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

 

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Alice focuses Vecta’s attention on her, which works to get him to send the last of his forces, though the knights will still have to face the Pugilist forces (who can make their skin hard enough to deflect swords with Incarnation) and their leader Iskahn. In their path lies the stoic Sheyta Synthesis Twelve with her thin and sharp as hell blade. She engages in battle with Ishkahn, with the two gaining a bit of respect for each other by the end. Meanwhile Vassago sneaks his knights into the supply camp to get his rocks off by killing a bit, but finds the seemingly defenseless Ronye to be ready and waiting for him. He tries to get away, but suddenly, a glowing figure identified as the goddess Stacia appears in the sky, shifting the landscape to swallow up the enemy troops. But Vassago instantly recognizes her for who she really is, Lightning Flash Asuna.

OUR TAKE

And now, Asuna joins the fray, decked out in her own god account to even the score against Vecta, meaning now it’s god against god. Not that they necessarily needed help evening things out this time since the Integrity Knights looked to be holding their own pretty well up till now! We got one more Knight vs Council of Ten Member bout before the battle wrapped up, introducing Sheyta as she fought/flirted with Ishkahn of the Pugilists. It was a pretty cute little battle, no doubt, it’s just that it’s also similar to the bit with Renly in that it kind of slows down the story to introduce this new character and how they had a scene with Quinella a long time ago when I’m not entirely sure they added much overall. In fact, she seems kind of similar to Renly in that she is also afraid of things, only her fear is how much of a drive to kill she has. Maybe the reason she became a knight was because she killed someone? While that isn’t really made clear, it is a bit neat to learn more about what types of people have been made into knights over the years, even if they’re bound to get lost in the shuffle as things begin to shift towards the last quarter of the story.

The harbinger of that portion being the Asuna, who as mentioned has arrived to give the knights more aid from on high. Though they might be doing pretty well on the battlefield, it certainly couldn’t hurt to have someone who can basically hack the game to destroy the landscape for you. With her arrival, we’re likely to be getting a check in on the events going on in the real world next time, which I think is good for around this time. Now that things are setting up for the last push in the arc, we should be seeing the proper alliance between Rath and the Integrity Knights to fight off Gabriel and his group. This means more interactions with past characters and the ones we’ve been following for upwards of forty episodes so far. Right now it’s just Asuna but the opening does seem to point to everyone else from previous arcs (who isn’t dead already) jumping into the Underworld to get their own shining moments. And I gotta say, as much as I’ve ragged on this show before, that does sound like a cool moment just waiting to happen.