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

I’ve already discussed some of the ideas behind this concept in my review of the first manga, so I’ll try to skim over that and discuss what I enjoyed about SAO:P as a novel. Again, I don’t think it’s a sort of ‘reboot’ where you can read it in place of the original – I think knowing the characters already adds to the depth. But the main reason to read this is to see how Kawahara develops Aincrad, a world he introduced and essentially abandoned in the first book, sequels and side stories aside. And we also get the addition of Asuna’s POV narration, though sadly only for part of the first arc, after which it’s back to all Kirito all the time.

Despite this, Asuna benefits enormously from the added face time. We see her at the start, having essentially decided that she wants to attempt to die with dignity, or at least on her own terms, something that Kirito is able to talk her out of. As the book goes on (and it is a BIG book – at 360 pages, almost as big as Fairy Dance put together) and Asuna starts to actually pay attention to the rules of the game and how to succeed, she becomes just as good if not better than Kirito – the skills she’s used her entire life as a girl who has to be in the top of the class for everything now benefit her in the RPG environment, and she also has more socialization than Kirito, meaning she can see people in a way that he’s unable to – this really becomes apparent in the second half of the book, where Kirito has pegged himself as an evil person, and Asuna has to side-eye him several times and go “really?”. Kirito, meanwhile sees potential in Asuna, and wants her to be the role model for the game world that he feels unworthy of being himself. They’re not a couple here, but you definitely see why they’re perfect for each other – they’re both quite similar, and their differences complement each other.

There’s no Klein, Lisbeth or Silica here, and Agil is mostly just support. The new addition is Argo, though she’ll be familiar to fans of the anime. She doesn’t vanish after the first few pages, however, and actually gets to show off some character depth and an awesome ‘to the rescue’ bit. In addition, the “Interlude” focusing on her and Kirito is hilarious, the second funniest part of the book. (The funniest part of the book involves Asuna’s inventory and Kirito’s complete ignorance of a maiden’s true heart, as well as measuring rage in gravitational units – I’ll leave it at that.)

The most interesting part of the book takes place right at the end, where a scheme is uncovered that led indirectly to the death of a player (or so they hear), and the concept of PKing comes up for the first time, this time as capital punishment. When does justice become vigilante justice? Kirito has definite views on the subject, but he’s already burned so many bridges (or at least he thinks he has) that he doesn’t want to make any rallying speeches. Luckily, things defuse before we can go there, but everyone is now thinking about it. We’re not at Laughing Coffin just yet, but the seed has been planted.

This book covers the first two floors of Aincrad, and the afterword says there should be 2 floors per novel, so things will likely continue to move quite slowly. This is the main goal of this series, of course, and I’m greatly enjoying what it’s trying to do. And of course there’s also an additional bonus – this is 8 years after the author first wrote SAO, and his prose has improved a great deal. Sword Art Online fans will love this. (Also, I appreciate that ‘Kuroko’ was likely impossible to translate without a footnote, but ‘Blackie’? Geh.)

By Reki Kawahara, abec, and Kiseki Himura. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks, serialized in the magazine Dengeki G’s. Released in North America by Yen Press.

These days fandom is used to seeing multiple tie-ins and spinoffs of popular franchises, and SAO is no exception. That said, usually they’re more along the lines of a cute 4-koma thing, or a side story following other characters (such as Girls’ Ops, which we’ll see in May.) This is an odd duck, though: it’s the author rewriting the series after he realizes he wanted to stay in his world a bit longer. SAO was originally a series of online web novels, and the main light novel adaptation is essentially a straight reworking of those. Here, though, Kawahara goes back into Aincrad proper and gives us a closer look at its early days… while also sort of retconning our lead couple into having been meant from each other from the day they met.

Fans of the anime may be very familiar with some of the material seen in this first manga volume, as it was made around the same time and many things were taken from it to use in the adaptations, such as the presence of Argo the informant, and much of Asuna’s somewhat suicidal attitude at the start. The main reason to read this, though, is that it’s mostly from Asuna’s point of view, with Kirito as the mysterious stranger who may have ulterior motives. We see a nightmare where she flashes back to her life in the real world before the game, and also her poor relationship with her mother, things that never really came out in the main series till the seventh book. And the reaction when Asuna speaks up at a strategy meeting from all the guys in the game reminds readers what women in Aincrad have to deal with all the time – and why Asuna is cloaked most of this volume. (The manga, of course, also features a long, lingering nude bath scene for Asuna – this is still a product made for its known market.)

While this is a reboot of sorts, I’d argue that it only works really well if you’re familiar with the source material. Asuna is a LOT more tsundere in this volume, as the creators lampshade, and while we see her obvious skills, she lacks the confidence and poise of the Asuna we know. Likewise, we know what Kirito is likely thinking in these early meetings, with all its discussion of “let’s find the beta testers and get our revenge’, as we saw his thought processes in the original SAO – without that, he would be something of a flat character. This is meant to complement, not replace, the original. It’s not perfect – the leader of the group planning to take out the boss of the first floor is a very flat character, and his death is signposted from the moment we meet him. And some of Kirito and Asuna’s interaction at the start falls into the standard comedy romance tropes – oh no, I just walked in on you in the bath! – which just made me sigh.

I suspect, like the main series, that I’ll be enjoying it even more once I read the light novel in March – note I had to add ‘manga’ to the header to differentiate in advance. For manga readers who enjoy SAO and would like to see a book from Asuna’s POV, this is a deent start, and I look forward to more.

By Reki Kawahara and abec. Released in Japan by ASCII Mediaworks. Released in North America by Yen Press.

The novels are still running a bit behind the manga here in the West, so much of this review will be discussing how the light novel differs from the first two volumes of the manga that I’ve already reviewed. They mostly hit similar notes – Suguha’s crush on her brother is in full force, Asuna is still trapped in a birdcage, and Sougo is an over-the-top villain – but the ability of prose to let you get inside the heads of its leads allows for a greater depth than the manga had, particularly with Kazuto and Asuna. There’s also some nice discussion of Kazuto’s family beyond his sister, as we see his working mother, who he apparently got his obsession with games from. That said, once Kazuto becomes Kirito, we’re back to this series’ raison d’être, which is watching the boy do awesome things.

The contrast between Kazuto and his MMORPG self didn’t come across as much in the manga as it does here, and it may have been my favorite part of the book. Now that he’s not in Sword Art Online, we’re left with a young teenage boy who’s weaker than he’s been the past two years, unable to decide what to do with his life, and with the one thing he cherished more than anything – Asuna – still far away from him. After meeting Sugou, and hearing about Asuna’s arranged marriage, he almost completely falls apart, sounding nothing like the character we’ve known, not even after the death of Sachi in the previous volume. It’s only when he reached ALfheim Online, the successor to SAO, and can become Kirito again that things change. And change they do – Kirito was pretty confident in the first two books, but here he’s almost cocky, showing off his skills (ported over from SAO, for reasons unknown to him) and cleaning house.

As for Asuna, her POV also benefits the story. She goes through the same crisis that Kazuto did earlier in the book, being trapped with only the monstrous Sugou for company and not even being sure if her love is alive. Once Sugou attempts to break her will by saying he is (cartoon villains always seem to make this mistake), she gains new strength, and it’s immediately put to good use – her use of game mechanics and environment to find a way to escape her cage is brilliant, and shows that she’s more than just a prize waiting for Kirito to rescue her here. (Sugou also gets to be even more horrible here – the scenes of him touching her, trying to go far enough so that she’ll punch him and thus “justify” using his supposed mind control on her sooner, are true nightmare fuel.)

Suguha/Leafa is the new character here, and like the other two we enjoy getting inside her head. She’s startled at her brother’s sudden kendo skills, picked up by sheer muscle memory from his days in SAO. The family revelations, which he knew about but didn’t tell her about, also have thrown her off kilter, and that combined with the onset of puberty has led to her accepting that she has feelings for Kazuto – but she can see he’s clearly in love with Asuna. She’s very similar to her brother, and it’s no surprise that when she plays ALO in an attempt to understand what he enjoyed about it, she too got very good very fast and is one of the top players in the game.

If you hated the Fairy Dance arc of the anime, then reading the light novel will probably not change your minds. If you enjoyed aspects of it but felt it fell short, given this version a try. It may read like wish-fulfillment fanfic, but there’s nothing wrong with that if it interests the reader, and I’m still greatly enjoying Kirito, Asuna and Leafa’s adventures. This is a 2-part book, so in April we’ll find how things wrap up.