Accel World Review

It’s like a reversed Shallow Hal (look it up)

Admit it, she’s the only one that kept your attention

Reviews gonna be short because…there isn’t much to say, that’s why I put it as mini-review

Summary from MAL that borrowed from VIZ Media

The year is 2046. Haruyuki Arita is a young boy who finds himself on the lowest social rungs of his school. Ashamed of his miserable life, Haruyuki can only cope by indulging in virtual games. But that all changes when Kuroyukihime, the most popular girl in school, introduces him to a mysterious program called Brain Burst and a virtual reality called the Accel World.

First “Season” rather the first 12 episodes dealt with Haruyuki getting used to the Accel World and dealing with “smaller” problems concerning his new perspective. The last half of the series focused on Nomi, a first year who goes around stealin powers within the Accel World. To be perfectly honest…I just watched this because I firmly believed that Haruyuki would become a bit thinner. You could imagine my suprise when I saw that this tub of lard introduced as a the main hero. I honestly thought that he was the side character while the guy who would be introduced as Taku was the main character. I ain’t really used to fat people as the main ya know? Kaji Yuki (Shu from GC, Issei from DxD) voices Haruyuki, and the trend I’ve been noticing is that the dude voices a lot of “loser” type leads. Haruyuk with his entire physical state, Issei and his pre-devil  life, and Shu for 3/4 of the series in GC. Let’s just move to characters and then I can close this up with my honest thoughts

In terms of characters, I already mentioned my distate for Haruyuki. I mean, it’s definitely plot related that his recluse nature got the attention of Kuroyukihime (let’s just call her Kuro) but couldn’t he lose SOME weight? Brain usage does take a considerable amount of calories you know…

It was VERY HARD to take Haruyuki seriously

• Haruyuki: Fat, short, and weak. His anatomy is something that doctors definitely need to check on as it nears being a dwarf. Because of his completely inhuman body and stature, he has no other friends than Chiyu and Taku who I will talk about in a bit. Somehow due to his “prowess” and determination in the gaming world, he got picked up by Kuro to be trained, and eventually be her love interest. Because this is all a game, Haruyuki doesn’t really change in the real world which is a tad bit sad as it only helps him mentally and not physically but I guess that’s pretty good in his case. The Accel World avatar of Haruyuk is Silver Crow. Would be badass but his durability is seriously low.
• Taku: Taku started out as complete dick to Haruyuki in the beginning but became friends again (they were friends before) after Haruyuki beat his ass in a virtual fight (because one in real life would be completely one sided). Anyways other than Kuro, Taku serves as emotional support and bromance (literally, later half of the series has a gay moment). The avatar, Cyan Pile has a piledriver (no, not the wrestling move) and acts as his main weapon and usefulness. I this guy was going to be the main, oh the disappointment.
• Chiyu: Other than Kuro, Chiyu serves as pure fanservice and then later a somewhat pivotal role in the 2nd half due to Kuro being gone on a trip. Like I mentioned, fanservice seems to be a thing for poor little Chiyu, baths, showers, even stripping in front of the pig, what’s the matter with her? Anyways, she wasn’t too important and only served as a healer and source of fighting for Taku and Haruyuki. It’s revealed the last episode that she’s….basically the “Orihime” of this series. She provides fanservic, some incentive for the guys to fight harder, time manipulation (healing type) skills, and basically cries all the time.
• Kuroyukihime: The main reason anybody watched this. She has a thing for short, chubby guys as shown when he stook interests in Haruyuki. Honestly though, how nice of her to turn a guy’s life around. She’s a pretty big celebrity in the Accel World, being the one who caused the uproar in the backstory. Nothing too special about her avatar, it’s basically floating armor of swords and knives, plus she’s completely overpowered.
• Side Characters: Pfft, like I cared about anyone that didn’t show up for more than 10 episodes. Although special mentions for the redhead, she’s pretty annoying.

Badass on the outside, weak on the inside.

I went in with zero expectations (with many of the series I watch) and at the end, it was just another show I watched to see if anything would grab my attention. Nothing too interesting happened in the series for me. NOTHING ever struck me as amazing or epic. Maybe it’s just that behind that silver armor, lies nothing more but an outer shell for a fat kid to impress his upper classmen girlfriend. Hell if impressing girls was that easy, I wouldn’t hold back on my nerdiness. As much as I feel the need to harsly criticize the main character and the entire show a little more, at least it fulfills the “anime about a game” a lot more than Sword Art Online does. Accel World actually can tie in good romance, drama, while constantly reminding us that this is about a damn game.

So comparing it to Sword Art Online (which one-sides the love more than the action but the next episode seems promising enough), Accel World is actually GOOD. Kirito in SAO may be a badass but the series kind of lags that down with weak action scenes (I’m looking at you, still frame action sequences), Accel World however puts a lot of sh*t in your face, and in this case, that is a good thing. How good is the sh*t they throw at you? Well the artwork is decent, a rather bit shiny (and *ahem* fat).

Just to keep your attention, I know my writing is bad 😀

I’ve also noticed that, no matter how many people he beats online, it doesn’t really help him in the real world too much (other than the obvious poon he’s going to get), it doesn’t really help his life too much does he? It’s basically for his self motivation and the “girl” it seems, but nowadays, what more do you need? Props to the music though, I find myself humming the 2nd opening and the 2nd ending.

So yes, for action, it’s an Alright series but in terms of the whole thing. No other word can describe but one, BIG,