"Fools! Remember this name and fear! The name this gun and I share. Death Gun!"
FULL EPISODE SPOILERS AHEAD
Well kids, we've made it to Season 2. It premiered just last year, so, yeah, now I'm watching it subbed. I don't really mind it much (since the voice actor for Death Gun does a good job anyway).
Now I can just pray that someone like Crispin Freeman gets to voice Death Gun, I would die.
Anyway, yes, Season 2. Going into it, for fans of the anime, a lot was shrouded in mystery. We knew that we were going to be leaving a world of swords and magic, and moving into one with guns and...LIGHT-SABERS!!
It's very evident in the first shot, too. But, it doesn't stay in GGO forever. To discuss that would be getting way ahead of ourselves, though. If you want to watch SAO II, it's shown exclusively (legally anyway) on Crunchyroll and Hulu. Do it. It was my favorite anime of last year!
There's a lot of new, for sure, in this new season, which is good. You could tell that ALO and SAO were pretty much the same game. But the new game, Gun-Gale Online, hardly represents SAO. Things have evolved pretty far, too, from when Kirito and Agil planted the World Seed at the end of Season 1. VRMMOs have made a humongous leap forward, which is, again, evident in the very first shot of the episode.
So, how do we start this very exciting, and mysterious, new season? Well, without Kirito and any character we may recognize.
We are shown a shot of a futuristic city, clearly a game, and we go into the building to see all this new techno-babble while a few TV screens show two players and a mediator talking online. It's cool to see that there is an MMO-stream that's in game, so players get to talk as their avatars and not have to do anything in real life. I don't know how I feel when I say that we may one day get to that point.
Anyway, the main man on the screen, hogging all the attention, is Zexceed, apparently the game's best player. He rambles on for a while to serve up his ego, talking about how the agility skill is now the lesser skill to precise shooting and gun strength, which is stuff we'll get into as the story progresses. Apparently, Zexceed was also the one who was promoting the agility skill way back when on the competitive level.
A hooded player in the back stalks up to the screen and proclaims that Zexceed deserves to die. He pulls out a small pistol--which, in a game all about the future and big guns does look weird since it's a hand-gun we'd see nowadays--and shoots the screen. At first nothing happens, but then, Zexceed seems to have a heart attack and gets disconnected.
So, without saying it, Death Gun just shot and killed Zexceed without ever having directly shot him. Our villain!
I'll give my thoughts on Death Gun as we move along, but, as for right now, you best believe this guys leaves this kind of impression:
Classic.
There isn't too much action in this episode, though, which kind of blows. It isn't like the first episode of SAO that established our main character and the rules for the game, more like catches up on the last few months. Is it bad? No, it's quite helpful, actually.
Much of the rest of the episode does indeed follow Kazuto, and we even get an episode that's out of order chronologically, for once. It's a welcomed change, to be honest.
After the little introduction to Death Gun (seriously, talk about a way to start a series) we see Asuna wondering what the real difference between the real and virtual world is when she meets up with Kazuto. Of course, Asuna is wearing white and Kazuto is wearing black, because that's what they wore in SAO haha it's so cute blah blah blah.
Though, I must give credit to the writers by pointing out how much they wear those colors, particularly Kirito who always seems to be wearing black.
The two go on a little walk into an area of the city where there really isn't much technology, both of them marveling at this. Well, I would rag on that fact. But given how it's 2025 and how the show has displayed such amazing technological leaps, I can't really do that.
The two stop to sit down at a bench at sunset and they talk a little more about the difference between the real and virtual world, since technology seems to be growing every day. Kazuto expresses interest in some day (maybe soon) becoming a creator of games, rather than a player, in order to enhance the virtual experience and further blur the line between what's real and virtual.
Again, it's something I would harp on, but there is a legitimate reason why he and Asuna want this to happen: it submerses them into an environment they had adjusted two for two rigorous years as well as reunites them with Yui, as she would technically exist on the same plan as them if augmented/ virtual reality were to somehow merge with real life. Writing that out makes it seem more implausible, but, I do kind of hope for them to get there.
I just hope Kirito doesn't mess up so things don't turn out so....
Like that....
Asuna urges him to complete it, and Kazuto looks off into the distance, pondering something. He ponders it so much that he forces the show to take a leap back four hours (so, then, how long were he and Asuna hanging out? They were together in the day but it's sunset...is this still a problem?!) to a meeting he has with the man mentioned once in Season 1, the representative from Internal Affairs, particularly the Virtual Division, named Sejirou.
There, Sejirou tells Kazuto, and inadvertently us, about the new game I mentioned earlier, Gun-Gale Online, or GGO for short (so, GGO it is!). It's the next big game, and Kazuto tells about how this is the only game in Japan with pro-players. Now, I think he means that differently, or the same, as it is over here. In the gaming community, there are technically "professional players," but they earn their income through prize money and sponsorship. Not every pro-player gets paid like that, though, but still.
Here, we find out interestingly enough that the money from the game can actually be used as money in the real world. Meaning, basically, that if you were to fulfill a mission or a prize-based event in the game, you could transfer that money into yen (since it's Japan). Whoa. There's even reports of players making 200,000 or 300,000 yen. Whoa, okay. If you think about it simplistically, and American-ized, it's not much, only equating to somewhere between 1500-2500 American dollars.
But do lots of high-paying missions? Well...cha-ching indeed. Though, this also makes me wonder how rich the people who own the game are, and how trusting these players are to more than likely lend their bank information so they can get this money.
That's not what we're here for, though! We're here to talk about death.
And this suddenly just got more depressing.
Sejirou tells Kazuto about how two players have died, on separate days and in two mildly different scenarios, within the game due to heart failure, not from brain damage, which Kirito was thinking because of the high-output microwave emission that killed the 4,000 Aincrad players. Sejirou says that's impossible for the Amusphere (yay, progress) to do, so the mystery is in how the murderer, Death Gun, was able to pull it off.
There are many problems that I have with this scene and they actually contradict themselves. One: Sejirou says that they didn't perform a thorough autopsy of either body. Why would you not examine the body? If it's a money thing it certainly doesn't seem to be a problem since you're taking Kazuto to some fancy-shmancy restaurant! Two: Sejirou says they did perform an autopsy but found that the results one hundred percent concluded heart failure.
It's a stupid thing not to perform an autopsy, especially someone heading the Virtual Division of Internal Affairs, but given what we learn later on, that would have been monumental in solving this case.
Whatever. It bothered me, but, not as much as the huge plothole from last season in Episode 17 (??). As expected, Sejirou convinces Kazuto to aid them in the investigation (after, you know, telling him there's some good payment) and we jump back to Kazuto and Asuna at the lake. There, Kazuto prepares to tell Asuna about it, but decides not to.
Leaving them, now, we head back over to GGO where we are in a desert not unlike one you would find in the apocalypse. In a building way off in the distance, a blue-haired sniper named Sinon takes aim at a group of people making their way toward the city. From far out, thinking to herself that the distance is nothing and that this compared to "that other time" is nothing, Sinon takes a shot and puts it straight through the forehead of another player. Instantly, she reloads and takes aim at another, ending the episode.
Phew. Sinon. Please, calm down with that.
This episode is good, though is lacking in the exciting action that I was originally hoping it would bring. As far as the new characters go: Death Gun is the biggest threat we've seen since Kaiyaba since Oberon was a joke, Sejirou just seems to be the typical friendly anime businessman, and it's tough to get a read on Sinon other than the fact that she has some interesting back-story and is a killer sniper.
All in all, though, this episode makes you want to see more. It gives off a cyberpunk feel to it that is so drastically different from the previous two games that you just have to take a look inside.
The animation is the same as last time, with a few differences and some things looking touched up. The music is still composed by Yuki Kajiura, and it is kinda obvious that it's her. There are a few new songs, slower ones, that are shown here, and there's even a throwback to a song from last season playing in the restaurant. Clever clever.
Tomorrow, we get to take a look at who this mysterious Sinon is, and if she is really as good a shot as we are led to believe. See you then!
No comments:
Post a Comment