In some ways we got a very SAO episode here. Some seriousness with Kirito reliving some of the dark moments in SAO, but also a good amount of pure Kirito womanizing. I swear Asuna is going to kill that guy for the moves he puts on female players when she isn’t around. Well I suppose it wouldn’t be Kirito if he wasn’t doing something crazy.

At least now Kirito has an understanding of who this Death Gun character is supposed to be. And if he wanted to get this person’s attention and put a target on his back…he did it. I guess the question now is whether or not he can figure out who this person is and stop them from killing any more people. While it still seems crazy that this person can kill someone for real with the current setup…it appears to be happening.

Will admit I was kind of hoping Sinon would win this first matchup with Kirito. He is the main character so if someone is going to come out on top of the main tournament you’d figure it’d be him. This seemed like the best opportunity for him to lose in this game. Of course maybe they just intend for Kirito to own everyone and come out on top XD. Or I hope they intend to save a win for Sinon for later on. Maybe once she’s started to overcome her personal trauma then she can finally beat Kirito in a match. Considering he can’t qualify for the prizes it’d be a shame for him to win in the end XD.

I do feel they could have done a better job making clear what was going on with Sinon’s first shots. It wasn’t the easiest to tell if she was plain missing because she was blinded with rage or she was trying to provoke Kirito into actually fighting. Kind of odd on Kirito’s side as well. If he just didn’t care then why not simply surrender? It’d be just as hollow a victory for Sinon if she shot him while he approached like an idiot or if he simply resigned from the fight.

The little showdown itself wasn’t too bad. At least Kirito used something we already saw so it didn’t seem that crazy that he could do it again. Kind of on Sinon really for not remembering something Kirito already admitted to doing previously. Really the setup wasn’t in Sinon’s favor since she did only have one shot left and Kirito created a distance he knew it was possible to read her aim from. Even if he stacked the odds in his favor it was partially on Sinon for simply accepting his conditions.

The ending of the fight was kind of hilarious in its own way. For a guy who is apparently going out with a girl and got married to her in that serious SAO situation, he really does flirt around. I was almost surprised that Sinon didn’t actually pull her side arm and shoot him in the face for some of those lines XD.

The one positive from this whole situation is that it should be a trigger for Sinon to start realizing the differences between the digital and real. You can build up skills in the game and become powerful in that respect. But the really tough thing is the emotional side that the game in normal circumstances can’t create. It was nice in a sense that both could understand that the other had gone through some intense stuff. Obviously it’s impossible to read details, but they should understand that the other has had to take lives and live with that reality.

The flashback with the Laughing Coffin elimination battle was interesting. It had to be a tough situation for the players. They were the more normal individuals going in there in order to prevent this group of psychopaths from killing more innocent people. But it’s not that easy to actually fight like that. These people either were crazy enough to think it wasn’t real or just not care about their lives. They could fight on the brink of death and kill a lot of people because the other side would hesitate.

This whole thing did bring up the casualty count for Kirito from SAO up to 3. The two guys he had to kill in that battle and the other lunatic he had to kill later on. It was a nice reminder that Kirito is human after all. He can’t just forget about the lives he took even if in the circumstances it seemed like there was no other choice. He still has to face that. Shows how utterly shaken he was though that he momentarily entertained the idea that Death Gun was some ghost of a guy he killed. I think it’s safe to say Death Gun is human. The question really being how he managed to create the ability to kill through the game.

It should be fun to see where things go from here. It was a rough episode for both Kirito and Sinon in various respects. Though it seemed like Kirito bounced back fine with the lines he was throwing at Sinon near the end there. The tough thing of course is Death Gun. I’m still not sure how they are going to stop him or figure out who he really is. Even harder to stop a guy like him in this game. He’ll just re-spawn if killed or can log out to get away. And now Kirito has a bullseye painted on his back.
Score: A