English Dub Review: Sword Art Online: Alicization – War of Underworld “Blood and Life”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Alice’s attack severely damages the Dark Territory frontlines, though even with most of their generals gone, the fight is far from over. From the dying words of the Ogre Chief (who frankly looks more wolf than ogre if you ask me), Alice learns of the “Priestess of Light” title she has been given and that Vecta has been searching for her specifically. Meanwhile, Dee Eye Ell has found her side deprived of the spatial materials for spell casting that ended up in Alice’s attack, so Vecta/Gabriel suggests they take from the Orc camps in order to complete her spell: an orb of life eating worms that they unleash against the knights. However, this time Eldrie takes the hit to redeem himself for a less than stellar performance, dying in Alice’s arms. In a rage, she fires on Dee’s unit, with Dee only managing to escape by sacrificing more of her remaining troops in order to survive. Gabriel spots her from the skies, seeing Alicia in her.

OUR TAKE
Looks like the score at halftime is Integrity Knights: 4, Dark Territory 1. Not looking great for the side that was vastly outnumbering the other when this battle started, as the Dark Territory has now lost swathes of its forces and over half of their leaders to one on one battles with the Integrity Knights. Of the ones remaining, we have the Dee Eye Ell, the Orc leader, the and three remaining members of the Council of Ten whose names I can’t remember but will likely be of no real consequence. And even among the first two, Dee’s mages have been all but wiped out and the Orcs have been sacrificed for Dee’s spell which ended up doing jack all but kill the youngest and least experienced knight. Oh but don’t forget that we got to see the Orc leader lose his cute pig girlfriend who was introduced for the sole purpose of killing her off. I suddenly feel so connected to the monsters on this side of the conflict. And by that I mean I feel close to nothing because of how forced and artificial that was.

I only felt SLIGHTLY more in regards to Eldrie’s death, partly because he’s felt more like an actual character since this part of the arc started, albeit with not a whole lot going for him beyond being eager to impress his cute senpai Alice. His sacrifice was quite the thing to see, though once his durability numbers starting going into the negatives it became overkill, not to mention the “standing on flames” moment despite him not standing on anything burning, and the last clutching embrace with Alice where he saw her as…his mother? But hey, that’s one more Alice love interest dead to join Eugeo in the afterlife, only Eldrie doesn’t even get a loli Alice to die with. Now the only one left who’s into her is Gabrie/Vecta l, who I don’t think I have to tell you is not a great pick. Also just made me realize that’s three human antagonists in a row whose sole motivation is obsessively pining after the female protagonist (Sugou with Asuna, Kyoji/Death Gun with Sinon, and now Gabriel/Vecta with Alice). I guess you can’t have Kirito beating a guy just because it’s what Kirito wants to do for a personal reason, it has to be with some girl’s life and/or freedom at stake. But for now, Kirito can’t ruin things, so we’ll keep looking at this time with the Knights for a few more episodes. But I wouldn’t hold my breath on that, so we best prepare for things to go down the tube soon.