sword art online

By Keiichi Sigsawa and Kouhaku Kuroboshi, based on the series created by Reki Kawahara. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul.

I have been known at times to be a little annoyed when a book consists primarily of fight scenes. Let’s face it, for the most part, I enjoy talking about plot and character beats here. (Well, that and obscure stuff about publishers no one cares about but me.) When you get things like a tournament arc, or the Squad Jams in Gun Gale Online, there’s not really as much for a good reviewer to sink their teeth into. Readers don’t really want you telling them “watch out for this cool fight sequence”, and if I say Llenn and Pitohui are awesome and badass, I will likely just get a “well, duh” in response. That said, after a book like the previous one in this series, introducing yet another smug bastard who has decided to make the girl he is obsessed with his whether she likes it or not, and the fact that, despite Llenn’s protestations, the engagement seems to ride on this game… honestly, I’m delighted it’s just wall-to-wall action here.

The first third or so of the book is, refreshingly, not from the POV of our main team, allowing us to get into the heads of the others first before we resolve the cliffhanger from last time. We get to see MMTM be sensible, intelligent, and use their gaming knowledge well, which never works out in these sorts of books. We get to see Shirley and Clarence be the manzai comedy duo they were always meant to be. And we get to see exactly why SHINC takes Llenn’s unwanted suitor up on his offer, which is a nice combination of stick and carrot. This then allows the last two thirds of the book to simply be a bunch of really good set pieces, allowing the author to do what they do best: talk endlessly about guns and write action sequences that will look great if they’re ever animated.

I will note right away, the best part of the book for me was the carrot that got SHINC to agree to be part of the collective group, if only as it’s a tempting carrot for the reader as well. The fact that Llenn never gets to have her fated battle with these girls in book after book has become the running gag of the series, deliberately so, and it’s wonderful that THIS is the bait used to lure them in: we promise to let you have your fated battle. Of course, that promise ends up being broken, so I suppose technically this doesn’t count. But boy, it’s amazing till then, exactly what I would have wanted from a rematch, with both sides evenly matched and being clever, desperately, and crafty. Even Fukaziroh, whose job, let’s face it, is to be the goofy one, gets to do a bunch of really cool shit. M gets to be the sensible one. Pitohui is in her element, getting to shoot people and make suggestive remarks to Llenn. It ends badly, but THIS was the rematch we wanted, and we finally get it.

Unfortunately, now the boyfriend’s back, and there’s gonna be trouble. Kawahara may not be writing this, but it’s set in his universe, and thus the series has an allergic reaction when it comes to subtle, nuanced villains. But that’s next book’s problem. This one turned out to be a great ride.

By Reki Kawahara and abec. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul.

This is the first book in the “main” Sword Art Online series that was not adapted from the webnovel that Kawahara wrote years earlier. As such, it’s the first one where we should have raised expectations, and for the most part the book delivers on those expectations. No, sorry, Kirito haters, he still gets to have the big climactic finishers, but honestly, if you’re a Kirito hater but still reading Sword Art Online at Volume 21, I’m going to put the blame on you there. And, if it helps, he spends most of the book in just his underwear. That said, the prose feels smoother, the cast all get things to do that don’t involve mooning over Kirito, and some of them even get really cool things to do on their own, without Kirito at all! Yes, that’s right, More Deban has finally paid off, if only for Silica. As for the plot, well, let’s take all the SAO-style games in the world and dump all its players in a blender? Sounds about right.

We pick up in the fall, a few days before Asuna’s birthday and a couple of weeks before Kirito’s. After having to essentially spend an entire month doing homework because “I was in a coma after being stabbed, but it’s a state secret” is a poor excuse for your high school teacher, Kirito is back at his log cabin preparing to help Liz and Silica do some grinding. Unfortunately, right after Asuna and Alice arrive (yes, Alice is now a regular, and is trying to get a dragon mount in ALO), a huge system crash causes all of Aincrad to disintegrate. Our heroes are barely able to steer the falling cabin to a water landing, but it’s still pretty smashed. Worse, they appear to be inside a new game, Unital Ring, which has taken over ALL the games that use Kayaba’s “Seed”, and promises a huge reward to whoever gets to the goal. But Unital Ring is a survival game, where you have to make your own rope and knives, and our heroes are suddenly level 1. Can they figure out what’s going on? More importantly, can they save the cabin?

I will admit, it’s a lot of fun seeing Kirito depowered through a large chunk of this, though of course by the end he’s starting to get back in business. Honestly, the book feels like he’s been reading his fan mail and taking its advice. Kirito and Suguha/Leafa, for the first time in the entire series to date, actually feel like an older brother and younger sister. Yui, in the new Unital Ring, is back to being a real live girl… though that also means she has real HP. It’s not a death game per se, but apparently when you’re killed off you can’t get into the game again, so there is a lot of tension for our heroes. And then there’s the last four pages, which I will try not to spoil. But really, if you’re Kawahara and are starting to write the first non-webnovel book in the main series, what’s the very first thing you’re going to import from the other works? Correct. The other character introduced is a bit of a “I won’t tell you about her till the next volume”, but Accel World fans may find their name very familiar, especially those who just read the last volume in December.

Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait a bit longer to see the outcome of that double cliffhanger, as Vol. 22 is a short story volume, containing four short stories that were released as exclusives with various DVD anime packages in Japan. That said, one of the characters who showed up for the cliffhanger will be in the first of those short stories. In the meantime, I was very pleased with this SAO. Let’s keep it up.

By Keiichi Sigsawa and Kouhaku Kuroboshi, based on the series created by Reki Kawahara. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul.

This book was always going to have a tough time living up to the previous one, and let’s face it: it does not. It’s a pretty good book, especially in the back half once the game starts, but it does show off the big flaw with this series as opposed to its parent: Sigsawa is not as good at writing Karen, Elza, etc. as he is at writing Llenn and Pitohui. He’s here for the gun battles, and all else is secondary (leaving aside the last book, which feels like an aberration at this point). As a result, when we see something that is a huge threat to Karen in this book, it doesn’t really come off as well, because we’re far more familiar with the fast pink blur whose ideal man is her gun (no, literally, she says that here) than the tall awkward rich girl. Things are not helped either by the presence of one of my least favorite Kawahara traits, now borrowed by this author as well: the smug villain who wants the girl to submit to him.

As noted, Karen is at an event her dad is attending, trying to be a wallflower, when she meets a short, fat man who tries to commiserate with her about height. They converse, he leaves, all is good. Then she gets a marriage proposal, which her dad suggests she accept. While this is going on, there’s a new Squad Jam starting. Four people is a bit small, so this time around Pitohui grabs Clarence and Shirley to fill their ranks – though Shirley wants no part of this, really. There are two big problems with this Squad Jam, at least in this first book. The first is that we have added zombie monsters, who are attracted when one of their number is killed by gunfire. The second is that Karen’s wannabe fiancee has shown up in the game – his avatar is just as wish fulfilling for him as hers is for her – and, using her real name, demands that if he beats her she has to go out with him.

So yeah, another smug guy who wants to control the woman he desires in a Sword Art Online book, yay. He doesn’t show up in the back half, fortunately, so I will put off my grumpiness till later. As I said, the back half of the story is better, and I always enjoy seeing how different the teams in the game are to their real-life personalities – Llenn’s team gets waylaid by literal suicide bombers in the Jam, who pose quite a problem, but seeing what they’re really like made it more amusing than anything else. Our team shows off good teamwork as well – minus Shirley, who cannot let go of her grudge towards Pitohui (who, to be fair, fuels it) and Clarence, who is a big goofball and not much else, frankly. And then there’s Llenn’s constant effort to finally have a showdown with SHINC, which – no surprises – gets derailed by the cliffhanger, showing, I suppose, that money can’t buy happiness, but it comes close.

So it’s a setup book where I’m not that fond of the setup. Still, Sigsawa knows how to write his gun battles. And this one is a 3-book arc, so I’d better settle in.

By Reki Kawahara and abec. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul.

I’m not quite sure where the break is, but there was a big gap in time between Reki Kawahara starting the Moon Cradle arc in his webnovel version of Sword Art Online and his finishing it. The reason for the gap, of course, was that he was busy taking SAO and Accel World and making them actual published books. And I have to say, this book does feature a more mature style than I’m used to with this series, more in line with what he’d been doing with Progressive. There’s some wonderful prose descriptions of the Underworld here, and aside from a sneering villain (who even uses the word ‘confound’, a word only villains use), there’s not as much of the author’s usual bad habits. This book almost feels at times like it’s meant to be spinning off Ronie and Tiese into their own book series, serving as sort of a distaff Kirito and Eugeo for the next generation. But of course the issue there is that Kirito and Asuna are still around, and why call up Blue Beetle and Booster Gold when you can get Superman and The Flash?

We’re back in Centoria again after Kirito and Ronie’s adventures in the dark lands, but the threat of a civil war is still ongoing, and the investigation is proving frustrating, mostly as it would seem to involve people who can easily bypass the Taboo Index and also have tons of power. You would think it might be the Emperors and high nobles, but we’re shown a quick flashback at the start of the book that helpfully tells us they’ve all been killed off by our heroes. Fortunately, as it turns out, Tiese’s inability to let go of Eugeo sees her and Ronie visiting a mansion rumored to be haunted, and finding that it’s actually home to the very conspiracy they’re looking for. Can they stop the big bad by themselves? Well, no, it’s Kirito’s series still. But they do most of it. And their dragons are very cute.

The writing, as I noted at the start of this review, may be more mature, but the plotting still leaves something to be desired. He even admits in the afterword that most everything he sets up in these two books is left open-ended (including Ronie’s own love for Kirito, which Asuna muses on but never actually sits down with her to discuss), and it gives the whole volume a feeling of a series that got cancelled by Shonen Jump before it could really tell its story. There’s also a chapter with Ronie’s baby dragon going to get help, which involves befriending a rat and has a very Incredible Journey feel to it, but is also 100% pointless. I did really enjoy the scene with Kirito and Asuna getting ready for bed, which shows a relaxed ease to them as a couple (though honestly, Kirito still behaves like a kid a great deal of the time). Notably, they sleep in the same bed with pajamas on – after the first SAO book, any suggestion they’re a sexually active couple has been thoroughly absent.

So the prose is good here, but it leaves a reader dissatisfied if they were hoping for things to be tied up in a neat bow. But fear not, lovers of Kirito everywhere (there are some, right?), we’re getting a brand new arc next time that is not from a webnovel. Unital Ring brings us back to real-world future Japan, introduces a new game to confound everyone, and may bring back a few surprises from the past. But it won’t have Ronie or Tiese.

By Reki Kawahara and abec. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul.

Well, having wrapped up the 10-volume Alicization arc, here we are back in the Underworld anyway. This book takes place in the subjective 200 years of time that Kirito and Asuna spent there before returning to the real world – in fact, it takes place in the first few months of those 200 years. There’s still a lot to be sorted out, mostly as the darklanders live in a barren wasteland (because it’s meant to be a game and they were meant to be evil) and the humans live in nice plentiful farmlands. Worse still, there’s a murder, something thought to be impossible. It quickly becomes clear that the murderer is trying to set things up so that there will be another war between the two groups. Can Kirito and Ronie find out who is behind all this? And can Ronie actually manage to confess to Kirito, something that seems to elude all the other heroines not named Asuna. Fortunately, she has a big advantage here: she’s the 3rd-person narrator, and the book is better for it.

Those who don’t like Kirito… well, first of all, why are you reading Vol. 19 of this series? But secondly, you won’t like this one, as he’s overpowered and also cheeky most of the time. It’s easy to see why Ronie loves him, and also easy to see why she feels inferior compared to Asuna, who is very much in the wise all-knowing mode here. She and Tiese have the same problem, but framed differently: Tiese is still in love with Eugeo, but he’s dead, and she can’t move on. Meanwhile, Ronie is in love with Kirito, who is in her face every day, but is also taken. In other words, Ronie falls into the same category as every other SAO heroine who isn’t Asuna (or, arguably, Alice). Ronie also has some doubts about her ability as a Knight, though those start to be resolved by the end of the book when she’s able to channel her inner Kirito and do seemingly impossible stunts.

We get not one but two babies in this book – Fanatio’s child at the start, who gets to be thrown hundreds of feet into the air and then caught, every baby’s dream, as well as the child of Iskahn and Sheyta, who shown off the two sides coming together and also sadly proves to be our baby in distress towards the end, though I suppose I should count myself lucky that there are no rape threats in this book. Indeed, with the lack of that and also the lack of a super evil sneering villain, this book shows off a maturity that the SAO series has lacked at times. This was, I believe, the last of the webnovel material to be adapted for light novels – which is important, because it means we’re moving past the sometimes amateurish writing from 15 years ago. And, as I said before, the book also reads better when not in first-person perspective. I wish he did that more often.

This is the first of a two-parter, and the next volume promises a bit more Asuna. Still likely filtered through Ronie, through, which is fine. I like her. SAO fans should find a lot to enjoy here, and SAO haters should find a lot of ammo.

By Keiichi Sigsawa and Kouhaku Kuroboshi, based on the series created by Reki Kawahara. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul.

I honestly feel a bit suckered in. We’ve had, for the last five volumes, a bunch of goofy fun gun battles, with some nice characterization and an ongoing plotline about what people game for. The author, who is known for writing endless amounts of spinoffs for other people’s work, also wrote himself into the series as a complete loser who exists to get mocked and humiliated. And, really, for about 85% of this 6th book, we get much the same thing. People are here to read the gun battles. There’s a reason for that: they’re good gun battles. There’s a lingering plotline, which we think will be dealt with in the epilogues, that has Karen wondering why she does GGO anyway – what’s in it for her? But no, this gets answered in the climax of the book. Instead, the 2nd epilogue is there to make you say “Oh, right. This is ALSO the author of Kino’s Journey. He can create something absolutely stunning as well.”

LLENN and the others are invited to a different kind of event in GGO. They’re trying to develop some NPCs, and want to test them using the top teams in the previous Squad Jams. So the teams are invited to storm a castle which is being defended by other guns. They can either work together or fight each other – indeed, the first half of the book shows off some of the teams wanting to fight – particularly LLENN, who has not realized that her inability to fight SHINC is the series’ running gag. Once they get intel on the group in the castle they’re up against, the book becomes a puzzle – how to get into the castle and/or kill those inside it without dying three times (they get multiple lives here, which is good, as the book starts with LLENN getting killed in a flashforward).

I’m going to try not to spoil the ending, which is hard, as it leaves me with not much to talk about. Suffice to say there are some good hints dropped here and there, particularly the scenes between LLENN and Jacob, one of the NPCs. Other than that, we’re left with a game situation which does not really rev up Putohui’s bonkers-ometer, and as a result she’s rather rational and awesome, much to LLENN’s surprise. LLENN is also able, through the course of this battle of attrition, to recall why she does this sort of thing in the first place. The side story helps there as well, when Miyu suggests to Karen a much of parodies of games which help to solidify her feelings. Basically, playing GGO for LLENN, with its mock battles and not-really-murders, is fun. Gaming is fun. And, as the epilogue I am not spoiling shows us, it can also be valuable in other, more tactile ways.

So, congratulations to Keiichi Sigsawa, who with one plot twist made this probably my favorite volume in the series. The 7th book is not scheduled yet, so it may be a while till we see LLENN and Pitohui again. (Clover’s Regret in between, perhaps?). That said, when we return I expect Squad Jam IV will bring things back to the sort of book Sigsawa normally writes in this series – happy little gamers killing things.

By Reki Kawahara and abec. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul.

This is not, of course, the final volume of Sword Art Online. There’s a 2-part Underworld arc after this one, and Kawahara just started a new arc with surprise twists that’s still ongoing in Japan. But this has the feel of an ending, and you certainly get the sense that had they wanted to, the series could happily have ended here. It’s a good ending, despite all the issues I’ve had with Alicization in the past, A very strong beginning, then a middle that gets a bit tedious and annoying, before a stronger finish. A word of warning to those who love Sword Art Online but hate Kirito: he’s back, and is absolutely ridiculous in this book. He flies, like Superman. It’s even lampshaded. (I was actually startled when the book shifted back to his first-person narration, as I’d forgotten that was the standard.) Do the others get anything to do? Um, no, Kirito’s back. Didn’t you hear? But they do cheer him on really well.

To be fair, Asuna does some things as well. In fact, this leads to what may be my favorite part of the book. The book itself is not shy about showing that, haremettes aside (with Alice a strong #2 at this point – sorry, Sinon) there is only one ultimate pairing, and it’s Kirito and Asuna. That said, when the chips are down and they need some inner strength and resolve, they do not turn to each other. It’s no surprise that Kirito hears Eugeo’s voice telling him to get up and save everyone – their bond is the most important part of this arc, Alice or no, and Underworld is the sort of world where the spirit of a dead person taking form to spur on the living would be par for the course. That said, Yuuki was never in the Underworld, but she’s here as well, reassuring Asuna and giving readers one last chance to see Mother’s Rosario in action. I like how the relationships between Kirito and Eugeo, and between Asuna and Yuuki, are shown to be so impactful and important on their lives going forward.

For those who want to see Kirito being a bit merciless, there’s his dealing with both PoH (who gets an abbreviated backstory here showing his childhood) and Gabriel Miller – both of whom he essentially murders, though Gabriel’s actual ending back in “the real world” is a bit more fantastical than I’d like in a non-game setting, and also reminded me of the end of the movie Ghost. Unfortunately, Kayaba is also still around, despite dying 16 books ago, and Kawahara continues to try to show him as a true hero saving everyone while occasionally dropping the odd “he also killed over 4000 people and there’s no forgiving that” paragraph which really does not convince anyone. To be honest, after Underworld resolves, the rest of the battle on the Ocean Turtle reads as a letdown, and I was relieved when we got to the epilogue.

We get a good look at Kirito’s self-destructive tendencies in his relationships with other people here, and how Asuna and the others have helped cure that mostly. He’s now actively thinking of a future, for both himself and the Underworld, at a Japanese college. (Given what Lisbeth said about them being at a special school and getting counseling that assumes they’re all going to snap at any moment, I assume the government will lean on organizations hard to employ/educate them in the future, as otherwise I can’t see anyone hiring a SAO survivor.) He has Asuna at his side, of course. And also Alice, who is now in the real world via a robot body, which is eyebrow-raising but does lead to the best joke in the book, which I won’t spoil but involves a big box. (It’s also hinted on the back cover.)

And so Alicization is over, and thank Goodness. Kirito is back and taking the spotlight from everyone else, so haters will be thrilled they can get very angry again. That said, there was a very obvious story not told in this book – what happened to Kirito and Asuna in the two hundred years they were trapped in Underworld? We might find out in the 19th book, which stars… Ronie?

By Keiichi Sigsawa and Kouhaku Kuroboshi, based on the series created by Reki Kawahara. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul.

As with most of these volumes, I find that this volume of SAO Alternative starts slow and gradually gets going till a 2nd half that verges on fantastic. The first part of the book briefly checks in with all the other teams, showing us what they were doing while Llenn and company were having their adventures by the train depot in the first part. They all gradually get the same notice: one of them is a traitor, please report to the traitor area for debriefing. The reactions range from vague dissatisfaction to rage to deep sadness, and then there’s Pitohui, who is OVER THE MOON. The story then moves to a massive ocean liner that is grounded on the island… except the island is sinking under the ocean, so gradually it becomes a real boat. Can everyone get to the boat before they drown? Can they defeat this new team made up of “betrayers”? And will the betrayers really work together anyway?

There are some nice moments with characters other than the two leads, I will briefly admit. The soldier that Pitohui fought in the 2nd Squad Jam gets a name and some righteous fury, not that it does him much good. SHINC are still the best huge Russian women who are really cute middle schoolers out there, and I really loved it when Llenn and Eva teamed up – if they can’t have their long-awaited battle (and it’s become clear by now the narrative will ALWAYS stop them in some way), this is almost as good. Fukaziroh is also a lot of fun, with quips at the ready, though she also functions as a good sounding board for Pitohui to actually (gasp!) open up. And the final battle between Fukaziroh and Eva is almost as good as Llenn and Pitohui’s. But not quite. Because, once again, we’re here to read about these two girls and their twisted relationship.

A warning for those who love reading SAO spinoffs but hate Kirito: he’s not in this book, but a flashback shows Pitohui, as a beta tester for SAO, fighting a swordsman who is very clearly him. I’m very glad that Pitohui missed getting trapped in SAO despite what it ended up doing to her already somewhat broken self, as I suspect she would have ended up in Laughing Coffin. (So does she.) But it’s seeing Pito’s vulnerability that’s the best part of this book – admitting to Fukaziroh that she’s terrified of Llenn, her real-life bodies own limits impacting her performance towards the end, and her own latent attraction to Llenn, who is not only cute and lethal (especially when in a rage-filled haze as she is towards the end here) but also in real life tall, athletic, and pretty. Sadly, Llenn still seems to have no interest.

I left out the book’s big spoiler, as it’s a very well done twist. And the ship’s AI was wonderful. Other than that… well, people read Alternative for the gun battles, and there are certainly a lot of those here. I read Alternative for the characters, though, and it was great to see some development with them as well. Will we get a 4th Squad Jam next/ Or something else?

By Reki Kawahara and abec. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul.

I’m not sure why it is that odd volumes of SAO seem to be irritating me so much. It could simply be because I’m rather weary of this arc, which is an excellent reminder to authors about why you should not make your story arc ten volumes long. It could also be because, once again, this series cried out for authorial and editorial intervention and did not get it. I know that one of the reasons that publishers are so happy to pick up Japanese webnovels and turn them into light novels is that they know the work is already written to a large degree, so deadlines aren’t a thing. But this is about the 4th book or so where Kawahara has written in the afterword “I sort of cringe at what I wrote here, but decided not to change it”. Not sexual assault this time – although that’s in here as well – but the feelings between Japan, China and Korea, which is, like a great deal of SAO proper, an interesting plot point that is handled somewhat hamhandedly.

That’s Leafa and Sinon on the cover with comatose Kirito behind them, and good news for fans of one of those characters, they do get some really good scenes. Of the non-Asuna female characters that Kawahara has created, Sinon is the closest he’s had to another success, and I really liked her here, despite the fact that she deals with Gabriel Miller at his most “I am eeeeeeeeevil!” self. He also turns out to be known to her from GGO, and her battle is probably the action highlight of the book. As for Leafa, it’s almost comical in how badly she’s been treated since… well, her introduction? Here she comes down nowhere near the other characters, gets another egregious sexual assault scene (it’s even framed as ‘worms’ and ‘tentacles’, just to make it more obvious), and finally arrives too late to really affect anything for the ending “darkest before the dawn” climax. I just get so frustrated when I read Leafa’s character.

Other things, some good, some bad. Lisbeth’s discussion of how the SAO survivors are treated in school, as ticking timebombs who are required to get therapy (and, I suspect, will need to get SAO-related jobs or not get hired after graduation, similar to what Kirito is doing now) is really really interesting and therefore I wish we’d had any indication of it at all before this. There’s another traitor towards the end of the book, tied in to both the Administrator plotline and going back to the Fairy Dance plotline who is yet another “I am written to be as evil, creepy and misogynist as possible so you don’t like me”, which, y’know, objective obtained, but you already have Gabriel. On the bright side, the ongoing “what defines a real human” plotline is reasonably well handled, and we’ll see him handle it even better in the Progressive series. And, much as I am completely sick of Laughing Coffin, it is nice to have an antagonist who is not driven by lust, just love of death and cruelty. Welcome back, PoH, I look forward to seeing you get yours eventually.

I was expecting, given the title, the book would end with Kirito back in action. I was wrong, though it looks like it’ll happen early in the next book. Which will be the last in this arc, thank God. Till then, you have to read this if you follow the series, but be ready to lose more of that tooth enamel.

By Keiichi Sigsawa and Kouhaku Kuroboshi, based on the series created by Reki Kawahara. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul.

You know the drill by now. This is Keiichi Sigsawa’s version of Gun Gale Online, meaning for the most part depth of characterization and plot is left at the door. Last time we at least had the real world threat of Pitohui threatening to kill herself, this time we don’t even have that, and our two teams of two join up to form a terrifying team of four, because there’s another Squad Jam, and the same people are going to be around for it. Llenn is there to see if she can finally have her battle against her gymnastics team friends; Pitohui is there because she wants to fight Llenn but will settle for this instead; M is there because Pitohui is there. and Fukaziroh is the comedy relief. This time around there’s a new rule added, but we only get to see that at the very end of the volume, so for the most part we’re here to see action scenes of LPFM (their team name) kill a lot of people. And they do.

We don’t see much of the quartet’s real world selves except at the start, where we find Karen has been avoiding GGO because a) school is happening; b) she did what she wanted to do with Pitohui and doesn’t have a concrete goal; and c) she’s still weirded out by Elza kissing her. But nothing is going to stop Elsa doing this again, even if she’d rather be fighting Llenn. The rest of the book is the Squad Jam itself, taking place on an island that’s rapidly sinking into the sea, meaning the squads have to keep moving to the center or they will die. Assuming they aren’t shot or blown up by their competitors. M, the leader this time around, holes the group up in a disused railyard, and while Llenn serves as bait (she’s fast, she won’t get killed.. probably) sets up a trap for everyone who’s going after them. And there are a lot of folks going after them, as they’re the favorites.

Of course, there are a few others we do get some development for, notably Shirley, the hunting girl from the last book who almost (but not quite) killed Pitohui. The frustration at her being unable to do this has led to her honing her skills in GGO to a terrifying degree, making her own explosive bullets and becoming a feared sniper. And there’s also Clarence, still female despite the name and the bishonen appearance, who also pulls a 180 from the previous Squad Jam where she was nice enough to give Llenn her ammo as she’s dying. Here Clarence is… well, let’s just say not as nice, but she’s certainly having fun. The battle between Clarence and Shirley may be the highlight of the volume, and I also ship them a bit now.

But of course this is Part 1 of 2, and the 2nd book promises to be even better thanks to the rule implemented at the end, which gives Pitohui her fondest desire. We’ll see how it shakes out next time. Expect lots of gunfight scenes.

By Reki Kawahara and abec. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul.

There’s not nearly as much Kirito/Asuna shipping in this second volume of this two-parter, but that’s fine as I actually was getting into the game part for once. Kirito is dealing with things that puzzle him on several fronts. First, and pun intended, there are the puzzles, including the last boss being a nearly insoluble game of sudoku. Secondly, there are the changes from the beta, meaning Kirito can sometimes be caught doing the wrong thing. Thirdly, the player killers are messing things up by killing NPCs and forcing the game into a completely different direction. And lastly, and most importantly, the NPCs are simply far too complex and realistic to be explained by simple programming. It’s not just Kizmel anymore – we also meet a young girl and her mother whose backstory is too thought out and only makes sense if Aincrad’s inhabitants had been around long before the players were trapped there. All of this disturbs Kirito, a gamer who really doesn’t want to accept NPCs with their own agendas and emotions, more than Asuna, a non-gamer who simply accepts it for the most part.

We also meet another group of players, who are meant to seem sinister but in the end appear to be mostly innocent but easily tricked. They were part of the group trying to stay safe at the Town of Beginnings, but that’s a lot harder than it sounds when you need money for food and shelter. Again, it’s a reminder that a big reason that Kawahara is writing this expansion of this original series is to deal with all the things that he never did when it was just one short book. We also see the flip side of Kirito and Asuna bonding so much with Kizmel, which is that the bad guys can also bond with the NPC bad guys. In fact, one can argue that in this book the villains win for the most part, as the infiltrator of Lind and Kibaou’s groups gets away, and the fallen elf collects the keys that they had been trying to collect. Basically, each book is building on the next, and I’m sure we’ll see both Kizmel and the fallen elves again.

The funniest part of the book involves Kirito meeting an NPC sage who teaches him the meditation technique… which involves NOT eating the hamburg steak directly in front of him. The amusing thing is that, when Kirito tries to calm his mind by thinking about food, the sage rejects it, but when he reflects on his time in the game with Asuna, that’s perfectly OK. Asuna is still denying that she and Kirito are a couple when confronted, in a typical tsundere way, but there’s no question that she trusts and feels relaxed around him where she doesn’t with anyone else. And there’s also Kizmel, who seems to confidently be trying to work them into a threesome – I say confidently as she seems confident neither of them will go for it.

So we get a new floor next time around, but it may be a bit of a wait again, as I don’t think the 7th book is out in Japan yet. There’s a lot of open questions, though. Biggest of all – when did Saber Asuna change to Lancer Asuna?

By Reki Kawahara and abec. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul.

Thankfully, this is a much stronger volume than the previous one. It helps that this time around we have very little POV of Gabriel Miller, though the little we get shows he’s as awful as ever, and has a new reason to be after Alice. There’s also no Kirito POV, as he spends the entire book still comatose. This allows a number of characters to get POV scenes, which Kawahara admits in the afterword he’s not really used to, but it plays out pretty well, as we’re introduced to a number of Integrity Knights, as well as some villains, and get a little more into what makes them human. Which is good, given that the entire premise of this arc is that the cast of the Underworld are meant to be just as important and sentient as our heroes, even if Alice is framed as the most special of all. And, coming down as a gift from heaven – literally – Asuna joins the fray, with God-tier powers and an immediate rivalry with Alice, because the author never met a cliche he didn’t like.

Unfortunately, sometimes that means cliches that shouldn’t really be used. I sighed when we got to the Integrity Knight with a massive crush on Fanatio, who was forced to become a knight because she fell in love with another woman, falls in love with Fanatio while a knight, and is promptly killed off protecting her. I should be grateful she wasn’t framed as evil or predatory, I suppose. The ‘bad guy’ cast also ranting about the “white iums’ (aka the good guys) also rankles, though I know that it comes from a fantasy base where white = good and black = bad, and was no doubt written into the Underworld by the developers. Better handled was the cowardly Knight who decides to hide from the final battle, and unfortunately for him ends up in the same tent as Ronie, Tiese and their unresponsive charge, and he is forced to learn the true meaning of Christmas. Or at least that some things are worth fighting for.

Most of this book is a fight sequence, and there are some good ones, particularly a battle between a stoic and (mostly) silent Integrity Knight and a Pugilist (who are basically a bunch of Hercules guys) on the opposite side who find that each has an equal bloodlust for a good fight. That said, we can’t avoid the plot entirely. Asuna is in the game now, but she won’t be enough, as the villains have hacked it to allow a bunch of Americans to log on – not telling them these are anything other than NPCs – and let them kill everyone. Fortunately, Yui – who laments the fact that she’s not as good an AI as Alice and company while at the same time surpassing her own limits, a scene that’s very deftly handled – is bringing in a few more ringers. Yes, at last, we’re getting the rest of the band back together, as the other “main” cast members prepare to enter the Underworld as well.

We have two more books to go in this arc, and I will be very surprised if the next one does not end with Kirito ascendant. But there’s no denying that things are tough right now. Fortunately, with the power of More Deban on its way, we can likely find a way past it. That said, SAO is every five months now, so be prepared for a slightly longer wait.

By Keiichi Sigsawa and Kouhaku Kuroboshi, based on the series created by Reki Kawahara. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul.

This volume picks up where the last one left off, showing us the bulk of the 2nd Squad Jam, featuring most of the teams we saw in the last one plus a few new ones. The bulk of the book is, of course, the audience waiting for the big fight between Llenn and Pitohui. I say “audience” rather than reader as a large part of this book takes place in a bar in the virtual GGO world, where non-participants and the newly killed can gather to watch what’s going on and cheer people on. It’s a fun conceit, and helps to break up long pages of descriptions of action/descriptions of guns. Moreover, while our heroes are still the stars, the other teams also get a lot of great things to do (provided you like action – I mean, this is never going to be anything but “OMG, GUN FIGHTS!”) and show off their cool sides. And we meet a couple of characters I expect will pop up again in the future.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen an author quite so gleeful about playing around in someone else’s sandbox as Keiichi Sigsawa is here. (He even writes himself in to have a pathetic “I get killed off” cameo – again.) Theoretically there should be an impending feeling of doom around the events in this game – after all, Pitohui is gaming it so that it may have real-life consequences – but honestly, you rarely get that sense because you’re too busy watching everyone have all the fun in the world. Miyu/Fukaziroh greatly helps here, and I love her addition to the cast so much – aside from being a classic “just cannot shut up” type, she’s a great foil for Llenn. Her crowning moment may be emulating the Black Knight in Monty Python when she gets her hands and feet shot off and still crawls along to try to do some damage.

The battle between Llenn and Pitohui is the climax of the book, with everything else as a mere epilogue (including the actual results of the game, which I found hilarious). Llenn’s desperation to think of something, anything in order to kill off Pitohui herself is admirable and also a bit laughable, especially when she gets stuck in a thinking mantra. She’s at her best when running on instinct, though, and when her gun finally breaks (again, and yes, it still speaks to her), she has her knife, and then a makeshift knife, and then… well, I was impressed, let’s leave it at that. After that sort of battle, the epilogue was a bit of a letdown, especially with the lamest attempt at a fakeout ever – and to be fair, Karen does not fall for it even one iota. Now that Llenn and Pitohui have resolved things, though, what’s next? A third jam? Can we combine the four leads and have the best team ever?

This is still the light novel equivalent of a sugar rush, and I recommend skipping the gun nerd prose unless you really care a lot more than I do. But otherwise the GGO spinoff offers the finest quality action you’ll see in some time. Certainly better than the main series, and I think Kawahara would likely agree.

By Reki Kawahara and abec. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul.

I was expecting that this volume would be a bit of a letdown after the highs of the previous work. Sadly, it’s even worse than I had anticipated: I actively don’t like this volume. Well, parts of this volume. We can divide the books events in half. Half of it involves Alice, having run away from the Integrity Knights at the end of the last book, living in the woods with Kirito, who is unresponsive and seemingly braindead. She’s struggling to find a purpose to fight, and various circumstances seem to give her that. This is not great writing, but it’s at least decent, and helps to set up the next couple of books. Alas, we then have the other half of the book. Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga discusses Shonen Power Creep, but there’s another aspect that Kawahara really suffers from, Shonen Villain Creep. Each villain has to be worse and more monstrous than the last one, doing even more evil things. So, ladies and gentlemen, meet Gabriel Miller.

Gabriel is introduced to us as a young corporate executive type, and we then flash back to his childhood, where he lived a comfortable life, met a nice sweet young girl to be his childhood friend, and then… well, Gabriel is a sociopath, like so many other of Kawahara’s villains, so you can probably guess. He’s part of a terrorist squad invading the ocean turtle, where Asuna and Kirito’s body are currently, in order to get the results of their experiments – Alice. He seems to regard humans and bugs exactly the same way, and is a thoroughly unpleasant individual. (He is assisted by another evil guy named Vassago, and I suspect that we may be familiar with him from previous volumes, though I will hold off till it’s confirmed.) Gabriel and Vassago are locked away from the Underworld, but they can still become “characters” in it. Which they proceed to do, as Gabriel is now the Demon Lord invading the human world.

The main problem with this book, and it’s teeth-grinding, is that half of it is from Gabriel’s POV. Given I already hate the way Kawahara writes villains, having to experience their thoughts for so long is unbearable. There’s also a couple of horribly violent deaths in the book, both women of course, there to make the reader feel sad and also make me wonder if the author had recently watched Se7en. (Speaking of which, Kawahara is rewriting his webnovel and editing it, and he changed events in Book 11 so that Ronie and Tiese are not, in fact, raped – however, dialogue towards the end of this book shows that he isn’t very good at cleaning up the mentions of it after the fact.) This may come as a surprise to the casual SAO fan, but I really miss Kirito’s POV here. Alice’s uncertainty and Gabriel’s loathsome villainy just make this book very hard to read. Oh yes, and Gabriel has also been in Gun Gale Online, and wants to do nasty things to Sinon as well. So that’s just great.

This was originally written when Kawahara was a much younger man, and it shows – it reads like the sort of thing an emo guy would write in order to be grim and gritty. The author, I think, realizes this – after the anime adaptation of Vol. 11, he publicly apologized for the rape scene, and said he wouldn’t write that sort of thing anymore. Unfortunately, it does mean we still have to plow through this book, which is filled with setup for cooler events to come, as well as appalling sadism. I won’t say to skip it, but you won’t enjoy it.

By Reki Kawahara and abec. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul.

There are several reasons that I think that Reki Kawahara is happier writing the Progressive novels, but the primary one is that he really just loves writing Kirito and Asuna falling deeply in love with each other – something we get quite a bit of here. He admits in the afterword that he’s not entirely sure how this is going to mesh with canon – in the original series, Kirito and Asuna act like they’re casual acquaintances when we first see them. But as I’ve said before, I think he knows he doesn’t have to worry about that till about Floor 10, and they’re only on the sixth. What’s more, this is Progressive’s first two-parter – which is likely why it’s shorter than usual. If you dislike Kirito (it’s all his POV again) or don’t care for Kirito and Asuna as a couple, the entire Progressive series is skippable for you. For the rest of us, it’s pretty fun and adorable – well, mostly adorable. Those player killers keep coming back, and they’re after our heroes.

I had to remind myself what was going on in the plot, as it’s been two full years since the last volume (fortunately, we will have less of a wait for the next one). The new floor consists mainly of puzzles to be solved, such as sudoku or the sliding pieces puzzles. Kirito and Asuna try to breeze through the main quest in the town, helped along by Kirito’s beta knowledge, but a spanner is thrown into the works when they’re captured while under a paralysis spell (as part of the quest they’re doing) by Morte and his partner, who are ready for some killing. Kirito and Asuna are really starting to fear for their lives here – especially Kirito, who’s been attacked multiple times. Things aren’t being helped by the ongoing war between the two lead factions, and Kirito attempting to deftly not support either side. Fortunately, the two of them do also have their bond with Kizmel and the elves, and can (mostly) safely relax in her presence – even if that means sharing a hot spring. And a bed.

It does have to be said, this volume of Progressive also contains an awful lot of game mechanics. I’ve never been overly fond of these sort of things in light novels, and I’m not fond of it here. But power through the endless pages of Kirito describing how his sword movements work or which stat boost he should get next, because the meat of the book is Kirito and Asuna’s relationship. They’re simply cute, and honestly I think the only think holding them back right now is the strange sense of self-hatred Kirito gets about himself as a romantic lead (yes, I am aware how ironic this is given the SAO franchise as a whole) and Asuna’s embarrassment, though by the end of the book she not only “bundles” with him in a queen sized bed (in the Scottish sense of the word) but they’re connecting pinkies as they sleep so that they’re always aware of each other’s presence. Sword Art Online Progressive is, at heart, a love story.

It’s also only half done – there’s no cliffhanger, and the author admits this is basically “I wrote too long a book, so they cut it in half”. I’m definitely ready for the next half, and more shipping tease. Oh yes, and more Argo! She was barely in this one.