09.25
After some CBS Survivor level drama, it looks like the focus of the episode this time around is Silica—a beast tamer that doesn’t prove to be one of the more mentally stable characters we’ve met so far. She doesn’t seem crazy in a “beg for fingernails on the subway” sense, but if you cried virtual tears over what essentially serves the purpose of those Teddie Bears in Earthbound then that has to count for some level of crazy. It’s been a couple months since being stuck in SAO but c’mon.
So in no time Kirito pops up and mentions that her partner beast can be reborn in what I can only describe as that giant nursery in the first season of Digimon with all the digi-eggs waiting to be hatched. And even then, only if the owner makes it there within three days of their beast’s death. I get that time constraints have been a part of MMOs and the like, but geez… da’s tough.
Hm… pervy fans that want you in their guild as the cutesy mascot member, or mysterious dude in a trench coat that flat-out said he’s being helpful to you because you remind him of her sister… #JapaneseGirlProblems.
… and only in Japan would the situation be turned completely on its head to have the guy character completely not in the know while the underage girl character begins to develop some completely inappropriate tension with him.
The number of gizmos and doodads this episode is reaching Doraemon-level heights. The fact that such items exist and just happen to suit the interests of the characters for the sake of the plot isn’t all that big of a problem, and it makes perfect sense considering they’re in an MMO, so I guess it’s not all that problematic for now.
Insert Kirito’s incredibly out of left field backstory set to a walking/level grinding montage. I get that having Silica remind Kirito of his “sister” is enough to trigger going into the story of his family, but it still seemed a bit out of place since the focus up until now leaned more towards Silica, which I would usually be fine with…
…if it weren’t for the fact that nearly all the monsters that have attacked her have some sort of tentacles. Friggin why, SAO? I’d show a screencap of this scene a couple more seconds in to show what the monster looks like, but I’m pretty sure this isn’t that kind of website.
And finally the actual drama of the episode kicks in. I will say that it’s an interesting twist to have some players still act dickish and want to kill off other players even though they’ve been told that means actual death in the real world. Still, did they have to make their dramatic appearance after hiding behind trees? I get that they’re in a videogame, but to appear in such a Hanna-Barbera fashion kinda killed the mood.
The Battousai the Manslayer talk on top of the cop show-level twist to end the fight did bring things back up a bit, though. Geez, these sentences are just getting more and more dense with references and unlikely comparisons.