Sword Art Online Episode 16 - "Land of the Fairies" Thoughts

A whole sixteen episodes into Sword Art Online and I'm still enjoying it as much as when it started. It has had its ups and downs (arguable the ups are enough to make up for its down), but for the most part it has proven to be an enjoyable show for the summer and now autumn season. Now the sixteenth episode marks the second episode of the shows second story arc (and our adventure into a brand new MMO), and it's fair to say I was very excited to see where we'd be going with this arc. The last episode showed us a somewhat shady character who plans on marrying Asuna before she wakes up from the events of the Sword Art Online game; we met Kirito's younger sister/cousin properly, and the episode closes by revealing Asuna is trapped in a cage somewhere. So, yes, fair to say I was really looking forward to this episode of Sword Art Online. 

This episode throws us right into the action and reveals that Asuna is trapped inside the game which is Sword Art Online's successor; Alfheim Online. The game, conveniently, works with the same video game system as Sword Art Online did, meaning once Kirito obtains a copy of the game he can jump right into the action. One of the things you will likely enjoy most about this episode of the show is watching how Kirito reacts to being back in a virtual world, you can tell it fits him and he feels at home (although, he still brings up the menu to check he can logout, something which is both amusing and shows he cares about the danger of being stuck here). We quickly learn that the game shares the same servers as Sword Art Online did, and conveniently when Kirito is thrown into Alfheim Online a lot of his date from Sword Art Online is returned to him, such as stats, sword skills, and even the design of his character, which should have been given at random. He also has the Yui heart item, which, when used brings the young character back to life who goes on to act as his guide on his quest to save Asuna. In some respects it saddens me that we won't be watching Kirito starting from the beginning (something we never truly got to see in early episodes of his adventures in Sword Art Online either with the shows strange pacing), as with being all trained up all he needs to learn is how to fly. The overall story will probably, and hopefully, make up for that though.

One thing that does bother me about this episode is that the Crunchyroll subtitles refer to the character known as 'Lyfa' in the Light Novels as 'Leafa', which for anyone who has read through a good number of the books will quickly find annoying as I did. Lyfa is meant to be one of the main characters in this arc, so it'll be interesting to see if Crunchyroll stick with calling her Leafa, or if they'll meet the fans demands and change it to Lyfa. I'm probably being quick picky here, but it's the sort of thing which can jerk you out of the moment and make you go "huh, I thought this character was called Lyfa?..." which no anime fan wants when they're so into the story.

So far this arc is looking good, I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes and I'm glad it's still managing to prove itself each week.