For the longest time, Sword Art Online has been lacking something that’s almost crucial in the superiore, in alto tier of anime. There’s a certain element of enjoyment that can only really be brought to an Anime da sheer, unfettered fabulousness. This is a flair Kirito, as our main character, is distinctly lacking – his almost bleak, and relatively stoic nature goes hand in hand with his dark and dour clothing choices. For the first time since its premiere, we have something that comes vaguely close to the spirit – a character who just barely manages to bring some fabulous to the table. Oh, da the way, it’s Sugou. Yes, the horrible, evil, pretty much one-dimensional antagonist who has fantasies of doing despicable things to Asuna against her will. It’s not perfect though – the pose is about halfway there but he needs a bit più flair and a little less creepy. The smug could probably go too. But it’s the best we’ve got so we can make do! A pity about the motivations.

Surprisingly enough, unlike our last antagonist, Sugou actually has a plan. It’s probably not the best plan – selling mind control technology to the highest bidder is an obvious recipe for disaster – but it’s più than our old friend Kayaba Akihiko apparently had. With the three hundred test subjects captured while trying to escape SAO (I feel bad for them – that sucks on so many levels) he has plenty of material to experiment on. All away from the watchful eyes of Asuna’s father of course – couldn’t have him realising he’d taken pure evil under his wing. His control over this system brings up a small domanda though – why the keypad? We see Asuna obviously trying to memorise the code so she can escape – it’s a pretty big security risk. He’s the admin so surely he could set the door to open for him and only him with no need for any sort of interface. So why doesn’t he?

Kirito continues to be pretty bad at flying (which is a good thing – we can’t have him instantly mastering everything at once now can we?). This adds a fair bit of entertainment value to the episode, particularly in seeing him crash-land (unfortunately not visibly on his head this time) in the Sylph town. Before this, he casually jokes about seeing himself as a hero who’s just saved a princess… I still wonder if this is truer than he’d like to believe – he’s certainly shown a similar mentality in the past. I also wonder at his willingness to immediately trust a girl he’s seemingly never met before as she takes him into a town in which anyone can attack him but he is unable to fight back. dato that only a few moments fa he was casually massacring other players without any secondo thoughts, why would he not be più wary of exposing himself to an entire town that could potentially contain players with a similar penchant for nonchalant slaughter? What if the entire situation were reversed and Kirito was saving one of the salamandra guys from Leafa (I still prefer Lyfa honestly)? Would he still be as trusting? Would he even save them?

Once again, this episode sheds a little più light onto ALFheim Online’s design. Like many MMOs of old, the choice of race gives varying bonuses to a player in ALO – something that the più modern MMO archetype seems to be trying to phase out. With this in mind, Kirito really should’ve put più thought into his choice than clothing colour, particularly when his bonuses ostensibly give him no real combat advantages, and I can’t imagine him finding any solid use for treasure hunting abilities during his mad rush to clear the game and save Asuna. We also learn the purpose of clearing the World albero – where flight time and height are currently limited, that will be lifted from the race which finally manages to complete the quest. The idea that clearing it would require collaboration between races is quickly dismissed because only one of the participating races would have their limits removed. There’s actually a fairly simple solution to this – if flying free is the ultimate goal shared da all players, just have everyone reroll as a single race and do it that way! See! Now everyone can fly free!

If it wasn’t already obvious last week (it kind of was), Leafa is in fact played da Sugu. Unlike the whole Kayaba Akihiko twist, this was never intended to be a big revelation. It’s dramatic irony – we’re fully aware that the person Sugu is falling in Amore with is once again her adopted brother; she, however, is not. It’s rather a cruel irony too. I find it a little strange that in the two months since his release from SAO, Kirito has never once even so much as mentioned the name he’s been living under for two whole years to his family. dato that he’s already divulged everything to the authorities, you’d think he might have been a little più forthright with what he’s been up to for the past two years, at least among family.