Sword Art Online - Episode 6 Discussion / Poll
 

Welcome to the discussion thread for Sword Art Online, Episode 6.

The Illusionary Avenger - 幻の復讐者 ~ Maboroshi no Fukushusha

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I hope CR is wrong.... it says Ep 6 is going to come out "7 days from now" :( (I do have premium membership too so.. idk)

They're not. Only some channels will be airing Episode 6 today (some already have, I think). No simulcast today. =/

Ya, I noticed that SAO usually airs at 1pm EST on CR, but today it is 4pm EST..

Is the 1pm showing the simulcast? What influences it so much on a weekly basis I wonder.

It's because of the Olympics, isn't it? But we only need one channel to broadcast it, don't we?

It seems that MBS had to cut the episode this week, and will instead be doing a double-broadcast two weeks from now (on the 25th) to catch up. So if Crunchyroll was forced to not air the episode before MBS did (which could explain why they don't simulcast till 5:00am JST), that means we can likely expect a similar pattern, hopefully including the double-airing in two weeks.

(Most other channels airing the anime did air it this week on schedule, though. The TBS/MBS/RKB network is the one doing games coverage in Japan, though, so that's why many their shows are affected in some way.)

Edit:
Actually, I think it was moved to 4pm EDT a few weeks ago. It was 1pm at first. If my speculation above is right (which seems to fit), the reason would be contractual rights for Japanese broadcast on MBS (a clause that says that station must air it before it's allowed to be broadcast anywhere else in the world).

have watched it



next episode will be the last side story (for now) which is lizbet and the out of dark repulser

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Dam they nailed Johnny Black's voice, PoH was pretty good too, sadly XaXa didn't get any lines =(


But yeah, finally we got away from this most boring side story for me, cuts from novels were pretty smart because otherwise it might spoil too much, pretty good.

I always imagined PoH being more charismatic than that, but it works.

Darn, will have to look somewhere other than CR then. Reading here it seems everything went well. :3

Interesting Episode :D

Noticed the Ending Artwork was done by Buriki lolz

I really think it was well done, and the parts left out wasn't too major or would of been too many spoilers this early. One more side left until the main story starts looking forward to it.

Who's the amazing artist for the Asuna portrait in the end?

Buriki, as Yusei Fudo said a few posts above :heh:

I was wondering how Kirito was going to figure everything out without the Kains/Kaynze clue. I think the solution the anime came up with worked well, especially since it allowed them to keep the sandwich scene.

Personally, I think the scene with Laughing Coffin was played out a too fast. I just sort of blinked, and then they left already. How could they keep the part where Kirito patted a horse's backside but couldn't come up with better pacing for people that matter?

Also, could anyone tell me the next episode's name?

Next episode title is "Warmth of the Heart".

wasn't all that good episode imo. Although it did wrap up why those two were killed the previous episode.

"Kokoro no Ondo" (心の温度)
"Warmth of Heart"

Its another side story from Volume 2, and I'm really wondering how they are going to do it without spoilers to the main plot.


And Edit: oops got my side story titles mixed up and someone also beat me to it.

Hmmmmmmmm................................My impression after finish the episode is soooo what is the point of this 2 episodes arc. I just can't understand the studio's decision. Why do they need to spend 2 episode on this sidestory ? What do we or rather anime viewers get, story/character development-wise, from the last 2 episodes ? Perhap someone can enlight me.

well I just guess that it was just to let people watch the development between Asuna and Kirito and people tend to like the novel part being animated than an original script....:p

We met the female lead. What could be more important than that?

Great episode.
The mystery was all wrapped up, even though it took a slightly different route from the novel, it was nicely done.

Next week will be "Warmth of the Heart", which along with "The Black Swordsman" is one of my favorite chapters :D

Could have done without this story arc to be honest. -yawn-

At the end of the day, at least as anime-only viewers, I think that you can't really judge the importance of any given episode until you understand the whole story shown in the anime. Then you can fully understand how the pieces fit together and judge how you think the anime spent its time. From our perspective right now, we shouldn't rush to conclusions.

And I think that light novel readers need to be careful what they say about what the overall plot of the story is. Not shown in the anime yet = can't be discussed here.


(By the way, on the topic of Crunchyroll, they did post an update that basically corroborated what I said before about MBS. They said "Due to the Olympics and resulting broadcast schedule in Japan, episode 6 will be streamed on 8/18. We apologize for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience." The station that delayed is MBS, so that suggests they're bound by contract to not show the episode before MBS does.)

Important themes to take away from this arc/episode:

• The value of living life in the game vs. trying to escape it
• Are the rules of the game "fair"? So far the answer is yes.
• Life in the game as a means of personal growth. IE: Griselda
• Establishing the kind of relationship that Kirito and Asuna have outside of life threatening scenarios.

Maybe there are others, maybe not, but I don't think it's a complete waste of time.

Sorry about that. All in all I want to hear what anime viewer feel about the last two episodes.
Episode 4 may feel very fillerish but it at least introduce new character Silica.
I don't think the return of Asuna alone justified 2 episodes even from my anime viewer perspective (but I may perhap bias). Making episode 2 or 3 into 2 parter is better time spent IMHO.

Another episode that further makes me wish the author was designing MMOs, rather than writing about them. :heh:

Glad to see the explanation for the 'deaths' made sense. Good to see the normally level-headed Kirito do something pointless. I mean, if you can't hurt/kill people in town, what was he hoping to accomplish throwing his spikes in the beginning? :p

If this episode is like the previous five, in helping to establish ground rules so that the meat of the story doesn't have to waste time on exposition, then I guess it's a fair certainty that Kirito is going to get married at some point, and one would have to assume it'll be to Asuna. :D

Well, if this is really going 24 episodes, I guess it's fine that they're taking their time to lay the foundation via mini arcs. It's kind of crazy that I'm just now realizing how long it's been since I've actually watched a 24 episode anime straight, without the whole skipping a season or some other bs. The over-abundance of 12-13 episode anime has caused me to expect things to move faster, something I guess I need to reign in for this show. I'm glad they're doing it they way the are, or they'red likely be pointless filler later down the road.

First thing first, please tell me it was my sub that was just trolling me: :heh:
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Was a good episode, better than last week. The reason for killing was unexpected and the way how those two players faked their death by stabbing themselves to destroy their armor was a great idea.

well that was kind of a boring conclusion....
the entire reason for the killing of the wife/ring plot was bland as hell.

The Laughing Coffin showing up was cool, no action happened though.
Kirito's explanation was pretty entertaining though.

Best part of the whole arc, was just the regular Kirito x Asuna alone time, the actual mystery was pointless.

The end with the ghost actually appearing was confusing though, especially given the game design of what we know so far....why would she appear there like that...makes no sense from a game perspective.

Or that's his introvert way of telling Asuna he wants to reciprocate her wanting to jump his bones.

That answer that Kirito gave Asuna in the end - I'm definitely going to use it if I ever get asked the same question. :)

Or you just got caught by that sub group leaders trolls, since I'm probably not allowed to talk about group with name because this is licensed.

Atleast it wasn't like that in novels ^^

Well, it was okay, it felt a bit sudden how Kirito found out about item durability and considered the possibility of a murder guild involved.

It looked a bit too friendly how Schmidt and Caynz carried Grimlock, especially how he is responsible for their guild leader's death. At least drag him:heh:

The leader of the trio sounded a bit too rough, the poison guy really fit the image of a crazy killer, props to the voice actor. The leader also has what looks like a scar on his face, did he get it before or in the game?
Seriously, we go from the awesome looking weapon Yoruko is holding to some boring long sword the third guy threatens them with, wish they put a bit more effort in designing swords:uhoh:

Kirito raised a couple of flags this episode, but considering that there wasn't really any significant development between them for the last ~16 months, these were probably the first flags in the Asuna route.

Well thats good news. It still made me chuckle if thats what they tried to achieve.

Famous words from Kirito:

"I'm willing to bet my virginity".

Such a brave man to speak about such a thing to Asuna :heh:

Anyways, back on track with the episode. I kinda felt let down by the first half of this episode. Last episode was so tense and realistic with the trauma, the sadness, the motives and revenge and it was quite the interesting and enjoyable episode to watch. Then it's revealed that it was all a lie, no one actually died that episode and it was all figured out by Kirito dropping some food that was about to expire? I had hoped for something a little better :(

None the less, it managed to pick itself back up once a real PK guild made their entrance. The Laughing Coffins, quite the name, probably easy to remember too :p

I am really surprised however that Kirito let them live or escape. They showed no signs of changing their ways after being threatened and it was obvious they would continue. He's going to have the blood of other innocent players on his hand for doing that.

Alas, I liked the conversation Asuna had with Kirito about marriage and the storing space being shared. It was as if she was hinting something there, eh? Eh Asuna? Go ooonn! :heh:

Speaking of marriage, Grimlock and Griselda were married in real life eh? That was quite the reveal :p

Also, this episodes end card:

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Asuna! :love::love:

That was a rather good adaptation. Could have been dragged for longer, but I feel that the plot was covered enough this way. They need to get to the main story anyways.
Still, we got some interesting expositions to the mechanics of the game throughout the episode.

The question here is: who let who escape?
The Laughing Coffins are on a whole different level than the small fry Kirito faced in episode 4. Even a frontliner like Schmidt automatically recognised them.
And even if Kirito was able to take on all three of them (with Yoruko and Cainz being middle level players, and Schmidt being paralyzed on the ground) it’s doubtful that they’d let themselves get caught. Does Kirito have the guts to kill a player?

anime only viewer, and i mostly agree with this
plus, i would add, more infos about the game mechanics

it's still a build up, and personally i wouldn't mind at all if it continued like this till the end
the pace just slowed down from the previous episodes (where some people were whining about it being too fast), hope the next ones will come back fast as before

also this was quite a talky episode, lots of talking and explanations, which may not be satisfying if someone is watching it mostly for the action