Sword Art Online II

Episode 14

Sword Art Online isn't really a show you can sum up in an easy sentence. It has many awkward components, and is often a war of swerving extremes. So I suppose it's only to be expected that on the back of an episode that exemplifies many of Sword Art Online's worst instincts, Gun Gale Online would come to a close with an episode featuring it at its absolute best.

This episode featured the conclusion to the assault scene in Sinon's room, followed by a wrap-up of first the themes, and then the character arcs of Gun Gale Online. We started off right where last episode ended, with Kyouji pulling his over-the-top villain routine only to be interrupted by Kirito. Fortunately, for once, Sinon actually got to be the hero - I actually shouted “yes!” out loud when she slammed Kyouji with her music player. It's a little thing, but I've been waiting close to forty episodes for one of Sword Art Online's girls to actually get to be the hero. The fact that Kirito's survival was based on a silly cop-out like a heart electrode did little to dampen my satisfaction with that moment.

After that, the show's first arc-conclusion stop was with Sinon's bullying classmates. I think the show did a fine job of demonstrating the strength Sinon has gained, and was happy to see the dramatic tension not being overplayed. This led into the episode's central, theme-focused scene, where Kirito, Sinon, and Kirito's government contact discussed the nature of Death Gun, and what might lead someone like Kyouji to take such vicious actions. This scene built off all the work the show has done establishing a fully articulated philosophy of digital selves, and portrayed both of the Death Gun brothers as people who had understandably lost touch with reality. The way their theoretical murder became more and more believable, the echo chamber of their plans, their anger at not being noticed after their first murders - every step of their journeys echoed everything that can make online discourse so frightening, and even dangerous. And their specific motivations were equally tangible.

Shouichi, the older brother, had been “abandoned” by their father, and thus his real-world identity was given no value. The fact that a person like that would embrace the power of a world like SAO isn't much of a stretch - and I like the fact that even his handle, “Sterben,” is defined in the show as the word used to represent “death” in a hospital setting. Betrayed by his hospital director father, he takes the identity the real world has pronounced dead and makes it a symbol of his strength. SAO's exploration of the idea that people “lose touch with reality” actually grasps at the true nature of what that means - it's not that people truly can't tell the real world from a virtual one, it's that people's priorities, and even the way they construct their identity, can become distanced from their physical selves. Even if you can tell the difference between a physical and virtual world, if everything that makes you feel powerful and valued only exists in the virtual one, what gives the real world any personal validity? And Sinon's final point that “wherever you are is reality” doesn't really deny this. SAO's constant grappling with ideas of identity, reality, and how we find strength has never been more nuanced than here.

In the episode's last scene, Sinon finally got to meet Kirito's other friends, and Kirito passed along the advice he'd been given - “you have the right to think about the lives you've saved.” While Kirito's dramatic moments earlier in this arc didn't really feel earned, Sinon's emotional journey has been the core of this season, and so this scene landed perfectly for me. On both the emotional and thematic front, this episode acted as a nearly perfect bookend to the core concepts of GGO, and ended this arc more gracefully than I ever really expected. Nice work, SAO.

Rating: A-

Sword Art Online II is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Nick writes about anime, storytelling, and the meaning of life at Wrong Every Time.