Recap: The actual plot of the show begins as Kirito and Asuna decide to party up to clear the upper floors.

Iro’s Thoughts:
For those unaware, after the stuff that happens in the first episode, the first volume of the Sword Art Online novels jumps straight to this point. Everything we’ve seen up until now was basically retconned in through subsequent novels and side stories and such – now you’re seeing the actual plot of SAO. And it only took seven whole episodes to reach this point. Wonderful. As a result we get a slow episode, mostly because it normally would have been building the world while things happened – we’ve already had several episodes to learn about the game, so the effect is lost.

While heading back to town after some time mapping the 74th floor’s dungeon, Kirito kills an elusive monster and manages to clinch some Ragout Rabbit, the rarest food item in the entire game. His first instinct is to sell it at Agil’s shop and make some mad bank, but Asuna shows up with her guild escort to say hello. Since of course the prettiest female player in the game has mastered the Cooking skill in lieu of skills that will actually keep her alive while out on the front lines, Kirito talks her into cooking it for him. Asuna leads Kirito back to her own house, where they eat a virtual meal together and muse on their life in Sword Art Online – after nearly two years living in the game, the real world seems like a distant dream.

Soon enough, the conversation drifts towards their roles as front-liners. Kirito (thanks to what happened in Episode 3) has an aversion to joining any guilds, but the monsters are becoming smarter and smarter – it won’t be possible to stay a solo player much longer. Not that Kirito cares, of course, since he’s Sue enough to solo any monster. And besides, he doesn’t want anyone weighing him down. Asuna gets him to admit that she’s skilled enough to be an exception, and then weasels him into partying up with her for their dungeon runs on the front lines.

They meet up the next morning for the day’s dungeon run in typical anime fashion: Asuna falls on top of him, and he gets a few good gropes in before she slaps him across the plaza. But Kuradeel, her guild escort and all around creepy bastard, has followed her – his orders are to protect her at all times, after all, and any truly noble escort would obviously interpret that to also mean stalking her home and eavesdropping on her private conversations. Kirito stands up for his not-girlfriend and gets dragged into a one-on-one duel with Kuradeel, but our offensively perfect hero makes short work of him. Since Kuradeel has opted for more decor than function when it comes to his weaponry, Kirito is able to shatter it with a single blow and claim victory. Kuradeel tries for a sneak attack, but Asuna steps in and dismisses him as her escort, leaving the bastard broken and humiliated.

Fighting in tandem, our heroes move through the dungeon and finish mapping out its boundaries, finally reaching the Boss Room of the 74th floor. They decide to take a peek before heading back to town, and come face-to-face with the most intimidating monster yet.

As for cuts from the novels, I don’t remember seeing any. Now that they’re actually in the main plot, A-1 is going to want to keep in most of the details, but fitting everything into the 4-5 episodes until the end of the cour might be pushing it a little.

Marlin’s Thoughts: wimmens bettez rememer ter stay in de kitchan like Asuner

Aqua’s Thoughts: This week on Sword Art Online: Kirito beats someone in one hit… again! Asuna acts like the perfect wish-fulfillment wife character she is… again! A lot of time is wasted on terrible Sue-ing and fanservice… again! Aside from all that, Kirito claims to have no money even though he defeats everything in the game and gets all the rare items! Kirito claims to know no girls even though he has a five-man strong harem! Kirito suddenly has a problem with partying, even though he gladly partied with Silica just a few episodes ago because of the most idiotic traumatic backstory ever! The super-magical sword Liz made for Kirito has mysteriously vanished! We are still supposed to be shocked by Kirito being called a “beater”! Forty-year-old men play MMOs to serve as the bodyguard (read: stalker) of a 16-year-old girl! And worst of all… Kirito murders cute animals!

The moral of this week? How about “Women should spend all their money and skill points on domestic items and cooking skills to serve their husbands while they look on being dense, so men can fight the creepy guards that stalk the women and beat them in one hit.” Sounds about right. Also, this show has the lamest monster design ever. Gleam Eyes might be an intimidating boss in an 8-bit Zelda game, but in 2012… no, 2024, he looks about as interesting and scary as a helicopter in an FPS.