There was perhaps no villain in the history of Sword Art Online more intimidating than the skull faced antagonist, Death Gun. While the series moved to the virtual world of Gun Gale, our main protagonist Kirito found himself attempting to stop the villain who had the ability to kill people in the real world if Death Gun managed to kill them in the game. Adding a new layer to the series, one Reddit User decided to bring this armed phantasm to life with some inspired cosplay.
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Reddit User Skullschool posted his costume, portraying the villainous marksman as he stalks his way through a forest path:
Death Gun was a unique villain in that he wasn’t just one character, he was two brothers, the Shinikawa brothers, who simply tricked people into thinking that their avatar was directly killing its targets. Rather, whenever Death Gun would hit his mark, one of the brothers would sneak into the target’s house and inject them with a drug that they stole from their father’s job at a hospital. The drug would stop the target’s heart and lead people to believe that Death Gun itself had the ability to kill real life players by obliterating their digital avatars.
The “Phantom Bullet Arc” followed Kirito and fellow players in this brand new server of the game, Gun Gale. While the original arc saw the players inside a game that was similar to an MMORPG like World of Warcraft, this arc played more closely to the game, Call of Duty. The game itself was more like a “first person shooter” and the story changed because of this.
What do you think of this Death Gun cosplay? Would you like to somehow see the character revisited in a future arc of Sword Art Online? Let us know in the comments or feel free to hit me up directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics and anime.
Sword Art Online was originally created by Reki Kawahara with illustrations provided by abec for ASCII Media Works’ Dengeki Bunko line in 2009. 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.
If you have yet to catch the new season of Sword Art Online’s anime adaptation, the original Japanese release of Sword Art Online: Alicization can currently be found streaming on Crunchyroll, Funimation, and Hulu. The English dub of the series is now airing Saturday nights on Adult Swim’s Toonami block. The series will be returning for the second half of its Alicization season with War of Underworld in October.