Recap: Kirito joins a small guild of close players, but tragedy strikes.

Iro’s Thoughts:

After a couple of action-packed episodes, we get a (relatively) slower and more emotional affair this week. Kirito parties up with the Black Cats of the Night, a small group of friends who make camp around the middle floors, despite being over twenty levels ahead of all of them. Charmed by their camaraderie, he hides his true level and Beater status and forms a rapport with the guild’s token female member, Sachi. At this point, anyone with a lick of narrative sense can tell that they’re all going to die miserable deaths, and that is indeed exactly what happens.

While venturing in a higher level floor so they can get stronger loot, the guild runs into an incredibly obvious trap room and everyone gets themselves slaughtered in a monster ambush. Kirito manages to survive thanks to his hidden strength, but this ostracizes him from the surviving guild leader. The man throws himself off the edge of the world in despair before Kirito’s eyes, leaving our main character stunned and once again alone.

Six months later on Christmas Eve, Kirito is almost suicidally driven towards a singular goal. The rumor is that the Christmas Event Boss drops an item that can revive a fallen player, and Kirito wants more than anything to bring Sachi back to life. He runs deep into the forest and very nearly gets himself killed fighting Nicholas the Renegade, but finally manages to claim the fabled revival item. However, he abandons it to Klein – it can only save someone who has died in the last ten seconds, and Sachi met her end months ago.

Kirito returns to his home and finds a prerecorded message from Sachi, who sings him a Christmas carol and expresses her thanks over him always being there for her. Roll credits.

A few other things to note: Argo the Rat makes an appearance this week, just after I complained about her being removed from the anime, and there are mentions of the Divine Dragon Alliance and Knights of Blood guilds – while the DDA makes an appearance towards the end of the episode, the Knights of Blood will have greater importance further in the story. Klein runs his own guild called Fuurinkazan with the friends he mentioned in episode 1 and still maintains friendly ties with Kirito, despite our protagonist rudely brushing him off multiple times this episode.

As a whole, this episode was adapted well – while I think it was rushed a bit, nothing was cut on the scale of episode 2. If you haven’t been keeping track, over a year has passed since everyone was trapped in Sword Art Online, and Kirito is now just under level 80. Next week is “The Black Swordsman”, wherein the little sister character of Kirito’s harem should be introduced. Oh boy.

Lifesong’s Thoughts:

This episode almost feels more like a side story than anything else but then I guess that really is part of what an MMO is. Saori Hayami did a great job with Sachi’s character as she took center stage in this episodes one episode tragedy. SOA managed to combine a setting I can really understand with a form of storytelling that I love. I can only hope to see more like this in the future of SOA.