Hello and welcome to Project Nitsuj. Well guys, this is it. The final chapter in the Alicization arc. For some of you this a joyous occasion. For others, it’s a sad moment as you know you’ve all enjoyed me talking about SAO. Premiering in summer of this year, the final season was originally scheduled to air in the springtime. However, the world decided to have the worst year of its life and released the pandemic that shut down everything worldwide. This of course delayed the anime and it aired in the summertime which in my opinion was the better time to air. Springtime is when school starts up for Japan so wouldn’t it make more sense to air it in the summertime when everyone’s out of school and can make time to watch it? Especially for an anime with a big fanbase. Well let’s see how this war ends for better or worse.
Opening and Ending Theme
The final opening is “Anima” by ReoNa. This time I enjoyed ReoNa’s song as it serves as a good song for the arc to end on. The song just keeps serving as a reminder that Kirito is returning and even though things look bad for everyone, our hero will rise back up and delivered a swift and painful death to his enemies and those that have hurt his friends.
The last ending is “I Will. . .” by Eir Aoi. Next to “unlasting” this was my second favorite ending in the arc. The song is very beautiful and once again sounds like it’s being sung from the perspective of Eugeo as he’s telling Kirito not to give up and to keep on living. No matter how far away they may seem from each other they’re still connected to each other.
Episodes 1-5
The final season starts off with Sinon getting to see Kirito in his emotionless state (or potato state as fans have affectionately called it. Scene here: https://youtu.be/8YjtnbUX_jw). In another part of the battlefield, Leafa arrives and meets the orc chief, Lilpillin, who still mourns over the death of his people. Leafa not knowing the situation and not wanting to hurt anyone who could possibly be good allows the orc to take her hostage (I know, sounds stupid) when out of nowhere the leader of the dark mages Dee Eye Ell arrives and we get our obligatory tentacle/rape scene (what is your obsession with tentacle rape Reki?). The Dee Eye Ell begins sucking the life out of Leafa to restore her body all while talking down to Lilpillin and telling him to undress and she’ll allow him to rape her. At first Lilpillin does this but as he remembers how nicely Leafa treated him and didn’t look down on him when they met, he manages to fight against his program which causes his eye to burst and he attacks Dee Eye Ell to save Leafa. Leafa gets back up and destroys Dee Eye Ell easily (scene here: https://youtu.be/mDZqARa0Toc, showing us once again how overpowered the human kingdom is in this war). Meanwhile, Bercouli catches up to Miller and the two fight where Miller has the edge (no pun intended) thanks to his sword which robs people of their consciousness allowing Miller to get a free shot in whenever he wants (that’s some BS right there). In the final part of the episode we see Asuna and the soldiers taking on the American gamers where there’s just too many of them to take on. Luckily, Klein shows up and he’s bought some friends (scene here: https://youtu.be/jcgOLnHwQTs).
So in episode 2 Klein and about 2,000 other players log into Underworld to fight. After that it’s just standing around and talking about the exposition (https://youtu.be/7_HVSU7NK5E). Back in the real world they’ve found a way to restore Kirito. The key to restoring lies in Asuna, Suguha, and Sinon (the three girls he’s spent the most time with online). In a rather boring exposition these three will implant their self-image of Kirito onto his damage fluctlight thus saving him. The only problem is they need the main computer to accomplish this so they’re going to have to access it through a backdoor manually. Back in Underworld we wrap up the episode with an awesome fight between Bercouli and Miller (seriously, it’s like they used up their entire animation budget on this one fight) where Bercouli actually wins (in a confusing way but still he beat the big baddie, impressive. Scene here: https://youtu.be/XVKueG99apU. Not gonna lie, this was the best fight in the entire series). Sadly, the battle cost him his life and he dies where Alice regains consciousness to see her father figure in his final moments. As his spirit looks on he gets joined by his vision of Quintella who was nice and cute (plus she wears clothes. (Corbin): This makes her strangely hotter. Wait, what are my kinks again?). Back in the real world, Miller decides to dive back in by transferring his personal account over to Underworld.
So nothing much really happens in episode 3. Sinon arrives to meet Alice where she tells her to keep heading to the altar at world’s end while she stays behind to fight against Miller once he returns. Back with Asuna’s camp, Vassago makes his presence know as we find out he was the leader of Laughing Coffin (how the hell did he escape arrest?) and he’s got a whole bunch of red knights not just from America but from China and South Korea (Europe and Australia were not invited to the party. Australia for obvious reasons). Back in the real world the group’s plan to revive Kirito begins where Higa heads down with one of the workers who reveals himself to be a traitor (what the fuck man?).
At the start of episode 4 we find out that the guy betraying them used to work for Sugou and helped him with his human experiments (fuck you. You were one of the tentacle creatures that captured Asuna that one time). He’s now here to avenge Sugou who is now serving 10 years in prison for his crimes (10 years!? That’s all he got, 10 FUCKING years!? The bastard kidnapped people, kept them in a comatose state, performed human experiments illegally, attempted to virtually rape a woman, attempted to murder Kirito in the parking lot of a hospital, and all he got was 10 years in prison? The justice system truly is broken) and was the one who leaked Alicization to the Americans. He was also in love with Quintella who made contact with him and helped her control Underworld (this guy really has a lot of issues going on). Back in Underworld Sinon takes on a returning Miller who is infused by dark powers as well as his account from GGO in a gunfight (this game has no more rules). Back with Asuna and the others they get surrounded with a lot of the players dying from all the numbers. Eventually, they’re forced to surrender but Vassago won’t be satisfied until he takes Kirito down.
In episode 5 Vassago toys with Kirito for a bit trying to snap him out of his catatonic state but has no luck (scene here: https://youtu.be/W62j1Jgs_sw, the fight you were hoping for has been denied). He decides to end Kirito right then and there but Kirito gets saved by the one person I did not expect to see in this anime, Eiji. Yes, Eiji, the guy who was an antagonist from the movie is in the anime. This surprise shocked a lot of people because if you didn’t watch the movie than you are severely fucked and had no idea who this guy is. Also, a movie character managed to make his way into anime? Well to the credit of the series, the movie was written by Reki himself making it cannon which means the characters and events that happened in the movie are cannon as well (I hate to say it, but well played Reki and A-1 Pictures). Eiji fights with the help of Yuna who shows up as well and we get a pretty good fight scene (too bad it gets interrupted by a flashback). During the middle of the fight just when things were starting to heat up we see Vassago’s past where we find he’s half-American half-Japanese. His Asian dad abandoned him and his mom where she became an abusive drunk and when his dad reentered the picture, he forced Vassago to give one of his kidneys to his half Japanese brother. Vassago gained a hate for Japan and its people (well this explains Laughing Coffin so much now) and when the SAO incident happened he stole a Nervgear and logged into the game just to kill Japanese people (if this is your attempt to make us feel sorry for the guy it’s not working. It sucks he had a terrible life with crappy parents, but that still doesn’t change the fact that he killed God knows how many people out of prejudice. If anything, it makes me hate the guy even more because he’s being a racist asshole). Eiji loses to Vassago and disappears along with Yuna (scene here: https://youtu.be/ZAvnK6_aFtM. Well those two were about as useful as that revival item from the first season). On the upside the red knights see Vassago’s emblem of Laughing Coffin to figure out that they were helping a serial killer this whole time and that they have all illegally hacked into a Japanese server (congratulations, you’re all accomplices in an international crime. Have fun in prison). The red knights decide to lay down their weapons but, Vassago uses some power to control some of the red knights (when the hell could he do that?) and has them attack each other. Meanwhile, Sinon fights Miller in a gunfight and Leafa fights against some red knights where they both almost die but thanks to sheer will power and refusing to give up they pull through. Leafa defeats the army of red knights (scene here: https://youtu.be/g7_-hbHvzfw) while Sinon gets a shot in on Miller despite getting her legs blown off. Miller survives the attack and decides to stop fighting Sinon to go after Alice (scene here: https://youtu.be/rRfGdokFvX4). Back in the real world Higa gets saved by the others and connects the fluctlights of Asuna, Leefa, and Sinon to Kirito’s fluctlight to revive him.
Episodes 6-11
For episode 6 Asuna gets back up to fight Vassago by herself thanks to the spirit of Yuuki (fine whatever, I’ll take anything as long as it returns Asuna back to her badass self. Scene here: https://youtu.be/7slmzpnK6gc). Despite Asuna stabbing and blasting a hole (yes, an actual hole) through his chest the racist bastard still stands ready to fight and takes over the bodies of the red knights to kill everyone. Meanwhile, inside Kirito, he sees all of his past battles and the people he’s lost where instead of helping him it does the exact opposite as he feels he should have been the one who died (what the hell are you talking about? Most of the people you killed were assholes. I get it, taking another person’s life is a terrible thing to do and still have survivors, but they were all justified kills and you have to keep moving forward for the ones you love. That’s how you can honor their memories). Apparently, not even Kirito’s harem is enough to bring him back, but the programmers find one more fluctlight that has a strong bond with Kirito, Eugeo. Eugeo comes in and convinces him to stop being a whiny bitch and return to reality and this works as Kirito returns and freezes all the red knights before going to face Vassago.
In the first half of episode 7 Kirito finally awakens and the first thing he does is fight Vassago (scene here: https://youtu.be/K0w0JFT8IB4. Well this is a fight that has been building up since the first arc). With the spirit of Eugeo by his side, Kirito logs out all the red knight players and then fights against Vassago in a good fight sequence where he wins and instead of destroying Vassago’s body right then and there (he’ll just create another account and log in), he instead turns Vassago into a tree (with an ugly face). Kirito then heals up everyone and flies off with Asuna to save Alice (scene here: https://youtu.be/qS3wF_F-yw8, this game is broken). Back in the real world, the terrorists have disengaged the FLA limiter thus making time in Underworld move at a fast pace. In about 10 minutes 200 years will have passed in that world and if Kirito and Asuna are still in there when the timer is up there’s a good chance they’ll never return. Their only option now is to reach the console and log out manually before it’s too late. Meanwhile, Alice finally reaches the console and so does Miller (it’s Miller time! I’m been sitting on that all review). Just as Miller is about to kill her dragon, Kirito arrives to save it.
In episode 8 while Asuna and Alice climb the stairs to reach the console (fly to the console you STUPID IDIOTS), Kirito and Miller fight each other (and if you thought Vassago was breaking the game, Miller just straight up breaks the game and remakes it in his image). While the fight between Kirito and Miller looks good it’s a difficult fight to follow as I have no idea what the hell is going on. This whole fight is basically hacker vs hacker and the winner is decided by who can hack the most (this is the equivalent of a game admin putting two hackers in a server together to give them a taste of their own medicine). With the help of Eugeo’s spirit, Kirito is able to defeat Miller (scene here: https://youtu.be/V-QLOJITVUA, Miller time is over). Asuna and Alice reach the console where Alice and everyone else get logged out except for Kirito (question, why?). So it looks like Kirito might be stuck in the game forever, but he won’t be alone as Asuna stayed behind to be with him (scene here: https://youtu.be/zA9AIaB4KUY).
Not much happens in episode 9. Those in the real world get to work logging out Kirito and Asuna. While that’s going on, the mercenaries see that Miller and Vassago are dead (Miller giving us the creepiest scene in this whole series. Scene here: https://youtu.be/p_n-Ap5LoGU) and decide that if they can’t get Alice, they’ll just have to destroy her. They set a bomb to go off in the fusion reactor and even leave one guy behind to guard the bomb. However, through one of the strangest moments I have ever seen in my life, Kayaba (https://youtu.be/zkbHS3U9lJM) returns. He takes control of one of the robots and uses that robot to extract the bomb and save everyone. After that, the mercenaries escape with the bodies of Miller and some other guy who got shot. Vassago’s body on the other hand has mysteriously disappeared (no! Don’t you dare bring him back. That man’s body was bone dry. He got turned into a tree. There is no way in hell that he is alive).
In episode 10 we see that Alice has entered the real world and her own body (oh my God, it finally happened. We can make 2D waifus real. Yet, we can’t get a flying car or catgirls. The future is weird). The world gets to meet Alice in a press conference (scene here: https://youtu.be/FJdHC3gpuxQ?t=9) where she abruptly leaves as she senses Kirito waking up (scene here: https://youtu.be/e7WbWgakV7E. I have no idea how she sensed it, so I’ll just chalk it up to the power of love). After returning to the real world, Kirito tells them to erase his memories of the past 200 years. After that we get a lot of talking such as the Underworld being in danger by the government, how they saved a copy of Kirito’s fluctlight who plans to fight for the protection of the Underworld, and Kirito finally returning home after his rehab. Once he returns home, he can’t help but still think of Eugeo (okay, were you two a thing?) and cries for his fallen friend wishing he had those memories erased as well. Thankfully, Sugaha is there to comfort him.
In the final episode, Kirito receives a call saying that Alice has gone missing (you mean to tell me you didn’t put a tracker in that metal body of hers?). Kirito manages to find her as she mailed herself to him (that is some quality postal service right there. They didn’t ask questions, they just dropped the box off and left). After rebooting Alice, Alice says the reason she ran away is because she wanted to talk to Kirito privately. She gets to the point by saying she’s mad at Kirito for staying behind and facing such a dangerous foe by himself (he had administrative controls. You couldn’t do anything even if you wanted to). She wants to know where they stand in their relationship (are you friends, partners, or secret lovers like Sinon and Sugaha. Hey wait a second S? A? Oh my God, all the girls who like Kirito start with the same initials as the title of the series. That means the next girl will start with an O for her name). Kirito says that Alice was his hope and the hope of Underworld. He doesn’t know where her future will lead, but he’ll be there to see it and watch over her. This satisfies her and she spends the day and night in Kirito’s house. The two have a quick sparring match (scene here: https://youtu.be/XKuhcpWupL8), and Kirito announces that he’s going to stay in Japan, go to college, and then work for Rath (and they better pay for his tuition for all the shit he went through. I know that). That night, Alice receives an email with a message that Kirito deciphers into an IP address that will lead them back to the Underworld. Kirito, Alice, and Asuna head into the Underworld where they’re in outer space and fight against a giant space monster to save some people and the season ends there (scene here: https://youtu.be/y8pHDS6Emy0).
Final Thoughts
And that was the Alicization arc, how was it? Well, not gonna lie, out of all the arcs in the series so far this one was my favorite. The first part of the arc is slow, but does a good job establishing the world of Alicization. We get a chance to meet the people of this world, understand them, and see what the rules of this world are and how it works. The anime does a good job transporting you to this world and bringing it to life. The second half of the first part moves a lot faster as we get to the action we all enjoy and end on a rather shocking note. War of Underworld also started off slow but not as slow as the first part. We quickly see the aftermath of what Kirito did and go straight into the war where the other characters we’ve gotten to know so far get a chance to show off their skills and show us that they’re not pushovers or dead weight like we previously thought. They were knights for a reason and the second half showed that with the war which was exciting, action-packed, and had good twists here and there that I enjoyed. I was glad that Kirito got be sidelined for a majority of the second part as it made his return all the more epic and timed well as the group was at the end of their ropes and Kirito rushes in to save them. It’s cliché, but it was effective.
As you figured it out by now, the action in this season is very good. It’s exciting, fast-paced, makes good use of the weapons, and powers of the characters, and is shot incredibly well. Some fights do tend to drag on longer than others, there’s a few disappointing ones, and the fights near the end did go over the top, but a majority of the fights were very cool and I enjoyed them. Where the anime drops the ball is with the characters and the villains. Now some characters are decent like Alice, Bercouli, and Cardinal but other characters leave much to be desired. Characters like Eugeo started off rather well and get good development in the arc only for it to crumble away at the end for no apparent reason. Eugeo became useless near the end of the first part and cuckolds himself as the girl he supposedly likes winds up falling for Kirito and he dies only to keep reappearing as a ghost which got pretty annoying. This same problem occurred with the other knights and members of the Dark Territory. There’s a lot of interesting characters here, but they don’t get nearly enough screen time or backstory. Just when you find an interesting character and spend time with them in one episode, they’re quickly pushed to the side the next episode and never seen again or forced into a background role. Surprisingly, the villains this time are weak. I didn’t find Quintella all that interesting or threatening as she kept fighting naked. I’m actually surprised A-1 got away with that. Miller was just weird. His thing about eating souls was silly and stupid, and he wasn’t much of a threat. I mean, Bercouli beat him and Sinon actually held her own against him rather well. If this guy lost to Bercouli and Sinon held her own against him then how the hell is Kirito going to have trouble beating this guy? The only villain that was somewhat good was Vassago as you really do come to hate this guy’s guts. He has no redeeming quality, a straight up racist and a battle maniac. The reveal that he was the leader of Laughing Coffin was quite the shocker, but I feel that he was out of place in this arc. I think he should have had his own arc with him as the main villain going up against Kirito. Maybe he could have been the villain of GGO and was the guy going around killing people or have another arc where he creates another version of Laughing Coffin and goes on a killing spree by dragging players back into SAO. Other character cameos such as Eiji and Yuuki were surprising but felt pointless and really did nothing for me.
The animation does look spectacular this season. I loved all the various colors, building designs, and landscapes they used. While the world they’re in isn’t really anything new we haven’t seen in a fantasy world, I do like the look and feel of it. The music was also top-notch work. The orchestra soundtrack was beautiful to listen to and each music piece perfectly matches up with the scene it was put in.
Final Score
The final score for the Alicization arc is a 7.5/10. A good arc from beginning to end that I really enjoyed. There are a few silly and stupid moments here and there and moments where they drop the ball, but the good outweighs the bad here. There’s already going to be a movie of SAO in the future that will take a look back at the first arc and I’m interested what will happen in the next arc as well as what the future holds for Alice. Thanks for reading, Happy New Year and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.
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