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Sword Art Online 02: I cannot believe they pineappleed that up so badly. They completely removed all the important character development in this episode (which was the entire point of the actual chapter since it was a sidestory written after the first volume to develop Kirito and Asuna's characters) to have it result in a terrible condensation. At least the next story they're doing is significantly shorter, so they can't possibly condense it any more...

Summary of what went wrong, extra <hide> tags for why it's important to the later story.

 Spoiler

Asuna is a complete newbie. They did not emphasize this enough. At all. ***Hidden content cannot be quoted.*** This might be acceptable from Kirito's perspective, but I'm fairly sure she tells him that she's new at it.
Kirito is supposed to save Asuna in the maze, one floor before the boss map, as she collapses from exhaustion. ***Hidden content cannot be quoted.***
Kirito is supposed to teach Asuna about efficiency, since she's just mindlessly grinding on trash mobs with <Linear> instead of using normal attacks to finish off low HP monsters. Sword skills have a delay and take a lot of concentration, so if she just spams, she'll eventually die when she can't dodge.***Hidden content cannot be quoted.***
Kirito is supposed to lend Asuna the house he rented. She uses the bathroom to bathe I WAS VERY INTENT ON SEEING THIS SCENE. ***Hidden content cannot be quoted.***
Argo was completely left out of the story. She's an information broker, and the one who published the guides they were using. She's supposed to tell Kirito about a person offering to buy his upgraded sword, and she appears later in the story, although she's a very minor character. This gives some development to her beginnings. ***Hidden content cannot be quoted.***
I'm fairly sure the boss switched weapons at significantly higher HP. ***Hidden content cannot be quoted.***
One of the contributing factors to him taking the tag Beater is to ***Hidden content cannot be quoted.***

How I feel the episode should have gone:

 Spoiler

Save Asuna, explains a bit of info, which helps the viewer understand more about the game. Action is shown in Asuna's combat against trash mobs. Honestly, First Day should have been episode 2 instead to do this. Share the cream with Asuna. See Argo at the meeting, and have her introduced there. Meeting could have been cut shorter. Episode ends right before boss encounter, maybe with Beta flashback. COCKTEASE.
Next episode would start the boss fight, with flashback to the rented house. Asuna bath scene <3. Argo comes with new offer on sword, explain about upgrades, and learn who wanted to buy sword. Diabel dies. Berserker the boss. Better animation since they can afford it with the number of dialogue scenes in ep 2. Everyone is happy.

Among other things, that was why I was disappointed. Given how badly they're rushing, this is likely to be 12 episodes and end chronologically before Fairy Dance.

What's everyone else's opinions?

Well, as I said in a previous post, "Aria in the Starless Night" is a story that's pretty dragged-out, so it's not possible to fit all of it into a single episode without making it seem rushed. I agree that they shouldn't have cut those important bits out though (an alternative would be making them OVA episodes so they can actually fit the important parts in without trouble since they wouldn't be limited by the timeslot).

I wouldn't say the bath scene was terribly important to the story...

Oh yeah, a minor detail but...wasn't the First Floor Boss Edition of Argo's Strategy Guide supposed to be pink with a large red disclaimer printed on the front cover?

EDIT: Just checked the LN again. Illfang's attack pattern switches at the 25% mark, but in the anime it switched around 15%.

This episode could have been done a whole lo better. What a waste. They should have just done the 2 year timeskip and left this for an OVA.

Oh nice. The next episode's Red-nosed Reindeer. I hope they don't screw that one up; it's REALLY REALLY important for Kirito's character development. I'll be so disappointed if they screw it up.