In Sword Art Online episode 18 Leafa leaves her party and becomes a renegade to guide Kirito. In the golden cage, Asuna has been given hope in the form of confirmation that Kirito is alive.
Leafa and Asuna are supposed to be competent women that are strong in their own right in games, but apparently with that comes wills of butter. In this episode of Sword Art Online for the second time in this series we see a girl willing to leave everyone they have worked with and their position behind. This time with Leafa it is not even for someone who is dating her. This is just a guy that she just met that happens to look like her love interest. I find it hard to believe that a girl that will hit a nerd for saying the wrong thing will become a renegade just because someone has the right looks. Although the guys acting like Leafa was their property did not help.
Sword Art Online episode 18 sexualizes Suguha quite a bit from panties to shower scenes. Hopefully this will not be a trend, she is kind of young for this.
Oberon in classic bad guy fashion likes to brag about his plans, but things have backfired this time. Asuna has been mostly passive about her captivity so far, probably because she was not sure that Kirito was ok. Now that she knows that he is alive and in the real world she has more incentive than ever before to get out and rebel against Oberon. So now Asuna is trying to get the code and get out.
Oberon has met Kirito and knows about his relationship with Asuna within Sword Art Online. Yet Oberon still seems blind to how Asuna feels about sexual contact within the game. Asuna was married within the game and that was real to her like if she was married in the real world. She most likely gave her body to Kirito in the game, so why would she feel ok being unfaithful to him in a game. To Asuna it was all the same as in the real world. It could just be that Oberon does not care and likes to bother her about it to trivialize her relationship with Kirito. He seems genuinely confused though.
Kirito has mastered flying now, but there is no mention of him trying to learn any magic at all. Is he going to stay in a game where people use magic without knowing anything about it? This episode showed how bad that is for him because he does not have the knowledge to know what everyone can use against him like the tracers. In Sword Art Online Kirito was prepared for every contingency, but he is really slacking off now that lives are not at stake. Hopefully this will not be a problem at a point where it could harm Asuna.
