Sword Art Online, Vol. 14: Alicization Uniting

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

(Of necessity, this review is going to have to spoil events in this book. If you want to be surprised, read the book first.)

It has to be said, given the length and breadth of the Alicization series, and the complete absence of most of the rest of the original cast, that Kirito and Eugeo’s relationship feels like the strongest and most valid in the series. Yes, this includes Asuna, who is almost entirely absent from this book save for the cliffhanger ending. But Kirito and Eugeo are meant to be two sides of the same coin, each yearning for what the other has, with Kirito’s cynicism being set off by Eugeo’s innocent idealism. Even the fate of Alice Synthesis Thirty, who nearly sacrifices herself a couple of times for Kirito in this book, has her own Eugeo counterpart in Alice Zuberg’s state of being and eventual fate. Kirito and Eugeo is the main reason to watch the upcoming anime to see what they do with it. And it’s also what makes this volume the most heartbreaking of the books to date.

For all that Kawahara wrote a story about a death game where people die in real life, he’s been pretty good about not actually killing most of the main cast. When there is a death, it tends to have major impact on the characters going forward – see Sachi and Yuuki, for example. This volume, though, is absolutely filled with horrible deaths, both seen and unseen. The actual plot is pretty simple – it’s the end of the fight to the top of the tower. Eugeo throws off his mind control fairly quickly all things considered, but that’s not really helping any of them defeat Administrator, who is simply too damn overpowered. And so one by one characters come out of the woodwork to buy time so that the hero can figure out what to do. And no, that hero’s not Kirito this time, who spe4nds much of the book dealing with the fact that he’s getting his ass handed to him. It’s up to Eugeo to make the ultimate sacrifice, destroying Administrator for the sake of the world, even if it costs him his life.

Actually, while Administrator is the weak part of the book, being the usual ‘I have no nuance I am just eeeeeeevil’ Kawahara villain, she is impressively tough, in that she even survives Eugeo’s final attack, only to get taken out by her minion’s overpowering creepy love for her. Still, she is a piece of work. The ceiling of her tower will go up there with the depiction of the Senate in the previous book as one of the most disturbing things in SAO. As for the state of the world now that Administrator is gone, we’ll have to see. It may have to deal with life without Kirito for a bit, as things have apparently been going on in the real world in his absence, and his “fluclight” is seemingly damaged right at the very end. Will this mean an entire volume with no Kirito narration?

Kawahara says in the afterword he debated letting Eugeo survive in the LN version, but decided not to. Much as I love Eugeo, I think it was probably the right choice. In the meantime, this is a very strong volume of SAO, and I can’t wait to see where we go from here – we still have four books to go after this, let’s remember.

Chio’s School Road, Vol. 1

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By Tadataka Kawasaki. Released in Japan as “Chio-chan no Tsuugakuro” by Media Factory, serialization ongoing in the magazine Comic Flapper. Released in North America by Yen Press. Translated by Alexander Keller-Nelson.

Sometimes you can think yourself to death. We’ve all had that happen to us. You worry about how you’re going to achi9eve something, or how you’re going to talk to that person, or even how you’re going to get to school on time in the morning, your brain goes into overdrive, and you come up with some silly options that no one would actually do unless they were in some sort of comedy manga. Fortunately, Chio is in a manga, and so is able to do the silly things for our entertainment. A typical glasses-wearing, semi-introverted gaming girl, her late night habits lead her to be late almost every day, and things are not helped by random construction, or running into the popular girl and having to interact with her, or even just trying to find a bathroom. That’s the plot, really – we don’t really see Chio much at school, though she does have an equally socially inept friend. It’s just “what happens to Chio next?”.

I get the sense that the author came up with the idea for the first chapter and the publisher wondered what it would be like as a series, because “what if someone really did try to go roof hopping” really is a great one-shot premise, and it even gets highlighted in the cover art. It’s not as easy as it sounds, to no one’s surprise, especially when you’re trying to ensure no one notices you. The rest of the book is not quite as high concept – the chapters with Chio having to deal with interacting with other students, or talking with her equally unpopular friend about boys, are not quite as good as the rest of the book, and the reader gets the sense that this probably works better as a monthly serial in a magazine than it does collected into book form. (I’m also not sure the kissing in the back alley scene works well, as I suspect it will lead yuri readers to expect more tease that likely is not going to happen.)

The best chapters highlight the desperation of Chio’s needs and her motormouth inner monologue, where things just escalate to ridiculous levels. Getting past the gang member with his motorcycle in the path leads, inevitably, to Chio having to pretend to be a feared, deadly schoolgirl assassin, with appropriate glaring, and it’s quite well done, especially the anticlimactic payoff. Likewise, something as simple as Chio trying to find a bathroom spirals out of control and also highlights one of Chio’s other flaws, which is her selective obliviousness when it comes to digging herself into holes. I think whether you enjoy this book depends on how much you can tolerate Chio – she can be somewhat exhausting, and you get the feeling she’s her own worst enemy most of the time. Still, that’s the fun. As long as you don’t sympathize with her too much, Chio’s School Road should be a very entertaining series.

Defeating the Demon Lord’s a Cinch (If You’ve Got a Ringer), Vol. 1

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By Tsukikage and bob. Released in Japan as “Darenidemo Dekiru Kage kara Tasukeru Maou Toubatsu” by Famitsu Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Alex Kerwin.

I write a column for Manga Bookshelf called Manga the Week of, where I point out the manga and light novels coming out next week, and briefly try to hype the debuts. Sometimes, though, this can lead to me being embarrassingly wrong about a title, because the cover art and blurb were vague, or even actively misleading. It’s especially true when there really isn’t much known about the new series. So, let me say up front: I was expecting Demon Lord Ringer (as I will call it for brevity’s sake) To be far more comedic in tone, something like Konosuba only with more of a straight man as the lead. Now, to be fair, Ares is definitely a straight man. But the book is not going for funny, instead being a crash course in how much we can take of its intensely serious, brimming with suppressed rage narrator until we beg for the demon lord to win after all. Make no mistake about it: the Ringer is a bit of a jerk.

As you can see by the cover image, as well as the blurb, this is not merely a case of me being too thick (which has also happened before): the premise is actively trying to mislead you. It is accurate, as far as it goes. A hero has been summoned to defeat the demon lord, but the hero’s level is far too low, and as for companions, we have a third princess as a mage who can only use fire magic (the entire book takes place in a forest, so she can’t do anything), a swordswoman who has recently changed her sword style away from her family specialty (so is learning a whole different skill set on the fly), and Ares, who is a priest who clearly is far more powerful than the Level 3 he suggests he is. (Yes, the usual fantasy RPG tropes apply here, as the characters discuss buffs and leveling as if they are real life fantasy terms.) The hero’s party, however, wants to get rid of Ares. And you can’t blame then, really.

There’s a reveal at the end of the book I was very impressed by, one that makes the entire party’s behavior around Ares make a lot more sense. It’s such a good reveal I won’t get into it. It actually made me want to read the second book, which I was on the edge about, to be honest. The book’s prose is good, and Ares is certainly a memorable character. But god, you want to throttle him. He’s given an assistant, Amelia, who seems to have some lingering affection for him (he doesn’t recall their ever meeting in person, which irritates her), and she keeps desperately trying to get him to slow down and not do absolutely everything on his own. And she fails. I was honestly wondering if the big reveal was going to be that he’s the villain after all, but it would seem that’s not the case. But so far, my interest in what happens next has won out over “my god, do I really need to listen to this guy’s simmering fury for another three+ volumes?”.