Sword Art Online Episode 24 Discussion

ssjokg said:

The last ep isnt aired yet.But we will have other things to argue about that next time.

After SAO both ALO and GGO resolved IRL.Underworld from what I learned has some big issues going on IRL while Kirito is in the game.Of course future arcs are irrelevant.

Cliche you mean Kirito saving the day?I thought that you had come to terms with that.XD

Nidhoeggr said:
I do like villians that are evil just for the sake of being evil, but the thing is - and I think this is fault of the anime staff as well - that Sugou comes off as a failure of that trope. Dio and other popular examples all are so atricously evil and successful with it that they receive a lot of build-up and hype so the audience patiently waits for the final fight against them. But in the SAO anime, I never got the feeling that Kirito could actually not achieve something when literally everything Sugou did was flawed. This was a real bummer as there was simply no drama ot tension, no real impact involved here. And for an anime that thrives on such things, this is not a good sign.

Nidhoeggr said:


Let's hope they actually do something with all the potential they have on their hands right now... I am sceptical, but maybe the series will suprise me a little.

I am on terms with Kirito saving the day like every other battle Shounen protagonist, I just think the presentation could've been a lot better.

PrometheusZero said:
Yey for the hero, he gets the girl and saves the day.

Not sure what the last episode will contain though seeing as they wrapped up most stuff nicely?

Asuna go through physio right?

Takuan_Soho said:


May I make an observation, when you start contradicting yourself repeatedly, it may be time to reconsider your argument.

You do realize that you are now complaining that Sugou wasn't "cool enough", where as above you were complaining that people actually respected Kayaba because they thought him a cool villain.

As for the rest, chalk it up once again to your bizarre expectations and lack of comprehension. The bizarre expectations are of course everyone knew Kirito was going to win in the end. This is a shounen animation, the hero ALWAYS wins. As for lack of drama in his victory, that Kirito required 2 armies, his SAO stats, a screwed up exchange rate, the help of an AI, and Asuna having stolen an admin card, and even then he needed help from Kayaba, should have been enough to show that Sugou had always been in control.

But do you want to know the funny thing, that scene wasn't even the climax. For all the critics whining about how "simplistic" SAO is, the lot of you have really missed the whole plot of SAO and ALO. This isn't about VR, virtual does equal reality. The babbling about how "one-sided" this fight was shows that the critics have completely missed the point of this series. Now I will say that the animation hasn't done a good job at explaining the point, but the point is still there for people.

SetsukoHara said:
Well, the way he was punished though was childish. Seriously, I thought I was watching a Mortal Kombat fatality.

Takuan_Soho said:


While I face palm, please remember that this is taking place in ALO, and ALO is a game like......

Can you figure out the rest of that sentence on your own?

Takuan_Soho said:


While I face palm, please remember that this is taking place in ALO, and ALO is a game like......

Can you figure out the rest of that sentence on your own?

ssjokg said:
I dont remember all that gore in the other kills we had in SAO and ALO.

Immahnoob said:

You're talking like the gore was multiplied by 11...

They just made that crimson crappy pixeled stuff flow a little bit.

ssjokg said:
Which resulted to look like Mortal Combat fatality as SetsukoHara said.

ssjokg said:
Which resulted to look like Mortal Combat fatality as SetsukoHara said.

Zeally said:



you are being trolled just stop lol.......

Immahnoob said:

Kombat*

And no, I don't remember anyone getting cut in half in SAO/ALO.

Takuan_Soho said:


May I make an observation, when you start contradicting yourself repeatedly, it may be time to reconsider your argument.

You do realize that you are now complaining that Sugou wasn't "cool enough", where as above you were complaining that people actually respected Kayaba because they thought him a cool villain.

As for the rest, chalk it up once again to your bizarre expectations and lack of comprehension. The bizarre expectations are of course everyone knew Kirito was going to win in the end. This is a shounen animation, the hero ALWAYS wins. As for lack of drama in his victory, that Kirito required 2 armies, his SAO stats, a screwed up exchange rate, the help of an AI, and Asuna having stolen an admin card, and even then he needed help from Kayaba, should have been enough to show that Sugou had always been in control.

Nidhoeggr said:


I do not think it is contradicting:
Kayaba was presented in a specific way and Sugou was as well - and I find that both of their respective presentations could've been better, regardless of their differences.
I do not exactly know how to explain my explicit expectations for both of them in such a great detail but I think Kayaba's moral ambiguity came into play a bit too abrupt and Sugou, despite Kirito needing all these devices to defeat him, was often depicted as not much of a really fearsome villian. Hell, some of his actions where presented in such an oveblown light that he came of rather comical.

Of course you can disagree with that and you might be correct in the fact that people do not get the approach of the author within the LN, but at least for the anime there are a lot of people who apparently agree with some of the prviously mentioned points.

Immahnoob said:
I've explained it several times, but since you asked nicely :-)

ssjokg said:
I dont remember all that gore in the other kills we had in SAO and ALO.

Immahnoob said:

Nice explanation.

And I already knew this, weird, but true...

Takuan_Soho said:


Kirito had his hand sliced off in episode 10. It regenerated when his hit points recovered. So the gore potential was always there, it just wasn't shown often because it wasn't instrumental to the plot.

Nidhoeggr said:


I do not think it is contradicting:
Kayaba was presented in a specific way and Sugou was as well - and I find that both of their respective presentations could've been better, regardless of their differences.
I do not exactly know how to explain my explicit expectations for both of them in such a great detail but I think Kayaba's moral ambiguity came into play a bit too abrupt and Sugou, despite Kirito needing all these devices to defeat him, was often depicted as not much of a really fearsome villian. Hell, some of his actions where presented in such an oveblown light that he came of rather comical.

Of course you can disagree with that and you might be correct in the fact that people do not get the approach of the author within the LN, but at least for the anime there are a lot of people who apparently agree with some of the prviously mentioned points.

Xaliuss said:
Different psychological aspects of VR and it's connection to reality are some of the main themes of whole SAO series.

JavierR said:
NTR sugou was boss. He licked Asunas tears. HE WILL BE MISSED.

JavierR said:
NTR sugou was boss. He licked Asunas tears. HE WILL BE MISSED.

Xaliuss said:


The problem here is that haters never read this explanations, and many SAO protectors are tired of writing the same thing many times (haters never are), that creates unique atmosphere in SAO subforum.

Different psychological aspects of VR and it's connection to reality are some of the main themes of whole SAO series.

Takuan_Soho said:


Yep, which is why this show and .hack really can't be compared.

They are entirely different interpretations of the same theme of the impact of a real online game. .hack is more of a traditional fantasy, but instead of the hero being transported to Narnia or Illearth, the lead character is transported to a virtual fantasy world where they grow as individuals.

SAO would be more similar to a science fiction novel (admittedly juvenile, but that isn't and itself a fault). The novels in particular focus on the technical aspects of VR and how it interacts with reality.

Now I like both fantasy and science fiction equally, so I am not saying that either is better than the other because of my completely subjective opinion. I am just pointing out that comparing them at this level, as being similar to one another is superficial.

ssjokg said:

YEah but I dont remember Kirito's arm bleeding like crazy for the sake of the fightexecution to look cool.That my problem.

whatever123456 said:


Sugou's arm also didn't really bleed. There is some red light effect/blood when he slices up Eugene, but I guess A-1 just wanted to make it look more bloody. At this point we should be past caring about animation inconsistencies by A-1.

ssjokg said:
YEah but I dont remember Kirito's arm bleeding like crazy for the sake of the fightexecution to look cool.That my problem.

Takuan_Soho said:


The cutting off the hand was exactly the same, red fragments continued to come off of the wound. We haven't had someone who had been quartered before (normally they would have died and erupted into a shower of shards), so this was somewhat unique and probably was due to the computer trying to show the proportional damage.

If it is bothering you, don't forget that Sugou had just instituted a system upgrade which allowed the gravity well, so given his personality, I can easily see him wanting to make the game more gory. After all this is a guy who programed NPC sex slaves, and we all know that the two things that sell are sex and violence.

Takuan_Soho said:


The cutting off the hand was exactly the same, red fragments continued to come off of the wound. We haven't had someone who had been quartered before (normally they would have died and erupted into a shower of shards), so this was somewhat unique and probably was due to the computer trying to show the proportional damage.

If it is bothering you, don't forget that Sugou had just instituted a system upgrade which allowed the gravity well, so given his personality, I can easily see him wanting to make the game more gory. After all this is a guy who programed NPC sex slaves, and we all know that the two things that sell are sex and violence.

SetsukoHara said:
Was the NTR scene as explicit in the LN?

2easy4AgEnT said:
What's that seed? A key to the new game? Damn, guess I need to take a peek at the novel =/

SetsukoHara said:
Was the NTR scene as explicit in the LN?

Onyxthegreat said:
My god, this episode was both infuriating as well as very satisfying. NTR to the max, but a very satisfying slaughter of that pig in the end.

I wonder if the last episode will be all sunshine and rainbows, or that Sugou will somehow be able to interfere again. That and will they restore SAO?

ssjokg said:

You decide.I really wasnt paying attention to that part of the raw ep.What I cared was the next part.

ssjokg said:
You think that Kawahara forgot to mention blood?I am pretty sure that such things are always mentioned since it is supposed to show how much owned a char is.

SetsukoHara said:


I don't know, I think it was worse in the anime. We didn't see quite well, but it felt like Sugou was licking every part of Asuna's body.

Takuan_Soho said:


It wasn't blood, blood would have splattered on the floor. This was a visual light that erupted into the shards of light mentioned above.

That said, yes A-1 added it to make it more visually impressive, I merely just provided some really basic rational to explain it because honestly I don't think it much of a deal.

But if your goal is to attack A-1, go for it, I have mentioned plenty of times I thought their adaptation was extremely poor. I just think there are better targets than the fake blood (i.e. their over emphasis on Sugou's tormenting of Asuna, they dwelt on it a little bit too lovingly).