two ways they could have incorporated the side stories without royally screwing everything up. The way they did, or just leaving it for later OVAs. And I much prefer the way they did it since we don't have to wait this way.

Originally Posted by Eratas123

Hold on. By the way they reacted after eating, they at least seem to feel full after eating the stew. Does this mean that "Wizard needs food badly" is in effect and the players need to eat to survive or is it just psychological?

Spoiler for possibly spoiler for first light novel which discusses the effect of eating food within SAO on the human body back in reality:

It's psychological.

[Eratas123]

Ah, thanks for clearing that up Anyway, I just noticed something: Why is Kirito scared of the knife? They were in town, and there was a whole damn episode emphasizing that people couldn't be PKed and duels were accept only when not outside. She couldn't stab him to begin with.

[Unknown Soldier]

Originally Posted by Eratas123

Ah, thanks for clearing that up Anyway, I just noticed something: Why is Kirito scared of the knife? They were in town, and there was a whole damn episode emphasizing that people couldn't be PKed and duels were accept only when not outside. She couldn't stab him to begin with.

Regardless of what you know the game's rules may or may not be, when a cute girl with a history of being tsun-tsun with you waves a knife in your face, you're going to react instinctively. Especially if you're an anime character, perhaps this is an example of being genre savvy.

[Eratas123]

Genre savvy? The same guy who falls into the beginners trap of fondling the breasts when a girl falls on him When you feel something soft, that's your cue to run like hell before you get smacked.

[Unknown Soldier]

Ahahahaha....that's very true. He's clearly not experienced enough in dealing with tsundere characters! I wonder if SAO has a Speech skill like The Elder Scrolls titles do. He should be leveling that instead of beating up monsters in dungeons!

[Eratas123]

Unfortunately, you can't talk monster's to death in SAO Well, they should count themselves lucky Bethesda didn't make it. Another 2000 people might've died because of bugs rather than monsters and PK's:/

[Adigard]

The idea that Asuna is 'damsel in distressing' from Kuradell (sp?) is a bit odd as well. In theory he's been following her for a month. She probably doesn't like him, but she's very familiar with having him around... and doesn't like it one bit.

IE - he's everywhere she is, although likely not on the front lines with her. He isn't recognized by Kirito, so he probably isn't involved in boss fights (He also doesn't recognize Kirito). Remember back in the mystery arc Kirito recognized the DDA guy from his name / description. Kirito didn't know this guy at all. It's likely he only comes into play when Asuna is not clearing on the front lines with a KoB party. No need to have a bodyguard in a guild party, and if he's ten levels lower / that weak, he has no business being her guard in a front line party.

But when he tells Asuna he's been stalking her house, she asks something like "Our boss didn't tell you to do that, did he?" IE - she doesn't know. Not only is she not aware that he's been doing it, she doesn't know if he's been ordered to do it. I think she's just trying to lose the guy in a way that doesn't subvert her bosses authority, and freaking out that someone was potentially "assigned" to stalk her at night.

She's standing up for herself with Kirito multiple times. Knife to the face when he suggests that the front lines are dangerous? She'd wouldn't be useful and just get in his way? My guess is she wouldn't ruin all that work in front of Kirito, and is likely just stressed out by being stalked.

I was a fan of Asuna's casual clothes, obviously we have people who make clothes as well as armor / equipment. (And yes, I know as a LN reader that there is a very famous casual clothes crafter that Asuna has on her friends list).

[Rakshasa]

Originally Posted by Xaturas

Though I wonder why is he so poor. She bought a house worth 4kk or was it just 1 room and furniture for it.
And he has like only 4kk money saved. Either he can't earn to well, or his drops are worth shit as solo player. I would think that he would be one of the richer people in Sao, save for hardcore pr0 merchants who swim in gold/cor.

She has a high position in a guild which usually gives you good income in various forms, and Kirito probably has quite a bit of expenses on potions and such due to being solo.

BTW, anyone notice that one of the random onlookers called him "Kirita"? Seems he's still rather a mystical figure even on the frontlines.

[Esebian]

Originally Posted by Eratas123

Ah, thanks for clearing that up Anyway, I just noticed something: Why is Kirito scared of the knife? They were in town, and there was a whole damn episode emphasizing that people couldn't be PKed and duels were accept only when not outside. She couldn't stab him to begin with.

Originally Posted by Unknown Soldier

Regardless of what you know the game's rules may or may not be, when a cute girl with a history of being tsun-tsun with you waves a knife in your face, you're going to react instinctively. Especially if you're an anime character, perhaps this is an example of being genre savvy.

Sign Also I think you can't be so cool and calm to think about this in that moment.

Apart from that, it was a really nice episode, I enjoyed watching it It was nice adapted with leaving out already explained things and adding some anime-only-things...but on the other side those things are the major complaint point for the people here XD Both the crushing into pillar and the disarming scene doesn't happen in the actual novel, so you can't really blame the LN author but the production team for it.

Also for people complaining about the thing that Asuna could disarm Kuradeel, well till now the only time we have seen the protection in towns was in Ep 6 when Kirito wanted to throw some knives after Kains. But we did never see that the protection was the same for actual melee weapons. It doesn't necesseraly mean that the same system is used for melee weapons as for ranged weapons, in fact range weapons need this sort of protection wall or otherwise you could throw a knife from outside the town to somebody inside...

[Kamui04]

Originally Posted by Unknown Soldier

Regardless of what you know the game's rules may or may not be, when a cute girl with a history of being tsun-tsun with you waves a knife in your face, you're going to react instinctively. Especially if you're an anime character, perhaps this is an example of being genre savvy.

-_- Even in real life if someone would swing a knife so close to your face you'd react instinctively.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by lightbringer

Nowadays you can't sneeze or fart without it being sexist.

Yeah, I'm inclined to agree. I learned some time ago that you'll never satisfy the people who care the most about "gender roles" and "sexism". Well, that's not entirely true - You might satisfy them by doing what Hollywood tends to do: Pretty much any female character of import (and certainly the female lead) is a very high-achieving kickass heroine that's never allowed to be wrong or show weakness, is always ready with a witty comeback, is often the (snarky) voice of reason, is extremely good at multiple disciplines, and often is better than everybody else at virtually everything. Some female characters being like this is fine, but diversity is the spice of life as they say (and anime thankfully recognizes that).

Besides, Asuna herself is a high-achieving kickass heroine. You'd think that would be good enough. But no, in addition to that, she's not allowed to cook, apparently.

This approach wouldn't really add anything...

Sure it would add something. It would allow SAO to progress the actual main story without having to stall it for six consecutive episodes. It would allow SAO to make good on its premise within the first three episodes, and be the action-adventure sci-fi fantasy that a lot of us expected it and wanted it to be.

It would give the story better flow, by not jumping around with seemingly endless time-skips for the first eight episodes. Episode 3 seemed very rushed to many of us, while that would have been much less of an issue if Episode 3 was actually, say, an Episode 11 flashback episode.

Look, there's any number of ways that you could segue into a flashback episode by setting it up with just a light touch of anime original content. You don't have to use the two specific ways I suggested - A different flashback trigger could have been used. It could have been brought on by a conversation between Kirito and any other character of note that's still alive - Asuna, Agil, Klein, etc...

I'm sure there's ways this could have been done without causing plotholes.

Spoiler for accel world ep 17-20:

Actually we need look no further than Accel World episodes 17-20 to see why this approach sucks. They put a 2-episode side story right after a major cliffhanger and everything went to shit.

I'm not suggesting an Accel World approach. My suggested approach is a flashback one, which is different than what Accel World chose to do.

The way I see it, there's really only two ways they could have incorporated the side stories without royally screwing everything up. The way they did, or just leaving it for later OVAs.

I disagree. They could have went with 1, 2, 8, etc... and incorporated the remaining side-stories through a flashback approach.

[Adigard]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

Sure it would add something. It would allow SAO to progress the actual main story without having to stall it for six consecutive episodes. It would allow SAO to make good on its premise within the first three episodes, and be the action-adventure sci-fi fantasy that a lot of us expected it and wanted it to be.

I'd say ep 3-7 point out the fact that it isn't an action-adventure type of show? But more of a slice-of-life type show in an action adventure setting? It's rapidly becoming less of a "people trapped in a hostile environment desperate to get out" and more "people trapped in a hostile environment and learning to live there".

Doubly when you consider Asuna... the one depicted as pushing the clearing effort is starting to second guess that effort and becoming more comfortable in the world. The fact that this episode is the first time we've actually seen the front lines for more than a minute since ep2 might be meaningful as well.

Honestly we'll only know moving forwards which direction this anime adaption is going for. We should certainly expect some action and adventure, but it doesn't seem to be the main focus to-date.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Adigard

I'd say ep 3-7 point out the fact that it isn't an action-adventure type of show?

Then why does it have the OP that it does? That's one very intense OP (I really like it, by the way). That's not the sort of OP you have for a slice of life type show, imo.

And I'd say that Episodes 3-7 may simply point out what the side-stories are like. The actual main story may well constitute an action-adventure type of show. Certainly Episodes 1, 2, and 8 all came across to me as showcasing an action-adventure type of show.

[Solafighter]

When Kirito was just about to throw these little spears at the rabbit, i thought he would throw a pokeball. The pose was just about right. Am I the only one here? Guess so.

[GDB]

Originally Posted by Clarste

Single-strike mode was even the name of the duel mode that Kirito chose (the anime didn't mention this, but the rationale is that this is the mode with the least risk of death since it automatically ends after one successful strike).

Actually, it did mention it. If you pause when he's selecting it, you can clearly see the rules. It also auto-stops when a player loses half their health, so you can't even 1HKO someone.

Originally Posted by Eratas123

When you feel something soft, that's your cue to run like hell before you get smacked.

He was somewhat incapacitated at the time.

[larethian]

Originally Posted by Triple_R

[mod edit: see quote above - don't need the full post repeated]

Agree with over 80% of your points as a novel reader. I'm one of the minority population who doesn't want the chronological order and want flashbacks and OVAs and go 'Ah-ha' instead.