English Dub Review: Sword Art Online: Alicization – War of Underworld “Ray of Light”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

The American players emerge as Red Knight accounts and quickly begin tearing into both the Human Empire and Dark Territory forces. Asuna, realizing they’re from the real world, does what she can with her goddess powers and raises the ground to both make a barrier and knock off a fair amount of them, which inspires the knights to engage. Elsewhere, Iskahn stares horrified as the remaining pugilists are further cut down and begins to doubt Vecta’s orders to the point that his right eye goes red, forcing him to yank it out by hand. With that gone, he rationalizes that he was never told about these red soldiers, and so they’re fine to kill. He then jumps across the cliff, rescues Asuna, and bargains for help in exchange for joining forces.

But soon after, Vecta plucks Alice off the ground with his dragon and carries her off with Bercouli in pursuit. Upon hearing this, Asuna explains that her being taken means that the Underworld will be destroyed. But for Iskahn, that means his current orders to help Vecta capture her have been fulfilled, so now the pugilists are free to do whatever they like, including hold off the red knights so that Asuna and the other knights can go chase after Alice. As a second wave of red knights descend and surround them, a bright light flashes in the sky, revealing Sinon, who wipes them out with a single arrow, much to Asuna’s delight.

Back in the real world, Vassago awakens from being killed off and Critter explains the situation, including that he’s about to send more American players to outnumber the knights, then he’ll crank the time dilation back to 1000:1 so that Vecta/Gabriel can have more time to get her to the terminal. Vassago then plans to head back into the game, but this time on a “special” account that could even take on Asuna (which I guess means he’s an SAO survivor too).

OUR TAKE

The stage is set for the final quarter of the Alicization Arc as the pieces begin to fall into place. Vecta/Gabriel has captured Alice, the knights are following close behind, the rest of the main cast have started trickling into the Underworld to help out, Vassago is set to return in a supposedly stronger account, and the rest of everyone else’s plans are about to come to a head. The one major thing I’m surprised we didn’t get set up was Kirito making his glorious return and finally awakening from his coma to join in the fight, but I guess that will have to wait for some time during the remaining eleven episodes.

Though given this show’s established pattern of ending most of its arcs, I can already see where this is going. That pattern being Girl Who Likes Kirito being targeted by Unambiguously Horrible Scumbag to be saved by Kirito who wins by simply being a passably decent human being and not an attempted rapist/murderer. We saw it before with Asuna and Sugou in the Fairy Dance Arc and with Sinon and Kyouji in the Phantom Bullet Arc, so it should come as no surprise that now we have Alice and Gabriel taking those roles here. And as much as I’ve enjoyed literally anyone but Kirito getting the spotlight these past dozen episodes, it has nonetheless cost time that could have been spent developing Kirito’s character even the slightest bit, instead of what will likely happen: him showing up even more badass than before and curb stomping Gabriel in a totally unsatisfying manner. But at least the fights will look cool?

However, dub watchers will have to wait a bit to see the conclusion, as we now go on yet another break before the last eleven episodes are dubbed and broadcast on Toonami (which now might take even longer given the current state of the world). But if you’re fine with the sub, you need only wait until April 25th, as that’s when the Japanese broadcast begins! That gives us all just enough time to rewatch the entire arc from start to finish, as well as take a long hard look at ourselves for doing such a thing in the first place. Still, this whole quarantine is certainly making us find a ton of weird stuff to fill the time we would normally be working, so a Sword Art Online marathon might be just that. Heck, we might see one on Toonami before long if things don’t clear up right away. Until then, we’re logging out of coverage for the show, but we’ll be back for the final quarter.