Recap: As Kirito and Asuna enjoy married life, they find a mysterious girl out in the wilderness and try to discover her origins.

Iro’s Thoughts:
Using Kuradeel’s attempt on their lives as an excuse to take a leave of absence from the Knights of Blood, Kirito and Asuna decide to ditch the front lines (and the end goal of clearing the game) to dick around on the bottom floors of Aincrad. They wander around like children until they find an actual child, who has no player indicator and yet is clearly not an NPC. They bring her back to their lakeside cottage, where she reveals her name is Yui and decides to dub the couple Mama and Papa. Yep.

Looking for information, Kirito and Asuna bring Yui back down to the Town of Beginnings on the first floor, where a majority of Sword Art Online’s players make camp. They come to the rescue of a woman who is protecting some child players, at which point Yui begins acting strange and collapses. Roll credits.

A fair bit was cut from the novels for this side story, most of it background type stuff. The best part about Sword Art Online is the well-realized setting, so removing that sort of side information ends up really detracting from the show. For example, Asuna and Kirito speak to a player who still hangs around the Town of Beginnings and get a look into the victimized mindset of the majority of the players. They also spend some more time getting to know Sasha, the bespectacled woman who takes care of the child players, before heading out to beat up the Army goons.

Marlin’s Thoughts:
The MCs get married and adopt a loli that is basically Aura from .Hack//, making this show a huge ripoff. That’s what I got out of it, at least.

Dragonzigg’s Thoughts: Firstly, a brief programming note – I’ll be replacing Aquagaze in these roundups from now on, as he was struck down with a virulent case of not liking the show very much. Now, onto the episode. You can sort of see what they’re trying to do here, establishing Kirito and Asuna as a stable couple and adding a more homely, committed air to their relationship. There’s bits of this episode that do work very well indeed, like their piggyback wander down past the lake which is both beautifully shot and has a whimsical, slice of life air. It’s a seemingly noble intention, but considering all of five minutes is spent on it, it also seems alarmingly sloppy.

Suspension of disbelief is my major issue with this episode, or lack thereof I should say. Everything just moves so fast that it’s difficult to believe it or find anything relatable in the brief character sketches we’ve shown. I already hate Yui, who appears to be nothing more than the very first kind of walking McGuffin. Reducing her to a babyish moeblob is a predictable but nonetheless wearying character trait that saps of her of likeability, personality or any sort of distinctive features. I know it’s hard to write decent child characters but I’ve no interest in a character who exists only to pander to our protagonists and be cooed over by them.

Kirito and Asuna come off as bafflingly dumb during this episode as well. I may not be representative of all humanity obviously, but when I was 16 I would rather have thrown myself off a building than spend any protracted length of time around young children, and their reaction seems entirely too calm and collected. They say things which are so ludicrously out of touch with the reality of the situation it’s difficult not to laugh, such as when Kirito says “having her here has made this feel like a real home” – dude, you’ve known her for less than 24 hours, and you are at the very most only ten years older than her. SAO continues to offer some interesting angles on the virtual world idea, but it really needs to start injecting genuine life into it’s characters if our interest is going to continue.