Review: #770
Title: Sword Art Online 11: Alicization Turning
Series: Sword Art Online - 11th volume
Author: Reki Kawahara
Comments: Things are heating up in the Alicization arc and this volume pushed the story forward even quicker than before. The first half continues Kirito and Eugeo’s school life as they strive to become the number one and two ranked Elite Disciples in order to get a chance at being Integrity Knights. It takes a surprising turn towards the middle by the author using one of his favourite plot devices. The author seems to love putting various characters into a hopeless situation that serves to anger the readers from the injustice of it all. The author lavishes in putting detailed descriptions of the character’ actions during this ordeal to the point where it feels somewhat perverted, like a fixation. At least you push through hoping that justice will be served. Then the plot continues to move on past the school section and into the grand objective. Once again, several clichéd events happen including forgotten memories and Kirito being forced to participate in a duel where he is at a severe disadvantage. During that fight, you wonder how Kirito will be able to prevail and the author just seems to keep pulling things out of a hat again and again. At the end, we finally start to get answers, from backstory of the big bad of the arc to the history of Underworld, and then to how various mechanics work. It would be rewarding... except for the fact that it abruptly ends with a “To be continued”. This was one of the worse ending in terms of just stopping; not even the frequent short endings of his other work, Accel World, was as bad as this. As a side effect from the quick pacing of the plot, most of the characters introduced are more of a “hi and bye” type, which is a shame as it would have been great to have them be fleshed out more and provide a supporting role to Kirito and Eugeo. In the end, Alicization Turning is still an engaging read that makes you want to read the next volume as soon as possible.
Rating: 7/10