Sword Art Online: Alicization Episode 8 Review: Swordsman's Pride

So, by the end of the day, it’s all about the power of your imagination. It can make your sword grow or even rare flowers flourish once more, so never underestimate the power of your creative mind.

Japanese Original Episode Title: 剣士の矜持

Plot

As Volo and Kirito’s duel is ready to begin, Sortiliena warns Kirito that the secret of the Levantein family’s power is infusing their sword with the blood of their enemies in order to get stronger, and that’s the reason why Volo requested a match with real swords. During the duel, Kirito manages to increase the size of his sword with the power of his imagination which ended up scratching Volo’s shirt, just before the match is interrupted by one of the instructors and declared a draw. Later that night when Kirito was returning from Sortiliena’s room, some noble classmates confront him and tell him that they have destroyed his precious flowers. When he goes to tend the flowers he starts crying, but all of a sudden he is instructed by a voice to use healing arts to transfer a part of the life energy of the other flowers in the garden to the zephilia flowers, in order to restore them. The next day, Sortiliena defeats Volo in combat and graduates as the top student of her year, with Kirito presenting her with the zephilia flowers as a parting gift. Kirito and Eugeo themselves are promoted to Elite Swordsmen, focused on their main goal of reaching the top of Centralia’s Tower and find Alice.

Episode Highlights

Sacred Arts: So the sacred arts presented in this arc of Sword Art Online are basically the imagination and the creative potential of each individual that uses them? If that’s the case, what exactly did the instructions lady meant by ‘meaning’ and the ‘intent that grows from the heart?’ That sounds rather interesting and I am sure we will see getting exploit from many characters in the future. For now, just seeing Kirito making his sword without a name longer and harder makes the whole scene so wrong and lewd.

Is Kirito more mature now? I was quite surprised with his reaction when the noble classmates of his, destroyed his flowers. I think we just witnessed some intense character development right there. If you think about it, if this was the first season of Sword Art Online, he would have gone super mad and just argue or confront them instead of crying like a baby. Okay, maybe now he has more things at stake than before and he doesn’t really know what’s going on that’s why he is trying to play by the rules but again, his change of attitude is very refreshing to follow.

The new girls are here: There we go. Now that Eugeo and Kirito are elite students they had to have female pages that are cute and do their biddings. I have to say though, Ronye reminds me of Kirito’s sister a little bit and Tiese is the exact same design as Asuna only with bright red hair. Who knows? Maybe it’s Asuna undercover once again?

Themes & Trivia

Fun fact: The new sword of Kirito was actually custom-ordered to have the same length as Elucidator.

The zephilia flowers: The flowers are probably inspired by the actual zephyranthes plants. It’s a genus of temperate and tropical plants in the Amaryllis family, native to the Western Hemisphere and widely cultivated as ornamentals. Common names for species in this genus include fairy lily, rainflower, zephyr lily, magic lily, Atamasco lily, and rain lily. The name is derived from Ζέφυρος (Zephyrus), the Greek god of the west wind, and ἄνθος (anthos), meaning flower, referring to the slender stalks.

Comments

The master of friendzone is back everyone. Even though it looked like they had the whole respect of mentor and student vibe going on, I strongly believe that if Asuna was in town and witnessed the whole situation, Kirito’s flowers were not going to be the only thing that would have been destroyed in that episode. I swear, that guy just likes to flirt with everyone, even with Eugeo.

Let’s celebrate in my room.

They have become Elite Disciples and they are once again getting closer to their goal. I am pleasantly surprised that this is going quite fast, despite from what we are usually used to from Sword Art Online. I mean the pace of the series so far is just perfect.

NEXT TIME: Nobleman’s Responsibilities