Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Festivus ladies and gents. It's your favorite anime blogger with a special Christmas edition.
Everyone likes Christmas and alot of people like anime so let's put those two together and I'll provide you with my favorite Christmas episode in all of anime.
Sword Art Online S1 Ep3- "The Red-Nosed Reindeer"
This is my favorite Christmas episode ever for alot of different reasons. The synopsis for the episode goes like this. Prior to the episode's events, Kirito rescued a guild of lower-level players called the Moonlit Black Cats, who thank him for his help. They allow him to be a temporary member, with Kirito hiding his true level.
He proceeds to stay with the guild for a month, teaching them and aiding them in missions while also sneaking out to maintain his own level by raiding more powerful and dangerous areas. While making his way back kirito gets a message saying that Sachi a member of the party is missing, kirito finds her in an alley despondent and she confides in him that she'd been contemplating suicide due to fear of dying in the game and he comforts her by telling her she won't and then agrees to share a room with her for the night out of comfort.
Fast forward a bit and the guild ends up in a sticky situation due to a trap and ends up team including sachi wiped outside of kirito and the leader Keita who was off buying a house for the group this leads fo Keita jumping off a bridge and killing himself leading kirito to a path of anger and isolation.
Months later on Christmas Eve Kirito finds the informant "Argo the Rat" and she tells him of an event boss named Nicholas the Renegade, who was rumored to drop a resurrection item. Kirito is obsessed with finding it, as he wants to revive Sachi and hear her last words.
Kirito arrives at the rumored location of the boss a forest and sees his friend Klein and his guild Fuurinkazan who offer to accompany him to the battle Kirito refuses and then heads off into the forest alone while Klein and fuurinkazan then hold off the Divine Dragon Alliance a newly formed but powerful guild in the future floors of SAO. Kirito successful kills the boss but upon receiving the drop the "Divine Stone of Returning Soul" he learns that it must be applied within 10 seconds of dying returing to Klein with low heath and a defeated expression gives the stone to Klein who tells him he must live until the end.
We cut back to him at his hotel where at midnight he receives a pre-recorded message from Sachi saying that if he's hearing it that she's clearly passed away and that he bears no responsibility for her death and that she knew his true level and understood his reasons while thanking him for his friendship and telling him to not let the game and its tragedies beat or define him. In celebration of Christmas she hums Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer to him as Kirito after months of self-hatred finally breaks down and cries in both mourning and relief.
The overall tone of this episode, it's message on dealing with loss and the emotions behind it, and the fact we don't even actually see his fight with Nicholas add up to such a powerful epsiode to me that nothing has taken its place since I first watched it and it's the start of what made me one of the staunchest defenders of the series and franchise to this day.
And yeah to me this is the best anime Christmas episode ever. I was gonna do a while top 3-5 but then I started going super in depth with this one so I'll just throw in an honorable mention or two.
My hero Academia Episode 101 "Have A Merry Christmas" - it's simple and sweet the young heroes exchange gifts and just enjoy each other and down time before the start of the war plus its little Eri's first real Christmas the downside its only half the epsiode and ends on the sour note of Izuku speaking on how he wishes things could've stayed that way hinting on how hard the war would be on all of them.
2. Pokemon Chronicles (Ep. 4, 22) – “Pikachu’s Winter Vacation.
Pokemon is probably my favorite long running franchise ever. It's definitely my favorite of the monster tamer archetype. These are just Pikachu and the gang in a bunch of random Christmas shorts and I love stuff like that. This Pikachu winter vacation stands out because of the banger that's the Pokemon Chronicles Theme and the fact that Pikachu and ashs johto pokemon have to help delibird find its presents to helpnl deliver them after inadvertently knocking delibird out the sky during a snowball fight.
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