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View Poll Results: Critique of Episode 08 | |||
10 out of 10: Near Perfect... | 56 | 38.62% | |
9 out of 10: Excellent... | 52 | 35.86% | |
8 out of 10: Very Good... | 24 | 16.55% | |
7 out of 10: Good... | 9 | 6.21% | |
6 out of 10: Average... | 1 | 0.69% | |
5 out of 10: Below Average... | 1 | 0.69% | |
4 out of 10: Poor... | 0 | 0% | |
3 out of 10: Bad... | 0 | 0% | |
2 out of 10: Very Bad... | 0 | 0% | |
1 out of 10: Torturous... | 2 | 1.38% | |
Voters: 145. You may not vote on this poll |
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2012-08-26, 02:23 | Link #181 | |
Seishu's Ace
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Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: Kobe, Japan
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If anything bothered me in the episode sexism-wise, it was the way Asuna hid behind Kirito when Kuradeel appeared. I could've lived without that.
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2012-08-26, 02:33 | Link #182 | |
Banned
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Kirito: "What's is it, Asuna?" Asuna: *Looks at Kirito with cute eyes "Asuna is scared." Kirito: *hugs Asuna "Ahhh.. Asuna... KAwAii!!!!" |
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2012-08-26, 02:57 | Link #185 |
Senior Guest
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Athens (GMT+2)
Age: 35
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Very nice episode, lizardman and skeleton fights were good enough to get my weekly fight fix. Asuna said the A.I. gets better after 70F, that should deter quite a few people from venturing any further for a while. 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
Asuna maxing out her cooking skill shouldn't be so surprising - food is one of the few pleasures in Aincrad, it's only natural that people would be drawn to unknown flavors that they could only dream of experiencing in the real world. Plus, it's been two years since they started playing, so of course people would have a secondary skill or two (in Kirito's case, I think he's got a bit of everything on decent levels). 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... Kradeel feels so out of place. A guy in his fifties who stalks a little girl and is butthurt because Kirito was a beta tester, not admitting blatant defeat, etc...it would have been much better if he was 12 or something. 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... Laughing coffin dude smiling at the duel...no comment, highly doubt they can even touch Kirito or Asuna. Complaint of the episode: no ridiculous faces overwhelmed with the pleasure of rabbit stew, Toriko-style |
2012-08-26, 03:05 | Link #186 | |
Bittersweet Distractor
Join Date: Nov 2007
Age: 32
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We're talking about the same writer here that wrote AW. You know Haru and how he tends to depend on KYH at points of the story for psychological support and what not? Is this sexist against males now too? Construing this as a sexist portrayal of women is laughable at best and isn't really grounded in anything. Sorry Enzo, I think you're stretching it here way too much. When the story starts mentioning anything about gender roles in an overt way, then we can talk.
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2012-08-26, 03:11 | Link #188 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2004
Location: 下北沢、東京
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Seems more likely that they want to stop the clearing group from advancing cause they don't want to return to the boring real world. Best way would be to cause internal strife.
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2012-08-26, 03:17 | Link #189 | |
Banned
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They're scared to return because of the expenses and the crime they had already committed... |
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2012-08-26, 03:24 | Link #190 | |
On a mission
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It's possible the system is where one needs to set a flag that one can be susceptible to another attack. It's also possible that the duel can be forcefully cancelled. The fight already kinda ended, after all at that point. To me it just seems like a simplification of a game element, aka the natural conservation of detail that is mandatory for storytelling. Since it's a small detail, it doesn't warrant an explanation either, though they could have done it better.
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2012-08-26, 03:59 | Link #193 | ||||
Senior Member
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Initially, I found it odd for Asuna to say what she did, because it's incredibly obvious that she'd be attracting the attention of other guys. So her being genuinely annoyed at marriage proposals strikes me as very possible, so my initial interpretation was to take it as a totally sincere complaint, coupled with not wanting Kirito to add on to her frustration. But now that I think about it more, Asuna bringing it up likely is a tease because it's self-evident. In other words, there's no other practical reason to bring it up. Kirito is hardly the sort of person to casually make marriage proposals, even given the circumstances. Quote:
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You know, I find your line of argumentation (and similar ones on this thread) a bit strange. I mean, source material fans had to take in the events of this episode without the benefit of the side stories (when they were reading the actual light novels). Did source material fans have huge problems with the content of Episode 8 without having read the side story content first? If not, then why would anime-only viewers? So partly for this reason, I disagree with the general consensus on this thread that the adaptation approach taken was the best one. After seeing the first eight episodes, I honestly would have preferred it if we had went 1, 2, and 8 (i.e. this episode would have actually been the 3rd). I think that approach would have created a much greater sense of narrative cohesion. And it's closer to how this narrative was initially meant to be experienced. Episode 2 was based on a side-story, but it still feels like an episode focused on the main plot, due to how the episode is all about clearing a boss. Episode 2 also introduces the concept of "beaters" - Without knowing this concept, many of the insults thrown at Kirito by Kuradeel wouldn't make any sense at all. So I see some value in Episode 2 coming before Episode 8. But some of the in-game mechanics stuff explored in Episodes 3 through 7 could be explained without too much difficulty here in Episode 8, while other bits of it could have waited until later. I think that the SAO anime would have been better off going 1, 2, and 8 for the first three episodes, and then handling side-arc stories in flashback episodes down the line. 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. Another later episode could have begun with Silica and Kirito randomly running into each other in Agil's store, and the two acting friendly with one another, raising Agil's eyebrows. Agil: That girl seems to really like you, but I've never heard you talk about her before! Kirito: Well, I only met her once before. Agil: Just what happened during that one meeting? This I gotta know! That could also easily segue into a flashback episode showing everything that was shown in Episode 4. And you could use this approach for other side-stories, scattering them about at good break points in the main plot. Personally, I think that much of the fun of a time-skip is the mystery that it brings with it. It can be very fun to see the curtain slowly pulled back on just what happened during the time-skip. I think that the anime adaptation of SAO could have played that up really well if it hadn't went with the side-arcs first approach. SAO is a very good anime, but I don't think it took the best possible adaptation approach. I really do think it would have been better to spread out the side stories more, rather than to front-load them all like this. And just to be clear, I write this as an anime-only viewer.
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2012-08-26, 04:48 | Link #194 |
Senior Guest
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Athens (GMT+2)
Age: 35
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Every episode had a different level range around it though...going from LV2 to LV74 in one go would be very wtf. Also, each episode covered a different aspect of dungeon experiences - traps, secret items, PK zones, material hunting while at the same time shedding light on the different ways the game can be played (in guild/parties/solo/duo) and how they affect the gaming experience.
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2012-08-26, 05:02 | Link #196 |
Truth Martyr
Author
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Doing Anzu's paperwork.
Age: 38
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All in all, I think this was a good episode. Not really much that I will add except that this was well done, I quite like it and I just wish they could have had a longer fight, but I know they need to save the budget fr the next ep.
Also Asuna is win. Absolutely win.
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2012-08-26, 05:08 | Link #197 | ||
:D
Join Date: May 2009
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2012-08-26, 05:09 | Link #198 |
Junior Member
Join Date: May 2006
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I really enjoyed this episode, pretty near perfect to me. It's nice to finally be on the main story now, but unlike many others I enjoyed most of the sides >->.
I like the pacing of the episode itself has me looking forward for whats to come in the next few eps.
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2012-08-26, 05:11 | Link #199 | |
Member
Join Date: Jun 2010
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end card, weekly spoiler discussion |
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