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View Poll Results: Critique of Episode 14
10 out of 10: Near Perfect... 103 45.98%
9 out of 10 : Excellent... 58 25.89%
8 out of 10 : Very Good... 19 8.48%
7 out of 10 : Good... 16 7.14%
6 out of 10 : Average... 10 4.46%
5 out of 10 : Below Average... 1 0.45%
4 out of 10 : Poor... 5 2.23%
3 out of 10 : Bad... 3 1.34%
2 out of 10 : Very Bad... 1 0.45%
1 out of 10 : Tortuous... 8 3.57%
Voters: 224. You may not vote on this poll

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Old 2012-10-08, 10:53   Link #381
Metaneo
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dengar View Post
While I still find the "deus ex machina" thing in this episode debatable, I do not recall any deus ex machina from the Yui episodes. What are you referring to?


Anyway, and this is an honest question. Is it really that far fetched of a theory that Kayaba intentionally left some things "open" to be influenced by "willpower" to allow himself to be surprised by the unexpected? I mean, in the end it's still just brain activity which can be measured.
While I dont think he actually left anything open to will power, SAO is a very complex game/world. Bugs & glitches, no matter how convenient the timing do occur. And despite all his genius I doubt even he could anticipate every glitch that could show up in such a complex game.

Even after watching the episode just once, I didnt see anything that could be counted as an asspull or deus ex machina. Then I went back a re- watched a few episodes and I pretty much saw all the foreshadowing was there. Granted somethings like Asuna jumping in the way of Heathcliffs attack surprised me, but it wasnt something that took me more then a few moments to piece together a plausible explanation based off of already present information.
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Old 2012-10-08, 13:56   Link #382
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Considering that this VR technology completely relies on brain signal inputs for a user to move their avatars, and since Kirito is the quickest-minded person out of everyone (who did not die) in SAO, it is extremely possible for his brain input to temporarily override the death command electrical signal (which probably include something like temporal immobilization - five seconds or so? Just to stop the player from harming the environment within the short time he's dying? This is a pure guess btw) or outlast it, giving him a final chance to move himself and kill Kayaba.

Besides, Kayaba allowed Kirito to kill him anyway as a reward for uh, 'overcoming his world's law'.

Once again, I feel like this episode is too short to be satisfying. It's almost 24 minutes, and that's shorter than a lot of the episodes we've had before. Kirito's waking was definitely an emotional moment, but seriously, they could've at least slot in a couple scenes of Kirito's family and future characters like Accel World anime did. Kirito literally walked the entire last minute towards... the light? What a complete waste of one minute...
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Old 2012-10-08, 15:11   Link #383
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Originally Posted by Zeriand View Post
Once again, I feel like this episode is too short to be satisfying. It's almost 24 minutes, and that's shorter than a lot of the episodes we've had before.
I'm pretty sure all the episodes are edited to be exactly the same amount of time (down to the second), because those are the requirements of the TV stations.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Zeriand View Post
Kirito's waking was definitely an emotional moment, but seriously, they could've at least slot in a couple scenes of Kirito's family and future characters like Accel World anime did. Kirito literally walked the entire last minute towards... the light? What a complete waste of one minute...
I thought it was actually pretty powerful, personally. And it's not like it's all that important to show family and future characters because the show's not over yet. It was the end of an arc, not the end of the anime.
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Old 2012-10-08, 15:22   Link #384
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Unless it's all an hallucination created by his dying, frying brain, of course...

2nd arc: the AI arc. Yui escapes from the confines of her papa's Nervgear, gives free will to other AIs, and fights to avenge her parents.

Wait, no. It still wouldn't mean the end of the anime.
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Old 2012-10-08, 16:26   Link #385
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Originally Posted by Metaneo View Post
While I dont think he actually left anything open to will power, SAO is a very complex game/world. Bugs & glitches, no matter how convenient the timing do occur. And despite all his genius I doubt even he could anticipate every glitch that could show up in such a complex game.

Even after watching the episode just once, I didnt see anything that could be counted as an asspull or deus ex machina. Then I went back a re- watched a few episodes and I pretty much saw all the foreshadowing was there. Granted somethings like Asuna jumping in the way of Heathcliffs attack surprised me, but it wasnt something that took me more then a few moments to piece together a plausible explanation based off of already present information.
Except chalking it up to bugs and glitches makes it LESS believable, because that means that Asuna suddenly getting up, and Kirito being able to attack despite being dead, was due to luck.

At least the willpower/imagination theory has a clear cause and effect.
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Old 2012-10-08, 16:37   Link #386
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Originally Posted by Dengar View Post
Except chalking it up to bugs and glitches makes it LESS believable, because that means that Asuna suddenly getting up, and Kirito being able to attack despite being dead, was due to luck.

At least the willpower/imagination theory has a clear cause and effect.
And also, because of the conversation at the end with Kayaba where he said they exceeded the rules of the game. If it's just a bug, then that conversation doesn't make sense.

So yes, I agree: while it's believable to think there could be bugs/exploits, I think in context they must be saying that rules of the world can be bent or broken if your mind/will is strong enough. The main flaw, then, is that they didn't make this insinuation obvious enough earlier in the story; the hints given in the anime, if you count it as that, are a bit too vague to some.
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Old 2012-10-08, 16:48   Link #387
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And also, because of the conversation at the end with Kayaba where he said they exceeded the rules of the game. If it's just a bug, then that conversation doesn't make sense.

So yes, I agree: while it's believable to think there could be bugs/exploits, I think in context they must be saying that rules of the world can be bent or broken if your mind/will is strong enough. The main flaw, then, is that they didn't make this insinuation obvious enough earlier in the story; the hints given in the anime, if you count it as that, are a bit too vague to some.
I myself am for the the will power overcoming the system limits, I'm a huge Gurren Lagann fan and that show LIVES off of Will power etc, makes sense to me considering everything else. Just tired the people continually claiming Deus Ex & Asspull (and without giving a reason as to WHY it's an asspull) that I figured I'd come up with more "realistic" as they would want.

Not to mention, the game basically played from people's brains, and I believe that the human brain (currently) is a lot more powerful then any supercomputer, much less the SAO servers.
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Old 2012-10-08, 16:49   Link #388
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Originally Posted by relentlessflame View Post
And also, because of the conversation at the end with Kayaba where he said they exceeded the rules of the game. If it's just a bug, then that conversation doesn't make sense.
It'd make sense either way. Kayaba was a romantic who dreamed of a story of a fated hero defeating a demon king. Even and especially if they were bugs (as in, something he didn't intend when he programmed it), he'd speak of it in less prosaic terms.

I couldn't point to a precise paragraph, but I did get the impression when reading the novel that when inputting commands too fast for the system to keep up, it created glitches, or the possibility of glitches (so Asuna trying repeatedly to get up could cancel the paralysis, for example). But yeah, it was pretty vague.
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Old 2012-10-08, 19:27   Link #389
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Eh... people keep going on (and on, and on, and on) about Kirito moving in the end, but the medical field is supposed to be considerably more advanced during the mid-2020s than now. Who knows, it reasonably well might be possible to keep coma victims in better shape by then.
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Old 2012-10-08, 19:41   Link #390
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Eh... people keep going on (and on, and on, and on) about Kirito moving in the end, but the medical field is supposed to be considerably more advanced during the mid-2020s than now. Who knows, it reasonably well might be possible to keep coma victims in better shape by then.
No, not by a long shot. The way how muscular and skeleton atrophy works would hardly allow such possible feat, unless you literally force the victim body to have a everyday activity, and have an absolutely normal nutrient consumption which is not possible in coma state.

You can theorize however you want on the possible lack of complications such like respiratory issue, bedsores etc. But mobility after a coma? No. To begin with, a coma of only 1-2 weeks is enough to lead to severe movement impairment, even with the best prevention care done the very moment the patient was hospitalized, which would require weeks months or even years for rehab.
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Old 2012-10-08, 20:02   Link #391
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No, not by a long shot. The way how muscular and skeleton atrophy works would hardly allow such possible feat, unless you literally force the victim body to have a everyday activity, and have an absolutely normal nutrient consumption which is not possible in coma state.

You can theorize however you want on the possible lack of complications such like respiratory issue, bedsores etc. But mobility after a coma? No. To begin with, a coma of only 1-2 weeks is enough to lead to severe movement impairment, even with the best prevention care done the very moment the patient was hospitalized, which would require weeks months or even years for rehab.
Actually, I'll go ahead and give this a quick response because the dismissive tone is annoying

To bring up one possibility, maybe they can inject nanobots into the body to repair bones and muscles (nanotechnology something I assume is already present in the story itself given that SAO features full immersion virtual reality without moving your body, something that's supposed to become a reality in the future thanks to nanobots), I don't think "WELL IT'S NOT POSSIBLE IN 2012 SO OBVIOUSLY IT WON'T BE POSSIBLE IN 2024 EITHER" is necessarily true.
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Old 2012-10-08, 20:10   Link #392
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Considering how Nervegear (and by the same extention, AW's Neuro-linker) was described and shown, it doesn't involve nanomachines at all.
Again, the problem with atrophy by itself is two fold: activity of the body and the required nutrient. The former is impossible to mimic perfectly (and the LN confirms that according a LN reader: electrodes are used to -delay- (not suppress) the muscular atrophy due to the immobility), and the latter is also impaired because nutrition for comatose patients is solely stuck with parenteral method, which has a lot of limitation, however "advanced" the technology you theorize.
Whereas any advance of technology can ease the medical care for such patient, you don't have a leap of that kind within only 10 years in that field, considering muscle stimulation is -not- enough by itself (you cannot replicate the weight burden with electrode stimulation for instance).

Finally, even in the LN, Kazuto didn't even walk, but tried to reach the door, which is quite a huge difference.
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Old 2012-10-08, 20:31   Link #393
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Maybe I'm just in a crappy mood because I've slept a total of about two hours since Thursday night (Well, okay, there's no 'maybe' there), but you're still coming across as pretty dismissive and completely unwilling to consider that things might be different in 12 years, or that there might be some manner of workaround to these 'insurmountable' problems you raise.

I think I'm probably going to leave it at that because I feel like shit and don't really feel like debating (unless I'm goaded into responding again via another slightly condescending post, anyway).
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Old 2012-10-08, 20:40   Link #394
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Let me try to be the "tie-breaker" and say that in the end it really doesn't make any difference in the grand scheme of things. The "waking from the coma" scene is intended as a powerful symbol of Kirito's determination to find Asuna no matter what obstacles stand in his way (including his own physical impairment). You can consider the scene completely retarded and wish they presented it in a different way that seemed more realistic... but in the end, the intention was conveyed, flawed or not. This sort of creative/poetic license may be annoying to some (just like how I found the presentation of the "hacking scene" in Episode 12 to be a bit lulzy just because of how it was shown), but we understand what they were trying to convey through it. People can certainly consider it a flaw, but it isn't necessarily the end of the world either. So I'd say let's not get too heated over this.
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Old 2012-10-08, 20:40   Link #395
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It isn't about being unwilling, it is about the facts presented in such field: such issue is present for ages, and barely had any evolution to the point care for patients in such state barely went better from 2000 to the 2010.
And I kept repeating these 2 points exactly because advance in technology is hitting a wall: the very method not to have atrophy require the patient to be -conscious- because the required treatment cannot be substituted.

And it wasn't my intention to be condescending, but to bring the facts straight, as people keep using the "but it is in 10 years!" argument, while medical care isn't as fast progressing as computers material and whatnot.

And this is also why I never questioned the "purpose" of the scene, but commented how it was just cheesy to bring this fashion (thus giving a good emotional build up, but having a poor presentation as result).
It is all about a flawed execution used for an appropriate action taken in the said context: of course, it is an anime with a setup that require the suspension of disbelief to accept a moderately big leap in technology, but at the same time, the author tried to keep a sound explanation regarding the usage of the nervegear etc. The proof is that Kawahari still brought up the atrophy issue, knowing that even in his setup, it is an unavoidable consequence of the coma all SAO players went through.

Hence why the anime presentation for this scene was quite off, despite how SAO was portrayed so far.

EDIT:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kamui04 View Post
Seems like most people assume that IV is the only means of providing nutrition. But have you ever seen how they feed paraplegic patients or those undergone esophageal damage/surgery? Intubation, as in inserting a tube thru your nose down your throat or in extreme cases directly into a hole in your abdomen and feed you that way. Usually on the same schedule as normal food, they bring you a bag of what looks like baby food, but it's in reality a balanced selection of food liquefied in a blender. So it isn't like they couldn't get the necessary proteins or other nutritions and since their bodies outside of being unconscious and not having voluntary motor control, they function normally, it isn't like they couldn't digest it.
Of course I've seen it, I do work in that kind of situation you see
That said, IV nutrition has far less restrictions (but obviously more nasty complication due to the catheter), especially that intubation has the issue of leading to erosion or gastric content aspiration. A direct gastrostomy is an option, but not always applicable, and parenteral nutrition has a much better control in term of nutrient supplied, as human metabolism isn't always stable (risk of hyper/hypoglycemy might occur, which is fairly harder to gauge and manage with regular enteral nutrition), and that digestion isn't smooth with unconscious patients (you are at the risk of diarrhoea, dehydration etc due to possible food intolerance due to the patient state).

Whereas a medical team would favor enteral nutrition, in order to have less risk of infection and keep the gastric tract active to some extent, this solution is fairly less practical for comatose patient.
And that's exactly why it is the most common solution and why the anime staff used that to begin with.
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Old 2012-10-08, 20:49   Link #396
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Originally Posted by Klashikari View Post
And this is also why I never questioned the "purpose" of the scene, but commented how it was just cheesy to bring this fashion (thus giving a good emotional build up, but having a poor presentation as result).
It is all about a flawed execution used for an appropriate action taken in the said context: of course, it is an anime with a setup that require the suspension of disbelief to accept a moderately big leap in technology, but at the same time, the author tried to keep a sound explanation regarding the usage of the nervegear etc. The proof is that Kawahari still brought up the atrophy issue, knowing that even in his setup, it is an unavoidable consequence of the coma all SAO players went through.
(I started writing this before the edit so it makes a bit less sense now... )

In the end, if there's one thing about this story that seems to cause the most consternation in threads over the weeks, it's that the story is realistic enough that any creative license the story or anime adaptation takes will be criticized for not being realistic. If the setting were more fantastical or set further off into the future, I have a feeling that people would not be quite so uptight about this.

In any case, I'll just say again that, for me, even recognizing the lack of strict realism, I personally found it more powerful than "cheesy", and thought the presentation was good. But, of course, everyone weighs things differently, and that's why we have discussions...
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Old 2012-10-08, 20:52   Link #397
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Realism is, to a certain extent, what reality is for. We're watching/reading a story about a hero with two swords and a black overcoat saving the (virtual) world. I can very, very easily overlook certain sacrifices for the sake of creating a strong emotional impact.

And that last bit did a WONDERFUL job of delivering exactly that.
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Old 2012-10-08, 22:14   Link #398
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^ Quoted for truth.

Realism is a spice to the dish that is the anime. It is not the sole end all be all spice that must be used. It is an excellent spice, when used well, and greatly enhances the flavor of the dish, but it need not be overpoweringly used to the detriment of the other spices.
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Old 2012-10-08, 23:07   Link #399
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Originally Posted by Metaneo View Post
I myself am for the the will power overcoming the system limits, I'm a huge Gurren Lagann fan and that show LIVES off of Will power etc, makes sense to me considering everything else. Just tired the people continually claiming Deus Ex & Asspull (and without giving a reason as to WHY it's an asspull) that I figured I'd come up with more "realistic" as they would want.

Not to mention, the game basically played from people's brains, and I believe that the human brain (currently) is a lot more powerful then any supercomputer, much less the SAO servers.
Except, Gurren Lagann actually has Spiral Powers in the foundation of its mythos.

No such supernatural powers have been hinted in this setup, thus feeling very awkward and unexpected.
There has been no suggestion of boundaries of science being broken, or a Neo-like natural manupilation of its environment.
You can't compare the two.
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Old 2012-10-08, 23:11   Link #400
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Originally Posted by Klashikari View Post
Even if the muscles are stimulated, muscle atrophy will gradually happen sooner or later, since it will not substitute perfectly normal human activity, not to mention that parenteral nutrition is really not going to supplement indefinitely protein needs for such long period of time, and it will also lead to various complication due to the gastric tract and all.
Seems like most people assume that IV is the only means of providing nutrition. But have you ever seen how they feed paraplegic patients or those undergone esophageal damage/surgery? Intubation, as in inserting a tube thru your nose down your throat or in extreme cases directly into a hole in your abdomen and feed you that way. Usually on the same schedule as normal food, they bring you a bag of what looks like baby food, but it's in reality a balanced selection of food liquefied in a blender. So it isn't like they couldn't get the necessary proteins or other nutritions and since their bodies outside of being unconscious and not having voluntary motor control, they function normally, it isn't like they couldn't digest it.
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