In this article we return to talk about Alicization. If you are not familiar with the series, we recommend you to retrieve the reviews of the other episodes to this link.
After a season of ups and downs and fluctuating rhythms, we have finally reached the end of the line: the last episode of Alicization War of Underworld, as well as the epilogue of Sword Art Online before the next project.
In this series finale we close the last remaining narrative threads, with the promise of a future return to the futuristic world created by Kawahara.
Alicization: Closing
The amount of material adapted from the last episode of the series is surprisingly long, 54 pages, above the standard pace of the rest of the series, and that means cuts and missed explanations that, sadly, will not be able to be recovered for those who will just watch the animated version.
Fortunately, most of the cuts concern the part of the narrative set within Underworld and mainly deals with the Integrating Pilots and their starfighters, with which they have replaced the Knights of the same name and their dragons.
Their likenesses, as well as their names, are sufficient indicators to understand that they are the ancestry of Tiese and Ronie, however the lack of an explanation for their presence or their actions makes this concluding segment bizarre and difficult to place.
Leaving aside the Underworld situation (to which we will return), other cuts are made in the previous parts: it is not detailed how Alice managed to send herself to Kirito and, in general, the adaptation has chosen to avoid every possible detail that would highlight the fact that Alice is in a mechanical body, except for some less dramatic details.
Instead, the appropriate confrontation between Kirito and his family is left intact, while the decryption of the email is greatly simplified for the sake of the pace of the episode.
Unfortunately, the Kayaba issue left open last episode has not been clarified, limiting itself to showing a brief shot of Niemon at the bottom of the ocean with a cable in his hands to suggest how Kayaba used the robotic body to connect Underworld to the network. global.
As for Underworld, on the other hand, the lack of deepening of what happened to the society of the Human Empire (and, obviously, of the other external allies) after the end of the war is rather serious.
In the paper version, in fact, we discover how Underworld was forced to colonize an outer planet due to the lack of arable land outside the walls of the Empire, finding a resistance towards creatures such as the one defeated by Kirito, Asuna and Alice in space .
The reason why the two pilots recognize the trio, moreover, is completely neglected and is linked to an event that Kirito (the king who reigned for 200 years on Underworld) had announced to the people: the second opening of the gates to the outside world. that would accompany great changes.
The email sent to Alice with the coordinates to enter the Underworld, therefore, are only the last piece of a plan devised to guarantee progress and salvation to the virtual people, keeping faith with the words of Kirito's Fluctlight as protector of the inhabitants of Underworld .
And it is with a tribute to the novel, concluded with the same text and image shown in the anime, that the original story of Sword Art Online finally ends.
A further deepening of the 200 years spent in Underworld by Kirito and Asuna exists in the form of volumes 19 and 20 of the work of Kawahara, while those who want to limit themselves to the animated version can wait for the arrival of the animated adaptation, announced at the end of the episode, by Sword Art Online: Progressive, which traces the events that took place in the castle of Aincrad floor by floor.
