Sword Art Online: Alicization Episode 22 Review: Titan of the Sword

Did you think that the Administrator would put clothes on? Of course not. Did you think that you would get to see badass Kirito in action once more? Of course you did. Did you think that the ‘Chudelkin Fire Genie’ fight would be dragged for more than one episode? Well, think again because everything related to action in this episode happened way too fast: Eugeo, Kirito, and Alice defeated Genie in split seconds. Another more powerful enemy by the name of Sword Golem took his place, but he was soon knocked out by the Cardinal in the blink of an eye.

Japanese Original Episode Title: 剣の巨人

Plot

Alice starts fighting the Genie while leaving an opening for Kirito and Eugeo. Kirito comes up with a plan to attack Chudelkin directly, who is swiftly defeated by his power that combined incarnate arts and his Aincrad sword skills. Alice and Kirito try to reason with the Administrator but it is impossible to change her ideas and way of thinking. She then summons a creature made out of swords and Kirito, Alice, and Eugeo find themselves unable to fight against it. Kirito and Alice get badly wounded, and when everything seems hopeless, Charlotte, the observation unit from the Cardinal in the form of a spider, jumps into battle and tries to protect them. Eugeo is given instructions to stab the dagger into the floor that ends up opening a portal and the Cardinal appears and knocks down the Golem with a lightning strike, heals Kirito and Alice, and mourns Charlotte’s death.

Episode Highlights

Was that it? We have been hyped for this ‘secret technique’ of Kirito for such a long time and we didn’t even get to see it for more than five seconds. No explanation, no nothing. I have to say that I am fairly disappointed by this. Even if he explains it later, the action in this whole episode was so anticlimactic, it just didn’t work for me.

That’s quite ironic: So, when Quinella was going all about how she wanted to turn the Knights into dolls that have no need to feel and starts talking about what true power is to her, she mentions that the reason why she created Sword Golem, was because she wanted to have ‘soulless killers’ to work for her. Doesn’t this sound kind of familiar? She acts the same way her creators react with her and her whole world. Is this inception at this point or is it just very ironic?

Did Charlotte just die? Alright, that scene had me going from: ‘What the hell? Alice got injured?’ to ‘Oh, now Kirito is injured as well’ and finally ‘Oh NO they didn’t.’ Why would you kill the poor tiny spider Charlotte? No one even remembered her at this point but still, don’t bring such feels into the battlefield. Nevertheless, I think the story with NPCs developing their own feelings and emotions every time they come close to Kirito, is getting quite old at this point. And why did the Cardinal heal Kirito and Alice but left Charlotte die like that? She can manipulate time and space but cannot save the life of one of her ‘minions’?

Themes & Trivia

The Vorpal Strike: So, if you are an anime-only viewer, you might be quite confused with the powers that Kirito demonstrated in this episode and that’s totally understandable because there is not that much context about it in the animated version of the SAO series. The only thing that I can remember was during the second season when he is fighting Death Gun and he says: ‘That half-ass Vorpal Strike you just did? if the real you saw it, he’d shake his head.’ Combining some information from the wiki and the reddit thread, I found out the following: Vorpal Strike was one of Kirito’s most used skills in Aincrad. He used it so often and was so well known for it that even his enemies respected it. After getting out of SAO, he never used it again because he didn’t want to remember his Black Swordsman days and personality.

In this case, he used it with Chudelkin because he was fifteen meters away from him and the longest attack that he knows is the Vorpal Strike. But this skill has only a five meter range, so he applied some Incarnation art to make his skill range longer.

Comments

When Alice mentioned that they have ten seconds to kill Chudelkin, I never expected the fight to last for exactly ten seconds. Suddenly, it feels like Sword Art Online: Alicization is being rushed too much.

Admin, you hollow fool!

Are we going to see the Cardinal fight with the Administrator now? Or is everyone going to fight the Sword Golen first and then deal with the naked lady?

NEXT TIME: ‘Administrator’