Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online II

Episode 12

When Karen started playing Gun Gale Online, it was a way to battle her insecurities—to have the ideal body to match her cute interests. From there, her reason for playing became to save a person's life. But with her becoming comfortable in her own body and diverting Pitohui's obsession away from recreating the Sword Art Online experience, a question arises: Why is she even playing Gun Gale Online anymore?

When it comes down to it, this has been Karen's overarching dilemma this season. Her reason for still playing has been her promise with SHINC that after her obligations were done she'd be free to quit. This is another reason she becomes so enraged near the end of the arc when Pitohui and the traitor system make any chance of her accomplishing this goal go out the window. Even in this arc, her whole reason for fighting against the “new NPCs” is that she will also have the chance to fight it out with SHINC.

However, the trick is not that Karen wants to quit. Rather, she's been thinking that she should quit. She is well aware that she's long since accomplished all that she set out to—using her promise with SHINC to keep playing—but she's unwilling to admit to herself the true reason she still is. It's not for the competition or to be the best. It's not to overcome personal issues or to gain personal fame. It's because it's fun.

It's a reason that is simple in concept, and complex in context. After all, how do you go about accepting that your idea of a good time is murdering people in a hyper-realistic simulator, often in gruesome ways? But really, that's just the surface. Beneath that is the whole additional layer of admitting in your heart of hearts that you had fun fighting your friend when her life was hanging in the balance.

In the end, what helps Karen realize her own feelings ties back to the climax of the first season, where Karen and Pitohui's ideals clashed. Gun Gale Online is not supposed to be about literal life-or-death struggles. It's not Sword Art Online. It's a normal video game, and what are games supposed to be if not fun?

Of course, to call Gun Gale Online “just a game” at this point is more than a little disingenuous. After all, games are also everything from learning tools to art—which is why we get the point of view of the “NPCs” as a little epilogue. Basically, they were former special ops soldiers who couldn't leave the battlefield behind for the simple reason that they had no fear of it—no reason to move on. So their doctor put them in Gun Gale Online to make them taste the defeat they never got in the real world—to teach them the fear of death.

The result is quite similar to what has happened with Pitohui. When she lost to Llenn, she was certain she was about to die. While being reminded of her promise kept her alive after the fact, the fear of the moment was no less real in hindsight. Likewise, the soldiers, unaccustomed to VR, clearly feel as if they are on a real battlefield despite its virtual nature. Nothing could prepare them for someone like Llenn who truly accepts the game for what it is, who has no fear of death or bodily harm whatsoever. While the world of Gun Gale Online may be fake, the mortal fear it has unlocked in Pitohui and the soldiers is not. In both cases, it has saved their lives. In the case of the soldiers, it has allowed their self-preservation instincts to kick in and help them quit while they are ahead. As for Pitohui… well, it's clear that her obsession with Llenn will keep her alive for the foreseeable future.

Rating:

Random Thoughts:

• It's clear the soldiers didn't know they were in Gun Gale Online—that they thought they were fighting NPCs just like the GGO regulars did. This must have made interacting with Llenn even more creepy.

• While I gave the most positive possible interpretation in the review proper, you could also look at this arc as a quack doctor betraying his oath and giving his patients PTSD.

• Shirley and Clarence teaming up in the hopes of kill-stealing to win the whole event was a pretty fantastic payoff to their fight earlier in the season.

• I could watch a whole series animated in the colored chalk style of the closing minute of the show.