Well, I'm still reading what's translated, but a lot more slower - have started to feel fatigue for the whole plot. Whenever it was about the first generation SAO, with all the death threats hanging above player's heads, it was both unique, with very interesting ideas and perfect character interactions. Now, it's going in the direction of 'this is how we play MMO's' and even though it IS interesting, it's not as much.

Of course, yeah, I give him volume 7, cause it is a great idea, even though I saw anime-rendition of Black Cats of the Full Moon story with Sachi especially as a lot stronger drama for me.

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especially when the item turned out to be working only for 10 seconds after death - that had the best kind of bad impact

All in all, yeah, I'm still going to read on, but it's just good instead of near-perfect as it was at first. Kind of like with Song of Ice and Fire from fifth book for me - still awesome but not as hype-worthy as before.

 

Alicization (anyone else read that as "al-lih-sigh-zay-shun" rather than the author's "uh-lih-shih-zay-shun"?) starts out very weird. Then once things fall into place, it gets GOOD.

I just pre-ordered a copy of SAO: Progressive Series, which is supposed to deal with the early days of SAO. I'll be trying my hand at translating them.

 

Just started on this myself and all I've got to say is fucking finally!

I can't tell you how tired I've gotten with Anime's either silent near non existent romance or so over blown or harem filled it's borderline disgusting. Here we have a romance plot that actually is on screen and is clear cut and everything. I actually care about what happens to them instead of substituting the lost potential.

Props to the author for having the mind to be bold, but not too bold, in his romance.

 

Fine, Alicization is awesome.

I still don't get why the dialogue with the secret organisation, which was hard to find and contact, goes like this:

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"You kidnapped Kirito."
"No, we are healing him now."
"Ok."
"And, we're cloning people's souls and basically having them live and die by the hundreds in a closed virtual world." (Explained in a very long an winded manned)
"That's bad!"
"It's fine, we work for the government and AI-s are not people. We want to use them for war. And, we stole at least 10 years from Kirito's soul's lifespan."
"Oh Kirito, I hope you get well soon." (Umm, Asuna, what about the evil experments? and everything else?)

THAT was bad. Everything else is awesome.

 

This thing speaks to my heart, I can't tell you how irritated I've been lately with direct translations. Your native language is English mother fucker LEARN 2 SPEAK IT!

 

I'll be honest, that bothered me a lot, too;

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but, I feel that you're understating Asuna's opposition to what Kikuoka revealed. Also, I think Asuna was doing the best she could with what she could do.

I was frankly horrified by what Kikuoka's doing. It always bothers me when people act as if fully sentient beings that feel pain and are afraid to die aren't people themselves just because they don't share a sufficient number of rather superficial characteristics. Just because you clone a soul, doesn't make the clone any less a soul than the original.

I'm even more bothered by the fact that Project Alicization managed to create what for many people the world over would be a Utopia, and that Kikuoka is trying to make it a distopian hell.

I wish that Kirito would

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put those two fucktards in their place. "Don't get cocky" they said? I would have spent basically the remainder of my time making fun of them constantly for not being good enough. After all, Kirito and Eugeo were the top-ranked swordsmen of their class.

 

This. Especially this.

On somewhat related topic,
The idea about the Soul having a finite expiration date is kind of interesting when you introduce the sped up time. Also,

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It's interesting when a character spends some time outside of time and various problems arise because of that - not how they do it in dragon ball, when spending 2 years training in the closet is the norm - but I'd love to see a situation where Kirito spends something of a decade in the Underworld and can't connect with his friends as good as before. On the other hand, the main challenge would be fitting into the real world, but that was kind of given with the original SAO too.

Will have to patiently wait for translation (after the new release, right?), cause I just don't think I can learn foreign languages that well. Especially with so many nuances. ;D

 

Okay, the last episode was great, fucking awesome, in fact.


Although, it was kind of weird at the beginning. Last episode ended so spectacularly but this episode kind of wrapped up that cliffhanger in five seconds in a really anticlimactic way.

 

Yeah, the conclusion of last episode's cliffhanger was rather forced, and the animation quality seemed a little lower than standard. Cut for time?

But overall, fantastic episode. Great ending to this part.

 

It's a good thing that I'm not Heathcliff, because I would have told them all to go fuck themselves and meet me on the 100th floor.

Honestly, I don't understand why he gave everyone an out for no reason. If you're gonna screw everyone over then go all the way with it.

 

It's explained a little more in the novels. Originally Heathcliff was going to reveal himself as Kayaba once they cleared the 95th floor and then appoint either Kirito or Asuna as the new leader of the Blood Knights. Since Kirito figured it out early he decided he would offer Kirito the chance to duel him one on one as a reward. I don't think he thought Kirito would even take him up on the offer.

Also it was nice to see the Incarnation system coming into play.

 

I've now read the novels, and I still don't understand why Kayaba did an about-face and in the end came off as a sympathetic character by allowing Asuna and Kazuto to live.

If I had gone through the trouble of creating 100 levels then they'd damn well have to beat all 100.

 

Considering the amount of people who died facing the 75th level boss when Mr. Immortal Object was there he probably realized that they wouldn't make it to level 100 without him.

 

Man, I thought that the Asuna/Kirito going beyond system parameters was the biggest load of bull until I read this/remembered this is a shared universe with Accel World. Just made the ending soooo much more satisfying.

 

From what I understood from the light novels and the anime, it was supposed to be more like "the power of human will." As far as I know, the Incarnate System (as a term) is never used in SAO in any form and was only introduced in Accel World.

Does it exist in SAO and it wasn't called that until Accel World was written?

 

Read the later novels. It exists in a form.

 

Though, so far, none of the SAO novels uses the phrase "Incarnate System," clearly he's laying the groundwork; and, given that Accel World and SAO occur in the same universe, it seems more inconsistent than not to say that what Kirito and Asuna were able to achieve wasn't essentially the Incarnate System manifested.

 

New arc has begun.

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For those who've read the novels, do we ever find out who exactly sent Kirito that image at the end of the episode? Cause that was some serendipitous bullshit right there.

 

Ah the Fairy Dance! We'll finally get to see Lyfa! Awesome!

@ Tenhauser

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It was a party that tried to reach Yggdrasil by climbing or something, since isn't possible to fly there. They used a printscreen crystal on the highest possible place and managed to get a glimpse of the Fairy Queen.

They showed those images to everyone on the website and eventually they fell into Egil's hands.

 

Woohoo, new arc begun. I have to say that I like ALO more than Aincrad because

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ranged weapons, magic, and flying.

Oh, and also

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sistertits Lyfa.

@Tenhauser, it says it right there on the e-mail:

Egil was that big black guy that was a merchant in Aincrad, and helped out during the final boss fight.

Although y'all might not read Japanese, the fansub has it translated for you, though very briefly. Go back and look.