Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online Episode 8 – Anime QandA Review

What’s the show? Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online, Episode 8.

Last week ended just as the second Squad Jam was about to begin, how’s this one compared to the first Squad Jam? Much improved.

Good to hear, how so exactly? Having LLENN as the vocal leader type almost immediately improves things, as interesting as M’s stern and stoic character was (at least initially) his personality was lacking entirely. So with him relegated to an opposing team with crazy death-obsessed Pito ~feels~ like a better fit, they kind of balance each other out. LLENN being paired with the comedic stylings of Fuka works well too as LLENN makes for a great ‘straight-man’ against her silliness.

So this new girl, Fuka, she’s comic relief then? Not exactly. Her comedic side is in character and while she obviously plays up to it while in VR she still pulls her own weight on their two-person team. Even though she gets her legs blown off by a trap early on you never get the sense that she’s weighing LLENN down.

Excuse me? Her legs get blown off! That kind of seems like an important thing to lose—even in a video game? Don’t worry, non-fatal injuries can be healed with med-kits, and losing limbs regrow (or would that be respawn?) after a couple of minutes.

Right. That’s convenient. So what happens in the game? Not a lot to be honest, we’re following five or six different teams throughout the episode—though the focus is moreso on LLENN and Fuka, Pito and M and team SHINC. And due to the material being spread out across more characters it limits how much the story can actually progress. Which I’m kind of okay with, I kind of resigned myself to the fact that the Squad Jam 2 arc would take up the rest of the season.

Is that a grenade launcher between your legs or are you just happy to see me?

Fair enough, so what does happen in the episode? Pito and M’s team are on the top of a mountain on the opposite side of the map to LLENN and Fuka, so they have to work their way there, in the process they eliminate two teams. M is instructing Pito to keep her position on the mountain as they wait for the enemy to come to them, which is not to her liking one bit. She’s getting restless and she wants in on the action. Meanwhile seven other teams decide to join forces to take down Pito and M, obviously fearing their prowess. The episode ends with these seven teams approaching the mountain, a digital bloodbath no doubt to ensue next episode!

So in other words it’s a set up episode? Well there’s still some great action in this episode, the scene where Fuka gets to show off her grenade launcher skills was great ~~and weirdly hot~~. Also the small scene with one member of team SHINC telling off their leader for using “unlady-like language”—despite their in-game avatars being buff and square jawed toughs was pretty adorable. But yeah, the best is yet to come, that much is for damn sure!