English Dub Review: Sword Art Online II “Crimson Memories”

The name of the game in “Crimson Memories,” the latest episode of Sword Art Online II, is interlude. This is a break between the preliminary rounds and the finals of the Bullet of Bullets tournament. Unfortunately, there is enough anguish to go around, you can cure almost every emo kid of their emo-dom. Okay, maybe I am exaggerating a little, but you get the point. Kirito is languishing over the people he killed in SAO, and Sinon is lamenting over how Kirito is doing Kirito things. She doesn’t really have much to complain over, but she finds a way to do it.

Most of the episode is catching up with the characters stuck in the real world, like all of Kirito’s ALO friends, and Sinon’s awkward conversation with Kyouji, ending with her having to force-ably shove him away when he hugged her (for entirely way too long). Unfortunately, there wasn’t really much except for Kirito, Sinon, and Kyouji all logging into GGO, There were more idol “I’m going to win!” speeches than “Man, this looks delicious” rants I have when I go to Buffalo Wild Wings. By the way, that’s a fuck ton of rants.

There was a whole lot of nothing going on, even though there was 20 minutes of air time has passed. How is this possible? The worst part is that this could have some really meaningful story, showing the effect that Kirito’s exit from ALO has had on his friends, or the progression Sinon had with her phobia of guns. They glanced over all of this, but there was so little detail that it could just be considered wasted potential. With how great the World Break and Death Parade finales have been, I feel like I have been spoiled a bit.

That said, next week’s episode is served up on a platter to be a great one, because there is going to be action galore. It’s the finals of the BoB tournamnt, with Sinon and Kirito fighting to kill one another. But where does that leave Death Gun?