Two fates intertwined with the first clash of their blades.
Japanese Title: 魔法剣 ソードアーツTrans.
Director: Makoto Sokuza
Writer: Shogo Yasukawa
First Aired: 14 July 2023
Adapts: Volume 1, Chapter 2
Director: Makoto Sokuza
Writer: Shogo Yasukawa
First Aired: 14 July 2023
Adapts: Volume 1, Chapter 2
The first day of class takes the new students to Sword Arts, where students learn to meld swordplay and magic. Oliver and Nanao volunteer to fight a practice duel, wherein they spiritually connect on a much deeper level than anyone yet truly knows. Shocked by his own willingness to oblige Nanao's desire for a Duel to the Death, Oliver pushes her away.
That afternoon, magical biology professor Vanessa Aldiss commands the students to feed magic silkworms their mana to metamorphose them, and warns them to destroy any they overfeed lest they become monsters. Katie can't do it: she tries to save a silkworm and is badly bitten for her trouble.
That night, Pete realizes he forgot a textbook in the Spellology classroom, and Chela and Oliver insist on accompanying him back to the classroom, fearful for his safety in the school building at night. And wisely so: when they attempt to leave, the labyrinth under the school turns out to have encroached on the school building, dropping them into a confrontation with two of Kimberly's most dangerous upperclassmen: Ophelia Salvadori and Cyrus Rivermoore.
This episode provides examples of the following tropes:
- Adaptation Deviation: In the novel, Aldiss flunked Oliver and Chela on the spot for rescuing Katie. The episode reduces this to a two-point penalty on the assignment.
- Adaptation Distillation:
- In the novel, Chela explained Oliver and Nanao's duel to the other Sword Roses because they couldn't follow it. This is understandably dropped from the episode because it was a big example of Narrating the Obvious even when we couldn't see it play out in real time.
- Frances Gilchrist's and Vanessa Aldiss's rants from the novels are cut down significantly: we lose the explanation of why Spellology professor Gilchrist hates athames, and Aldiss bragging about considering centaur livers a delicacy and grumbling that she's not allowed to hunt them anymore because they've been granted Inhumanable Alien Rights. Garland's explanation of what, precisely, a spellblade is, is also cut: that will have to wait for episode 3.
- Badass Back: Oliver casts Grave Soil to ruin Nanao's footing in hopes of making a strike at her back, only for Nanao to spin and make a counter-thrust over her left shoulder that he barely avoids.
- Call-Back: Oliver has a Flashback Echo of his glimpse of Nanao's battle scars in "Ceremony" twice: first, when the group is conversing before breakfast—at which point Guy breaks into his thoughts and wonders why Oliver's robe is damp—and then again right before they cross swords, which makes him immediately realizes he's critically underestimated her fighting ability.
- Deadly Sparring: Luther Garland puts a dulling spell on Oliver and Nanao's swords before their duel so that they can't injure each other. However, Oliver and Nanao connect on a spiritual level during their practice duel, and both unconsciously break the dulling spell before their final clash—at which point Garland immediately calls a halt to the duel and admonishes them both for breaking the dueling rules.
- Fantastic Racism: Richard's clique is overheard mocking Pete sotto voce as a wannabe Teacher's Pet for volunteering to explain the purpose of sword arts as a discipline, including a derogatory remark about him being an "ordinary".
- Foreign Language Title: The episode's katakana ソードアーツ is a phonetic pronunciation of "Sword Arts", paired with the kanji 魔法剣 mahou ken, literally "magic sword".
- Friend to All Living Things: Katie in a nutshell. She takes extra long with the assignment in order to go as carefully as possible so that she doesn't ruin a single silkworm, until Aldiss demands that she hurry up and Katie accidentally overfeeds her last one. While being patched up in the nurse's office later, Katie explains how she had a childhood surrounded by animals and magifauna, and categorically refuses to follow Kimberly's usual practices and treat animals as natural resources the way Aldiss wants.
- Infodump: Each class this episode opens with a speech about its content, particularly Sword Arts, in which Pete volunteers to explain the key rules of combat magic: chiefly the history behind sword arts and the concept of the "one-step, one-spell distance", within which no mage can cast a spell faster than a weapon can strike.
- Malevolent Architecture: The labyrinth beneath the school has a tendency to expand into the school building at night. Oliver and Chela are both aware of this and accompany Pete back to the Spellology classroom for his protection, but aren't able to get out before the labyrinth absorbs them into it.
- Naïve Animal Lover: Despite the warnings that magic silkworms can't be saved and become monsters if the cocoon turns black, Katie tries to rip the cocoon open hoping to save it and gets a nasty bite for her trouble.
- Oh, Crap!: Oliver immediately recognizes Ophelia Salvadori by reputation and is terrified at whom they've run into on their first full day at Kimberly.
- Open Mouth, Insert Foot: Richard Andrews wants to duel Nanao, but Oliver steps in on the grounds that they fought the troll together—erroneously thinking Nanao needs protecting from the aristocrat. He unintentionally offends him, having not realized that Andrews (who briefly appeared in "Ceremony") was one of the students who stood back during the troll attack.
- Sadist Teacher: Vanessa Aldiss is the biggest jerkass in the faculty we've met so far. A crass Fiery Redhead, she's openly amused by the idea of fifteen-year-olds getting injured by the magifauna they're handling and requires them to clean up their own mistakes, while mocking the ideals of Inhumanable Alien Rights that Katie grew up on and then not caring when she accidentally gets Katie bitten by pushing her to work faster. Then she caps it off by docking two points each from Oliver and Chela for killing the mutated silkworm moth to rescue Katie.
- Set Swords to "Stun": The spell Securus is introduced in this episode by Professor Garland, who casts it on Oliver and Nanao's athames to ensure they can't hurt each other in a practice match. He explains that they're not allowed to fight other students without this spell in place.
- Smells Sexy: Ophelia Salvadori produces pheromones that make nearly any male in proximity to her horny. When introduced, she's being followed like a puppy by an unidentified first-year, and then tries to get Oliver, Chela, and Pete to spend some time with her. Pete is helpless, but Oliver No Sells it and Chela, being female, is immune.
- Team Mom: Chela's tendencies toward this make themselves known: she first offers to duel Andrews herself to defuse the argument between him and Oliver, then goes to help Nanao in Magical Biology and sending Oliver to help Guy and Pete, having realized that something happened between Oliver and Nanao.
- Unable to Retreat: Oliver, Chela, and Pete's headlong flight from Ophelia is blocked by a fence of bones that suddenly appears in their path, conjured by resident necromancer Cyrus Rivermoore.
- Underestimating Badassery: Oliver and Richard both make the mistake of thinking that Nanao's inexperience with magic means weakness as a fighter. Oliver thinks to take it easy in their duel, but, suddenly recalling his glimpse of her battle scars in "Ceremony", realizes just in time that what Nanao lacks in magic, she can more than make up for with battlefield experience. He's quickly in the fight of his life.
