Nitorin is a terrible character, and Reki Kawahara shows us why.
Critics and fans alike were simply bamboozled by hack author Takako Shimura's abrasively pedantic
Wandering Son. 100 chapters of meandering, aimless storytelling culminating in an adaptation that was so bad that anime fans in Japan completely ignored it and American fans were completely allergic to it. In fact, it's telling that masterpieces such as
Attack on Titan have been licensed and became smash hits while a terrible, terrible show like
Wandering Son remains stuck in a ghetto of licensing limbo. Even more telling is the fact that Crunchyroll thinks so little of
Wandering Son that they didn't bother even to release the director's cut episodes of episode 10 and 11, choosing the abridge the series in order to save their bandwidth on much more compelling shows such as the clearly superior
Sword At Online.
Crunchyroll clearly made the right decision, since
Sword Art Online S2 4 is proof positive that Kawahara is the master of writing insightful LGBT stories, while Shimura is clearly past her prime.
We already have a strong female protagonist with an interesting backstory in Sinon, and now we have a great trans character in Kirito:
Kawahara has combined Judith Butler's theories on gender performativity with a genuine sympathy of the trans experience that Shimura could never quite reach. One might criticize Kawahara for sensationalizing gender by making the character appear female, but this is clearly a perfect use of allegory to illustrate the fluidity of gender and also offer insight into the complicated issue of gender and sexuality. Indeed, I would put Kawahara up with great masters such as Philip K. Dick and Ursula Le Guin, as he is clearly a master of both the function and form of science fiction.
Indeed, this is a masterfully complicated episode, as it explores the myriad of abuses and sexual assaults that women face every day:
But we also see Kirito seamlessly slip into his new feminine identity:
Trapped in a loveless "marriage" heterosexual marriage with Asuna, it's clear that perhaps Kirito has always been closeted and wanted to transition. Although she is clearly afraid to do so in her real life, in the world of GGO, she is able to become who she truly wants to be. Suddenly
Sword Art Online becomes as much about the angst of repressed gender identity as it is a treatise on feminism, following on the tradition of campy films such as
Hedwig and the Angry Inch and more serious faire such as
Transamerica. Here, in this virtual world free from the judgemental eyes of a cis-centric, heteronormative Japan, Kirito is able to
transgress into a world that is post-gender and post-sexuality.
Indeed, it is fitting that the episode ends with a clear homage to the feminist, gender-queered film
Thelma and Louise:
We know that acclaimed director Ridley Scott chose to express feminist, Sapphic freedom through destructive nihilism, as both Thelma and Louise choose to commit suicide rather than face the false justice offered by men, members of which attempted to rape and rob them.
Kirito's cliffjumping, with Sinon embracing her tightly, is a moment of affirmation: not only of their newfound friendship, but also of Kirito's new identity. It's an amazing inversion of the dark, conclusive ending that Scott executed, using the moment of riding off the cliff as a positive image. After the stunning failure that was
Prometheus, perhaps Ridley Scott should ask Kawahara to write the sequel! Certainly there is a clear synergy between the two artists that binds them together.
It also bears mentioning that by giving Kirito a lightsaber, Kawahara has managed to do what George Lucas and JJ Abrams were unable to do - feature a strong female protagonist as a kind of "Jedi Master". This is the 21st century and Kawahara definitively shows that he is a modern man with an understanding of the modern world.
If the first episode showed the strength of Kawahara as a man who examines the post-human world of the cybernetic virtual cyborg, blowing away luminaries such as William Gibson and Neal Stephenson, then we really understand that Kawahara is more than just a one trick pony that understands the true possibilities of science fiction as a genre.
