'Gun Gale Online' Makes Clever Nod To 'Sword Art Online'

One of the most interesting characters to come out of the Sword Art Online spin-off series, Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online, is the slick and mysterious Pitohui who befriends LLENN early on.

While the series has mentioned how it connects to Sword Art Online II, it went one step further and clarified just how close Pitohui is to the events of the original Sword Art Online in the coolest way.

It turns out that the real person behind Pitohui is an "SAO loser." The series describes her as one of the beta testers of the original game, like Kirito in the first series. She was obsessed and played it during all of her free time. But when the time came for the full launch, she was unable to play due to a "once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity.

The real person behind Pitohui is obsessed with the idea of death, so when the original game locked all of those players in a death game she lost it. Wanting death, she felt she lost the perfect opportunity to die. This got even worse when she heard reports of the player killer guild in the original game as she would have loved to be one of the killers.

So because of this, she eventually found Gun Gale Online as uses it as a way to vent her frustrations and violent urges (much like how LLENN uses it as an escape from her lonely life) and now even adds death on top of it as she vows to kill herself should she lose in the upcoming Squad Jam.

Fans had suspected something off about Pitohui when M revealed she had threatened his life, but now this extra layer just makes her all the more dangerous as the next Squad Jam draws closer.

For those unfamiliar with the spin-off, the synopsis for Sword Art Online: Alternative Gun Gale Online is as follows:

"In the world of guns and steel that is Gun Gale Online, LLENN has been a devoted, female solo player. She is obsessed with two things: donning herself entirely in pink and honing her skills with consistent game play. She soon discovers her love for hunting other players (a.k.a. PK), soon to be known as the "Pink Devil."

Meanwhile, LLENN meets a beautiful yet mysterious player, Pitohui, and the two click right away. Doing as she is told by Pitohui, she enters the Squad Jam group battle."

For those unfamiliar with Sword Art Online, the series was originally created by Reki Kawahara with illustrations provided by abec. The series follows a boy named Kirito after he and thousands of gamers get trapped in a virtual reality video game known as Sword Art Online.The gamers must band together to defeat the game's final level to escape, but Kirito and his guild learn there is more behind their prison than they were originally told.