Hello,
Today we'll talk about the fifth episode of the summer season 2012 anime series named Sword Art Online that in this episode explore the "player killing" mechanic in the game and give some extra character development to the main heroine Yuuki Asuna.
I got warned by many commenters in the previous episode post about this story arc, but I wasn't really expecting another beautiful girl dying without a real reason.
Surprisingly, I was completely uneffected by the death of Yoruko in this episode just like I was uneffected by Sachi's death episodes ago. I suppose that creating and killing a character in a single episode just doesn't give you enough time to care for her.
At first I was extremely wary of Yoruko, because her looks and behaviour just screamed "I'm the culprit! I'm here!", but judging from how she died it seems she was not the killer after all.
Of course, that is assuming there isn't some skill to create a fake double version of yourself in the game. That would explain the killing, but still there isn't much information to give her a REASON to do the murders.
That's because differently from the other female guild-member, she doesn't have any logical reason to kill her own brethren.
This small video scene was extremely cute to watch and show us how under that stiffed face and harsh words Asuna is just another cute normal girl strained by the massive quantity of time spent in this virtual world.
Kirito, on the other side, looks perfectly merged with the environment to the point of not caring much about his surroundings. I suppose that playing solo for such a long period of time changed his personality deeply.
I'm quite interested to see how will their relationship grow and change during the time remaining until the end of the game, especially considering her position as an important member of a guild.
Next episode will give us the resolution to the murder case and we'll hopefully get the name of the killer as well. I hope he won't be a new "never introduced till now" random guy, because that would water down the drama.
At the same time I'm very curious about how he did manage to kill all these players from inside the protection of the city. I mean, judging from what they said, the players should be invulnerable while inside the city...
Of course, that is assuming he isn't shooting those weapons from OUTSIDE the city, but honestly I really can't see how that would even work...
Concluding, Sword Art Online is back with a very interesting episode and I'm looking forward to see the conclusion to the story arc.
See you soon,
feal87