「旅立ち」 (Tabidachi)
“Departure”

With the biggest blocker out of the way, I can’t wait to see what happens next week.

General Impressions

Boy, even though the episodes themselves don’t feel slow, it’s real tough to talk about things after the fact. Looking back at what happened, I think the only major talking point would be Eugeo finally escaping his original calling. That said, I don’t think it’d be too much of a stretch to say that we all kind of knew that Kirito would help him escape his duty. Because as fun as it’d be to watch Kirito strike a tree over and over for the next 40 or so episodes, I think we probably experienced the same amount of excitement when Eugeo managed to strike down that tree with that fancy sword of his.

That said, even though I might sound a little pessimistic, I really am enjoying the fact that we have absolutely no clue what’s going to happen. Especially when you consider that Sword Art Online has been going on for so long, I’m genuinely impressed that the story has been able to throw out any known conventions and has created a whole new world with an already established character. Honestly, I’m not sure if I’d be enjoying things as much as I am if we were just given more of the same. So yeah, good on you A1 (or maybe rather the Alicization arc a a whole) for doing a great job at reinvigorating things for a long running series.

Overall, we had a pretty fun episode where we got to see Kirito (and Eugeo) whoop some Orc butt. Toss in a little bit of world building and some more details about how the Underworld works and we got a pretty good mix of elements in a single episode. Hopefully things will start to speed up a little since I think we’ve been in this preparation arc for long enough. Unfortunately we’ll have to wait until next week before we know whether or not the story is ready to do that.

In any case, I’ll see you guys next episode where we’ll finally get to see how Kirito and Eugeo’s journey goes. Hopefully we’ll get to dive a bit more into the past and get to see how Kirito and Eugeo handle that when it comes back up. Anyways, see you guys later!

 

Preview

13 Comments

    1. Typically what your sword style is called reflects either the name of the family that taught you(or who taught them if they’re just passing it along) or the place(“school”) where you learned it. I actually guessed it would be Aincrad since that place really did teach Kirito everything he knows about the sword and survival, one brutal lesson after another.

      Aex
      1. But Kirito/his family didn’t invent that style of swordsmanship. Kirito developed it from the sword skills built into Aincrad’s system, therefore “Aincrad Style” is the most apt name for the techniques and their origins.

        Sekai
  1. “In any case, I’ll see you guys next episode where we’ll finally get to see how Kirito and Eugeo’s journey goes. Hopefully we’ll get to dive a bit more into the past and get to see how Kirito and Eugeo handle that when it comes back up. Anyways, see you guys later!”

    Show Spoiler ▼

    Dave
  2. A solid episode with a dose of consequence and weight to actions with character development and story progression. I am fine with the pacing so far and looking forward to the next arc. I only got into SAO with the last series Gun Gale and I thought it was great so decided to try this one out. Have no clue of the history behind it but I am enjoying the mystery nonetheless.

    Kurik

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