Sword Art Online Alicization Episode 21 Review
I’m in two minds about this fight between Kirito and Eugeo. On the one hand, I’ve been wanting to see these two go head to head for a fair while in Sword Art Online Alicization. On the other hand, it doesn’t look like either one ultimately took the fight all that seriously. More importantly, that was some fast acting brain washing and just as quickly removed with a few words about friendship.
I actually kind of get that the original brainwashing job wasn’t exactly first class, which explains why she was trying to redo the whole process now that she had more time, but still… it all seems like an unnecessary step. Plenty of characters get brainwashed and go to the darkside (look at Tuxedo Mask from Sailor Moon), but having it last not even a whole episode kind of makes it seem like a relatively shallow point. Like they thought it would be cool to see Kirito and Eugeo fight but had no ongoing narrative purpose for putting the two against each other and so rapidly backtracked.
Even then, it could have worked out except that Kirito didn’t overwhelm Eugeo with some amazing swordplay or even pull out any crazy or cool moves. Alice didn’t even fight. She was just bystanding. Nope, Kirito just spouted a whole bunch of names of people who haven’t been in the show for ages as if they are somewhat relevant or important and Eugeo turned Kirito and Alice into ice before going off to face the administrator alone.
It wasn’t exactly a satisfying outcome.
Now of course we’ve got the three of them together facing off against the senate guy in the jester costume. Can I hope that giant flame monster thing he summoned means we’re going to maybe get a cool fight next week or is that asking a little too much at this point?
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SWORD ART ONLINE: HOLLOW REALIZATION [DELUXE EDITION]
![SWORD ART ONLINE: HOLLOW REALIZATION [DELUXE EDITION]](https://i0.wp.com/s.pacn.ws/640/wh/sword-art-online-hollow-realization-deluxe-edition-584927.10.jpg?resize=300%2C250&ssl=1 "The Power of Friendship Strikes Back 8")
- 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.
Karandi, be real with me: are you tired of them using Quinella as fanservice? Because I think its an unecessary distraction from the fact that she’s an evil hag! I will say that as many times as possible in my blog!
The fanservice element was mostly unnecessary, but to be honest I had so many other issues with the characters Quinella’s lack of wardrobe was fairly low on my complaint list by the end.
I hear you. If SomethingWittyEntertainment ever gets to the abridged version of Alicization, they’ll have a field day with this episode. I can already see them calling out Eugeo on his poor decision making
Characters are entitled to make bad decisions occasionally (everyone does), but this one was just so stupid there’s just no ability to rationalise it regardless of what you try to use as your justification.
Maybe it’s coincidence, but since they switched from the original OP, I haven’t enjoyed it as much. Plus, I was kinda bummed when Kirito was holding two swords — and didn’t dual wield! That was just mean…
I know. It was such a tease. They gave us this brief moment of hope for some of the old Kirito who would just go crazy in a sword fight and then they snatched it from us.
I dunno… This was the first time since the fight against the goblins that I felt that there were actually any stakes to the fight. (Even if it was all too brief.)
True enough, though I didn’t mind Eugeo’s fight with Raios in terms of stakes, even if the presentation of that fight wasn’t exactly great.
Still didn’t really feel like they really wanted to build much tension though given how quickly and easily they overcame it before moving onto the next thing and I’m not sure the bouncing ball of a senator is someone I care about regardless of how powerful he ends up being.
Honestly, this anime is getting more and more annoying. You can see how they are really stretching out the story. I was really hoping to see Kirito go all out because we haven’t really seen his good swordplay since the previous season. This anime is continuously failing to deliver and if the story doesn’t change for the better soon it’s definitely gonna move far down my list.
Realistically, this one is now sitting near the bottom of my current watch list (more or less fourth out of fifteen shows). I never believed it could fall so low on my enjoyment rating but I’m just not really enjoying it and really I just keep watching it hoping it remembers what was fun about SAO in the first place.
The first season of SAO was really good. I feel like I’m only watching this for the purpose of wanting to finally finish this show. Anyhow, let’s see where this goes.
I’ve already moved on to Shield Hero as my favorite Isekai. That has great characters, and Raphtalia is waifu of 2019.