Accel World | Anime Review | Pinnedupink.com

ACCEL WORLD

I was never a fan of Sword Art Online; it had always been a below-average or, at the most, a mediocre series. Accel World is by the same creator, and while I did expect it to be better, and it is, I didn’t care much for it.

I don’t see the appeal to Reki Kawahara's work, and they are usually just “blah” to me, to be very honest. Most of the time, they’re just created to appeal to Otakus, and not in a good way. Though I do feel like Accel World is better than Sword Art Online, at best, it’s a time-passing endeavor with not much content actually to care for.

Adapted by Sunrise into a 24-episode series, the year is 2046, and people have wireless access to the interweb through the Neurolink, a computer program built directly into their bodies. Following main character Haruyuki Arita, a high school student with seemingly a ton of self-esteem issues?

These arise because he goes through a ton of bullying because of his height, physique, and unnatural physical appearance. He looks like a character from Shinchan, to be precise. He spends his entire time playing online games, but then one day, someone beats his high score in a game that only he plays (The game has zero other players). Realizing that the Student Council Vice President Kuroyuki-hime beats him, he gets offered an alternative to enter a virtual fighting game’s world where you win, you rule the world, and you get kicked out if you lose. The powers he gets within that world are to move a thousand times faster than his average movement speed.

The story’s premise sounds fun, right? Well, it’s executed terribly! The characters bring so much exposition into every little episode; each episode has exposition dumps for minutes on end. That happens so frequently that you forget being interested in the series and stop your brain until the show eventually explains everything to you anyways.

Let’s now talk about the elephant in the room; my god, the characters are flawed. First off, Haruyuki is highly frustrating to watch. He’s an uninterested, boring, whiny character who does nothing but eat. What makes Haruyuki worse is that he never gets any better, even by the show’s end. In no way did his character improve, he got no development, and the series didn’t even start any development for him to begin with. And now we talk about the annoying Kuroyuki-hime.

She’s easily one of the most lazily written characters I’ve come across in anime. She uses Haruyuki to do her lazy work despite being the most influential player in the show (?), and she constantly does this.

They never even explain her motivations; it’s just her being evil for no reason whatsoever and then falling in love with him? I—I don’t get it... I can say that she was created just to pander to Otakus because quite literally every single piece of merchandise with Kuroyuki-hime! We get two episodes of her, though, and most of those are spent with her being in a bikini, so yeah, I think that her entire character is fan service.

I’ll say this, aside from the way Haruyuki is designed, the art is quite decent. The artwork on the characters in the series is pretty good; they look unique and different and have their own styles. The settings inside the fighting game ‘Accelerated World’ are varied. They range from the ocean, cities, wastelands, and forest areas which are all designed well. The real world isn’t well-designed, though, and nothing much to look at. Even the artwork itself isn’t exceptional; it just works.

I can’t say much about the animation itself, as it’s not that fun to watch unless there’s a fight going on. However, the fighting is exquisite! The fighting choreography, visual effects, and even the movement are fluid and fast. There’s a certain smoothness to it, and it makes it look great.

The soundtrack is excellent; it’s fun to listen to and fits the series so darn well that it makes the fight scenes even better. The composition is done by none other than Yota Tsuruoka. Whose other projects are Bakemonogatari, Rozen Maiden, Shigofumi, and Full Metal Panic.

He creates a soundtrack of variety, mystery, comedic tone, and high octane music action for Accel World. Ma’yn created the opening song “Chase the World,” It has a beautiful aura and a rhythm that pulls you into the show. Even the second opening song, “Burst the Gravity" by ALTIMA, provides those same emotions on an even faster rhythm.

Accel World is a missed opportunity, is all I can say. It was a chance for the creator to make something exceptional, something with its entire focus on the action and nothing else at all. However, it’s bogged down by its story’s monotonous pacing, tedious filler, and terribly written character drama.

On a brighter note, the fights themselves are insanely well done and are complemented by some kickass music and animation. Though I wish that the creators put a little more effort into diverging from the manga and creating a more resonant anime, I guess you take what you can get, and I’ll take the fight scenes and ONLY the fight scenes in the anime.