Sword Art Online Alicization Episode 18 Review
The focus this week is tightly on Eugeo facing the leader of the integrity knights (and former village legend) alone. This is the first time we’ve seen Eugeo on his own without Kirito’s guidance, and he’s up against a tough opponent. it’s a fairly great character moment for the Eugeo as we see his choices this far up the tower.
Let’s get it out of the way, the fight is not as dynamic as some of the fights we’ve seen in Sword Art Online. As much as Kirito is the one who originally trained Eugeo in swordplay, Eugeo isn’t Kirito and for that I am glad. It means his style isn’t identical even though there are clear parallels. So where Kirito would go faster, harder, and straight into the fray, Eugeo is happier to leave some distance and take advantage of his sword’s abilities.
Which is where I will sing the praises of this fight sequence. Eugeo unleashing the sword and not just doing that and being done but then taking full advantage of sword, the environment he was in, and lastly, his own age to ensure his victory in the fight. It is pretty, it is well thought out, and with the exception of an interruption when we get a flash back to the cardinal to hit us with some exposition that was actually kind of unneeded at that point, the pace of this fight is very well done. It is an enjoyable visual spectacle in its own right and hearing Eugeo explain just why he dislikes the integrity knights clearly, in his own words, without interference from Kirito, is a great moment.
That actually leaves the interruption at the end of the fight leaving a slight sour taste because not only is the character who literally bounced into the room clearly not a character we can take in any way seriously, it seemed kind of cheap to take the decision of how this fight would end away from Eugeo. Not to mention this bouncing ball of annoyance seemed more like a character who would drop into a Hunter x Hunter fight rather than Sword Art Online.
In case we thought they’d forgotten Alice and Kirito though, the final moments of the episode have them chilling and sharing steamed buns on the ledge outside the tower. It is pretty reminiscent of Kirito and Asuna sharing bread with cream in Aincrad but otherwise doesn’t have much going on. I mean, Kirito reminds Alice about her sister but given they then end the scene before that goes anywhere I guess we’ll deal with that next week.
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DESKTOP ARMY SWORD ART ONLINE (SET OF 3 PIECES)
- Alicization Series Review
- Sword Art Online Series Review
- Sword Art Online Abridged Review
- How Does Kirito’s Belief in Himself Cause Success?
- Images from: Sword Art Online Alicization. Dir. M Ono. A-1 Pictures. 2018.
Yah… that clown at the end really shook my “suspension of disbelief”.
It kind of broke the moment – a lot.
This was one of the more enjoyable episodes. Even though the fight was a bit slow paced it worked really well with both character’s abilities, plus it did make a nice contrast to Kirito’s fights. It looks like we’re finally getting to the results of all the world building and character development we’ve seen.
I’ve kind of thought a few times that we’re finally moving away from set up and world building because we get to an episode where things seem to come together. The problem so far has been that these moments are usually followed by exposition dumps and I’m a little sick of them. Still, it would be nice if this were finally a turning point for this series.
Great review! I’m also watching this series and think Eugeo has come a long way from chopping wood. He may not be Kirito, but at least he’s got some screen time to shine this week.
It was really good seeing him get some decent screen time. Hoping for more because this was one of the better episodes we’ve had in awhile.
I agree! And I’m curious what will happen to him next since it looks like the evil clown Chudelkin is turning him into an integrity knight.