Sword Art Online Alternative "Gun Gale Online" Episode 01

Squad Jam (スクワッド・ジャム) is the first episode of the Sword Art Online Alternative "Gun Gale Online" anime adaptation, as well as the first episode of the 1st Squad Jam story. It aired on April 7, 2018.

Plot
On February 1, 2026, the first ever Squad Jam, a team-based iteration of the Bullet of Bullets tournament, was about to be held in Gun Gale Online. Participating in this low attention tournament were twenty-three teams of two to six members. One such team was LM, consisting of only two members: the team leader LLENN, a girl clad entirely in pink, and her partner named M, a burly veteran. Once the tournament began at 14:00, LLENN and M found themselves in the midst of a forest at the upper-right corner of the map. After confirming their position on the map and having LLENN dress in a green poncho to reduce her conspicuousness, M decided that they should head for the urban area to the south.

After ten minutes of travelling through the forest and reaching the boundary between the forest and urban area, the two stopped to inspect their Satellite Scan Terminal for the position of other teams, revealed every ten minutes. At that point, LLENN noticed another team, ZEMAL, across the road. Although M assured LLENN that the enemy team would not be able to engage in combat from a distance that exceeded two hundred metres, to LLENN's surprise, ZEMAL blindly opened fire at her with their machine guns. Per M's instructions, LLENN held her position behind a tree to protect herself from the gunfire for several minutes, until the members of ZEMAL were abruptly eliminated by Narrow, a team of pros who had been nearby.

As the flashy battle attracted three other teams to the battlefield, LLENN and M used the cover of the commotion to dart along the highway to a nearby residential area after the following satellite scan. Having defeated the survivors of the battle that had ensued, Narrow discovered that the only enemy close to them was LM during the following scan. Desiring combat experience, rather than winning the tournament, Narrow decided to pursue LM to the residential area. Ten minutes later, the leader of Narrow checked the next satellite scan, discovering, to his surprise, that the enemy was only eighty metres away.

Despite attentively surveying the area, however, none of the team members were able to locate the threat. Just when the team's leader realised that LLENN had been hiding in a suitcase that had been lying on the road, the pink girl suddenly assaulted his men, eliminating the four vanguards in a matter of moments, before retreating from the area. Deciding that LLENN was too inhuman for any further battle against her to be useful to them, the leader of Narrow had his team resign from the tournament.

Two weeks later, on February 15, the members of SHINC, a group of girls that had also participated in the tournament, finished watching a recording of the battle at the house of Kohiruimaki Karen (LLENN) in the real world.

New Characters

 * Kohiruimaki Karen (LLENN, LM)
 * M (LM)
 * Heuy (ZEMAL)
 * Max (ZEMAL)
 * Peter (ZEMAL)
 * Shinohara (ZEMAL)
 * Tomtom (ZEMAL)
 * Dashin (Narrow)
 * Hidehide (Narrow)
 * Nagama (Narrow)
 * Nobu (Narrow)
 * Saika (Narrow)
 * Yasu (Narrow)
 * Annaka Moe (Anna, SHINC)
 * Nitobe Saki (Eva, SHINC)
 * Noguchi Shiori (Rosa)
 * Fujisawa Kana (Sophie, SHINC)
 * Kusunoki Risa (Tanya, SHINC)
 * Milana Sidorova (Tohma, SHINC)

Teams

 * LM
 * ZEMAL
 * Narrow
 * SHINC

Locations

 * Gun Gale Online
 * SBC Glocken
 * Squad Jam Tournament map
 * Forest area
 * Urban area
 * Residential area


 * Real World
 * Kohiruimaki Karen's aparment

Adaptation Notes

 * Adapted from Gun Gale Online Volume 1, SECT.5 - SECT.8 and Gun Gale Online Volume 2, SECT.1


 * The anime began the story immediately from the day of the tournament, rather than the background story for how LLENN came to participate in it.

Errors

 * The name SHINC was misspelled as SHNIC on the list of teams participating in the tournament.