Sword Art Online Fan's Collection: October 2018

Sword Art Online Alicization episode 3 thoughts. Little late typing this one up, weekly releases, how do people do it? As always slight light novel spoilers, but nothing beyond what has been covered in these anime episodes.

It’s nice to see an image of Suguha as she was the only main character not to get a GGO cameo. This is not because Selka reminds him of Suguha but more the exact opposite, Suguha would never be so timid trying to waking him up. She’d yell and pull his hair.

The anime omits a funny scene here where kirito starts to change his shirt in front of her and she completely flusters.

Selka herself gets a surprising depth of character for a side character that isn’t going to feature much in this story. I feel sorry for the unrealistic expectations placed on her by the shadow of a sister no one will even talk about, and the feelings she has for a boy that can’t even look at her out of guilt.

We get the first hint of all not being right in Underworld in this episode, with the mention of the plagues and the appearance of the goblins later. The plagues and the gigas cedar itself should seem puzzling to people but no anime only watcher seems to have picked up on the biggest question surrounding them. Why? Why is such an impassible barrier placed there to prevent Rulid from expanding? Why have plagues been introduced to put stress on the populace. Why even have the Dark Territory at all if the goal is to just create AI? This is all explained at a later date, but I’m amazed no one has really even asked the question yet.

The blue rose sword in all it’s beauty. I really love the semi translucent nature they give it in the anime to highlight it not being really made of metal. And people were expecting Kirito to just pick it up and chop down the tree lol. Again though he’s not able to use a sword skill with it in the novel. At this point he still doesn’t know they’re a thing in the Underworld. We’re going to be seeing a lot of this sword so it’s nice to know they got it right.

Or did they? A-1 just copied the Stacia window for the tree and didn’t change all the text. It wouldn’t be a SAO adaptation without one “Alart” moment.

And then the goblins, cue the memes, even though goblins are a generic fantasy monster and Alicization has a good many years on Goblin Slayer. Unlike how it happens with Eugeo screaming, in the light novel they are immediately noticed when they enter the cave. It’s here when confronted by Goblins that are undoubtedly full intelligence that Kirito final puts every thing together about the true nature of Rath’s purpose, and what artificial fluctlights are made from. I can understand moving that moment to a time of quiet reflection from such a tense moment such as a cave full of killer goblins. And then we end on the cliffhanger of Eugeo frozen in place.

Again I can’t say enough about how much I like this adaptation so far, and how gorgeous it continues to be. I’m really excited for episode 4, and you should be too, it’s going to be a great one.