Sword Art Online – Aincard Arc – (Light Novel Review)

What is it all about?

Sword Art Online was originally written by Kawahara Reki as a competition entry for ASCII Media Work’s ‘Dengeki Game Novel Prize’, back in 2001. However he withheld himself from submitting this piece of work as it exceeds the limits on the number of pages allowed for the competition and he could not bare editing the story to shorten it. As a result SAO was released onto the web as a Web Novel under the pen name ‘Fumio Kunori’. (This Web Novel edition was completed as of 2005)

In 2008 he re-entered the competition with ‘Accel World’, another series that contain elements brought over from SAO and won the competition. During publication, his editor Miki found out about SAO and took immediate interest and requested for the series release.

On April 10^th 2009, Sword Art Online was officially published and from 2011 to 2015, SAO has remained in the top 10 charts for 5 years and even claimed the title as Number 1 Light Novel of the year for two years in a row in 2012 and 2013.

Sword Art Online is set in the near-future, beginning on the date 6^th November 2022. On this date the release of the Nerve Gear and the world’s first VRMMORPG ‘Sword Art Online’ was released. This was also the day that the SAO incident began with 10,000 Japanese players being imprisoned in the virtual world of Sword Art Online. The only way to escape was to conquer all 100 floors and defeat the final boss to escape the floating fortress of Aincard.

Positive

Sword Art Online – Volume One contains a Prologue and Twenty Five chapters. Whilst this may sound a lot, it is in fact quite moderately paced and you can get through the book quite quickly.

The Novel features the Psychological state of the players which I feel has been nicely portrayed (something I feel the anime struggles to portray). The Novel also maps out all of Kirito’s thought process and how he has adapted to the world of Aincard in the two years he was captured. The Novel also features some element of Comedy, Romance, MMORPG game play with terminology and a dash of typical Shonen Battle.

In terms of Character Kirito is quite perfect, just like how Kawahara describes him to be. He is shown as a happy go lucky guy, who adapted to living quite literally in the world of Aincard rather than despairing over his captivity. But underneath all that, Kirito is quite delicate and has the bad habit of burdening himself with a sense of duty and responsibility which gives his character a little bit more depth.

The main point of this novel is to highlight the difference between the Real world and the Virtual one. Kayaba had the desire of creating another world and I feel the novel has done a good job in showing that the virtual world is as real as the real world. The element of death is perhaps one of the key aspects to bind the Virtual and Real Worlds together along with the fact that these characters are using avatar with identical appearance to their real world self. As humans we tend to believe that the Virtual world is fake, hence why some of us do not take into consideration the effects we have on other people whilst in games or on the internet. Once you understand that you are still you whilst on the internet or in a game, your whole perspective will change.

Negative

The Story starts on Floor 74 which can be quite confusing for the new readers who are new to the series. It does however cover the events of day one and how people got trapped in the game. Other than that, the story literally starts in the final month of Sword Art Online leaving behind a two year blank period and lack of development in plot.

The story ends rather prematurely at floor 75 and not all aspects of Sword Art Online is explored. For example the remaining 25 floors, other floor boss battles, elements of the game and the remaining 8 Unique Sword Skills. However to make up for this, Kawahara Reki has created a spin-off series called Sword Art Online Progressive which details the journey of Kirito and Asuna from the first floor upwards.

Recommendation

Personally I would give this particular volume a 3/5. It is a great series and I am a big fan of SAO, but as a story it didn’t really have much of a beginning or middle, so development was a bit lacking as the story dove right into the end.

However it should be noted that SAO begun as a one shot and this particular chapter was nothing more than a trigger for bigger events later on in the series. Aincard itself is not the main feature of the series as Project Alicization is considered the final and grand finale of the Sword Art Online incident that brings everything together for one climatic ending.

Aincard does however portray a nice romance story between Kirito and Asuna and I feel it has done a very good job in portraying two characters that have grown to love and live quite normally inside the world of Sword Art Online.

Aside from the story, I would also like to commend Abec on her wonderful illustrations for the novels. She is the illustrator for the Sword Art Online Light Novel series and the original source of design inspiration for the Anime and Games. I personally feel that her illustrations has a degree of quality and beauty that blends well with the series that adds to the experience of reading the novels.

The Novel itself questions and asks its readers ‘What is the difference between the Real World and the Virtual one? Is there really a difference between the two worlds?’ After reading the novel I feel that there is no difference between the real world and the virtual world. Especially when death is a reality and you are physically active in that other world, living and breathing day by day.

~Aki 31/08/2015 ~