Sword Art Online: Alicization Episode 5 Review: Ocean Turtle

Well, that was… something. As gorgeous as Sword Art Online: Alicization’s production might be, it seems that plot-wise it’s going to be at the same level as the previous seasons: childish and nonsensical.

Japanese Original Episode Title: オーシャン・タートル

Plot

Remember how Kirito was poisoned by Johnny Black, the last remaining Laughing Coffin member? Well now, he is hospitalized. The doctors inform Asuna and his family that he is stable but unconscious, and it’s unknown when, or if he will ever wake up. Kikuoka approaches his family and offers them to transfer him into a better facility that is better suited for his condition, which they agree to do so, but when Asuna and Suguha try to visit him, they are denied from seeing him, which puts them in suspicion. Asuna manages to track down Kirito’s location with the help of that ‘heart app’, Yui, and the rest of the gang. They find out that he has been taken abroad and after putting some pieces together, Asuna decides to contact Rinko Koujiro, Kayaba’s former lover and co-researcher. Sometime later, we see Rinko and her assistant Mayumi Reynolds, being taken to the Ocean Turtle, an offshore research facility where she has been invited to join a research group by Kikuoka. As they go deep in the facility and meet up with Kikuoka and the team, Mayumi reveals herself as Asuna in disguise and demands to know where Kirito is.

Episode Highlights

Kikuoka should fire his security: Working in a mysterious and top research facility you would think that the ‘tight security’ they mention would actually be ‘tight’. I don’t think that anyone can argue that the overall idea of Asuna infiltrating Ocean Turtle as Mayumi and bypassing all security from day one just to ask Kikuoka where exactly Kirito is, is beyond ridiculous. I mean even if her family has money and even if their adopted ‘daughter’, Yui, is a self-aware AI with the power to hack the world to death, this is just way too far-fetched.

Why do these kids roam around like they own the world? When Suguha and Asuna visit Kirito in the hospital and are denied from seeing him, they instantly believe that something is wrong and instead of going and ASKING KIRITO’S PARENTS, they make Yui track him and hack Rath as much as possible. Is this logical to you? Why do these little shits act like this? First of all, it would have been illegal to transfer Kirito somewhere without his guardians’ permission and second, Kikuoka has always been helping Kirito, he is certainly not trying to harm him, so their overall thought process is just absurd to me.

Themes & Trivia

Sword Art Online The Movie – Ordinal Scale: This episode is referencing events and technology that has occurred in the movie that came out before Alicization. When they get out of the car in the port and wear those ‘weird looking glasses’, that is actually a device called Augma. It is a next-generation wearable multi-device that is capable of sending signals to the brain while the users are awake and is thus primarily used as an Augmented Reality device.

Comments

So, am I the only one that got surprised to finally see ‘Kirito’s mother’? It’s the first time that we ever got close to see his other family members, but what am I saying? It doesn’t even matter because the adults in these series have to be only bad guys, people of the government, or mad scientists (and yes I know Kirito and the rest are young adults as well, but you get my point).

Also, Suguha’s cleavage situation looks significantly smaller than the previous season. Did they decide to make Sword Art Online: Alicization less about the boobs and the girls and more about the beautiful animation and overall quality production? Has this day finally come? I highly doubt it.

Behold! The greatest revelation of all time! I am not Mayumi; it is I, Asuna.

I was so pumped to see this week’s episode, and even though my theory of Kirito being unconscious and kind of left alive in the virtual world is sort of accurate, I am still so disappointed by the silly plot that we just witnessed. I honestly thought that we were passed this nonsense, but it seems I was wrong. In any case, that certainly doesn’t mean that this season is bad or anything, it is just a bit of a letdown to see things turn out this way at this specific point of the story.

NEXT TIME: Project Alicization