Look, I don’t mind that we’re in the middle of side stories right now. That’s fine, especially conisdering that this will be 2 cours long, and in fact, I like that this show is taking its time to show its world. But please: change things up a bit. This was yet another episode about a girl who falls in love with Kirito.
On hindsight, the previous arc was good in how it avoided this (the purple haired girl turned out to be acting). And what bothers me the most is that I don’t really buy how all these girls fall for him. This episode was probably the worst here: Kirito arrives and breaks her most prized sword, and then starts flirting with her. On one hand, this episode showed nicely how blacksmithing works, but Kirito really: couldn’t you really find a better sword? And if her swords are so weak, why did you stick with her? How does blacksmithing work anyway? Do you just need a title of “master smith”, which will allow you to create any weapon possible, or are there levels in creating weapons? This episode hinted at both: on one hand Lisbeth being able to make an item way above anything she ever made before, and on the other hand there was the amount of heart and skill put into it that Kirito commented on. Which is a bit odd, considering how easy blacksmithing is in a game.
I also wonder: how come no girl has a boyfriend until they meet Kirito? Have all of the other guys already died at this point? That’s the only explanation I can think of right now: in this setting it’s of course understandable that people fall more quickly for each other. If this indeed takes place more than half a year after everyone got trapped, it can only mean that all the guys immediately rushed off into their deahts, leaving a population with more girls than guys. There was this one picture of Lisbeth surrounded by three guys, hinting that those guys are now dead, so that seems plausible.
Rating: 3.5/8 (Enjoyable)
I concur with the theory of a lot of hot-headed guys going off an getting killed earlier in the game, while the girls stayed behind. It’s not unrealistic to run into one potential romantic interest after the other in a long JPRG, so why not in SAO?
Sure, Kirito came off as an arrogant jerk at first, but then unwittingly wins Lisbeth over through his heroic actions, and he eventually stops looking down on her. Liz falls in love with him awfully quick, but she goes through a lot with him in a very short time, and it’s clear she wants a man from the outset.
I quite agree, though honestly this episode didn’t do the novel justice. Not that the novel is a masterpiece of writing, but the writer is fairly good at coming up with interesting premises – though his execution is somewhat, at least translation, mediocre. Kind of like Lovecraft. Excellent ideas, decent execution.
I might point out that, without spoiling, people need human warmth and touch, especially young people. I don’t mean kisses and cuddling, but rather just feeling the company and warmth of another human being. The victims deal with the reality of the game in different ways. The thing I like about Kirito is how he deals with being in the new world.
The last side story. Finally we can get back to the plot. Well there is a side story that takes place in the middle of the plot but that should be a bit away.
It always annoyed me about Kirito getting the girls. What can you do, that’s basic light novel writing for you. Even in the later novels he’s still getting girls when it serves no point to the plot. It’s what really annoyed me about the later novels and is one of the reasons why I prefer the first one above all.
As for the reason why this girl doesn’t have a boyfriend it can probably be due to the vast majority of SAO players being…well…not very attractive.
I think this series has gotten you close to your patience’s limit if it has you nitpicking at this level. Still, the “main” plot kicks off next week, let’s see how that turns out.
Yeah I gave up with this show. I LOVE backstories as they enhance the plot, add character development and they’re usually handled well. Harem Art Online accomplished none of that. Who’s dumb idea was it to start off with seven backstory episodes? All we’ve known so far is that this cool dude with a black sword and his many girlfriends are stuck in a online game. Director does not know how to direct at all. Oh well, at least now I’m free from all the LN readers bitching about how the anime didn’t include ‘x’ scene at ‘y’ point.
Not even Yuki Kajiura can save this show. Disappointing summer season is disappointing.
Damn, and they’re just about to go into the main plot too. I dont blame you though
+1,ooo,ooo, I dont blame you at all, Im sticking around. . .as there really isnt much that interests me this season. . .I just know the main story will be somewhat decent, and I like exploring that online world and hope they get back to all that which was in the first episode.
Yuki’s not even bringing her A game for this.
Thank gosh somebody else said what I’ve been saying all this time, but I still wonder on what drugs the director was when he make this decision.
Agreed. I’m still continuing it though since they say it’ll get better. It’s been enjoyable so far, but I’ll drop it if it stays like this.
I mean, it’s a good series, so I’ll afford to let this stupid decision of doing the side stories first slide. I hope they don’t dissapoint us any further.
Also, I totally get why the girls would fall for Kirito so easily. There probably aren’t that many good-looking or >nice guys< in that game at this point. We all know how ugly humans can be when placed against the wall. There was no explanation about the blacksmithing too, but I guess they had little time to do that once again. Meh.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention how broken all the players are because of the stress the whole game-death situation is putting them under.
As someone who has read the novels, this episode didn’t do any justice to the novel counterpart. The novel explains not only how blacksmiths work, but also the dynamic between Kirito and Lizbeth, which turned out to be poorly explained here.
Only thing I can say is that I hope that when they reach the ALO arc, they at least take their time to give some more color to the characters, good thing is that it’s a straight forward story arc covering two novels and with no subplots between.
I think they skipped over the entire dynamic between Kirito and Liz and just went with her just falling in love with him. Or it went over their heads despite it being in the actual title of the story itself.
The level of incompetence A-1 has displayed here suggests the latter.
I’m actually a bit surprised; psgels seems to be handling this surprisingly well. Now after reading the comments I’ve gotten really annoyed with some of you people, so allow me to actually use my brain to elaborate. First of all, for those of you that haven’t noticed, the show is rushed compared to it’s novel counterpart, meaning, lots of story telling, the little things here and there that count for a lot and lots of story development simply don’t exist. Secondly, since the anime is going in chronological order, the side/main story frequency is not balanced. And lets be honest, in the real world Kirito is probably a “loser”, in retrospect he is powerful in the game world, he is very knowledgeable and very well versed in place in which they are trapped, he’s bound to be a bit more popular.
Secondly these women come and go, while I agree its a bit ridiculous for so many people to take interest in him, its not like anyone is left lusting after him, even blacksmith girl is likely to get over it. A few more notes, unlike lots of the characters we’ve seen Kirito rushes into battle, he never shows any real fear, and doesn’t like it when poeple die, and has gone so far as to not abandon a person, I’m sure this translates better in the novel but that might add just a tiny bit to him having a little more allure.
I happen to like this series, I enjoy it, it doesn’t make me cringe, it doesn’t bother me at all. I AM disappointed that the RPG aspect isn’t more taken advantage of, I AM disappointed that the potential isn’t as bright as is should be BUT I understand why things are they are. You can write the greatest novel and have companies wreck it, make it shine, or make it fall somewhere inbetween. Sword Art Online probably falls inbetween but I would not call it a wreck.
Sorry for the rant, but I swear to God, one person came up with this idea wrote this story got recognized and is making money. Money aside I’m sure they put their imagination and heart into this.
What have you done today?
Indeed. I like to rant about this series and explore the things it does wrong, but the strange thing is that I don’t really feel the urge to drop it, unlike what happened with Accel World. It’s indeed far from perfect like you say and that indeed is a large shame, yet it does have its charms.
Yay! psgels responded!
Yeah, I know what you mean, and I agree completely with Accel World, I dropped it after episode one, couldn’t handle it much.
Unfortunately, that led you to miss a superior series. Accel World has been just a bit better than Sword Art – not surprising, as it represents the author’s more mature work.
I would like Accel World more if the main character, the meatball, wasn’t such a… whiney kid. Seriously, grow some backbone.
Also, I do enjoy the premise of SAO more, although both are quite alluring.
It really is funny when someone writes so much and says so little. You haven’t given any reason why we should not be complaining and give this show a break. You have more reinforced the reason why we should be complaining.
But let me add to this. The simple issue isn’t that this show is being rushed. No no no, the issue is that the animators are trying to stuff so much into this when they don’t even have to. They could have animated just the first novel or leave out Warmth of the heart and The Black Swordsman as they don’t add anything to the main story at all. Make them OVA’s instead if they need to be animated. Use those extra episodes to give Aria and red nosed reindeer it’s needed episode time. And then there are these baffling decisions. Like why did they add part of the material from the manga extras at the start of Murder case in the area? All this did was make Kirito look like an idiot who can’t tell the difference between reality and virtual. Why did they show the leader from Arias refusing a potion? Why put Argo in red nosed reindeer and omit her from the story were she actually had a purpose? This isn’t a matter of simply being rushed reaper. This is just bad decisions. In the end why not just animate the first novel alone and ALO instead of trying to animate the side stories, SAO and from the looks of it ALO as well? The end result is side stories which are so rushed and crushed that they lost the very point they were trying to make.
I admit this show isn’t terrible but it requires me to ignore a lot of botched storytelling to enjoy. Something which isn’t going to make me raise the score I give it.
Also that last paragraph was very dumb. Is your point “If you have time to complain then why not write a novel?” cause if it was I say if you have time to lecture us then why not write a novel? Let us do what we want.
You sound really butthurt. LOL
I’d say: hate the director and bad decisions but don’t hate the series in itself. That’s why I’m giving it a chance still.
I legitimately understand why you’re ranting so much about it though.
That guy you criticized(for no reason) wasn’t as wrong as you think. Time IS a problem and it is probably the reason behind the stupid decisions too. He IS being a hypocrite when he said that last phrase tho.
Looking at the big picture, he doesn’t NEED to give you reasons for why we should not be complaining or disliking it. He never intended to imo.
But, back to the show, in the end, I guess it comes down to people who can appreciate it for its charms, even with those flaws, or, in some cases, endure it till it gets better(unfortunately).
I do hope they are genuinely doing their best for this and not being half-assed about it. It’s not excuse for the blunders though.
Well said, I agree
Er…with the topmost, *sigh* anyway, I am enjoying the show. Yet I’ve read the light novels so I have a bias.
1 – There are no classes. There are only skills that the players level up as they work up a particular skill tree. Master smiths like Lisbeth have high levels in smithing skills. But they still need rare items to make the best weapons to compete with rare item drops like kirito’s eludicator.
2 – I also wonder: how come no girl has a boyfriend until they meet Kirito?
Because all the girls are broken to a certain degree. The same for Kirito. It’s kinda the theme of the second volume of the short stories, which is Kirito trying to deal with his loss by helping these individual girls with their own issues. Scilica loses her only friend/pet in a world full of teenagers and men who objectify her. Lizbet feels emotionally disconnected in SAO. Sachi traumatized by fear lost her life. And one final girl lost her very purpose.
And there you go I guess.
Well, normally in games like this when you lvl up a profession like blacksmith or enchanting, you usually lvl up with the easier recipes, there are some really hard recipes that requieres to get very rare items, lvling the profession is not the hard thing, but the time invested on lvling it up is the problem, so we can assume that she learnt how to make that sword after buying the recipe from the master blacksmith npc, this after lvling up the profession for a like 2 months or something. I think she didnt have a better sword for the lack of materials, not for the lack of the recipe.
finally we get back to the main plot next week and that where the things will get epic and the time skips will stop by what i seen in the light novel
I was wondering, how Kirito and others can still be playing the game. Leveling up takes some time so shouldn’t they be dead in the real life already?
They skipped over this in the anime, but in the novels, there was a brief window in which people were given time to move everyone’s bodies to long term care care facilities.
It’s been two years since the game started and the outside world knows about the whole problem. The obvious procedure is giving them medical treatment/taking them to hospitals.
That logical option came to my mind. Though realistically thinking, I doubt there would be enough room in hospitals for everyone (don’t remember how many participated) for such a short notice. Well, it’s only anime.
10 000 victims, roughly. And yes, without spoiling it was an issue even in the novels. But due to… yeah, can’t say more without spoiling ^^
The only girl that clearly was fallen in love with Kirito was Liz, till now. The girl that died was actually scared, not even in love (and Kirito, at most, had feelings to protect her). The loli one maybe the same thing,but she also didn’t fall in love. For instance, Asuna is more a big buddy to Kirito than a lover. Only Liz clearly said her feelings of love.
And also… Kirito had a powerful sword, but in some games hunting and quest doesn’t give the best sword. Maybe he had that same sword for so much time and gambled that some good blacksmith can make a powerful sword. Why not?
And of course, that girl never went to that region (she said that, when bring short clothes too), she didn’t have some ores to do better stuff. Meeting Kirito alowed her to get the ore and make a much better sword. It makes a lot of sense.
Without spoiling, if you pause you can check the values of the swords themselves when Liz inspect them. Just something to consider 😉
Possible SPOILERS, involving things that the novel included but not this one.
There are no classes, as stated, merely different skills. I don’t remember how many a player can have, but let’s say 7 or so, a few of them are related to blacksmithing, like inspect item and such skills, as-well as the smithing skill itself. As-well as mace skill, to wield the hammer, if I recall correctly. So a blacksmith or shopkeeper has to invest about half of his skills into those, making them comparatively weaker than a full-fighter – which makes sense, since a full-fighter may have more skills related to survival and fighting.
If I recall, all that is required is the ingredients and the required skill. But there are a lot of superstition involved, as-well, since creating items has a number of random variables – so even assuming that you are using high-grade ingredients that does not mean that you will automatically get a unique legendary (named) weapon, you might be unlucky with the random stuff. Since they can’t log off and check on a forum, information is limited. And limited information breeds superstition. Likewise getting rare ingredients or such is not that easy, it might require skills that front-line fighters don’t have, rare monsters that are difficult or dangerous to kill, etc.
Named swords, like “Dark Repulsor” or whatever, can either be found from monster drops (demon swords, or something like that named monster drops called), but they can also be crafted – if the blacksmith is lucky. Naturally no blacksmith want to be outdone by a monster drop.
It was a “meh” episode for me, but I did like two things. Kirito actually realizing that the girl had a crush on him, not many shounen characters do that. The second was the Kirito-shaped impression he left in the snow, it was surprisingly cartoony for the series, but I rather liked how out of place it felt.
Those little touches like Lizbeth putting on her ‘I run a business + dealing with customers’ face while she was feeling down was rather notable.
Btw psgel, you filed this under “Eureka Seven Ao”, not SAO 😉