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This episode exceeded my expectations, and that is in a good way. While there are some scenes that they removed which would have added to my enjoyment of this episode, the subtle changes in some and anime-original scenes added more than makes up for these skipped scenes.

First, let’s talk about the anime-original scene. The montage with all the tribe leaders and their army like some bastardized version of the scene in Avengers: Endgame is not in the novels. In the novels, Vector’s arrival jumps straight to everyone already gathered in the throne room. But here, each one is introduced first along with their respective armies. And I liked it! We get to see every leader get his/her focus. At least, before half of them died.

The subtle changes are not really a big deal. For example, Lilipilin(Orc leader) speaking enthusiastically about killing humans is one I didn’t expect since in this part of the novel scene, he was quiet and merely an observer. Come to think of it, the portrayal of the orc leader here is a little different; in the novel, he is a quiet and withdrawn individual, but here, he is a little bit excited.

For the most part, many of the leaders’ personalities are spot on. One thing I did note was the attire of the Sorceress Guild. All of them, especially their leader, are almost literally naked in the novel version. These women use both their allure and magic to destroy their enemies, so I’m really shocked that they are covered in here like your typical black mages from Final Fantasy. But that’s not a bad thing either since I’m getting tired of excessive fanservice anyway.

The skipped scenes are backstories for some characters that died here: Lipia, Fu Za, and more importantly, Shasta. Lipia was actually in charge of an orphanage, hence why she did not want war and tried to kill Vector. Meanwhile, the assassin leader actually held a grudge for Shasta because the dark knight leader defeated him during their childhood, which Shasta could not even remember. And in Dark Territory, the defeated are considered worse than garbage. Meanwhile, there was a scene they skipped about Shasta which showed the process of selecting the next dark knight leader; in truth, every aspiring leader must kill the current one, who is also their master. It also talked about how Shasta was defeated by Bercouli using Incarnation, so I wish they could have kept at least that part. Nevertheless, this is still a near perfect adaptation.

Overall, this is episode is a 9/10.

2 thoughts on “SWORD ART ONLINE: WAR OF UNDERWORLD EPISODE 4 REVIEW

  1. Whats up this is kind of of off topic but I was wanting to know if blogs use WYSIWYG editors or if you have to manually code with HTML. I’m starting a blog soon but have no coding experience so I wanted to get advice from someone with experience. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

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