Anime Review: Accel World
This is probably one of my favorite animes if not my favorite. It's just a really awesome story and just very relatable. Based of a light novel series by the famous author of Japan Reki Kawahara, Accel World is a fun ride with very likeable characters and a world that you just get lost in. I highly recommend this to all anime fans and if you are not one, you still check it out.
The year is 2046, about 20 years after Sword Art Online incident and the world has moved on from the nervegear to these devices called nuero-linkers. Nuero-linkers connect you to the internet by your 5 senses and even allow you to enter virtual worlds as well. We are put into the shoes of young Haruyuki "Haru" Arita, who is this short, chubby fat kid. Being depressed and wishing he wasn't alive, he looses himself in virtual reality. Being the only safe haven from his miserable life, he spends his day giving is food to bullies and playing some sort of squash game in the men's bathroom. However, when he meets Kuroyukihime, his student council vice-president, she gives him a program called Brain Burst where your brain accelerates faster than the real world making everyone around you freeze.
Brain Burst is virtual reality massive multiplayer online game (VRRMO) that allows characters to fight each other to gain points. However, the catch is if you lose all your points...its safe to say it's game over for you since Brain Burst uninstalls itself when someone looses all of thier points. The characters fight via dual avatars that are created specifically through a person's emotional scars. It makes things very interesting in the thrid story arch when the incarnate system is intruduced, but I don't want to spoil everything for you.
What makes Accel world so inticing is that it can actually play a major role in their real life..not just their virtual one. Since Brain Burst as the ability to accelerate a person's brain, it can also make a big advantage in in real world scenarios by almost stopping time to a screeching hault. One can cheat on a test or win a fight just by accelerating. Not to mention that people who do these cheating acts will do anything to keep their power. I believe this story is one of the only few anime storylines where a MMO can actually have some grave consequences towards your life (Sword Art Online first intruduced this idea for me, but Accel World is by the same author, so what do you expect?)
This anime also begins to ask the tough questions such as, is virtual reality real or is just a game? Its a deep anime and really gets into the characters heads about what they would do without brain burst as they try to build relationships in and out of the acceleration world. I always like a story where its character driven and focuses on them instead of the world. Accel World does this exceptionally well and makes it even that much better when they accelerate.
Accel World's world is just awesome. It's cool because it literally will map out the environment where the characters are in reality by 3D camera imaging (big brother anyone?). This makes it cool for the audience since we get to see Tokyo Tower as this huger sand, granite looking pillar and even it in a modern city form. Even when Kuroyukihime goes on her class trip, the hotel she stays in turned into a run, down post apocalyptic building and gives the fight some sort of allure.
As for the antagonists, I have no complaint. Noumi is the only real antagonist and he is just complete douche bag that I can garuntee will make you scringe everytime you see him. What makes Accel World's characters so relatable is that no one is really a saint and will do anything for personal gain. I liked this approach in this anime because it really gets the point across that this virtual reality game is viewed more than a game for most people in the story. Even Haru finds himself doing everything possible to keep his points from hitting zero. Kuroyukihime as well has a very cool redemption story type of arch set up, which makes you wonder sometimes if she is using Haru's lighting fast abilities to reach level 10.
Overall, very impressed with this anime and highly recommend it again to anyone. I am going to definetely check out Baka Tsuki to read the translated english light novels to see what happens to our main protaganist. Hopefully they will continue this anime.
Rating: 10/10
