English Dub Review: Sword Art Online: Alicization – War of Underworld “Battle of the Knights”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

With a harrowing flash, the barrier between the Human Empire and the Dark Territory comes crashing down. Immediately, the forces led by each Integrity Knight face off against a group led by one of the Council of Ten. Deuselbert Synthesis Seven confronts the leader of the flatland goblins, burning him to cinders with his flaming arrows, while Fanatio Synthesis Two faces the leader of the giants, whose drive to kill becomes so powerful it glitches her fluctlight. She’s only saved at the last second by a member of the Four Whirling Blades, who sacrifices herself so Fanatio can regain her composure. And as each corpse dissolves, their spatial energy is collected by Alice into a ball ready to be redirected at the enemy once fully charged. Both are significant wins, but not enough to win the fight, made worse by Renly Synthesis Twenty Seven running off in the middle of the battle.

OUR TAKE

First off, finally some lines for Golgorosso! One may be forgiven for forgetting him, but he was Eugeo’s mentor back when they were at Knight School in the first few episodes of the arc. Somehow he managed to not have ANY lines during that time but now they saw fit to give him some. Better late than never I suppose.

Anyway, this episode kicks off another light novel to adapt, that novel being mainly about this fight right here between these two sides. As such, the next few episodes will mainly be about showing off each of the present knights while they pick off the more disposable members of the Council of Ten, giving us a better look at ones we’ve already met like Deuselbert, Fanatio, and Eldrie, as well as ones we haven’t like Renly (who we’ll get to know more next week) and Sheyta (who gets her own episode in three weeks). This specific episode, however, is just about the fights between Deuselbert, Fanatio, and their respective opponents, so not a whole lot new to cover with these two. Deuselbert remembers having a wife but not much else, while Fanatio is proudly fighting as a woman now even at the cost of one of her trusted henchwomen.

And this is kind of the issue with an arc that is pretty much just a four or five that is essentially more or less a giant fight scene. Until we get to focus on some new or untapped characters, the most I can tell you is that these are well animated fights that help fill the twenty minute space necessary for it to qualify as an episode. The more interesting stuff for this portion is on the horizon, but there’s probably stuff to pull from this too. It’s cool to see the knights really show off fighting on the good side now, since before they were just pawns of the Pontifex (who I have actually forgotten the name of!). Now they seem less like one off boss fights and real characters with their own lives on the line, which is certainly important if we’re supposed to care about whether they’ll live or die in this arc. Either way, this is just the opening salvo of this large battle, which will see us jumping around in perspectives a few times before all’s said in time. Next time gives us a profile on Renly, the guy who just shamelessly abandoned his post.