The Problem with Light Novels: A Discussion of Sword Art Online, Part 2

One of the things I enjoy about Sword Art Online is that so much is left to the imagination. The setting of Aincrad and the 100-floor realm with literal permadeath basically begs to be expanded upon in various ways, mostly in terms of world-building, character depth, and psychological analysis.

One of the major disappointments of Sword Art Online as a piece of media, both as a light novel series and as an anime adaptation based on the light novels, is that there’s not enough story to go around.

Not to spoil the series, but Sword Art Online is comprised on nine or ten light novels. Aincrad, which we are introduced to as the Sword Art Online VRMMORPG, is completed by the end of the first novel, which is less than 200 pages in length (light novels tend to not go over 120 pages). Additional background and sidestories were added in the second SAO light novel, but that means that the potential of the Sword Art Online arc feels like it’s watered down because the first novel is essentially a time-skip of two years (By a third of the novel, this is already the case), with gaps in story filled in by novel number two.

Does this diminish the enjoyment of Sword Art Online? Somewhat. But at the same time, because much is left to the imagination, much is also given in recompense to the reader with the overactive imagination.

The funny thing about SAO is that because I’m a MMO game hopper, the the idea that the SAO light novel series is about multiple VRMMORPGs doesn’t seem so far-fetched, and may actually be a good thing, depending on how the author crafts the story. I shall read the novels and watch the anime closely and enjoy each step as it happens.

MMO Sandpark Gone Wrong: A Discussion of Sword Art Online, Part 1

I made mention of Sword Art Online on Twitter a few days ago, but it’s taken me a while to really formulate my thoughts regarding this topic. While my write-up will probably be incomplete, it’s good to at least start the process of discussing this rather intriguing light novel and anime series.

To discuss Sword Art Online as an anime or written work to a group of MMORPG players is difficult, mostly because I get the feeling that some people aren’t particularly interested in the intersection of what is virtual and real and because direct comparisons to other media that discuss MMORPGs will enter the fray. To discuss Sword Art Online to a group of literary critics is also difficult, because the Japanese light novel structure, publishing format, and demographic is vastly different from that of reading other works (I defer to the Wikipedia page on Light Novels for a description of the differences between novels and light novels).

That said, I think the only way I can really discuss Sword Art Online (henceforth termed SAO in this piece) is if I discuss its premise and how reading and watching SAO makes me feel.

The story of SAO begins at 1:00 p.m. of November 6, 2022, when the world’s first completely immersive virtual reality MMORPG goes live in Japan. Only 10,000 copies are available for this game, and in the morning of the game’s release, all 10,000 copies are purchased.

To create the immersive experience of SAO, Akihiko Kayaba, the creator of SAO, also developed a device known as NerveGear. The Nervegear is a VR helmet that works by rerouting signals from your brain into the game, such that you can perform actions in the world by thinking them, and your body would remain immobile because the NerveGear bypasses your ability to move.

At the story’s beginning, we are introduced to Kirito, who served as one of the 1000 beta testers in the game, and Cline, another player who befriends Kirito. Kirito teaches Cline the basics of SAO’s world, Aincrad. In SAO, aside from magical crystals that heal and teleport, there is no magic that can be cast in the game. Instead, players rely on weapon skills that are trained and leveled up in order to acquire new skills, in addition to allocating statistics that increase dexterity or strength. Aside from fighting skills, crafting and gathering skills also apparently exist in the game, such as smithing, item appraisal, and fishing.

Four hours and twenty five minutes after the launch of SAO, Cline attempts to log out to pick up a pizza, only to discover that the log out button has been greyed out and cannot be used.

At 5:30 p.m, all the players of the game are teleported back to the starting city. By 5:40 p.m. of November 6, 2012, all hell will have broken loose.

Between 5:30 and 5:40 p.m. the sunset-lit sky is tinged blood red, and blood drips from the sky. A faceless man, clad in dark robes, coalesces from the blood: an monolithic figure who simply says, “Attention players, welcome to my world.”

The faceless man is none other than Akihiko Kayaba, and he continues his speech by saying that the inability to log out of the game is not a bug, but a feature of SAO.

He continues, “You cannot log out of SAO yourselves, and no one on the outside can shut down or remove your NerveGear. Should this be attempted, the transmitter inside the NerveGear will act like a powerful microwave, destroying your brain, ending your life.”

To stress the futility of the attempt, he adds that several players’ friends and families have already attempted to remove the NerveGear from the heads of 213 players, resulting in their removal from the game as well as their deaths. The news media has already picked up on the story, and save for officials transferring players to hospitals by temporarily disconnecting the NerveGear from a power source and letting it run on its internal battery, it is expected that no further attempts to remove NerveGears will be made.

Furthermore, permadeath is instituted in SAO. If your HP drops to zero, the NerveGear will activate the microwave, killing players  who fail to survive in the game.

To log out of the game, players must ascend the 100 levels of the floating realm Aincrad, defeating a floor boss on each level to gain entry into the next and ultimately defeat the final boss on the 100th floor. As a means of comparison, Kirito mentions earlier that beta testers spent two months attempting to reach the eighth floor.

As an added dagger to the back of every surviving player, Akihiko Kayaba presents each player with an in-game item, <<Mirror>>. Examination of the item forces every player remaining in the game to be represented by a scan of his real-life attributes, including height, weight, muscularity and facial features.

By 5:40 p.m., Kayaba’s speech ends, his robes and body revert to blood, fly back into the blood red sky, and disappear, revealing sunset once more.

These are the first 10 or so pages of the first book of Sword Art Online, and we’ll have more to talk about later on when I continue this post series. Till then, don’t die.

Anime Recommendation: Bakuman

An manga/anime series about making manga isn’t exactly what you’d think of as an action-packed sort of topic for writing a story about. It was, however, rather rare and deserving of a look-see, so I jumped in and found myself enjoying it quite a bit.

The story is, as of seven episodes in (of a 25 episode show), rather light, and actually passes through quite a bit of time. It’s about two junior high school students, Moritaka Mashiro and Akito Takagi who team up to create manga in order to have one of their works be turned into an anime. The hook (for me, personally) is the fact that Moritaka ups the ante of this whole deal of becoming a manga artist and getting an anime adaptation by proposing (rather haphazardly I might add) to his long-time crush Azuki, who wants to become a voice actress, that should they actually get an anime adaptation of their manga they would get married.

SHE AGREES, and they’re all like “OMG” and I’m all like “Damn… this is so weird but I want to see how it turns out.”

And so, I’ve been watching the development of Moritaka and Akito’s attempts at making manga, from learning how to use pens are write the stories, to submitting their first manuscript to Shonen Jack, the manga publisher of this universe. During all of this, we watch the rather cheesy, yet utterly romantic, exchanges between Moritaka and Azuki, who have not spoken to each other verbally since the day he proposed his deal.

As of episode seven, they are now sitting next to each other in class, sending each other written notes or doodles to know each other better. Also, it appears the manga-making duo now have a rival from another province to deal with, as well as a deadline to catch up to if they want to send an entry in for the Tezuka Award for Manga, a real-life manga award.

If you’re interested in a bit of romance with your manga-making, or at least love the premise of slice of life anime, you’d do well to look for this show online or through whatever means you can think of.

 

Second Image credit: Japanator

Anime Recommendation: High School of the Dead

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZO-b8ni1ZY]

Doing a 180 from the happy world of Digimon, my second anime recommendation for the day would definitely have to be High School of the Dead.

The premise? Worldwide zombification pandemic. You’re in High School when the poop hits the air conditioning device, and the outbreak reaches your school from the front gate. How do you survive?

Well, if you’re a team comprised of a well-meaning high school kid with a baseball bat, a girl who’s good with spear martial arts, the class genius, a gun nut, the captain of the kendo club and the school nurse, you’re bound to find a way out of your zombie-infested school.It’s everything that comes after getting out of school that’s the problem.

Now, High School of the Dead is pretty depressing fare. People will die, and some of the living will turn on their friends just to try and survive, but will die anyway. Thing is, it’s compelling because the zombie outbreak scenario hasn’t been done from a school angle, as far as I know, and the high production values of this anime make it a must-see if you like horror, action, and  nail guns being turned into submachine pistols.

They’ve currently got three episodes aired so far, and it’s been quite intriguing to see what’s been happening to the people in the show. I won’t spoil anything else, but suffice it to say that zombies are only one pesky problem in the show.

Feel free to watch the opening sequence above, and then look for the anime online. Cheers!

Anime Recommendation: Digimon Xros Wars

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjoDnJdH_3g]

It’s been a while since I did an anime recommendation, and with a new season of Japanese anime upon us, it seemed like a good time to focus on some pretty interesting series.

My first recommendation from my current viewing roster is Digimon Xros Wars, which is a new anime set in yet another alternate Digimon universe. It began on July 6, 2010, and currently has three episodes so far, with all of them being quite good, production value wise.

The story follows the adventures of a new child, Kudo Taiki, chosen by some mysterious force to carry the power of a new Digimon evolution device, called a XrosLoader (said as Cross Loader). With the XrosLoader, Taiki can evolve his stable of digimon by combining them into stronger forms. These DigiXros combinations give the fused digimon amazing power, and allow them to defeat the current baddie of the series, the Bagura Army.

Together with friends, rivals and his partner digimon Shoutmon, Taiki resolves to grow an army of digimon with which to fight the Bagura Army, ultimately allowing him and his friends to find a way home.

The premise is fun to imagine, since Xros Combinations would be very cool if you had an ever-increasing stable of digimon to help you out in battle. Like a little kid, I look forward to Taiki shouting, “DigiXros!” and seeing his digimon combine into awesome forms. It’s not a very deep series, but if you’re looking for something light-hearted and action-packed, it’s not a bad way to spend 23 minutes of your life.

Anime Recommendation: Summer Wars

Summer Wars

by Victor Stillwater

It’s been a while since I last made an anime recommendation post, and that’s for good reason. While I do watch quite a bit of anime in my spare time, rare are the instances when any piece of media makes you want to watch it more than once. Luckily for me, I found Summer Wars to be an enjoyable film that I’ve already seen thrice.

The story of Summer Wars can be summed up as a boy-helps-girl, boy-accused-of-crime, boy-fights-giant-evil-Artificial-Intelligence-with-math. Of course, that’s an exaggeration, so let me give you a more extensive overview of Summer Wars.

The story begins innocently enough: We are introduced to the virtual world known as OZ, which is essentially the equivalent of internet on crack. People can do everything on OZ, from play games, buy commodities, create custom avatars, and even access individual special areas, such as the accounts of public officials that manage water and power, etcetera.

We move onto the people of the story.[The main protagonist, Kenji, volunteers to help out the school idol, Natsuki, during her trip back to the countryside to attend her grandmother’s 90th birthday. Without his approval though, Natsuki announces him as her fiance to her grandmother, who figures out that something is fishy.

The juxtaposition of OZ and the family story occurs when a rogue AI called Love Machine (yes, I laughed when I first saw it too), wreaks havoc on OZ by stealing the accounts of users, creating havoc almost on a worldwide scale not only through the acquisition of the accounts, but also by manipulating important accounts to cause trouble for everyone: from faking fires to stopping traffic, Love Machine did it all.

As it happens, Kenji and Natsuki’s family try to stop Love Machine from escalating his attacks to include large-scale casualties, and that’s where all the action happens.

From CG fighting to amazing flying scenes, this movie delivers amazing animated CG and hand-drawn work. Of course, without a story, it means nothing. Summer Wars is a treat to watch, mostly because of the struggle of the family to find a way to work together to save the world, even while dealing with problems of their own.

Out of everything I said, you’d expect that I’ve already spoiled the movie for you. That, however, is not the case: the good parts are still well-hidden, and you’ll be surprised at how Love Machine looks, as well as how the rogue AI escalates his “games” with the rest of the world, leading to a climactic showdown between the family and Kenji versus Love Machine.

As for how to get a copy of Summer Wars, it should be out on Blu-ray now depending on where you live. Barring that, of course, there are “other means” available, if you wish to watch it.

Super Street Fighter IV gets Anime

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMe78OwJbuQ]

I don’t normally like fighting games, but I do like anime, hence a little bit of anime geekery here.

I found a report on Angry Zen Master saying that there will be a new Street Fighter anime coming out, and this time, it’s based on the upcoming Super Street Fighter 4 release, with a special emphasis on Juri, one of the new additions.

In any event, the production values look good, and it’s exciting and all. There’s just one thing: it’s exclusive to Japan at the moment.

Sadness. :(

Anime Recommendation: Tokyo Magnitude 8.0

From the Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 Credits

These past few weeks, I’ve been following a very different sort of anime series from what I’m used to. It wasn’t action-packed, it wasn’t all hopped up on giant robots or pint-sized alchemists. Instead, it was 11 episodes of three people trying to get back home after an earthquake of historic proportions hits Tokyo.

The recently concluded Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 follows the story of siblings Mirai and Yuuki as they try to make their way to Setagaya with the help of Mari, a courier who was also at Odaiba at the start of the tale. As it happens, they encounter the fallout of a Magnitude 8.0 earthquake hitting Tokyo, and face both emotional trauma and physical peril as they make their way back to their respective homes together.

It’s definitely a drama series, and you definitely have to watch the entire series without blinking to get the most out of it. I won’t spoil anything here, but I will say this: the ending made me cry, and if you remotely feel love for any of the characters in this series, you’ll end up bawling before reaching episode 11.

As for finding it, you should be able to get episodes on YouTube, or you could pick it up through various subbing sites. My personal recommendation would be to try bssubs.net because of their speedy work in handling the series. Enjoy!