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

Accel World in general is a classic example of a series that is a lot of fun provided you don’t think too hard about much of it. This new volume was filled with scenes and moments I felt were pretty cool, but when I tried to tie them into the ongoing plot I went “hey, um, wait…”. That said, it’s not like Sword Art Online doesn’t also have that problem. If SAO is the light novel equivalent of Shonen Jump, then Accel World is its Shonen Magazine equivalent, with nice pizzazz and lots of fanservice. (Probably for the best that Haruyuki is in pig form on the cover there.) It does not help, admittedly, that we are still in the middle of this very long arc. The author promises, in the afterword, that it will end in the next book, but admits that he’s said that before and no one believes him. Oh yes, and after raising the dead, sort of, in the last book, we follow it up by… doing it again? Wow, raising the dead is EASY.

Everyone is still discussing the big plan to take out the massive sun-like enemy that’s keeping all the kings trapped, and Haruyuki’s new sword, with its heat resistance forced by the Blacksmith of Eternal Peril, seems to be the answer. He can also get training from the mysterious presence that helped him last time… but wait. If he finds out who she is in the real world, can he do for her what was done for Orchid Oracle? We then get a training montage, which is pretty cool but is, nevertheless, a training montage, so I don’t have much to say about it. And then, finally, the big confrontation, in which Haruyuki is very cool and the day is saved… oh dear, here comes the villain for another cliffhanger.

My favorite scene in the book was the party that all the girls (and Takumu, sorry, Takumu) threw him to celebrate his being the point man on this mission… and the fact that he shows up with another new girl, who just happens to be a rival for those who’ve been in Brain Burst the longest, showing up after being gone for years. You’d think there’s be a lot of jealous stares, but the mood seems to be more “Of course he has another girl to add to his pile, it is Haruyuki after all”. Actually, the biggest danger to Kuroyukihime in this book is not Centaurea Sentry, his new mentor, but Rin Kusakabe, who has apparently been reading Devil Is a Part-Timer in her spare time because she wants him to remember she confessed, and not just let it slip his mind just because he happens to still hate himself. If I weren’t reminded occasionally that everyone in the cast is between 9 and 14 years old, this would be a great romantic harem series. Alas.

I am not expecting the bad guys to win or anything, but the main Kings are certainly in a tight spot with the cliffhanger. Indeed, cliffhanger endings has proven to be one of the stronger parts of Accel World. Might have to wait a little longer for the next volume, though, as we’ve caught up with Japan mostly.

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

I suspect how much readers enjoy the first half of this book depends on how invested they are in awkward teen romance. Last time we ended with Kuroyukihime inviting Haruyuki over to spend the night at her place, and he ends up accepting here, though he’s not quite sure how long he’ll be staying. As it turns out, the answer is “all night”, and there’s also a bath scene involved, which, as with everything else about this series, gets 80 times more awkward when you remember they’re both 13-14. But they are pretty sweet dorks, and things don’t really go anywhere beyond “I am depressed and want to take comfort in you”. And, as it turns out, Kuroyukihime has a lot more to be concerned about than being caught in an Unlimited EK, as her friend Megumi, aka Orchid Oracle, seems to be held hostage by the enemy… which has caused her real-world self to fall into a coma. Can they rescue her? And can Haruyuki get yet another girl to fall for him without trying?

Yes, we can add another “don’t read this in public” volume cover to the pile. In any case, one of the more important things that comes up here is Kuroyukihime opens up to Haruyuki about the circumstances of her birth, and we finally, definitively put to rest the rumor that her parents are Kirito and Asuna. (I’m not sure why anyone ever found this acceptable, unless they like grim ‘n gritty.) In any case, we don’t get her name, or the names of her parents, but we do discover that Kuroyukihime was a “machine child”, incubated in an artificial womb. While the direct SAO connection isn’t happening, fans of the Alicization arc may recognize some of the discussion here about the nature of the soul. According to Kuroyukihime, her parents regard her as an experiment rather than a child – she even has a barcode on her neck to drive the point home. It’s pretty heavy.

The weaker part of the book is in the middle, when most of the cast gets together virtually to try to figure out how to fix the huge trap they’re in. This involves lots of banter, some jealousy, and a whole lot of talking, but essentially boils down to “no, we can’t do this, no we can’t do this, hey, why don’t we try this”, only over the course of 50 pages. Things pick up again when Haruyuki teams up with Rose Milady in order to rescue Orchid Oracle, her sister, from the clutches of the White Legion. This amounts to a bunch of cool battle scenes, and Kawahara is quite good at those. Haruyuki tries to do the whole “I’m not really good at anything I just have a lot of help” whining, which promptly gets smacked down. That makes me happy. More importantly, they actually succeed in both the rescue and waking Megumi up, meaning this volume does not leave us hanging. (Well, everyone’s still in the deathtrap, but…)

So a decent volume, with some much needed revelations, but the core issue here is still not resolved, so the arc continues. Recommended to those already reading the series.

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

In general, one step forward and two steps back is the Accel World way, so I will admit that when we finally got to the big villain reveal here I was half expecting that they had in fact sabotaged the video card that Chocolat Puppeter had, or altered the footage, or what have you. Fortunately, Kawahara still knows how much is too much and how much is just enough. This may come as a surprise to those of you who just read ten straight volumes of Sword Art Online: Alicization, but hey. But yes, the plan to reveal White Cosmos as the masterminds of all the bad things in Accel World is finally borne to fruition here. Of course, there’s just one slight problem with that, which is that in order to do so, all the major players in Brain Burst are gathered in one place. It’s the perfect time to do some culling. And White Cosmos is super powerful, even though, to my annoyance, Kuroyukihime’s sister did not show up for this big battle. Basically, expect deathtraps.

There are a lot of the things I like about Accel World here. The cast all get some cool things to do. Chocolat Puppeter gets to fulfill her role as the one with the evidence. Sky Raker and Silver Crow end up making a great flying team, and Fuko in general gets a lot to do in this book. There’s suggestions throughout that there was a lot of history in this game Haruyuki missed before he was given it, and while he knows a lot of it, he doesn’t know all of it. (In particular, every single player seems to think of themselves as Fuko’s rival.) Haruyuki’s “gosh, why am I so weak and bad” mindset is virtually absent here, mostly admittedly due to the fact that there’s no time to think in this book, but the ending is fantastic, with his realization that Kuroyukihime is in fact upset and depressed, and his overture of food to cheer her up is very sweet – that said, I doubt that the cliffhanger ending we see here is going further than snuggling.

Of course, this is still Accel World, so there are also several things I wasn’t too fond of here. I’m never going to love Hima’s oversexualized tweens artstyle, and the fact that the series seems determined to show the girls “naked” behind their avatars (while Haruyuki gets to keep his shirt) and the huge chests of some of them – the fanservice in this series is ludicrous to the point where it’s hard to read in public without getting arrested. And Kawahara admits this next one himself – we’re spending more time in the game, which is okay – I mean, it’s the subject of the series – but at the expense of the real lives of these characters, and he’s absolutely right – I do want to see the group all go to Haruyuki’s farm, or the elections, or all the things he set up that have been in stasis because of these endless fighting arcs. It can be grindingly exhausting.

That said, this problem may be solved very fast unless Silver Crow and Sky Raker can do something, as most of the rest of the good guys are in a nasty deathtrap that will be hard to escape. Fortunately, we get Vol. 23 soon, and let’s look at the cover art… (sighs, slaps forehead). Maybe we’ll get 23 soon.