1

Only time will tell...

(And yes, I do know what the correct answer is - but I am not telling until and unless someone else mentions it.)

C.T.

2 It struck me early on, when they started time skipping, that most of the deaths would have come in the first few days, as the players would have died in the real world from a lack of water.  At least those not quickly treated as a coma patient.


After about a month, they'd have figured out a way to prevent the "zap and your dead" effect. Which, given the neuro-connection isn't a stretch to assume would be possible.  After that, then it's just a matter of waiting for the players or figuring it out on the backend.

But, thinking for story development reasons, I imagine that a player's "death" just puts them in a coma, until such time at the game is beaten. 

I don't have any details, but that would probably makes some sense.  You have to assume this monstrous problem is being worked on the "real world" side and counter measures were developed.

Of course, we're all assuming that it's still happening in "real time" for the characters.  That might be part of it, where they're now actually working at hyper speed and it's really only been a few days.

3 Spoiler:  No really, it's a major spoiler.  Don't go further unless you have no interest in watching the show.. It's an unrealistic handwave. The inventor did a media info-dump with names of  all players and allowed for a temporary disconnection so they could be moved once to a care facility.  Yes, the government should be able to beat the "tamper-proof" helmets, given the plans and samples to work with, but then, could they get parental consent after the first few attempts failed? I can see "you're not experimenting on my kid!"   They do manage to "read" the signals, after a bit, and can tell which ones are in the thick of the fighting.  But they should be able to.. oh wait, that's a spoiler I'm not giving away. Heh.

But.. Yes, they ARE dying from the game. It's not hyper-speed; in total, two years pass.  (Though I'm not happy with how they're speeding through the intervening stories). And the protagonist made the point that the learning curve was pretty brutal for the first few months.  Also, not everyone is trying to clear the tower; about 20% sit it out.

One thing the writer didn't seem to think of is that these kids are going to have a hell of a lot of trouble with PTSD after two years in a war.. 

I think it will improve once Asuna re-enters the picture. I hope, anyway.

4 About the bodies of the players:  NerveGear has an internal battery, which can hold out for, IIRC, 3 hours, so the players would be protected against short, sudden blackouts. However, since many things can still go wrong, the authorities were notified of the incident at the very beginning, and were given a time window to move the players to hospitals. There, they lie on some sort of gel-beds that dissolve bodily fluids and excrement, and are fed intravenously.
Apparently from someone who's read the light novels.

5

I've kept watching this, trying to figure out why fans find it so compelling. It's not bad, but there's some sort of appeal that I just wasn't getting.  I ended up reading a few of the light novels and discovered that the SOA world is pretty much over and done in the first novel, the next two light novels cover earlier side stories in SOA (which were episodes 3 and 4 in the anime), and then the author moves on to a different virtual world called Alfheim where people don't actually die from playing it.  That world is more interesting, and the last six light novels cover it.

It's clear that the anime isn't going to get anywhere near that point, though.  My main problem with this anime and the light novels is that Kirito is almost a Marty Stu, and every girl he encounters falls in love with him.  It's very cliched.

6

That did not take long - Ubu and muon pretty much nailed it. 

Regarding where the anime is going: BIG spoilers, obviously.

There is not enough material in Volume 1 of the light novels or the side stories for the 'Aincrad' arc (Volume 2, Volume 8, et al.) to cover 24 episodes.  Also, Volume 3 and 4 of the light novels, i.e. the 'Fairy Dance' arc, are essential for wrapping up the story of the Aincrad arc.  We already had at least one spoiler character, possibly two, officially mentioned.  Alfheim Online (ALO), which is the setting for Volume 3 and 4, actually plays less of role in the succeeding light novels though.

The burn rate of the original source material versus episodes is probably about what can be expected.  It does hurt explaining some of the background material among other things, but the way the story keeps jumping forward in time is not one of them.  That was how Reki Kawahara handled the stories.

I do have to admit that I find it a bit hard to explain why I am so interested in the series.  But it does have some pretty cool moments (Especially the endings of the various arcs.).

C.T.

 

7 I watched them on Crunchyroll over the past few days, and my biggest problem with the setup is that I'm willing to believe in a VR helmet that can be rigged to kill the user, but I just can't believe in an MMO that stays up without an Operations staff that's capable of doing anything to the running state of the game (even something as simple as making healing potions free at the item store with unlimited supply).

Also, they've been sadly neglecting the cutest girl in two universes.

-j

8

Also, they've been sadly neglecting the cutest girl in two universes.

You do not mean Madoka...?  Oh, wait, wrong dimension/reality.

C.T.