|
Haven't really felt a need to post until now, but I have to say, I'm generally enjoying this. At least, I think this second arc is a bit better than the first; storyline is a bit tighter, more focused, and a distinct lack of month-long time skips. (I can go into my thoughts on the first arc elsewhere if people are interested).
But as for this arc and episode, I am a bit put off by the little-sister-crush angle, mostly for the cliche reasons. Also, yet another ingame girl crushes on a guy; this IS an MMO, and girls don't instantly crush on ingame guys, unless they are trying to get free stuff. It's more of a personal pet peeve than anything, but I would have preferred Leafa helping Kirito just because she is a good person, or because of simple friendship, or even just to repay a debt (frustration with Recon can play a role in there, too).
But, overall I can ignore this aspect, because it is a fairly decent anime. Not perfect, and not the best, and it doesn't aim to raise any bars; but neither does it dive below them.
More particularly to this episode, it spoke to my pet peeve of shields. At least in the first arc, the shield was moved to block the blow. There was plenty of room to go around three stationary guys; at the least, the shield people should have been moving around to block his movement.
As for the "illusion" considering the spell came from Yui, and Kirito is fairly hax anyway, so I'll just presume it was tweaked until we get an explanation. Given that the mind can be convinced of anything (which brings up several interesting theorems in the context of a realistic VR simulation), there is wiggle room for surprising conclusions.
|