Sword Art Online: Alicization WoU - Episode 1 Discussion / Poll

[Kairin]

Welcome to the discussion thread for Sword Art Online: Alicization War of Underworld, Episode 1.

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[Frontier]

The new Opening is another sterling theme from Asuna's voice Haruka Tomatsu. We've got visuals harkening to all past arcs, Alice as the apparent new lead character, the Integrity Knights fighting the Dark Territory, and Kirito's team led by Asuna and Yui coming in to save him .

That naked in bed Fanatio .

Alice has really mellowed out since we were first introduced to this version of her. She seems much sweeter and softer now, dedicating herself to taking care of Kirito and reuniting with Selka. Alice isn't even the version of her sister that Selka knew and yet they've still managed to re-form their sisterly bond, which is nice .

What happened to Kirito? Now he's practically catatonic after whatever zapped him. The only thing he seems to respond to is his and Eugeo's swords, even if it seems like he's still conscious enough to be aware when Alice is talking to him. What's going on with him ?

Man, it sucks that our heroes practically saved the world from Quinella and nobody understands what they did or how much they sacrificed. To the citizens they're still criminals or killers who don't deserve anything, and treated with disdain. No wonder Alice is having a crisis of faith .

I guess one good thing about Quinella being out of the way is that it lets the Integrity Knights do what they should've been doing all along, training a standing army to face off against the Dark Territory. Although Eldrie seems to have given Alice the impression that it still won't be enough .

So Kirito and Alice sleep in the same bed I see .

[Jaden]

It does seem like Kirito disconnected, and what we see is some kind of cached placeholder.

It's probably just a matter of fixing his hardware and logging him back in, will be done within an hour... but what was the acceleration rate of Underworld again? 1000x or something?

Anyway, stuff is going to happen while he's AFK and I guess that's what this arc is about.

There's no way that Kirito would actually die for plot reasons, but he might actually be totally fried IRL, and get restored as a fully digital entity.

[thundrakkon]

I think they mentioned a power surge when the power got shut down. It's probably a matter of rebooting him in r/l right now, and with the slower time in r/l compared to the fantasy world, which is 5000 times faster than r/l, 10 minutes in r/l will equal 50,000 minutes in the realm or about 35 days. If it takes an hour to reboot, then that is about 7 months in the realm.


Kirito might be in limbo between the real world and the realm, so his mind is slower in the realm. Also, although Alice seems to be the main character this season, I don't think they will sideline Kirito for more than 10 episodes.

[blakstealth]

I wouldn't mind if he's in this state for a good portion of the show. It's time for him to take a seat and let the other characters shine a bit.

[magnuskn]

Originally Posted by blakstealth

I wouldn't mind if he's in this state for a good portion of the show. It's time for him to take a seat and let the other characters shine a bit.

Yeah, definitely. The show instantly improved five times without his overpowered ass driving the plot. Much more interesting to see how all the secondary characters have to handle things without him.

[Frontier]

I mean, Alice was almost as overpowered as he was, so ...

[Applehell]

Hmm, I thought all of the church's knight commanders died...

Mostly setup episode so not whole lot happens. But it is good to see how Alice ended up in her situation. Honestly, I don't really care about this Dark Territory invasion plot as the first didn't do anything make that place interetsing, but hopefully it lead to something more intriguing.

[BluePhirePB]

Her dragon gained weight cuz he ate too much fish from the lake hehe.

[Wandering Soul]

So it seems like no one actually explained anything to the rest of the Integrity Knights considering how they still consider Kirito an enemy.

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by Applehell

Hmm, I thought all of the church's knight commanders died...

I thought they were acting like Kirito and Eugeo killed more Knights then they actually had. Like, pretty much everyone who showed up there were the only Knights they actually fought .

Mostly setup episode so not whole lot happens. But it is good to see how Alice ended up in her situation. Honestly, I don't really care about this Dark Territory invasion plot as the first didn't do anything make that place interetsing, but hopefully it lead to something more intriguing.

We haven't really seen much of the Dark Territory beyond the scene where Alice committed her "crime," and a few monsters scattered about, but I expect that to change soon .

Originally Posted by Wandering Soul

So it seems like no one actually explained anything to the rest of the Integrity Knights considering how they still consider Kirito an enemy.

To be honest, I think Bercouli did the best he could to explain what had happened without having to sit everyone down and explain how they had been essentially brainwashed and their entire careers have been lies. But that kind of stuff is hard to shake .

[magnuskn]

Originally Posted by Frontier

I mean, Alice was almost as overpowered as he was, so ...

Sure, so she could be a challenge for him to overcome. But she wasn't the main protagonist of all SAO before and having someone with a different personality be the driving force of the story (for a while at least) really feels like breath of fresh air.

[BloodyKitty]

Spoiler for Comparison to the novels:

Good episode. They skipped a few small things (most notable skips are the actual Alice/Selka reunion scene, Selka learning about what happened and cried for some days over Eugeo, and Alice building the log house), however they didn't affect the narrative and the episode's execution was nicely done. Hope this keeps up because now they only have 4 books left to adapt, unlike 6 books in previous cours when they had to rush here and there near the end.

Originally Posted by Frontier

So Kirito and Alice sleep in the same bed I see .

Yeah, with Kirito being barely conscious about anything and barely able to accept or deny anyone's advances. Maybe it's something somewhat comforting for Alice, but not Kirito. If one day you suddenly got brain fried, disabled and have to be at others' mercy which you are barely registered, you'd feel very helpless and distressed.

Kinda missing Alice bringing him around to everywhere and to bed like a listless doll though

[Applehell]

Originally Posted by Frontier

I thought they were acting like Kirito and Eugeo killed more Knights then they actually had. Like, pretty much everyone who showed up there were the only Knights they actually fought .

lol true.

The central church was basically empty outside the people standing here. Still kind of weird that only casualties in the end was Cloudkin and Quinella with everyone fighting to the death.

We haven't really seen much of the Dark Territory beyond the scene where Alice committed her "crime," and a few monsters scattered about, but I expect that to change soon .

Yeah the OP is giving me some hope we won't be dealing with just generic fantasy creatures and demon lords.

[BloodyKitty]

Originally Posted by Applehell

lol true.

The central church was basically empty outside the people standing here. Still kind of weird that only casualties in the end was Cloudkin and Quinella with everyone fighting to the death.

Kirito didn't aim to kill any of them even when push comes to solve. He even tried to save Fanatio when she was dying. For Quinella and Chudelcuck, it's because their crimes have crossed the lines.


[mod edit: no hints or answers from the novel]

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by magnuskn

Sure, so she could be a challenge for him to overcome. But she wasn't the main protagonist of all SAO before and having someone with a different personality be the driving force of the story (for a while at least) really feels like breath of fresh air.

Wouldn't be the first time the female lead has taken over the MC role. Asuna was basically the main character of Mother's Rosario with Yuki as her Heroine/co-star .

Originally Posted by BloodyKitty

Kirito didn't aim to kill any of them even when push comes to solve. He even tried to save Fanatio when she was dying. For Quinella and Chudelcuck, it's because their crimes have crossed the lines.

Yeah, the Integrity Knights were basically brainwashed into serving Quinella and carrying out her plans. They had no way of knowing any better, and any time they came close to realizing it she would've just reprogrammed them again.

I'm not surprised Kirito didn't want to kill any of them.

[relentlessflame]

By the way, I changed the numbering for the thread to reflect the way they are numbering the episodes on the Blu-Rays. So this is actually episode 1 of SAO: Alicization War of Underworld.

Also, in other news, I just want to remind novel readers to give absolutely no hints about future plot (even general suggestions about what to look forward to), and also to make sure any and all novel comparisons for stuff shows are 100% behind spoiler tags.

Spoilers and speculation can go in this thread.

[Green²]

Originally Posted by BluePhirePB

Her dragon gained weight cuz he ate too much fish from the lake hehe.

Leaves huge mess on doorstep. Sword not work so well to cut past front door. Does wonders for the garden though.