The Sword Dance of White and Black

Key Events

Nearly 2 years have passed and Kirito is still soloing the frontlines.

Kirito catches a very rare (s-rare) rabbit and the only person who can cook it is Asuna, so he makes a deal of giving Asuna half of it if she cooks it for him.

Less than 500 players are clearing the game as many have gotten used to life in the game.

Because the monsters are getting more difficult at floors past 70, Asuna offers to party with Kirito, her guild shouldn’t mind and she’ll ditch her bodyguard.

On the day they meet up, Asuna’s bodyguard Kuradeel follow her and attempt to take her back. Kirito stops him saying he will protect her, so he requests a duel. Kirito breaks his weapon and Asuna relieves him of his guard duty.

They discover the boss, The Gleam Eyes, during  their grinding in a dungeon on the 74th floor.

Thoughts:

By the looks of things, I think the story’s finally started. Earlier than I expected which is always a nice surprise. No more side stories now. I actually don’t know how I feel about the anime doing this in chronological order rather than in book order. I mean we’ve not gotten used to Kirito and what he does and sorta saw his development through the floors, but we’re not following what went through the author’s mind as the story went through so perhaps some things may make less sense. However, if the anime does it well enough I might never notice a thing.

2 years into the game it’s not surprising many people have been completely taken in by the virtual reality. Though I do wonder how good that virtual food taste. This is the life they’re used to, and as with all MMORPGs the final levels take massive amounts of effort and time, it’s natural that some people will get lazy. It’s all fine enough, but it’s unlikely that everyone will have the same opinion of wanting to stay in the game forever and constantly fearing death at every corner. So you start wondering, when the frontline group eventually clear the game, because not everyone wants to stay, what will those who want to stay do? Will they be given the choice to stay behind or will they be forced to leave? Is this what Akihiko Kayaba wanted? For thousands of people to lose their minds in his virtual reality? If so that makes me wonder why only ten thousand people? If he wanted people to enjoy and get lost in his world then why did he only limit it to ten thousand people? A VRMMORPG of this size can probably easily house more people, so is there a reason for ten thousand?

Then there’s rehabilitation which everyone will need once they come out of the game. Forgetting the fact that they probably won’t be able to walk after having not used their legs for 2 years, they’ll also need to get back into normal society. Not going to be an easy thing after losing 2 years. But that’s not important to this story I don’t think. This topic will probably never come up in this story, if it does I’ll comment more then.

That shadowy guy during Kuradeel’s duel looks like he’ll be interesting, by the looks of it probably from a pk guild. Maybe they’ve followed them and will strike when they’re escaping from the boss. In all likelihood they will probably run. That huge thing had 4 health bars, don’t think the two of them are that good. I wouldn’t mind if they were, would be good to see some nice action scenes again. So perhaps the pk people will attack when they’re fighting the boss? But since they can just teleport they won’t be in that much danger.

And also there seems like there’re some problems within Knights of the Blood Oath, wonder what will stir up there. The thing I was thinking was that maybe Asuna quits her guild and joins Kirito in his ‘soloing’.

Well anyway, off to an interesting start, and straight off with the next boss. Troubles arising, potential pk players after them and some normal VRMMORPG life introduced. All’s well now.