#volume review

[shazzeaslightnovels]

Sword Art Online 21 Unital Ring 1 Review

Writer: Reki Kawahara

Illustrator: abec

Label: Dengeki Bunko

Release Date: 7th December 2018

Story:

The plot of Unital Ring starts off with Kirito hanging around with Asuna and Alice in ALO when suddenly something goes wrong and they end up in a completely different location. They’re back to level 1, are unable to fly and all of their equipment and magic skills are gone (but not sword skills so Asuna gets to keep Mother’s Rosario. Yay!). They soon realize that they have somehow ended up in an open-world survival game called “Unital Ring”.

To get potential drawbacks out of the way, this arc is much slower than the majority of SAO arcs. I liked that it was but if you were a fan of the earlier arcs because of the fast-paced story packed with action, you might not like this.

Personally, I liked this volume a lot. It was fun, interesting and exciting and I honestly think people who don’t usually like SAO would enjoy this volume. Like said in the premise, Kirito gets nerfed almost straight away and the female characters gets lots of chances to shine (even Yui!) but I’ll come back to that later. This volume brings back the survival aspect from the Aincrad arc but significantly lowers the stakes. That’s not to say that there isn’t any stakes or tension but it’s likely not life-threatening to most of the main cast. Personally, I think that’s a good thing. This could be SAO’s last arc and I think it should be remembered as something fun instead of something stressfull. It feels like a gift to the fans and a celebration of the series and that’s what a last arc should be.

I complained a bit in my Mother’s Rosario review about how boring and needless the recaps of previous volumes were but I think they worked well here. They’re paced well, don’t overexplain things and are done on a need-to-know basis. The game mechanics were also explained well. I remember reading Infinite Dendrogram 1 last year and how annoyed I got at the tutorial-like parts constantly interrupting the flow of the story and forcing you to sit through numerous scenes that were just an NPC or another user explaining things to the protagonist and it was so bothersome to read. Unital Ring, on the other hand, reveals game mechanics by having the characters test out theories and having conversations with eachother as they figure out how the game works. It was fun to read and easy to understand and helped me to see a bit of the charm of Survival Games, even if I don’t personally play any myself.

Character

Like I said above, Kirito gets nerfed at the beginning and is honestly pretty useless this volume, save for a couple of moments, but he’s still the narrator (for the most part, anyway) and I actually found his narration to be quite amusing. He’s always been a cheeky little shit but he’s even more so here and it makes for an entertaining read. Alice and Asuna really get to shine during their side of the story and they interact a lot (I ship them so much). Lyfa shows up around the half-way point to show off her survival skills, even if she can no longer use magic or fly. Meanwhile Silica, Liz and Yui get a storyline mostly independent from Kirito and have a lot of fun interactions. In particular, Silica really steps up and is probably the most delightful surprise of the volume as she really becomes her own character. Sinon is breifly mentioned but doesn’t show up nor do Kleine or Agil. The epilouge introduces a new character who appears to be connected to Accel World (? Or so I’ve heard; I haven’t read AW) and reintroduces a character who hasn’t been seen in the main series since Aincrad.

Will I be reading the next volume?

I will be waiting for it with much anticipation. Hopefully, it’ll be out this year but in the meantime I have Progressive 1 waiting for me to read and I plan to give Girls’ Ops and Clover’s Regret a go soon-ish. I may read Zettai Naru Isolator or Accel World at some stage too.

Personally, I liked this volume more than most of the other SAO volumes, aside from maybe Mother’s Rosario and some Alicization volumes. I’m really excited to see where this arc goes!

[pvpendleton]

Bungo Stray Dogs Volume 1 Review

I like how Kafka named the characters after famous Japanese authors and I don't like how they treat it like Dazai is finding cooking recipes when he finds a way to k!ll himself. That is kind of messed up but I do like how the art style kind of uses the SpongeBob technique of having a normal and pretty generic art style but randomly it becomes hyperdetailed.

But as for the story, I think the characters are neat and it reminds me of JoJo's if it was less flamboyant. Now, one thing I've learned in my years of studying criminology is the fact that if someone in a hostage scenario asks for another person, don't do it. You're setting up a murder su!cide.

Also, the Armed Detective Agency is such a cool looking organization, and I like how the mafia members, even though they are far more powerful than the Agency they still are more incompetent. Akutagawa seems like a cool antagonist, but I want to see Fyodor. The reason I started reading the manga is because of Fyodor being called the smartest fictional character. But I do like to treat the story like food, you must eat it at a pace that suits the food in order to enjoy it truly. 8/10

[ngscoffeecupcommentary]

The Apothecary Diaries vol.2 (manga) by Natsu Hyuuga

Ah, court drama strikes again! Maomao gets an impossible task and makes her way through with some greasing of the wheels from her 'benefactor'.

I do like that while there are cat fights between women, there is also women helping other women here.  And I find it hilarious that Maomao told Consort Lihua about the certain 'art'.  Even more than that - the lack of visits to the other consort are met with relief at getting more sleep by that consort.

I love how all the other attendants working with her are constantly misunderstanding her, but in a way that makes them like her more - I'm really liking this use of misunderstanding!

The politics of the setting are also getting unveiled bit by bit. Very interesting to read about and consider - MaoMao's commentary is the best. I really like how blunt and practical she is. I do wonder about the foreshadowing with Jinshi… I won't say it yet, but I've got a hunch (though that reveal may be too obvious for this manga...hmmm).

When someone is doing shit she doesn't like Maomao is ruthless!! <3

They mystery of the poisoning unfolds!

The endings with Xiaolan are so cute - hopefully nothing happens to that cute child ;o;

 .

Rating: 5 stars

[shazzeaslightnovels]

Chronicle Legion 1 Review

Alternate Titles: クロニクル・レギオン

Author: Jou Taketsuki (Best known for writing Campione!)

Illustrator: BUNBUN (Best known as the character designer for Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de aru/Yuuki Yuuna is a hero)

Publisher: Dash Ex Bunko

Date released: 21st November 2014

Story:

Genres: Military, Action, Alternate History, Mecha, Harem (3 girls to 1 guy)

The setting and premise of Chronicle Legion is a bit hard to describe. It takes place during the late 20th century with an alternate history in which Japan is mostly under Eastern Roman Empire’s control. The princess of Japan, Shiori, has secret ambitions to overthrow the Empire and she takes an interest in our seemingly normal high school boy protagonist Masatsugu, suspecting him to be a reincarnation of a great hero and requests for him to become her knight. This world has people who hold great power who are the reincarnations of great heroes and then they do battle. Also, there are mecha.

I hope that made some semblance of sense. Like I said, this setting is complicated. This series biggest issue is that has clearly been inspired by several series that it just isn’t as good as. From that description, you may have gotten a Fate vibe and that’s definitely there with a bit of Code Geass and I personally got Kyoukaisenjou no Horizon. But, even though I’m not a big fan of Fate or Code Geass, I would still say Chronicle Legion is inferior to all three of those series and it’s just not fun to read something and constantly being reminded of better series. The other issue is that some comedy segments can be longer than they should be. This wouldn’t really be an issue but the reader likely doesn’t care enough about the characters yet to enjoy those moments. Hatsune’s first scene, for example, which happens right after Masatsugu’s first scene, is a comedy scene that goes on for far too long and there are very few readers who would be invested in these characters enough yet to be interested in such a scene. Again, this scene would be fine if it was primarily a comedic series but it’s not.

On to the good stuff, I really can’t say that the plot was boring. Jou Taketsuki, while not the most original writer, has always had a talent for crafting exciting stories that holds the readers attention. Even though my version of this book comes close to 400 pages, I barely felt it. And you can tell that Taketsuki wanted to write this series as there’s a lot of effort and thought put into the setting.

Character:

I found the female characters got disappointingly few moments to shine in this volume and it was hard to recognise the confident, ambitious princess seen in the prolouge and the easily-flustered-by-Masatsugu’s-commments Shiori as the same character. I also don’t think this series is going to do much with female historical figures, despite the reincarnation-of-a-great-hero thing, which is a damn shame. I doubt it’ll really explore what it means to be a hero either since all of the heroes shown so far have been ones with military accomplishments.

That being said, the heroines are certainly appealing and Masatsugu is a protagonist that a lot of people would like - he’s funny, proactive and overpowered and does seem to take the girls’ consent into consideration. While the series does rely on a certain trope to quickly create a sense of physical intimacy between the characters, it thankfully doesn’t rely on the ‘only guy at school so of course the girls fall for him because he’s their only romantic option’ trope to quickly get Masatsugu his harem (looking at you Infinite Stratos, Juuou Mujin no Fafnir, Seirei Tsukai no Blade Dance, etc.). While not my favorite kind of protagonist, Masatsugu is a fine one and I can see why people would find him refreshing.

Recommened for:

People who like alternate history and war stories and don’t mind a harem element could like this. While it is a hard read, it’s probably not as hard as stuff like 86, Youjo Senki or Tenkyou no Alderamin so maybe give it a go if you want to read stuff like that in Japanese in the future to get used to the language. Fans of Taketsuki Jou’s other works would definitely like this.

Will I be reading other volumes in this series?

I bought the first 5 volumes back in 2016, probably because of BUNBUN’s art, so it’d be a waste not to read them so I’ll be reading this until I finish those 5 volumes. I also own 2 volumes of Campione! for some reason (my guess is that they were on sale for free or really cheap when I bought them) and 1 volume of Meiyaku no Leviathan (though it is the sixth one so we’ll see if I can be bothered going back and buying the first one) so I’ll likely be talking about those series in the future as well.

[junko222]

I just re-read Vol. 66 “Sorry I am Strong” (with Oetsu on the cover) and now I’m mad all over again that Bleach is ending (if it is.)

Thing is, normally, when I re-read a tankobon, I think, “Ah, this is how the pacing of the story is really supposed to be,” because, reading weekly can feel like there’s these huge lags in the fights and the action. Things that read choppy and disjointed over weeks often read so much smoother in one sitting. But, this time, in this volume in particular, I re-read it and thought: “WTF.”

There’s a bunch of things that drove me insane, particularly when thinking about how few chapters Kubo-sensei has left.  

For one, in this volume, there are literally dozens of repeated panels while zombie Captain Hitsugaya figures out he’s been “cured”/poisoned by Mayuri.  Like, cut-and-pasted repeated.  OMG, such a waste!  Especially since we get no character development from either Hitsugaya or Mayuri during that time.

Likewise, the Pepe fight happens in this volume, and, frankly, I could have done without Pepe and his diapers. Plus, the whole fight is kind of pointless.  I mean, I guess we learn the Byakuya isn’t so ruthless as to actually try to kill Pepe-possessed Hisagi, but I guess I kind of felt I knew that sort of thing about him already (maybe it was just fanon that Byakuya isn’t  a total dick, but I dunno, didn’t feel like a huge revelation of character). So, again, stuff happens, but nothing is learned. Like Pepe wrecks all his “love” havoc, but in the end Liltotto eats him. Pepe killed by his own people for no reason that I can determine, except that Pepe was sort of kind of defeated by zombie Kensei... (who Mayuri confirms as dead, which just depressed me all over again.)

Meanwhile, up in the Royal Realm it’s a game of “I got you!” “No, you didn’t!” between the Zero Squad and Yhwach’s Royal Guards which seems particularly pointless when read quickly, in one sitting.  First it looks like X-Axis shot Shutara in the head, but no it was all an illusion created by Ichibe....

*sigh*

Damn it, Kubo.