IT BEGINS.
Continuing what was left in the previous episode, Yui learned that Asuna is just on top of the World Tree and Kirito is desperate to reach it. After Yui send a warning message to call out her mommy, Asuna drops a card to tell Kirito something that they can save her. With that, Kirito decides to take on ALO's Grand Quest to save the girl he loves.
This episode has two highlights, Kirito being too brash to save Asuna and the revelation at the end of the episode about Leafa's true identity (gasp)! Kirito being brash is something fun to watch. His determination to save Asuna is the key element of this story arc and that knowing his efforts in logging on to play ALO is not useless. Aside from getting the card to open the console, he feels Asuna's presence in that card and will save her in any cost.
Kirito taking the Grand Quest is amazing. Aside that we see less derpy frames, which is a good thing since it means that they have enough budget for the final episodes of the series. The CGI for the statues guarding the gates for the Grand Quest adds one neat touch in this episode. Kirito's fight with the Guardians is amazing to watch, the CGI is great as it complements well with the 2D character in the scene. The proper mix of 2D and CGI is I guess the highlight of this scene.
What made the scene more memorable is that Kirito thinks that he can beat the Guardians... until he is receive a shot coming from a Guardian, then received more shots coming from the other Guardians. Even though I might sound mean, it is amazing seeing Kirito getting beat up by the Guardians. What's more, he is almost there at the end of the World Tree to end this Grand Quest, only to get beaten at the end. To be more exact, he died in ALO for the first time. Since this is his first time getting killed in ALO, he had this feeling about his "soul" floating around in the game while waiting for him to respawn.
Leafa comes in to save Kirito, which leads us to the scene where Leafa finally figured out that he ends up teaming up with his own brother. The first thing that bothered me when Kirito entered ALO is unlike Leafa whose voice is different compared to Suguha is that Kirito still sounds like Kirito in real life. I can only come up with two conclusions: Kirito's voice actor doesn't have the range in his voice or it is part of the plot that Kirito should still sound Kirito in this arc. Accordingly, character avatars in both SAO and ALO sounded a pitch different from their human voices, which make more sense why Suguha can't recognize his brother's voice in ALO. That is why she is surprised when she learned that Kirito is his brother, Kazuto after hearing something about Asuna!
She decides to log out and cry in real life and saw the only thing emotional in this series since the third episode. The fact that Suguha wanted to try her chance on Kirito after deciding to stop falling in love with his brother only to end up falling in love with his brother's character avatar is one sad sight to see. The only thing Kirito can do is to apologize because he made her sister fall in love with him again in a different way. At the end, can Kirito find a way to reconcile with her sister?
