Accel World Volume 1

“If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we wouldn’t.” – Emerson Pugh

It is interesting to look at this series now, because Accel World, which began as a series of light novels, is written by Reki Kawahara. Kawahara is also the author of Sword Art Online. Given that SAO is returning for a second series next month, now seems a great opportunity to review it.

Accel World, like SAO, is about a schoolboy in the future getting involved in a mysterious video game. However, there are some major differences, namely in the form of the heroes. Unlike SAO‘s Kirito, Accel World‘s lead character, Haruyuki “Haru” Arita, is relatively unattractive. He is short, fat, bullied and lonely. He spends most of his time on the school’s local online network where he plays squash by himself, controlling an avatar in the guise of a pig.

One day Arita finds out that someone has beaten his squash high score, and discovers it is Kuroyukihime, the Student Council Vice-President, who invites him to lunch. While they talk Kuroyukihime introduces Arita to “Brain Burst”, an online fighting game where people fight each other to gain “Burst Points”. They play in the “Accelerated World”, in which brain waves flow 1,000 times faster than normal. 1 second in the normal world feels like 1,000 seconds (about 16 minutes, 40 seconds) in the Accelerated World. Players win and lose points during their battles. If a player loses all their points, they are expelled from the game and the Accelerated World forever.

Arita accidentally enters a battle, where he adopts the persona of “Silver Crow”. In Brain Burst this is a good thing as all the players take their names from colours, and metallic colours are rare. He tries his best to fight by loses. Kuroyukihime teaches him the basics, but then also tells him her true purpose. She was once a Level 9 player of the game, and was one of the “Kings of Pure Colour”, known as “Black Lotus”. The only way to get to the top Level 10 is to beat five Level 9 opponents. While most of the Kings agreed to a truce, Kuroyukihime killed one of them and has been branded a traitor ever since. She now plans to reach Level 10 using Arita’s help.

Accel World has some features which I think are better than SAO, one of which is the lead character. I like that fact that Arita is unlike many anime heroes of this type in terms of his appearance. I like the fact that he is fat and short. He is much more light-hearted than Kirito. Having said this, Accel World is not really a comedic series. There are moments where Kawahara tries to add some humour to the series, but it tends to be more of the fan-service end of things and it does not quite work. Personally I think that Kawahara is better when he is being serious. 

There is plenty of serious action in this series though. When Arita transforms into Silver Crow, there goes his short, fat appearance, and in its place appears a shiny warrior dealing out heavy blows. It is not just in Brain Burst that there is action. In the real world, there is a dramatic scene in which one of Arita’s bullies tries to run down Arita and Kuroyukihime in a car.

This collection does not have much in the way of extras: just clean opening and closing, along with trailers for other MVM titles. But the anime itself is entertaining in its own way. Whether or not it too will have more episodes adapted like SAO is not yet known.