Two months after Kirito cleared the game of Sword Art Online, most of the survivors managed to log out, but 300 of them are still trapped in their NerveGear. Asuna is one of them. Kirito visited her hospital room where he learned she is to be wedded off to a man named Sugou Nobuyuki — a perverted predator after Asuna’s body. Kirito returned home feeling helpless until his friend Agil sent him a picture of Asuna taken from inside a game called Alfheim Online, at the top of a place called the World Tree.

Little does Kirito know that Asuna is being held captive in a birdcage by Sugou himself, who has assumed the role of Fairy King Oberon in Alfheim Online. He reveals to Asuna that he is using the 300 SAO survivors who haven’t woken up yet in a dangerous mind-control experiement. Kirito boots up his NerveGear again and enters the world of Alfheim Online. There, he meets a player called Leafa who promises to take him to the World Tree. What Kirito doesn’t know is that the true identity of Leafa is none other than his sister, Suguha. Leafa leads Kirito through forests, caves, and mountains. After a side quest in which they stopped a group of Salamanders from raiding a council, they are ready to resume their quest to the World Tree.

The birdcage Asuna is trapped in is equipped with a keypad lock that only Sugou knows the code to. When Asuna tried to read the code over his shoulder, all she saw was a digital mosaic, but when Asuna watched through a mirror, she was able to see the code as clear as day. When Sugou is far enough away, she enters the code on the keypad and escapes from the cage. Will she manage to escape from Alfheim Online altogether? Let’s find out now!

Asuna’s Escape Attempt

Asuna runs down a path along the tree top until she reaches an entrance to a laboratory. Hoping to find an exit inside, she places her hand on a sensor and opens the door. (Seems like Sugou should have better security.) Asuna finds a map that will hopefully lead her to a console where she can log out. (So Sugou allows anyone to enter his lab, and even gives them a map of the facility so they can go wherever they want? What a very thoughful villain!) Asuna sees a room labeled “Experiment,” which reminds her of what Sugou said — about using 300 of the SAO survivors in a dangerous mind-control experiment — so she decides to investigate.

Asuna enters the experiment room and sees rows and rows of small pedestals, each displaying a hologram of a brain above it. Each of these brains belongs to one of the 300 SAO survivors. To Asuna’s horror, the holograms show they are experiencing pain, terror, and all sorts of trauma.

Suddenly, Asuna hears the door behind them open, so she hides behind one of the pedestals. Two purple slugs enter the room and analyze the status of their experiments. As Asuna maneuvers around the pedestals, trying to stay out of sight, she sees a floating black cube that she recognizes as a console. She checks to make sure the slugs aren’t looking her way, then she dashes towards it. (Maybe she should have been a little more stealthy.) She swipes down an access card on the console and looks for the log out button. Fortunately, she finds it this time, but of course, since that would end the story too quickly, the slugs see her and restrain her. They demand to know who she is.

“I’m a friend of Sugou-san,” says Asuna, “He was letting me look around. I’m leaving now.”

“No one notified me about this,” says one of the slugs, “Wait a second. You’re that girl Sugou-san keeps at the top of the World Tree.”

“The boss is on a trip, right?” says the other slug, “Get back to the other side, and see what he wants us to do.”

The first slug teleports out, and a few minutes later, he teleports back in.

“What did the boss say?” asks the second.

“He was pissed,” explains the first, “He said to return her to the birdcage above the lab, change the pass, and keep an eye on her 24/7.”

They return Asuna to the birdcage, but while the slugs were talking, she managed to swipe the access card from the system console.

This is one of the more infamous scenes in the Fairy Dance arc. Fans get pretty upset by Asuna’s constant sexualization, but even more so in this episode for getting tentacled.

Sugu meets Asuna

Episode 21 jumps back and forth between Asuna and Kirito/Leafa. Here in this review, we are doing things Lord-of-the-Rings-book style. Now that we’ve reviewed everything Asuna did in this episode, let’s go back and review what Kirito and Leafa were up to.

At the beginning of Episode 21, Kirito and Leafa finally reach Arun, the city at the base of the World Tree, and the biggest in Alfheim Online. A voice echos throughout the game that the server will be down today from 4:00 AM to 7:00 AM for maintenance. Kirito and Leafa both decide to log out at an inn during the shutdown. Kirito and Sugu meet each other the next morning, outside in the snowy weather of January. As Kirito washes his face with a spicket, he notices that Sugu looks tired and asks what time she went to bed.

“Four, I think,” says Sugu. (That’s funny, that’s the same time the server went down.)

“A kid shouldn’t stay up that late. What were you doing?” asks Kirito, trying to be the big brother.

“I guess I was on the Internet,” says Sugu, vaguely.

“Don’t spend too much time on it,” responds Kirito. Not that I should talk, he thinks.

Kirito tells Sugu to turn around and pranks her by dropping cold water down her back. She screams like she did when Kirito bit her hand after the Battle on the Bridge.

Later, in the kitchen, Sugu says her brother owes her a green tea shaved ice and a raspberry parfait for dumping water down her back. She asks if he wants to get it today, but Kirito says he has something to do in the afternoon, and he plans to stop by the hospital this morning. Sugu’s face falls. She asks if she can come to the hospital. Kirito thinks that would make Asuna happy, so he agrees.

They get on the bus and head for the hospital. Sugu asks Kirito what his plans for restarting school are. He heard one of the schools in the city has been designated for SAO survivors, but he is concerned because it sounds like they are just trying to observe how the incident affected their minds. They finally reach the hospital, which Sugu says is very big. They take the elevator up to Asuna’s hospital room where Sugu reads the name on the plate.

“Yuuki Asuna-san,” reads Sugu, “Her character shared her real name. Not many people do that.”

(So, she knows Asuna’s username, but not her brother’s?)

They enter the hospital room, where Kirito formally introduces them.

“This is Asuna. Vice Commander of the Knights of the Blood Oath,” explains Kirito, “Lighting Flash Asuna. I was never able to match her sword speed or accuracy. Asuna, this is my sister, Suguha.”

“Nice to meet you, Asuna-san,” replies Sugu. (This happened at the same time as when Asuna got tentacled.)

As Kirito watches over Asuna, Sugu seems to have mixed feelings about Kirito being in love with her. When she wakes up in Alfheim as Leafa, she cries on Kirito’s chest about getting heart-broken.

This is another part in this arc where a lot of fans, including myself, start to get uncomfortable with the series. I’m not familiar with the culture of family relationships in Japan, but I remember watching a YouTube video where a Japanese guy says he notices that American families give each other more hugs than Japanese families. (The channel is most likely That Japanese Man Yuta.) The reason I bring this up now is because Sugu out-right admits to being in love with her brother. It’s possible that Sugu simply wants to be closer to him, but the distance between them throughout the years has caused her to get her feelings mixed up. From an American standpoint, I firmly believe there is nothing wrong with “loving your brother” or wanting to be closer to him, but there is a different kind of “love” that is reserved for people who want to pursue a marital relationship. I’m not going to go into the psychology of people who struggle with incestual feelings, because I think that is a bit out of my league. What I will say is that, from my perspective, Sugu seems more like an impromptu mother who doesn’t want to see her son be given to another woman.

Also, I get it, “ambigous incest” is a common trope in anime.

Guardians of the World Tree

Kirito and Leafa head out of the inn and see the bustling daytime city of Arun for the first time. They keep walking towards the World Tree until they approach an archway that stretches across the alley.

“Once you pass through that gate, you’re at the world’s heart, the center of Arun,” says Leafa. As soon as Kirito passes through the gate, Yui pops out of his shirt pocket and says, “Mommy, Mommy is here. This player ID belongs to Mommy. The coordinates are right above us!” Kirito immediately dashes upward as fast as he can. (We are now at Episode 22.) Leafa flies up after him. Kirito keeps hitting the barrier like a fly hitting a window. Yui calls out to her Mama. Asuna hears Yui’s voice, but can’t call back out to her. She quickly begins to look for something she can drop to let them know she’s there.

Kirito keeps trying to break through the barrier with his bare fist. Suddenly, he sees something reflecting the sun’s light, falling towards him, and landing into his hand. The item is a silver card with a black stripe at the end. This is the card that Asuna swiped from the system console.

“Leafa, do you know what this is?” asks Kirito.

“No, I’ve never seen an item like that,” she responds.

Kirito tries tapping it to open a menu, but gets no success. (Looks like it’s a bit too old-school for him.)

Yui places her hands on the card to analyze it.

“This is a System Admin access code,” she exclaims.

“Then can we use it to access the GM controls?” asks Kirito.

“No, you need the appropriate console to access it from within the game. Even I can’t bring up the system menu.”

“I see, however, something like this wouldn’t just fall from the sky for no reason.”

“Yes, Mommy heard us and dropped it.”

Kirito places the card in his shirt pocket and prepares to enter the World Tree. Leafa begs him not to because the dungeon inside is heavily guarded by thousands of guardians. Kirito thanks Leafa for showing him the way and heads out. He flies away and lands in front of a double stone door, with two stone statues on either side. The statues turn so their swords block the entrance.

“You who know not the heights of heaven,” says a voice, “Do you desire passage to the castle of the king?”

A dialogue box appears before Kirito that reads, “Will you attempt the Grand Quest ‘Guardians of the World Tree’?”

Kirito accepts the quest. The stone soldiers draw back their swords and the massive stone door opens. Kirito draws his sword and tells Yui to keep her head down, then he heads inside.

The interior of the World Tree is a massive cylindrical room. At the very top is a stone gate, which Kirito identifies as the goal. He immediately begins charging upwards. Scattered around the walls of the room are thousands of pods embedded into the wall. A guardian comes out of one of the pods and engages Kirito. The swordsman clad in black slices the guardian’s head off with ease. Following the guardian’s defeat, a hundred more come out of the walls. Kirito slashes at all of them, but for every guardain he defeats, another comes to face him.

Suddenly, an arrow pierces Kirito’s hand. He looks around the room and sees archer guardians surrounding him with their bows drawn. They all fire their arrows at once. Kirito gets pierced by all of the arrows, but keeps pursuing. As if the arrows weren’t bad enough, the next thing Kirito gets pierced by is a whole big dagger, about as big as Kirito’s sword. After the dagger pierces him, ten more follow. Kirito keeps pushing towards the gate, but his HP is falling fast. In one final act of desperation, he reaches for the gate…as his HP bar falls to zero.

I Have to See Asuna Again

Purple smoke fills Kirito’s vision. A red message bar appears before him that reads, “You are dead.” The screen goes black. When Kirito regains his vision, he sees a timer in front of him, counting the seconds before he can respawn. He is left to his thoughts.

“I died?” thinks Kirito, “Somewhere in my heart, I believed this world was just a game. Is this my punishment for that? My strength is nothing but skills and status effects. But I thought I could overcome the rules and limits of the game, and do anything.”

There’s a strong theme in this series about reality vs. imaginary. Kirito has a lot of experience indulging in imaginary, or virtual, worlds, but when he was trapped in Sword Art Onine, that virtual world felt like a reality. Thus, he fought as if his life depended on it — because in reality, it did. Now that Kirito is in a virtual world where death doesn’t have the same consequences, he thinks he is invincible, but in reality, his subconscious desire to avoid death isn’t registering, because deep down inside, he knows nothing bad will happen if he dies. This is something Asuna notices about Kirito much later in the series, so we’ll come back to this concept in the future.

Kirito notices the guardians around him reactivate. He turns towards the entrance to see who has entered. It’s Leafa to the rescue! Instead of engaging with all of the guardians, she mainly focuses on dodging, gets to where Kirito’s soul is, and carries it out of the tree — almost getting skewered in the process. Leafa uses an item called “World Tree Dewdrop” to revive Kirito.

I just noticed that her name is spelled “Leefa” on her character diagram, but “Leafa in the episode summary on Crunchyroll. Google searching “Leafa” gets you more references to this character than “Leefa”. As a native English speaker, “Leafa” makes more sense, because it comes from the word “leaf,” which looks like the shape of her dress.

“Thank you, Leafa,” says Kirito (even the subs say “Leafa”), “But don’t do things like that. I’m fine. I don’t want to cause you any more trouble.”

He stands up and walks towards the gate again. Leafa grabs Kirito by the shoulders and says, “Just stop this. Go back to being your normal self.”

“Leafa, I’m sorry, if I don’t make it up there, nothing will end. And nothing will begin. I have to see her again…I have to see Asuna again.”

Leafa’s eyes go wide as she asks, “What did you say?”

“Asuna. That’s the name of the person I’m looking for.”

Leafa backs away, as all of the pieces start coming together. She covers her mouth in realization. Kirito turns around and looks at her in confusion. A long, awkward pause follows, after which Leafa says, “Is that you, oni-chan?

It takes a few seconds before Kirito finally says, “Sugu? Suguha?”

Leafa quickly logs out. Kirito tries to stop her, but it is too late. He quickly logs off himself and knocks on Sugu’s bedroom door. Kirito thinks Sugu is mad because he was using the NerveGear again. Sugu furiously opens the door and explains that she betrayed her own heart. She was planning on letting go of her love for Kazuto and falling in love with Kirito instead.

“Love?” says Kirito, “But we’re…”

“I already know! You and I aren’t siblings! Wasn’t the reason you quit kendo and started avoiding me because you knew the whole time? So why are you being nice to me now? I thought you were finally giving me a chance, but if I had known this would happen, I wish you’d kept being a jerk. If you had, I wouldn’t have realized I like you or been sad to learn about Asuna-san or tried to fall in love with Kirito-kun instead!”

Kirito apologizes, but Sugu tells him to leave her alone and shuts the door. And this is where Episode 22 ends. I mentioned earlier that “ambiguous incest” is a common trope in anime, but this show doesn’t play it as a joke, it plays it full-on dramatically, which comes across as very awkward.

A Duel to the End

Episode 23 begins with a recap of the drama that unfolded in the last episode. After the intro, Kirito reflects on the moment he learned that Sugu wasn’t really his sister, and the people he thought were his parents were actually his aunt and uncle. He learned this when he was ten. He began withdrawing from his family, spending all day on his computer. He would look out the window, see Sugu practicing Kendo, and ask himself, “Who is she really?” and “Can I honestly say I know her?”

The feeling of not fitting in was one of the things that drove him to online gaming — to “an artificial world, where no one really knows anyone else.” But in SAO, Kirito learned there’s not meaningful difference between a real and a virtual world.

“It’s pointless to ask anyone who they really are,” says Kirito, “All you can do is accept and believe in them. Because whoever they are in your mind is their true identity.”

Kirito remembers that when he returned to the real world and saw Sugu’s face, he was really happy, and promised to make up for the distance that had grown between them.

He knocks on Sugu’s door and says he’ll wait for her in Arun, on the north terrace. Sugu thinks about it for a bit, and picks up her Amusphere. She logs back into Alfheim Online, right at the entrance to the World Tree and is surprised to see Recon standing in front of her.

“Didn’t the Salamanders catch you?” asks Leafa.

“I poisoned them all and escaped,” explains Recon, “and then, I followed you. Hey, where’s that Spriggan?”

Leafa explains she said something mean to him and won’t be seeing him anymore. She tells Recon they should head back to Sylvein, and starts heading down the staircase. Recon stops her and tells her not to cry. He says he likes her and will always stay with her. Then he tries to kiss her, but Leafa punches him in the gut and he falls down the stairs. (Seems like Recon is about as experienced with girls as Goku.)

Leafa finally meets Kirito on the north terrace. Kirito is about to say something, but Leafa stops him and challenges him to a duel. (Not with cards, but with swords.)

“Let’s finish what we started,” she says. I didn’t write much about it in my review of Episode 15, but Kirito and Sugu had a Kendo duel IRL at the beginning of the arc, so this is their rematch.

Leafa draws her sword.

“This time, no handicaps,” says Kirito, as he draws his sword.

Leafa finally realizes where he got his weird stance from. She strikes first and misses. Kirito responds and misses. The two fairies begin flying and zipping through the columns of the terrace. Leafa flies high in the air and lands on a floating island, holding her sword high above her. She lets herself fall off the island. Kirito ascends, but when Leafa comes within striking distance, she lets go of her sword. Kirito catches her, dropping his sword in the process, and the two begin spinning in mid air.

“I wanted to apologize to you,” says Kirito, “But I didn’t know what to say. So I wanted to give you a free shot.”

They both apologize to each other.

“I haven’t really returned from that world yet,” he continues, “It hasn’t ended. Until she wakes up, I’m not really back in reality. That’s why I don’t know how to think of you yet.”

“I’ll be waiting,” says Leafa, “I’ll be waiting for you to come home for real. So I’ll help you, too!”

The Second World Tree War

Kirito and Leafa return to Recon where they announce that the three of them will be raiding the World Tree…just the three of them. Kirito asks Yui if she learned anything about the guardians from their first attempt.

“Their individual stats aren’t very high, but there are too many,” she analyzes, “I have to assume that completion of this quest was never meant to be possible. However, with your skill stats, it may be possible for you to break through with speed.”

With a plan in mind, the three of them enter the World Tree dungeon. Kirito advances upward while Leafa and Recon focus on casting spells. Again, for every guardian that Kirito defeats, a hundred more come to take its place. Motivated by how much this means to Leafa, Recon begins casting a spell that slashes several guardians. Then, Recon casts a big spell that Leafa recognizes as dark magic. It’s a self-destruction spell that creates a massive hole in the swarm of guardians. (Maybe he’s not so usesless after all.)

Kirito sees the hole and begins charging towards it as fast as he can, but the swarm of guardians keep coming. They skewer Kirito with dozens of swords….and the gaping hole closes again. (So much for Recon’s sacrifice.) Leafa uses healing magic on Kirito, but it doesn’t take long before she is surrounded by guardians herself. Suddenly, she hears an army of players charging up from below. The army is made of Sylphs and flying dragons, led by Sakuya and Alecia (the leader of the Cat Sith).

They begin launching fireballs against the guardians, and create a new hole in the barrier. Leafa tosses Kirito her sword. He begins Duel-Wielding his way through the Guardians until he finally breaks through and makes contact with the gate at the very top. The guardians block the hole again, preventing Leafa and the others from seeing what he does next. Sakuya orders the troops to retreat — their work here is finished.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the barrier, Kirito tries to open the stone door, but he isn’t sure how. He keeps trying to wedge it open with his sword, but finds no luck. Yui flies out of Kirito’s shirt pocket and places her hands on the door.

“Daddy, this door isn’t locked by a quest flag,” says Yui, “It’s locked by the system administrators. Players were never intended to be able to open this door!”

Kirito begins to panic, he looks around him and sees more guardians coming out of the pods, and coming towards him. Thinking quickly, he pulls out the access card that Asuna dropped down to him. He tells Yui to use it. She places her hands on the card, transcribes the code, and places her hands on the stone door. It works!

“It’s going to teleport us!” cries Yui, “Daddy, your hand!” Kirito touches Yui’s hand as quickly as he can, and the two of them teleport out of the room.

To Be Concluded…

Thoughts: Magical Realism in SAO

Magical Realism refers to a story that has both fantasy and realistic elements to it. Take Harry Potter, for example. The story is about a group of teenage wizards attending a school where they learn magic spells, how to brew potions, and to care for magical creatures. The magical and wondrous fantastical elements are what draw the reader into the story. They give the reader a break from the “plain vanilla” world of reality, but what makes Harry Potter have a lasting impact is the realistic elements that the reader can relate to. In addition to the fantasy, Harry Potter is also a story about a group of teenagers navigating through the struggles of adolescence. They make and break friendships, fall in and out of love, and celebrate life while mourning the death of those they have lost. These real-life struggles are what give the reader something to relate to as they navigate the unfamiliar, yet full of wonder, fantasy world of wizards and witches.

Along those same lines, Sword Art Online, has many magnificent fantasy elements to it, which come from the virtual worlds they enter and explore. The breathtaking visual appeal of these fantasy realms and the thrilling adventures of exploring dungeons and battling monsters are what draw the viewer into the story, but to give them something to relate to, Sword Art Online is also a story about forming friendships and falling in love. In the Aincrad arc, many players struggled with the fear of death, but despite that fear, they found joy in their less-than-ordinary life.

The purpose of the entire Aincrad arc was, mainly, to build the bond between Kirito and Asuna. For the Fairy Dance arc, the purpose was to give Kirito a chance to fix the bond that was broken before the series began — the bond between him and his sister. I know technically they are cousins, but they grew up together as siblings, and still see each other in that way. Episode 23 is when that bond was finally mended, so these three episodes rapidly worked towards that resolution. Kirito and Sugu were able to bury their past mistakes and begin building a better future.

Now that the conflict between Kirito and Sugu has been resolved, it’s time for Kirito to reunite with the other important woman in his life — Asuna Yuki. Will Kirito be able to free her from Sugou’s clutches? Be sure to follow my blog for the very intense and highly controversial finale of the Fairy Dance arc!