I'd have to double check but I thank M's team would auto-qualify because he was on the winning team for SJ 1.
In the episode, they just said that teams with a team leader from the top 4 teams would auto qualify. Perhaps that was a mistranslation?
Edit: I just realized that that sentence could be interpreted two different ways. My interpretation was that any team where one of the members was team leader of a past winning team would auto-qualify, but it could also be interpreted as any team where the team leader was on one of the past winning teams would auto-qualify.
The second interpretation would let M's team through. It makes a lot less sense to me though, since it means that up to 24 teams could auto-qualify, leaving no room for new teams! There's no way they would do it that way.
Edited by storyyeller on Mar 18th 2020 at 9:05:05 AM
Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's PlayIt's still best to make sure that the rules can actually handle that, rather than just hoping. Especially since rules create incentives. I could see teams that are desperate to get in bribing a member of one of the winning teams to join them so they have an easier time.
Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's PlayYeah but considering this is only the second one there are bound to be things they would not think of for example the I would imagine no one considered the tracking device being an immortal object could be used used to defend a person.
I would imagine if a bunch of top teams split up there probably would be changes to the rules to account for that and I don't believe squad jam has reached the popularity level the major tournament GGO event so chances are no one is looking to go bribe winning team members yet.
"Shall I use you, or make you mine... I'm not so sure what I'll do." - DorthyGGO Alternative ep7:
I was very confused at the beginning when that new character appeared. I guessed pretty quickly that it was her friend Miyu, but it's still confusing when they throw stuff like that in with no introduction and act like you're already supposed to know something that you don't know yet.
Anyway, the look at Fuka's stats screen revealed that GGO has six stats: STR, AGI, VIT, DEX, SEN, and LUC. The first four are obvious and have mostly been mentioned before, but I have no idea what SEN and LUC are supposed to be. LUC could be luck, but it doesn't seem fitting. Normally, the luck stat in games just controls critical hit chance, and random critical hits doesn't really seem consistent with anything we've learned of GGO so far.
Fuka somehow gets the same avatar as LLENN, despite it supposed to be very rare. The account buyer from GGO even shows up again to confirm this.
Man, Fuka is not good with money. "Don't worry, we have a sugar daddy". She already spent 60% of her considerable windfall right there.
LLENN has a tactic she wants to try, but the audience doesn't get to hear about it yet.
It seems that M is a bit infamous in GGO. Which would make sense, given how skilled and rich he seems to be.
Obvious Rules Patch time: The scan terminals are no longer immortal. Though it seems like a weird change to me. The fact that the terminal blocked the bullets last time was pure luck. LLENN wasn't actually trying to use it as armor. Now it makes me wonder if any of the teams will have their terminals destroyed at an inopportune moment.
Edited by storyyeller on Mar 18th 2020 at 11:59:45 AM
Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's PlayI know she exists! Geez. Next you'll be explaining to me who Kirito is. I just didn't realize she was joining Karen in GGO.
Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's PlayGGO Alternative ep8: Not much to say about this one. I do wonder about Shirley though. She was given enough focus that she's probably going to be important later, but I didn't see her in the opening animation.
Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's PlayGGO Alternative ep9:
Lots of fun with exploiting the game mechanics in this episode.
The redshirt army predictably exhibits terrible tactics. I can't believe that after separating out their leaders from the rest of the group (and thus not showing up on the scans) it didn't occur to them that anyone would try the same tactic against them. Or that when outnumbering the enemy at least 5 to 1, they couldn't afford to post a few guards. Like 30 guns firing wildly at the waterfall will make much difference.
I'm also continually amazed at how effective snipers are in the series when they aren't firing at the main characters. We're told that the first shot of a sniper has no bullet line, but Pito just fired at least seven times. Sure they were caught by surprise, but you'd think that at least a couple of them would have dodged or made it to cover. Especially since whenever it is actually relevant, the bullet lines are shown to make dodging easy (remember the guy with the giant gun who dodged Sinon back in GGO)?
I was puzzled when one of the spectators asked "how many people did Pito kill?" since you'd think that would automatically be tracked and displayed by the tournament. In fact, just seconds later, it shows LLENN with an onscreen kill counter (5). Presumably he was speaking rhetorically.
Incidentally, I find it amusing that in a VR world where anything is possible, they decided to just simulate cameras and TV broadcasts. Since the whole thing is VR anyway, they could let spectators fly around the battlefield like ghosts and witness the battles in first person if they wanted to.
I was also surprised when Fuka bludgeoned the guy to death with a gun. You wouldn't expect that to deal much damage and it seems like it would risk breaking the gun. Surely, if it takes several hits to kill someone with a knife specifically designed for combat, simple whacking them with a gun would not be very effective.
Also seems that Kirito's not the only one with an androgynous avatar. It doesn't look like LLENN actually managed to grab those magazines before they were attacked. I'm pretty sure her lack of bullets will become important later.
Edited by storyyeller on Mar 21st 2020 at 5:02:19 AM
Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's PlayI'll clarify this one since the anime didn't quite make it clear but I'll spoiler it to be safe. Law of Conservation of Detail at play. The novels made it clear that LLENN doubled back and grabbed the ammo after she dealt with the ambush since once its out of inventory and discarded the item exists in the environment even after the original owners death.
ep10: I was really confused when the gymnast leader showed up out of nowhere at the beginning and is somehow on friendly terms with LLENN despite all their previous appearances in the SJ 2 to date being about how much they want to fight LLENN. I was so confused in fact that I went back and rewatched the ending of the previous episode to see if I missed anything, but nope, it goes straight from this being under attack by Momento Mori to SHINC appearing out of nowhere and allying with them. It's like they just skipped over a scene or two. This show has a really bad habit of omitting things that really need to be shown.
I loved when Fuka just blurted out the whole plot. So many subplots in this series result from characters having an inconvenient secret that they don't want to reveal. She may be annoying sometimes, but I think most of the story arcs in SAO could have been improved with a well timed intervention by Miyu.
This also means that LLENN got to pick up the magazines after all. So that subplot was a bit of a red herring. I guess it was just an excuse to have that scene with Clarence in the last episode.
Anyway, I thought the whole shooting your own teammate to get an invincible shield for 10 minutes thing was pretty clever. It reminds me a lot of Ender's Game where Ender's team frequently employed the same tactic.
I also liked all the shooting people through the floors and walls at the end. Nice subversion of Concealment Equals Cover.
Edited by storyyeller on Mar 21st 2020 at 12:28:41 PM
Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's PlayIf I remember correctly one of the previous episodes implied that they were not to far off from the large dome and considering they definitely wanted that rematch they would certainly move in her direction something Lenn probably wouldn't even notice considering she dealt with multiple ambushes and being focused on her actual objective.
"Shall I use you, or make you mine... I'm not so sure what I'll do." - Dorthyep11:
I was worried that they would have Pito parrying bullets with her lightsaber just like Kirito, as silly as that would be. Luckily, they didn't go that route.
Anyway, I was surprised that SHINC and Fuka didn't have some secret plan when they all suicided for no reason. I was also confused about why there was a bullet line shown when M was shooting the leader of SHINC. Doesn't he normally fire without it?
It's also weird that S-T is just hanging out there. I wonder how they'll factor into the finale. Then again, they could just be a red herring with no plot relevance like that guy in the BOB final that had a lot of buildup only to immediately be sniped and not do anything.
When Pito drew her lightsaber on top of the jeep and yelled at M to drive her closer, it reminded me of the old "drive me closer, I want to hit them with my sword" meme.
Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play

GGO Alternative ep6:
Well it looks like I was right about Eva's team being important later. Also, M is way different in real life than in the game.
I was also a bit surprised when they mentioned fighting Zekken. It's easy to miss that the first half of this show was taking place concurrently with Mother's Rosario. That's part of why I don't like that SAO just shows the date at the beginning when there's a timeskip, since it's really hard to remember which dates happened when and what the relative differences are.
I also thought it was weird that the subtitles continued to use "he" to refer to Zekken here after the reveal that she's female.
Anyway, is Karen supposed to be competing on a team by herself now? At first I thought she was going to join the gymnastics club squad, but then I remembered there's a limit of six per squad. She's going to need all the luck in the world, especially since M is a pretty competent sniper when he's on the protagonist side. She'd probably die before she ever even sees him.
It also just occurred to me that without LLENN, M and Pito's team won't auto qualify for the SJ 2. Not that they should have any trouble qualifying, given how badass they are.
Edited by storyyeller on Mar 17th 2020 at 12:16:58 PM
Blind Final Fantasy 6 Let's Play