Alicization episode 17 was pretty good.
While I predicted that Kirito and Alice would survive their fall and then truce alongside Eugeo, the actual truce was Kirito and Alice working together to scale the building. Dangling in grooves with their swords, being linked by chains, magic poling their way up, etc. Kirito does some really dumb acrobatic manoeuvre (dumb as in how did he of all people do it) to swing up a bar but then swings up another bar with a much more realistic manoeuvre for him so idk why they didn’t just stick with the second manoeuvre the whole time it would’ve made him look less Jesus-y but this is a nitpick anyway. They also fight some gargoyles from the Dark Realm and get hella suspicious as to what they’re doing here. There’s also some interesting conversations going on. Firstly, Alice and Kirito discuss law, and we get a flashback to the terrible rape scene. I think that seen is so memorable for all the wrong reasons that Kirito just talking about it would be enough but no they gotta show us, REMIND us of that awful fucking scene. Whatever. Kirito sheds a tear when talking about this though which is a nice humanising moment. Also Kirito gets blood on him and is about to wash it away with his sleeve but Alice is all “why are you men so-” and gives him a tissue. Alongside her fear of heights that this episode strongly implied, it looks like Alice is still a typical “girly girl” character, alongside her strong badass knight self. Alicization the light novel is old and since then I know Kawahara has expressed a strong desire to improve his female writing, but it’s kinda annoying that Alice does this. Girl characters are allowed to be feminine obviously, I’m just a little nervous that Alice could have some questionable moments as a result of past!Kawahara’s typical writing trends. This is all just me worrying though, I might be proven wrong. We’ll find out.
Anyway that paragraph was way too long but we cut to Eugeo entering the 90th floor - a bath where we see the blue haired dude he fights in the OP and he’s fucking shredded. With the next episode being called “The Legendary Hero” I think we can expect a tough battle between the two characters. Most of Eugeo’s fights so far are team efforts with Kirito where most of Eugeo’s tactics are recommendations from Kirito anyway, so seeing him fight alone might be one hell of a tense situation. I’m looking forward to it! Hopefully the fight choreography is good too - Alicization’s had some decent fights but it peaked in like, episode 4 I think it was with Kirito fighting all those Goblins.
Oh right, we also cut to real life again for a few minutes. Asuna and the girl who fucked Kayaba talked about a boat, and some big boat nerd noticed the boat turning another direction and called the main dude whose name I forget. There’s not a lot I can infer from this. I guess my first piece of speculation is “is the sea turtle transported by being towed by other boats and this boat was supposed to transport it but went away?”. We got a description of the sea turtle in like, episode 5 or 6 I think it was, and I don’t know if they confirmed how it moved. If it moves by being towed and this boat was supposed to tow it, where was it to be towed to, and why is the towboat not actually going to tow it? I don’t know how soon we’ll see an answer to those questions, if they even are answered because they’re all purely based on an observation I made that may not even be correct, but whether I’ll even remember these questions depends on how future episodes balance the real world and the Underworld. We’ll have to wait and see.
Despite it being very realistic, physical feats don’t work like they do in reality in the Underworld. It’s core is still based on a game and it allows you to do things that would be impossible in real life. Look at any of the fights Kirito and Eugeo have had in the tower and you’ll see them performing leaps and acrobatics that no one can do in real life. You don’t even experience fatigue in this world the same way you would in reality.
As for Alice, her aversion to the climb doesn’t have anything to do with fear of heights or her gender. It’s because she’s an artificial fluctlight. The main issue Rath was having with the Fluctlights being unable to break rules or instructions is that they are unable to adapt to situations outside of what they know. Alice even says she can’t do it because she’s never been in a situation like this before. To go back to that horrible scene, Raios couldn’t decide between two competing priorities to him and instead of coming up with a solution to something outside his world views his fluctlight just collapses. Once Alice is back to something in the realm of her training and orders (fighting dark territory monsters) she’s 100% fine.
The ship is their military escort. Japan Defense Force ships aren’t referred to as warships because of WWII. So basically their military escort is leaving ahead of schedule.
No comments:
Post a Comment