The End of the World

Key Events

They clear the boss with 14 deaths and they still have 25 floors to go.

Kirito remembers the illegal move by Heathcliff during their duel and launches a sneak attack on him only to be stopped by the ‘immortal object’ sign. Kirito explains that the game won’t allow Heathcliff’s HP to drop to yellow. He’s wondered how the creator can watch them and not want to join in, and this explains it as Heathcliff is Kayaba Akihiko.

Kayaba admits it and tells them that he would have been the final boss. A Story that the strongest player betrays everyone. He gave Kirito dual wielding as he has the fastest reaction time and wanted him to be the ‘hero’ to challenge him. But he’s been found out, so he paralyses everyone and gives Kirito the chance to duel him to beat the game. Kirito accepts.

They fight but Kayaba, having programmed the dual wielding system himself, predicts all of Kirito’s moves and defeats him. However Asuna somehow found a way to move and jumps in to take the finishing blow and dies. Kayaba then kills Kirito. But he somehow manages to stay in game with 0hp to stab Kayaba to death. And finally, the game is cleared.

Kirito and Asuna appear above the clouds, with Kayaba. He tells them that the world will be completed deleted and the 6147 survivors have been logged out.

He also tells them his dream of having a castle in the sky. He then congratulates them on clearing the game and disappears.

Kirito wakes up in a hospital room and ‘charges’ out of his ward in search of Asuna.

Thoughts:

Wow… this episode had more holes than a massive slab of Swiss cheese. Before I get to that, I want to say how disappointed I am in that the fight with the big skeletal boss was barely a minute. I wanted a well animated extended fight, but no, cut it off before the episode even began, so it felt quite rushed. Then again the entire episode was rushed. And also a lot of things need explaining otherwise I can’t accept any of it because it makes no sense…

So let’s start, I was originally planning on a massive rant, but that wouldn’t get anywhere so I’m gonna rant in smaller sections. Oh and just so you know I quite liked Heathcliff being Kayaba, thought that was a nice twist, but that doesn’t make up for the rest of the episode.

The first hole was Asuna breaking through the paralysis and saving Kirito. Breaking through real life paralysis with sheer will power, sure, ‘believable’, typical shounen. But this isn’t real life… it’s a game, you’re paralysed you can’t move, full stop, no ifs or buts that’s how a program works. If player A is paralysed, s/he can’t move. Might be how an explanation of how paralysis looks like. Simply put, breaking through a program is not possible. If Yui was back with Cardinal then perhaps she loosened the bounds, but that didn’t happen. That paralysis was set by Kayaba himself, the creator, he doesn’t make mistakes. It’s not a glitch, in a world like this, I doubt Kayaba would’ve let such a glitch slip.

Next, again to do with the game being a program is Kirito’s death. His HP reached 0, he died. Similar to the paralysis, hp=0, nerve gear activates, dead guy on the bed. A simple sequence of events that should’ve happened. But he became a ghost and stayed in the game, neither should have happened. I’m looking forward to their explanation and again, no ‘glitch’ nonsense. Would sound like a poor excuse someone made up as they ran out of ideas.

The last game related thing is how Kirito’s sword stabbed through Kayaba’s shield so easily. Remember that this is the shield that’s blocked all of Kirito’s attacks thus far not letting one through. But it’s magically able to stab through it when Kirito becomes a ghost. Kayaba probably personally programmed his shield not to let anything through, so yeah, explain that.

The only explanation I can think of is that Kayaba wanted Kirito to win so he gave Kirito some leeway and allowed him to stay alive, allowed his sword to pierce his shield etc.

The final thing was in real life i.e. how Kirito marches out of the hospital using legs that hasn’t been used for over 2 years and no one around in the hospital in broad daylight to stop him. So yeah, firstly he shouldn’t be able to walk, secondly where is everyone? If it was night time then sure maybe there’s only one or two people around, but it’s daytime…

I’ll stop there. Ignoring all the holes and inconsistencies, I did enjoy the episode. It still brought a nice heart-warming mood to the end of the game, even if it was heavily rushed. And I am now looking forward to seeing Asuna and Kirito reunite in real life and wonder what their next adventure is. Another thing I was disappointed with was that there was no PK guild fight. Would’ve enjoyed witnessing a VRMMORPG guild war.

Ah well, good thing it wasn’t the end of the series, gives them time to reconcile, and give some good explanations. Oh and one last thing, Kayaba’s obviously been watching too much Studio Ghibli.