Kirito: Alice, let me tell you about your little sister

*Kirito then proceeds to recap the entire season without a single mention of Alice's little sister.

Great job xD

Recap or not will still watch it

I'm assuming that episode 19 will start right after Kirito has explained everything to Alice, and I mean in terms of fitting in a recap episode that's a pretty slick way to do it

Would have liked to get on with the story though, next week seems so far away

For a recap episode, I found it to be pretty entertaining. Going back and seeing the high-budget highlight scenes was a treat, and I felt that formatting the episode to fit around Kirito's narration (which had a few touching lines), was a nice approach.

The modified OP visuals were a welcome surprise too, and if you look closely you can already notice that the Alice fight is getting touched up for the Blu-ray.

Recaps are never really fun to watch, but as others have mentioned already, it was nice that they formatted this recap in a way that continues Kirito's conversation with Alice and how he was going to tell her about her past. I'll definitely be skipping it though in future rewatches.

I thought Kirito didn't remember what happened in the first episode? Is this just them ignoring that fact for the sake of convenience, or is there something I missed?

Okay serious question why are there so many sao haters? Yes it has its flaws but it's nowhere near a bad anime. The only reason I bring this up is because I see a lot of people who are new to anime that read blogs and watch videos by pretty big names in the community that hate on the show constantly resulting in the newbies automatically assuming sao is terrible and not watching it. I feel like this is an issue because in order for there to be a season 4 the show is going to need another major push and with all of the nit picky hate it is going to make that push much harder for no reason. I don't have a problem with people sharing their opinions of the show that's fine but its starting to seem like well known you tubers/bloggers digging sao a coffin simply for more views and a slightly bigger cash grab which is a very poor reason to hate on a show so much. Maybe it's just me but I think its getting really annoying.

In all honesty, I'm happy there was a recap so that episode 19 can be all action and no talking since everything was explained to Alice here

Recap episodes are beyond annoying. I can see how they can be useful sometimes, like if a series is over 100 or so episodes people might end up forgetting some things, or if its an adaptation of something and its catching up to the manga the week off will let some distance grow. But this season has none of these problems. I'd rather have no airing this week because recap episodes are prime example of "nothing is better then this".

is there a reason that episode 18.5 didn't air at a normally scheduled time on Hulu?

What time does hulu get?

The recap was much needed, a lot has gone down in the last 18 episodes

Yeah i like a little recap. But damn do i look forward to each week. And i was gonna rewatch the series anyway. I guess i dont have to now. Only waiting to next week

The credits are done differently than usual. It shows screenshots from all the "real-world" scenes (because obviously, Kirito can't narrate those events to Alice). Still not really worth watching though.

I really liked how they use Kirito as the narrator (also glad that it's episode 18.5 since it's a recap). I was suprised when he told Alice about the Underworld, I don't think she knows what it is.

I was literally going to rewatch the entire series before this episode. I didnt, but i guess i did? Dont mind it but i love this series

Is there any reason to watch this if I binged SAO this past week already? I already wasted my time on SAO II's recap and was beyond annoyed. Is it the same kind of recap here?

Now that we've gone over the past few battles, you can notice that they've been hinting at the Integrity Knights" fatal flaw for quite a while- they're too inflexible for their own good. Kawahara's story is way more consistent that some people claim.

Episode 11

Kirito and Eugeo VS Eldrie Synthesis 31

Eldrie: This attack has no form or anything, but that's why it surpassed my expectations (After Kirito and Eugeo come close to taking down Eldrie).

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Episode 17

As Alice and Kirito are surrounded by minions, Alice, the knight who was taking Kirito down with relative ease an episode earlier is frozen with indecision as she maintains her precarious balance on a pick in the side of the Central Cathedral. Once Kirito returns her to (somewhat) normal fighting conditions she takes down two Minions with a single swing, whilst Kirito needs a Sword Skill to kill one.

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Episode 18

Eugeo is up against Bercouli Synthesis One, and manages to subdue him after a series of improvised tactics that Bercouli would have never experienced before (though it's implied that Bercouli was holding back). Bercouli also says something about the Dark Territory Knights fighting similarly.

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(Also, this OP is suprisingly satisfying!)

well, i guess recaps are necessary. i still wish they would release another, full episode along with the recap. Still, was fun.

didn't watch it see you next week

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Recaps are useless especially with a rewind button and forums like reddit. I'm glad I decided to wait for the rest of the episodes to air on this arc. It's like this season was made to annoy me