Category Archives: reviews

Sword Art Online, Vol. 25: Unital Ring IV

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

The basic premise of Unital Ring is that something has mashed up all the MMORPGs out there, meaning that SAO, ALO, GOO, etc. are all in the same world. This even includes American games where you choose to star as a bug (the spiders side is far more popular than the centipede side, and I don’t really blame them, though I do admit to a bit of surprise that the game is popular in the West at all.) But, as we have also discovered, Unital Ring is not just about uniting the various games our cast has played in, it’s about uniting the various arcs of the series. The first non-web novel arc Kawahara takes on sticks together all of his previous books, plus real life, plus the Underworld, which it turns out is a lot more relevant to the main plot than we’d thought. That said, the series no longer moves as fast as its first volume did, meaning that any chance of the Underworld side meeting up with the Unital Ring side is going to have to wait a bit.

The book is divided into two chunks, with a real world interlude between them. The first takes place in Unital Ring, as Kirito and company try to figure out a way to stop Mutasina and her blackmailed players from destroying the new town that’s been raised around their log cabin. This, as you can imagine, involves a lot of fighting, game stats, etc., and should be very familiar to the SAO reader. It’s hard to coordinate, though, meaning that Asuna can’t get a chance to meet up with the mysterious new transfer student who’s been trying to talk with her. As for Underworld, well, we still don’t know if Eolyne is Eugeo reborn, or a clone, or a descendant, or what, but there’s enough to make Kirito and Alice very suspicious. That said, they have a bigger issue to take care of: reuniting Alice with her sister, who has been in cryosleep.

Sword Art Online has generally never been a mystery series, nor has it relied on surprises or last minute swerves. This is good, because at this point I will be a lot more surprised if Kamura, the new transfer student, ISN’T Mutasina. Kawahara can be very straightforward. That said, this is a perfectly fine volume of Sword Art Online, though it’s suffering from being the 4th book in what is probably another 9-book arc. There are hints that Unital Ring’s plot and the Underworld plot will connect in the future, but hints are all they are now, so it does suffer a bit from having to, about 2/3 of the way through the book, shift gears and remind us to start caring about what seems like a completely different story. It will probably read better when the whole arc is out, but for now it feels a bit thin.

Still, the next book is out in Japan, and we should see it in the spring sometime. Till then, enjoy Kirito cutting things with his sword and also acting like a dumb teenage boy.

Reincarnated as the Piggy Duke: This Time I’m Gonna Tell Her How I Feel!, Vol. 7

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By Rhythm Aida and nauribon. Released in Japan as “Buta Koushaku ni Tensei shita kara, Kondo wa Kimi ni Suki to Iitai” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by J-Novel Club. Translated by Zihan Gao.

The Piggy Duke series has always had a tendency, much like its title character, of avoiding difficult confrontations. We’ve seen in the last few books Slowe trying to work up the courage to confess to Charlotte and failing miserably, and the revelations about Charlotte’s past and how much everyone knows about it, while they have been coming out, are almost inevitably interrupted by some crisis needing attention, and by the time it’s over the moment has passed. Well, those who have been waiting seven books for Slowe to get off his ass and say something will be pleased to see that it finally happens here, as a stupid series of “high school drama” events manage to force his hand. The confession scene is excellent. As for the aftermath? Oh, sorry, it’s crisis time. The aftermath will have to wait. Sadly, Charlotte gets little to do in this volume, despite her heritage being one of the reasons for the crisis.

The title once again is a lie, as, in order to get rid of the stress he’s been dealing with recently, Slowe has taken to working out by lifting weights all over campus – something that the student body actually finds a bit terrifying. That said, he’s slimmed down again, so is attracting looks, and his “commoner” friend Tina tries to get him to branch out by actually interacting with other women besides her, Charlotte and Alicia – something that sadly proves disastrous for his reputation. Fortunately, a distraction comes along. The Witch, fresh off the last book, has gone to attack the Queen, and the fallout from that means that the Queen, her Guardian Knight, the Princess, and the Royal Knights are ALL now at the school, trying to bait the Witch. Unfortunately, this is also a family argument between mother and daughter… who do NOT get along.

We’d met the lazy princess before, but the narrative is a lot more sympathetic towards her this time, putting her behavior in much-needed context. Her behavior also ties into Charlotte’s past, which (of course) is not nearly as secret as Slowe would like, and I really enjoyed that this was part of the bargain made. That said, most of this book, as with the other books in the series, relies on you finding Slowe’s behavior amusingly annoying rather than just annoying. Again, I really wish we had more of Charlotte’s POV in this series, as she’s still technically Slowe’s retainer, and is having to deal with him being the talk of the school – again – and also some incredibly nasty rumors about him – again. If you add in his accidental confession to her, you can see why she spends the last quarter of the book unconscious. I’m sure we’ll find out what she thinks of Slowe’s confession of love in the next book… maybe.

I have been accused before of caring more about the romance in a book than the plot, and that’s probably true, but a lot of the plot in Piggy Duke is the romance, so I think I have the right to be a bit annoyed. Still, the Princess made this book worth reading, and I hope we see more of her in the future.

The Saint’s Belated Happiness: Newly Single, Now Living with the Demon Prince

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By Hari Garasumachi and Yotsuba Hanada. Released in Japan as “Iki Okure Seijo no Shiawase – Konyaku Hakisareta to Omottara Mazoku no Ouji-sama ni Dekiaisaretemasu!” by M Novels f. Released in North America by Cross Infinite World. Translated by Kai Sadler.

This is another book that falls into the category of “not a villainess, but villainess things happen to her” books. You know, dumped by her fiancee, exiled from the royal palace, etc. Generally speaking, most of the stories in this genre tend to go for the aware, savvy sort of heroine. This is not one of those stories. Honestly, the heroine of this book, Marialite, may be more on the Katarina Claes end of the spectrum – in terms of outward personality they’re not that similar, but they both have “empathy” turned all the way up to ten while “intellectual” is at about a two. Marialite is not an airhead per se… she’s just the sort of character I refer to as the “ara ara” woman. You know, Kasumi Tendo from Ranma. Every situation, no matter what it is, is met with a hand to the cheek, a tilted head, and an “ara, ara”. That’s what we’re dealing with here.

Marialite has had a pretty rough life, though if you asked her about it I doubt she’d say the same thing. Her parents are dead. When she was discovered to be the Saint, her fiancee (who was already cheating on her) was dumped and replaced with the Crown Prince. She then spend the next several years saving the kingdom with her plant-based powers. Now the kingdom has “magic tools” that will do the same thing. And she’s twenty-seven years old. So the Prince dumps her, planning to get a younger wife. Going back to her abandoned childhood home, Marialite finds a young boy hiding inside. Sorry to spoil the surprise (it’s not much of one), but he’s the Demon King of the title, and he gets much bigger very fast. He’s also over the moon for Marialite… who seems to not really realize what love is.

This book is, to be honest, highly variable. The sections with the Crown Prince are amusing if you like to see asshole misogynists get wrecked (and I do), but he’s so one-note it’s hard to really be happy. The best part of the book involves Cornelia, the daughter of a rival dukedom to the Demon King, who is a) an obnoxious ojou-sama, b) with fire magic, c) with cat ears, and d) secretly weak to characters like Marialite, who she can’t intimidate. Everything about her is great, though I wasn’t that wild about the “now she’s a maid” subplot. As for Marialite herself, her naivete about love is presented as the fault of her past relationships, both of which were terrible, but she also admits she doesn’t think she was in love with them either, so there’s little to no hurt feelings or devastation about them. This makes her something of a blank slate, to be honest. I suppose if we can have harem protagonists who are potato boys, we can have the same with shoujo romance protagonists. I just wish she had more personality.

This book does not really have a definite ending, and there may be more coming, but if so it’s not immediately obvious. Till then, if you like “dumped by the asshole prince and finds a better life” stories, or cat-eared red-headed girls who yell a lot, this is worth your time.