When you first see the title “Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online” it doesn’t seem like anything other than a rather straightforward and simple title. After all, you are watching an “alternative” tale to that of the main Sword Art Online story and it takes place inside the VR FPS game Gun Gale Online. However, like the anime’s story, the title has hidden depths that only become apparent as the first story arc reaches its close.
Sword Art Online is the tale of Kirito, one of 10,000 players playing new, state-of-the-art VR MMORPG Sword Art Online on the day of its release. However, he soon discovers that not only he, but all the other players are unable to log out. And moreover, if they die in the game, their VR helmets will microwave their brains in real life–killing them in the real world as well.
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From there, the anime details the lives of Kirito and his friends as they struggle to adapt to–and eventually escape from—their new life-and-death reality. The series uses Kirito as a proxy to explore the various sociological and psychological issues created by the setting. Through him we see how both individuals and the population as a whole deal with the situation while they build a new society focused around surviving the death game with the minimum loss of life.
Some players fight on the front lines, pushing ever onward to beat the game’s 100 bosses and end the death game once and for all. Others support them: becoming shop owners, blacksmiths, and information brokers. Still others try to live a simple life, placing all their hopes on those continuing to fight. And some simply revel in the dark, taboo pleasure of killing the other players in a world without accountability.
Thanks to this complexity, Sword Art Online makes for a setting rife with both intellectual stimulation and exciting adventures–a fact not lost on at least one of the characters in Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online.
Image source: TVアニメ「SAO オルタナティブ ガンゲイル・オンライン」公式 on Twitter
Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online is a spin-off to Sword Art Online set in one of the several (non-death game) VR worlds Kirito and his friends adventure in following their escape from Sword Art Online. But unlike SAO’s world of medieval swords and melee combat, Gun Gale Online is a post-apocalyptic shooter where guns–both real and sci-fi–reign supreme.
The basic story follows LENN, a girl who, at the urging of her friend Pitohui, partners with the hulking sniper M in a massive team battle royale. The pair, despite not really knowing each other, do quite well–even ending up as one of the battle royale’s last two teams. However, just before the final battle, M turns on LENN and attempts to kill her. LENN, due to a mixture of luck and speed, turns the tables on M and has him at her mercy.
Image source: TVアニメ「SAO オルタナティブ ガンゲイル・オンライン」公式 on Twitter
It’s then that we find out the twist: M is sure that if he dies in the battle royal, Pitohui will kill him in the real world. The only sure way out for him is to kill LENN, become team leader, and then resign from the competition–and hope that Pitohui doesn’t just kill him out of spite.
And here’s where the hidden meaning of the title comes in. With Sword Art Online long since shutdown, Pitohui has decided to make Gun Gale Online into her “alternative” to Sword Art Online. Likely envious of the life and death excitement of SAO, she has created a mirror situation to what Kirito faced: she’s taken Gun Gale Online and made it into her own death game.
In what we have seen so far, she is the game master and M is the player. Like Kirito, M is trapped in a virtual world until he clears the “game.” If he dies in the game, he dies in real life. The only real difference is the scale (for Kirito, the game lasted years, for M it’s only about an hour and a half).
Image source: TVアニメ「SAO オルタナティブ ガンゲイル・オンライン」公式 on Twitter
But more than that, it’s likely that Pitohui doesn’t see what she is doing to M as anything bad. After all, she isn’t being driven by anger or rage but rather by envy. Everything we have seen implies that she longs to be the one in the Squad Jam tournament–and thus playing the death game herself. However, as she is busy on the day of the event, the best she can do is live it vicariously through M. In her mind, this would be a gift for M–and for the kindred spirit she sees in LENN.
So as the first arc comes to a close, LENN is left unsure about what M’s said during the tournament–unable to really believe that her good friend Pitohui would do something as horrible as force a person into a death game. Of course, this in turn leaves Pitohui unhindered, able to plan more death games as the series continues.
Image source: TVアニメ「SAO オルタナティブ ガンゲイル・オンライン」公式 on Twitter
In the end, Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online is, as the title implies, an “alternative” story to that told in the main Sword Art Online series taking place in Gun Gale Online. However, more importantly, it is the story of a person who has turned Gun Gale Online into her very own alternative to the death game that was Sword Art Online.
Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online can be viewed with English subtitles on Crunchyroll, Hulu, and AnimeLab (AU/NZ).
Top Image Source: TVアニメ「SAO オルタナティブ ガンゲイル・オンライン」公式
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