Monthly Archives: January 2019

Accel World: Snow White’s Slumber

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By Reki Kawahara and Hima. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Jocelyne Allen.

I was a little grumpy with the last volume of Accel World. After feeling that the Armor of Catastrophe arc went on far too long (a fact the author also agreed with me on), seeing it return as a Mark II made me slap my hand to my forehead. Fortunately, we were near the end of this arc when it appeared, and so it’s taken care of in one volume, though not without considerable sacrifice. More importantly, there’s a lot of really interesting discussion about the nature of Accel World in general, as well as its forbears. Striving for a meaning and purpose in life is something we see a lot of in the real world, but in the Accel World, the meaning and purpose of life may actually be a tangible thing, given that it was created. What’s more, the nature of Metatron reminds me very much of the nature of Kizmel in Sword Art Online; a sense of “these supposed NPCs have gone way beyond what everyone thought they would do’.

A lot of this volume, given that Haruyuki is separated from Kuroyukihime, focuses on the relationship between him and Metatron, who would likely have risen up fairly high on the list of ‘harem candidates’ were it not for the events later in the book, and even so the epilogue shows there may be hope. I admit I could have done without the “I speak like a tsundere princess” thing, but I really did like the discussion they had, which also shows how clever Haruyuki is, piecing together stuff that’s been bubbling around inside his head for the last 15 volumes or so. She also gives him the strength to finish off the bad guys before they get even more powerful, and (hopefully) get ris of the ISS kits making everyone lose it in the real world as well, though that last part remains to be seen. Everyone else got a lot of good stuff to do as well, and there was some nice development of Nico, who gets her armor back… mostly. There’s even a heartwarming festival to end things!

Except that what most everyone will be talking about is the arrival of White Cosmos, the White King who we’d never seen before, the power behind the Accelerated Research Society, and Kuroyukihime’s real-life sister. Given this is a Kawahara villain, it’s no real surprise that her goal appears to be to drive everyone in the game to total despair. Subtlety is not why you read this author. I suspect that she’s mostly going to be used to drive character development for Kuroyukihime, who wisely (and with Haruyuki’s help) chooses not to fight her just now. And of course to contrast the ‘girl shrouded in black who’s really kind vs. girl who looks white and kind but is secretly manipulative and awful’. Again, subtlety is not on display here. But it makes for a nice, dramatic scene, and would look pretty cool animated.

Given that we’ve wrapped up a long arc here, I would not be surprised if the next volume is lighter in tone. In the meantime, fans of the series shold enjoy this new volume, especially the talk between Haruyuki and Metatron.

After the Rain, Vol. 2

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By Jun Mayuzuki. Released in Japan as “Koi wa Ameagari no You ni” in two separate volumes by Shogakukan, serialized in the magazine Big Comic Spirits. Released in North America by Vertical Comics. Translated by Jocelyne Allen.

As you might imagine given the title of the series is After the Rain, it rains an awful lot in this manga. This not only creates an appropriate atmosphere, but allows both of its protagonists to come down with bad colds. This causes both Akira and Kondo to lose control of their emotions a bit, allowing suppressed feelings to boil over – nothing going beyond hugging, mind you. No one is quite ready for this relationship to advance that far yet. (Well, Akira may want it to – her fantasies when she’s in bed with a cold verge close to a masturbatory scene.) Plus both Akira and Kondo have things in their life they need to work out first. Akira is still trying to untie herself from her previous track team life, despite her friend Haruka insisting they can still be friends. And Kondo has a hidden side – he writes. But doesn’t want anyone to find out about it.

It’s no coincidence that both of these plotlines resemble each other – our leads are very much alike despite the age difference. Akira is determined to move on from her injury, but feels like the only way she can do that is by completely cutting out that part of her life. This naturally upsets Haruka, who is reduced to tears hearing Akira essentially deny everything they had. As for Kondo, seeing Akira recommend a book by his college friend Chihiro brings up old memories, and causes him to reunite with said friend and discuss their old literature club, which also apparently had his ex-wife in it. The reunion allows him to give advice to Akira on her fight, which is, essentially, “even if you do never speak again, this will not change the precious moments you once had with each other”. Which is good, if non-confrontational, advice – I’m sort of rooting for Haruka here.

We also meet Akira’s father in this volume (complete with a great “stop telling people I’m dead!” joke), which is good, because it shows us that her dad really isn’t much like Kondo at all. (So he’s not a replacement father figure, which I was fearing.) She’s also a lot more outgoing with her dad, sort of like the flashbacks of her and Haruka that we see before the accident. Like most high school kids, she’s ready to grow up and be taken seriously as an adult, and is frustrated by people who still want to treat her as a kid – not realizing that the reason they’re doing it so much is they know they don’t have much time left to pamper her. She’s almost an adult, but you want to stop time just so that you can still have her need you in the same way. It amounted to my favorite chapter in the book.

This story continues to be a sweet, slow burn, and my misgivings about the May-December romance have faded a bit. More to the point, I just like the writing of the characters. Even if the romance doesn’t happen, I want to see what happens next in their life anyway.

Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon, Vol. 3

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By Hirukuma and Ituwa Kato. Released in Japan as “Jidou Hanbaiki ni Umare Kawatta Ore wa Meikyuu wo Samayou” by Kadokawa Shoten. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Andrew Prowse.

This third volume of Reborn as a Vending Machine tries to expand the world that we’re in and give our hero a bit more insight into goals for the future. As we’ve seen, a lot of his “what should I do next” thoughts involve collecting points to level up, get new products, etc. Here, after a very amusing eating contest, Shui from the mercenary group wins the right to have Boxxo for the entire day, and takes him to the first floor of the dungeon, home to (try to contain your surprise) a group of poor yet plucky orphan children. The dungeon, it turns out, needs to have someone reach a certain level in order to get to the second floor. So for the unwanted kids, or whose whose parents have died, they have this. It reminds Boxxo to, if you’ll pardon me, think outside the box and realize this is a real life world he’s now in, not just a game RPG.

There’s also his relationship with Lammis, which continues to be chaste (he’s a vending machine) but still have that “I am a harem manga protagonist” feel to it. Lammis is clearly deeply in love with Boxxo, and as such will try to overcome her limits in order to stay by his side (she’s terrified of the supernatural, and the last half of the book involves nothing but that) and also gets easily embarrassed around him (she tries to hide her heavy period, which doesn’t work but does allow Boxxo to show off that he can also dispense sanitary pads). As for Boxxo, his emotions are still a bit flat, but it’s pretty clear he likes Lammis quite a bit. I’m not entirely sure where the series’ endgame is here, but am content with it simply being cute and chaste – it really does get pretty adorable.

Less adorable is the climax to the third book, where our heroes defeat a skeleton lord and then discover the demon behind the skeleton lord, who is vastly more powerful. For a moment I wondered if the book was actually going to kill off a few regulars – the villain actually stops Hulemy and Shui’s hearts, and you briefly think the book might be going in a dark direction. But no, it’s just an excuse for Boxxo to recall that AED stations can also be part of a vending machine, and that he can use that to save their lives. Also, he has telekinesis now, though we don’t get too much of a sense of how he’ll use that. Honestly, you don’t want this series getting too dark – it’s about a guy reincarnated as a vending machine – so I’m fine with his breaking out vaguely deus ex vending machina powers so that everyone is fine again.

While the series has a number of volumes after this in its webnovel version, Kadokawa hasn’t published a new volume in about two years, so this may be all the vending machine we see. (The author has been writing KonoSuba side story volumes, which may explain it.) Which is a shame, as despite its truly ridiculous premise I found myself drawn into each book, trying to see what would be happening next. I’ll miss you, Boxxo.