The best way to watch how the world end, with someone you love. ;_;
After beating the Skull Reaper, they learned that they lost 14 men in this battle and that they have 25 floors left to clear. After seeing Heathcliff's life still on the green lane, he remembers his duel with him and concludes that there is something fishy with Heathcliff. What is the mystery behind this player?
The fight with the Skull Reaper is rushed and I am okay with it since what happens next is way more important compared to the fight with the Skull Reaper. After the fight, Kirito noticed that there is something wrong with Heathcliff and decided to attack him, finally confirming the suspicion he had about Heathcliff. As it turns out, he is Akihiko Kayaba, the creator of Sword Art Online! Kirito's reasoning actually makes sense since if you are a creator of an MMO and all you do all day is watch people play your game, you will be jealous and decide to take part of it!
This is when we learn that Heathcliff is supposed to be the game's final boss just for the game to have this really cool twist in it. Wow, just wow, is it me or Kayaba is really one twisted character? But since Kirito figured it out, he is given the opportunity to fight him in a duel and if he wins, everybody can now log out the game and if he loses, nobody leaves till someone clears all 100 floors. So yeah, Kirito used the opportunity to fight him and to prevent anyone from interfering; the other players are paralyzed thanks to Kayaba's full control of the game.
The duel between Kirito and Heathcliff is just fun to watch, there is nothing brilliant with the animation since for most of the time, I can't help but notice the amount of rather awkward looking frame that the animators felt like they are wishing no one will notice it due to the speed of the fight. Before Heathcliff can do the final strike on Kirito, Asuna protects Kirito and dies in his arms. Okay, this is getting too cheesy and cliché at the same time. But for some reason, it kinda worked to add up the drama for the final battle.
With Asuna dead, Kirito feels like he doesn't have the will to fight Heathcliff since it kinda looks like he can't lift his own sword since all of his slashes lack the force it originally have. But because of Asuna and his will to continue on fighting, he did stab Heathcliff that lead to his death. Sword Art Online is finally cleared after 75 floors and over 2 years of over 10,000 players playing the game with 4,000 players died before they can log out. One thing I noticed during the announcement of the game's clearing is that we saw cameos of the players Kirito and Asuna met in the game.
The big question is, now that our two main characters died while playing the game, what happens next? As it turns out, they are now in game heaven with Akihiko Kayaba but since he is the creator of this game, it is safe to conclude that he is still alive, which means that both Kirito and Asuna are still alive. Wait a minute, how did this happen?! According to my brother who read the light novels, they lived because of the "power of love" and according to some source, there is a 10-minute delay before the Nerve Gear can burn someone's brain to crisp. But whatever the explanation is, it is stupid for the part of the anime studio not to explain it in the series.
Since Kayaba is in the place, we finally learn the answer of the question that needs to be answered, what is running on Kayaba's mind when he decided to trap over 10,000 players and up as an evil GM in the opening of the game and announce that they will also die in real life once they die in the game? His answer is something that I least expect to hear from the guy, he forgot about it. The only reaction that I can think of when I heard is anger. I mean, who in the right mind decide to trap over 10,000 players in a game of death and cause a buzz in the real world and be indirectly responsible to the deaths of some players?!
The next answer we learn from Kayaba is that back when he was still developing the Full Dive System, he dreamed of entering a castle that he keeps on seeing in his dreams, which is the basis of the Aincrad castle in the game. He did recreate the castle but he decided that he didn't enter that castle of his dreams yet. The only conclusion that I can make is that Kayaba is one really messed up dude. His reason of making the game felt like the author is trying to shove it in our heads that Kayaba is one character we should sympathize since he is just pursuing his dream. But nope, it didn't work and it only made the character worse.
Since the game is now destroying itself thanks to Kayaba, Kirito and Asuna decided to finally log out in the game but first, they asked their names and their ages. So yeah, Kirito's real name is Kazuto Kirigaya and is 16 years old and Asuna's real name is Asuna Yuki and is 17 years old. The two had a relationship in the game and wished to expand it on real life. Now that they logged out from the game, we finally saw Kirito in the real world, malnourished and only relied on IV drops to survive and the first thing he does is to look for Asuna in the hospital while the ending theme plays.
What a weird way to end the first story arc since it feels like they rushed a lot of scenes just for us to have an ending. They also forced a lot of elements in the story without making any proper build up. Aside from that, I noticed that Asuna suffered one hell of a character derailment from that strong female protagonist type of character to that extremely passionate girlfriend who is willing to risk her life just to protect his boyfriend. I find it a derailment in a sense that they didn't expand on Asuna's motivations early in the series that lead up to this. But since the first arc is finally over, it is time to visit the world of fairies in ALfheim Online!
