Category Archives: reviews

Sword Art Online, Vol. 21: Unital Ring I

Leave a reply

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.

The Demon Sword Master of Excalibur Academy, Vol. 2

Leave a reply

By Yu Shimizu and Asagi Tosaka. Released in Japan as “Seiken Gakuin no Maken Tsukai” by MF Bunko J. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Roman Lampert.

I am, as readers of this site well know, easy to please. This can sometimes be a bit frustrating when I have series that don’t do anything particularly wrong, but are also not particularly stellar. The Demon King Master of Excalibur Academy falls under that. I will admit that I find the fact that the Demon King is in a 10-year-old body irritating, but it is mostly avoiding fanservice and groping, so that’s not a big enough reason to move on. The books are short, the prose is readable, the girls get things to do, and the battles are pretty cool, so boxes checked off there. That said, this really isn’t going to be making anyone’s top 10 light novels list anytime soon. There was an argument recently about whether using the word ‘generic’ is pejorative, and yes, it probably is, but there’s no word that better fits the series than this. It’s like eating a slice of bread. No butter, no jam. Just the bread.

The Academy is put on the back burner for this volume, with the biggest class-related event happening being that Leonis skips class. There’s a good reason for this, though – a huge ship is arriving carrying the Fourth Princess, who is paying a visit. Unfortunately, a horde of void creatures break out as she arrives, causing those who have gathered to see her to have to be evacuated onto the ship. Also unfortunately, this turns out to be a plot by terrorists, who are there to kidnap the princess and gain more equality for beastmen. Also also unfortunately, the terrorists have a mole in their ranks who has her own agenda, which is “kill everyone by having the ship slam into a reef, so that she can get her hands on a bunch of demon swords. Fortunately, Leonis and the girls from the first volume are there to stop them.

One of the interesting things in the series is the fact that it’s post-apocalyptic, and not very far away from it either. This allows Leonis to be thoroughly confused at how much has changed since he was alive, and also allows the book to constantly be interrupted by monster attacks, which are well-written but also mean that there’s not much actually happening here, even with the short page count. We do get a few revelations about Regina, Reselia’s maid, comrade in arms, and Girl With A Secret (TM). The secret is not hard to guess, and I will admit that I was frustrated that a meeting we were building up to did not happen, but that’s the trouble with long-running series like these. (Also, sadly, the princess was very underwritten, and I wish we’d seen more of her.)

That’s one interesting thing about these books – they read like they’re cancellation proof. The author has been told “your name is big enough, so we’ll guarantee that you won’t be cut after two novels”, and it shows, as there’s a lot of long-term things going on here. Unfortunately, that means we don’t really get satisfying answers in THIS book. It’s a series that is “good enough for now” to a T.

Torture Princess: Fremd Torturchen, Vol. 6

Leave a reply

By Keishi Ayasato and Saki Ukai. Released in Japan as “Isekai Goumon Hime” by MF Bunko J. Released in North America Yen On. Translated by Nathaniel Hiroshi Thrasher.

(This is one of those “I spoil the ending” reviews.)

Let’s face it, the biggest flaw in this book comes after the afterword, where gives us a preview of the next volume, which introduces new antagonists to take the place of our protagonists. The flaw here is that this book was pretty much a picture perfect finale in every way, and the author admits that straight up. They say that the story of Elisabeth is not over, and that they still have more stories to tell, which is all fine and dandy, but it’s gonna be very hard to top Book6 next time, so it had better be good. As for this volume itself, well, it’s a War Against Heaven and Hell, with everyone (mostly) joining forces, and Kaito serving as a one-man army of his own. The question is whether they can pull off what needs to be done – killing Jeanne and Elisabeth. Izabella has already said straight up she won’t be able to kill Jeanne. Will Kaito be able to make the ultimate sacrifice?

No, of course not. Anyone who’s ready even fifty pages of this series knows the answer to that one. Indeed, the least surprising thing in the book (although Jeanne and Elisabeth both manage to be surprised, with Jeanne pulling off the best use of ‘motherfucker’ in a light novel ever) is Kaito’s plan. The bulk of the book is the lead up to that, where he first manages to convince the humans, demi-humans and beastmen to team up by either terrifying them or proving strong enough to equal them in combat (thankfully the first princess does not have a Red Sonja clause in her character), and then spends the bulk of the book walking around the various battle zones, watching the saints and soldiers fighting against horrific monstrosities from beyond our ken, and occasionally destroying them all with a ‘la’ when he feels he has to. Oh yes, and have one last picnic date with Hina, which honestly I think the readers care about more than the war itself.

Hina remains that very rare example of a yandere whose feelings are returned, and she’s finally risen above “she’s Rem from Re: Zero” status, though it is ironic that they both end their roles in the series in eternal sleeps. I was also surprised to see the relationship between Jeanne and Izabella be as romantic as it ended up being, despite Jeanne spending 90% of the book trapped in God’s Iron Maiden and Izabella walking around in a body that’s 3/4 artificial. There’s lots of cool fighting here, and a nice final confrontation between Kaito and Elisabeth, but the best moments from the book are the smaller ones – I loved Kaito and Izabella discussing the frailty of human beliefs, and how it drives them to commit atrocities against anyone who can fit the definition of “expendable”. And yes, in the end Kaito and Hina remove themselves from the series, leaving Elisabeth to live on, alone. Well, except for a lot of the cast, also alive. She doesn’t count them.

Still, we get the arrival of a new sneering smug villain at the end, as well as a girl who seems to be based off of Alice Carroll/Alice in Wonderland, something that I don’t think we’ve ever seen in a single piece of Japanese media. After a satisfying climax to this book, I admit reluctance to see it continue, but I’ll read the next one to see if the author can pull it off.