English Dub Review: Sword Art Online: Alicization “Ocean Turtle”

Asuna Yuuki: Master of Disguise

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

The perspective switches to Asuna’s as we learn what she experienced after Kirito was poisoned by the last Laughing Coffin member. After he was hospitalized, he fell into a coma and was sent to a more advanced care facility recommended by Seijiro Kikuoka, Kirito’s associate from previous arcs, and so is sent there. But after several days being unable to see him, Asuna and Suguha, Kirito’s cousin, become suspicious. Using their AI, Yui, to track the data of Asuna’s app keeping track of Kirito’s heart, they realize Kirito’s completely left the country and deduce it has something to do with Rath’s Soul Translator.

Asuna decides to contact Rinko Koujiro, associate of Akihiko Kayaba, about a way to possibly find Rath and if they’re holding Kirito. With Rinko’s help, Asuna is able to make it to Rath’s island facility, Ocean Turtle, and sneak in while in disguise so that she can confront Kikuoka about what Kirito being there is truly for.

OUR TAKE

Interesting time to shift the point of view, though I’m all for it in this case. Since the end of the Aincrad arc, Asuna pretty much got the shaft for awhile in terms of character development. She got reduced from badass fighter almost equal to Kirito in that story to being a kidnapped damsel in “Fairy Dance” and a spectator in “Phantom Bullet”. Luckily, she got more proper focus in the following “Mother’s Rosario” side story to show there were still ways to make her interesting, which leads us to this arc. I was unsure if this would be entirely from Kirito’s perspective once he entered the game and worried that the rest of the already existing characters would be sidelined once again to favor him, but now I know that at least Asuna will be getting time in the spotlight to space things out.

Seeing things on the outside also fills us in on what’s behind Kirito’s sudden placement in Underworld after his attack. Kikuoka has been a pretty enigmatic figure since he first showed up, being helpful, but mysterious. An ally, but not necessarily a friend. Now, his true motivations for associating with Kirito seem to be coming to the surface. And because this requires going inside a virtual simulation filled with AI, naturally this requires the guy who’s been at the center of resolving major conflicts inside three different virtual systems (four if you count the movie). As for what Kirito is specifically there to do, we may find out next week, where there will hopefully be more to talk about. And maybe the other supporting characters will get to be useful again too!

Although, having watched the subbed version of this prior to the dubbed, there is something that I noticed which likely was thrown out in the translation process. Asuna’s disguise as Rinko’s assistant has her speaking in English in the Japanese audio so as to disguise her voice, but since this is already English, there wasn’t much point in changing up the language to something else. Though this then means that anyone even slightly familiar with the sound of Cherami Leigh (Asuna’s English voice actress)’s voice, the twist of her being in disguise ends up being given away prematurely. It’s a minor detail in the long run, but I felt it worth mentioning to show that some things still fall through the cracks in translating these series sometimes. Even after decades of rapid evolution and improvement, the English Anime dubbing industry still can’t quite plan for every scenario. Again, not a big deal, but a quirky thing I thought I should bring up.