English Dub Review: Sword Art Online: Alicization – War of Underworld “Stigma of the Disqualified”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)
The battle rages on as the Integrity Knights continue holding their own against the oncoming hordes of the Dark Territory. Even the two kid knights, Linel and Fizel get in on the action and take out many a goblin mook. But one knight has decided to take a half day, specifically Renly Synthesis Twenty Seven, who has hunkered down with the supplies in sheer unrelenting terror. Seems that, despite having gained ownership of the apparently powerful Double Winged Blades, he has a history with being a cowardly member of the Integrity Knights. One wonders why he was given knighthood in the first place, considering his backstory involves accidentally killing his friend in the final round of a sword fighting tournament. I guess manslaughter also counts as breaking the law against murder. Still, he gets his chance at redemption as Tiese and Ronie arrive with Kirito but are attacked by more goblins. In the face of this danger, Renly gets off his ass and regains his courage, taking out the intruders and another chief of the Council of Ten, then deciding to rejoin the fight.

Meanwhile, Dee Eye Ill, chancellor of the dark mages, has her forces forced back by Bercouli and finds that all the material left behind by the fallen troops has been already absorbed somewhere. That somewhere is the orb Alice has been building, which she finally unleashes to decimate the Dark Territory forces.

OUR TAKE
As we continue our look at this multi-episode long fight scene, it makes sense that we’d be focusing some time on each of the participants. Last week gave us time with Deuselbert and Fanatio, so now we get a chance to focus on Renly, one of the previously unseen knights. My first reaction to this was wondering why they were adding more characters to this already crazy bloated cast, but at the end of the day, Renly’s story ends up being pretty innocuous in the grand scheme, which is not unwelcome amongst the other decisions Sword Art Online has done with its minor characters in the past. Although I do feel like this was a bit of a wasted opportunity in terms of providing backstory, as the most we get is something Renly did that MAY have led to him becoming an Integrity Knight (come to think of it, should he even remember that tournament?) and getting talking to by Quinella that led to him being frozen until…now, I guess. And I guess it was nice to see Linel and Fizel again? I honestly can’t say for sure one way or another because I feel nothing towards them.

The battle does look to be progressing now that Alice has blown her load all over the enemy (phrasing), showing that even their limited and outnumbered forces are still more than a match for the swarms of monsters from the Dark Territory. This and the previous episode have shaved off three of the less interesting council members with at least a few more to likely follow. Dee Eye Ill, being smoking hot, will probably last considerably longer than, say, the pig man, but currently we’re down to six members left (counting the three killed recently and Knight Steve Blum who was killed by Vector before the battle even started). We’re more than half way through the dozen episodes in this batch, so I expect us to get to exactly five leaders left by the end, though that’s just a hunch right now. This big battle looks to be the brunt of the action for this quarter of the season, so some more significant casualties is probably a reasonable guess at this point. In the meantime, we’ve got at least a few more knights to give focus to like that unnamed black knight, Bercouli, and probably Alice herself before all is said and done. Also, let’s hope next episode does something interesting and different enough for me to find more things to talk about in this big fight!