This episode actually addressed some of my complaints of the previous episode. I did not expect that. However, in its turn it suffered from a bunch of storytelling flaws that often tend to bother me. There were a few of those points throughout this episode.
The first was the scene with th PK guild in it. The whole point behind this scene was clear, it’s just the delivery that was superficial. Here you have a guild that specializes in killing off players, and instead of actually doing their job they just yap randomly while waiting for backup to arrive. That backup also happened to arrive at exactly the right moment (remember that Kirito had been just sitting there for 30 minutes before he figured it out, after which he went to casually have some dinner before he realized they were in danger. Also why were they having dinner if they just ate some sandwiches half an hour before? Why did Asuna on one hand prepare lunch, yet not dinner or something? What does food even do in this setting?
Also, I think that the creators could have done way in which he figured it out better, and in a more natural way. Right now he saw a sandwich vanish and somehow linked that to broken armor and teleportation. It may sound smart, but what he could have done much earlier was just look at his list of contacts. At that point he would have noticed that that girl was still amongst them. It would have been a lot more intriguing IMO, rather than outright saying “hey, everything was an illusion”.
Second of all: there was the conclusion of this episode. I’m afraid to say it but there, the creators tried to stuff way too much in way too little time and they did it in a really unimaginative way. The culprit just appears, he breaks down and tells his story, in a few sentences, gets carried off while laughing maniacally and that’s the end of the story. I mean, relationships can have a lot of pointless drama in them, but that confession of his was just shallow. It felt way too much like an exposition for exposition’s sake. At the very least though: this episode did break the “girl of the week”-formula.
What also didn’t really help that revelation was the very overly dramatic string music. I guess that they wanted to make it sound dramatic and all, but that scene was so over the top, rushed and out of place that it only worked against it. And yeah, I”m afraid to say it but Yuki Kajiura’s soundtracks are starting to sound more and more like each other. I don’t mind if some tracks sound the same and all, but what has made her soundtracks stand apart in her early days were her songs full of power and originality: her songs were varied and yet fitted together perfectly. From out of nowhere she could pull up sounds that you couldn’t see coming. Right now though, I have yet to encounter any song that really caught my attention or that stood out in this series. I’ve been noticing this for a while in her series, but here it really stands out. Yuki Kajiura’s strength doesn’t work when she just fades into the background. And it’s not just because of Bee-Train ‘s influence on this. Just compare this with her most recent work.
Rating: 3.5/8 (Enjoyable)
“The culprit just appears, he breaks down and tells his story, in a few sentences, gets carried off while laughing maniacally and that’s the end of the story.”
Sounds the same as the source material. It wasn’t a good side story anyway.
In the sidestory Grimlock defies Kirito’s theory and almost get away with it if it wasn’t for Yuruko’s intervention.
Still I agree that this wasn’t a good sidestory in any way and then they just decided to butcher it in a way that makes it lose any coherence or interest value.
+1 HOPEFULLY next episode will get to the actual story, seriously…
The problem is the length of the series. With more eps it could’ve animated the first couple of months after the game started, which would’ve properly built up the world. Instead they’ve had to introduce the world through these side-stories, which are really out of place at the beginning of the series.
I’m guessing (having never read the novels) that if they don’t introduce the rules now later events will appear to be ass-pulls.
That said, if it can deliver on the main story it could be really good, though I don’t expect it to reach the level I was hoping for (just under Fate/Zero).
In the source material there isn’t really anything in the first couple of months, they skip from like floor one (episode 2) to floor seventy-ish and go from there, and it works. Book two was the side-stories we’re getting now. The execution in the anime – not so good, but they weren’t very good in the book either.
It was kind of okay reading the side-stories in book two though, because you already have a feel for the world, but even then they were all pretty bad compared to the main story in book one. Hopefully this is the last side-story they do before the main story, though I feel like they’ll do something more with Laughing Coffin before getting into it…
I agree that there are several issues here. It’s hard to figure out the timeline this episode. At the point Yolka fell out the window, it looks like it was late evening, before sunset. It was already night when Kirito dropped the sandwich and witnessed the item durability expiry event. At the same time, Schmidt was already at Griselda’s grave. I suppose we can assume that after Kirito and Asuna agreed not to interfere any further, they may have decided to head straight to the restaurant to celebrate clearing the mystery and possibly to discuss the aftermath.
About checking the friend list, neither Kirito nor Asuna would have considered it because both assumed Yolka was already dead. They may have only accidentally discovered it if they were to try to message a friend and somehow were to come across Yolka’s name in the list. I think it’s reasonable for Kirito to deduce the possibility of a fake death from an item durability expiration used in combination with a teleport crystal before stumbling across Yolka’s friend list name by chance. Also, only Asuna had Yolka in her friend list. 17 months after they first met, Kirito still doesn’t have Asuna’s name in his friend list.
About the Laughing Coffin, they’re not an assassin-for-hire guild but rather a guild of murderers who kill for personal pleasure. As orange players, they can’t enter safe zones like towns as they’ll be attacked by NPC guards. Most regular players would be terrified of them and would report them to high level parties to be hunted down and sent to jail. They’re not all that well developed in the novels. One of the big mysteries to me is how Grimlock was connected to them at all but in the novels, it seems that all he needed to do to get them to act was to somehow let the word go out that a high-level member of the Divine Dragon Alliance (one of the elite frontline guilds) was going to be alone at a low level dungeon in the middle of the night and would be easy prey. The novels explained previously that more powerful monsters appear after dark. Silica got overwhelmed for getting caught out alone at night. Also, level 19 is far away from both the middle levels and frontlines so it would usually be all but deserted. It’s one of the reasons why no one was expecting the Laughing Coffin to suddenly show up out of nowhere to go after Schmidt and how Grimlock instantly became a suspect.
Very curiously, Asuna and Kirito are at what appears to be an NPC restaurant just hours before dawn. The novels set the Aincrad levels to be following a 24 hour day/night cycle identical to the real world, complete with weather and season effects and NPC shops usually close late at night.
I’m already exposed to the novels already though so I’m not able to watch this show with fresh eyes. What did people who never read the novels think of this episode?
I read the first novel, without any of the side stories, so all these episodes are generally fresh material for me. They’re nice as bonus stories, but I’d guess they’re only really enjoyable if you have gotten through the main storyline. How many of these side stories are there, anyway? I’m ready to get on with the actual story now… >.>;
Should be one more girl of the week before the actual story I think!
I’m not sure but I think this next story arc may be the last of the side stories for awhile. After this, they should be jumping to the start of Volume 1, possibly going up to the events in level 22, where another important side story happens and then up to the end of Volume 1.
This is only a guess though. Personally, I’m pretty surprised that they’re doing “Warmth of the Heart” so soon. I was expecting a lot more development between Kirito and Asuna before this. I sure hope they don’t dilute the end of this arc but it’s not going to make a lot of sense if Asuna is still the way she is at the end of this episode.
(….you only read Volume 1? ^^;)
I missed the episode preview, that’s the girl of the week I was thinking of. 🙂 I was def expecting “Warmth of the Heart” before the main storyline though, because of what this chapter reveals. (SUSPENSE!)
I only read volume 1 because I hadn’t heard much about the series until the anime popped up. I always compared it to the .hack franchise in my head… but then, because I saw the trailer and couldn’t wait until the next trailer or the series to see what it was about, I decided to actually buy the novel and read it myself. It was a pleasant surprise.
I’m not sure if I will buy the next volume yet (it’s all side stories that won’t be as fresh since I’m watching them in the anime now), but I’ll be in Japan in a month, so I just may spoil myself if I can find a “book-off” store in the area.
Skip book two, not much really happens and it’s pretty mediocre. Book three is where the next major story starts. Grab book two once you’ve finished all the main story-line books.
I don’t find the friends list thing weird at all, Kirito is assumedly still hurt over the friends he’s betrayed/been betrayed by at this point and we saw last episode how Kirito and Asuna didn’t have a good relationship at all despite being in the clearing group together for a while. When they were walking together in town it felt like the first time they’d been together alone.
Asuna is a sub leader of her guild and leads boss strategy discussions so building connections is important in a role like that. Since Kirito always planned on staying at the front lines it wouldn’t be too difficult to relay a message to him. Inconvenient though, yes.
thanks for the info! It’s a shame that the anime couldn’t fit all those explanations in the series…
And, as someone who did not read the novel yet, the one thing I find really weird in the anime is how the players can actually “taste” the “food”. But I went on some f
…went to some forum and it explained me how the players have the memories of the taste or something like that… I don’t find SAO as a bad series, contrally, I enjoy watching it because I like the character design very much and I like those fantasy role playing anime ( like hack/quantum) and Kirito is really cool (yes, I’m a fangirl).
ans sorry for cutting my reply in two, it wasn’t my intention.
What I remember is the developers hired several third party organizations to help simulate all the senses of the human body in this Full-Dive experience. Not just taste, but also touch, smell, hearing and sight. The grass feels like grass, flowers smell like real flowers, etc. However, the way the stimulation works seems to excite more of the brain than food in the real world should. I’m not sure if the anime will cover this but one of Asuna’s passions in the game is finding different game ingredients to try to simulate the taste of food in the real world.
I completely agree with you. I understand why some might have felt that there were a lot of things off this week.
How much time passes throughout this episode might feel a little odd indeed, but I find the reasoning that Kirito followed, very acceptable. Asuna didn’t check the friend list in that short period of time because they thought Yolka was already dead. She might also have a lot of contacts so it would be hard to notice. Kirito noticing the similarity in the durability expiration and the previous “deaths” and assuming it could be an act using the teleportation crystal. The two of em being in the restaurant, not necessarily for dinner, but to discuss the whole case. The guild of assassins, who obviously seem to do it for pleasure instead of being hired guns(or blades :P).
All of that seems plausible to me. Except how Grimlock reacted, which was VERY rushed and undramatic.
Yet, overall, it was an okay episode. It’s obvious that this show is being rushed, but then again, series based on light novels tend to get summarized, since the books are usually detailed and the TV series can’t afford to take their time explaining things. Of course it is the directors/creators job to make it entertaining and well built but I guess it’s not that easy.
Lastly, I didn’t find anything special about the soundtrack either, but I got no complains whatsoever over the art quality. Even though the action sequences haven’t been that much of an eye-candy(not that there were many of them), the static art is pretty damn good.
The girl of the week was actually Asuna.
Haha. I think she’s going to be girl of the week a lot.
It’s her third week argh, I’m sensing something here!
You’re sensing something now? Do you use the opening scene every week for a toilet run or something? XD
LOL *blushes* …guilty.
Here I was thinking both the mystery and the episode were being quite decent just for Grimrock to show up and make the episode turn into something really pathetic.
I haven’t read the novels, but from what I’ve been reading on comments and such it makes me wonder on what kind of drugs the director of this thing was when he decided that first episodes should be used to show some weakly written side stories instead of focusing on building and defining the setting and the cast (specially the cast). The only rational reason he could use to do that is if in fact the main story is even worse at exposition and character development than these side stories, which I really hope is not the case.
Also I think it’s quite the waste of time to nitpick on inconsistencies and storytelling clichés when the story that is being told is weak in itself, it’s the same as spanking a dead guy. 🙂
Um….so I’m a little confused. How does Grimlock showing up make the episode pathetic exactly? You actually follow what’s happening in the story right? Or are you relying solely on Psgels’ reviews?
it makes me wonder on what kind of drugs the director of this thing was when he decided that first episodes should be used to show some weakly written side stories instead of focusing on building and defining the setting and the cast
Um….fyi, I think they’re trying to take care of the setting and cast. Believe it or not, there’s character development happening, although, in my opinion, at a rather rushed pace compared to the novels and can require some reading between the lines. Typical for novel to anime adaptations I believe. The so called “main story” was meant as a stand alone first volume of the novel that managed to win some acclaim in the industry, which is how subsequent novels came about. This main story only covers about 30% of the story that I think the anime is trying to cover. The so-called “side stories” take up another 20% while the remaining 50% could be in volumes 3 and 4. And around four of the characters in the anime OP never appear in the first volume and were possibly invented afterwards. If you’re finding the anime weak at this point, I suggest you not expect it to get any better and to just drop it now. Hopefully after seeing the whole thing, your opinion may improve, or not.
I didn’t read psgels review until I posted what I thought, so no, he has no influence on what I said.
Now about your confusion let’s just say that it turned has pathetic as the reason the guy used to kill his wife. And beyond that we even had the ghost thing. So what I’m saying is that the end of the episode was so bad that everything they may have done nicely (the mystery was decent until that point btw) before that stopped mattering.
Yeah and that’s why I asked on which drugs they were, it’s obvious that they are trying to take care of the setting and cast with these side stories, and off course, some character development is happening, but do you know why side stories are written? It’s so you can flash some specific aspects of your setting and specially your characters, but what’s the point in fleshing characters the audience don’t know (or aren’t used to) and don’t care about.
Now if they’re doing the anime to specifically please the people who read the novel (like let’s say Persona 4 who was obviously aimed at people who played the game), which isn’t so hard to be the case taking how famous the novels are, then I can accept that his may be a good direction to take, now if their intent is to introduce new people to the novel and franchise then I can’t see this as the right course of action.
I appreciate your suggestion, but it’s not like I think the anime is utter crap (even if I may sound like this :D), these episodes wouldn’t be so bad if they were to be shown in the middle of the series, as episodes 14-15/26 or something like this. I do like the setting and its ideas; the animation, background art and the character designs are good even if the characters themselves are falling in my charts with each episode. So I’ll just keep watching until the “main story” kicks out and if it ends up being as weak as these side stories then I will obviously drop it without a second thought.
It’s hard to appreciate the side-stories without having read the main story first. Personally, when I was reading the novels, I went even further than the author intended us to go, and skipped all the side stories until I got done with the main plot. The director decided to do things backwards for this series, and I can see how it would make the story a lot less coherent and less interesting to watch.
But don’t worry, it’ll get a lot more interesting in a couple episodes, once they are done with the side-stories.
I know what you mean, this show has flaws that seriously hurt its massive potential, hopefully things will begin to rock on as everyone seems to be indicating.
The food in SAO actually plays a very important role to the players inside.
It’s true that the hunger players feel is just something stimulated, but when they get “hungry”, shall they ignore it thinking the hunger is fake, they can still have a very uneasy and uncomfortable time.
And in a world with despair and that you could have died at unexpected time (even in town where it’s safe it’s still possible to be killed by Red Player who did some trick), eating pretty much became SAO players’ only or main source of enjoyment, and some of them would try to stuff in as many food as possible when they get hungry.
This side stories aren’t supposed to be used like this…
I, myself, read all available volumes before I read volume 2 and 9.
Yeah, you could say that the director must be on drugs and can’t think clearly.
*le sigh*
You’d prefer the story to be out of order? Reading the conclusion before suddenly adding new characters and side stories which we the readers are supposed to fit back into what we already saw? I don’t know. I suppose it’s possible if SAO was only a one course anime. Then it could cover volume 1. All these “side stories” could be OVAs shown separately later, if there’s enough demand. Is that how you see the side stories being used?
I dunno about them being separate, i think they work just fine, these two past episodes had more interaction between Kirito and Asuna and they also explained how “marriage” work, I do like how the two protagonists don’t just randomly fall in love out of blue, or decide to date at the first “hello”. These episodes work great in developing their relationship, making them more and more familiar with each other.
I think the major problem is with many viewers being too familiar with novels.
This aside what i loved about this episode was that it also show how people changed inside the game. And also the reason the wife was killed dripped of irony (anime/manga industry considering). I was pleasantly surprised.
Also @psgels
What does food even do in this setting?
It helped Kirito to solve the mystery.