English Dub Review: Sword Art Online: Alicization “The Demon Tree”

I must AX you a question, but I’ll WOOD SHAVE it for later.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Kirito awakens in Underworld again, only this time at his current age and with all his real world memories intact, but no way to log out. He goes looking for help (while I can’t help but notice his eyes look like smiley faces) and runs into an equally aged up Eugeo, who still has all of his in-game memories with the exception of ever knowing Kirito. He instead identifies him as a “Lost Child of Vecta”, which is apparently what they call people who show up out of nowhere with no memories. He invites Kirito to his village for help, but only after he finishes his work for the day, which is still hacking away at the Gigas Cidar, or Demon Tree. He also explains what happened to Alice, which Kirito finds strangely familiar, and that he can’t go travelling to find her because it would violate the Taboo Index.

Eugeo also explains his job, which chips away at the life of the tree bit by bit. It’s basically a giant monster with enormous health that doesn’t attack back and has no time limit to beat. Kirito tries taking a whack at it to repay Eugeo for giving him lunch, but even that only takes off 50 points out of the remaining 230,000. After a hard day’s work, they go back to Eugeo’s village to get Kirito set up at the local church for lodgings, as well as give him a chance to show off that he still knows how to use a sword if he needs to. This gives him a chance to mull over his situation and what he’s observed. None of the people he’s met feel like NPCs, but there’s no way this many people could be logged into Underworld at once when the technology is so new. He’s also got no way to contact the outside world, but maybe that could change if he’s able to get to a larger city.

As he drifts off to sleep, a blue haired woman in a tall tower smiles.

OUR TAKE

This episode was naturally going to be paced noticeably slower than last week’s double feature. Now that we have the prologue, reintroduction of the established characters, and exposition-dumping the techno-jargon out of the way, we can get to the main story. And considering this season’s going to be at least twice as long as the last two and be covering ten volumes worth of story, it’s allowed to go at a more gradual progression to let things breathe for a bit before the action kicks up again.

In relation to this episode, that basically means showing Kirito at square one again as he navigates things in this world that is both old and new to him. I see now why it was important that we see the prologue of (supposedly) fake memories he shares with Eugeo and Alice so that we now have to start asking questions when he shows up and doesn’t remember anything on top of no one remembering him. What purpose does the blocking of real memories serve the experiment? Why does he have his memories now but not his fake ones? Is it because he was poisoned at the end of the last episode? Why was he removed from the memories people who knew “him” in Underworld? These are all things that we don’t really need answered right now, but are leaving seeds of curiosity to carry us through the uneventful bits later on.

Which actually leads me to one of my main gripes about the episode, particularly how little actually happens in it. I get it, we need to set Kirito to zero and give him the rundown on everything he wouldn’t know because he’s made to forget everything usually, but it still feels like a considerable drag. I’m not entirely sold on this premise just yet, but while this didn’t necessarily do anything to make that worse, it didn’t quite make it better either. We know the basics, that certain things like food and the Gigas Cidar have their own health bars, but also that there’s a fully fleshed out society here with its out rules and lore. Also that Kirito, while low level now, still knows how to use a sword, which already has me dreading that he’ll be back to God Mode soon enough. I know that’s a common complaint, but it’s still something I’ve never been fond of about him.

Still, the fact that he’s starting from scratch right now does feel reminiscent of the tension that was present in most of the Aincrad arc. If we can get a proper journey alongside him as he learns the ropes again and figures out this new world, I think we might have something really good on our hands. But as I’m looking at it now, it’s a competent start, but not much beyond that.