Review: #768
Title: Sword Art Online 9: Alicization Beginning
Series: Sword Art Online - 9th volume
Author: Reki Kawahara
Comments: Alicization Beginning starts the new arc that will be ongoing for many volumes to come. After the short story of Volume 8, we get a true successor to the Gun Gale Online arc although the author is mightily stretching the “fantasy” element now and makes it a bit less believable. Kirito is now in the “Underworld”, a prototype VR world but it utilizes the human thought/memories (named “fluctlight”) to create the world leading to a high degree of realism, to the point where you cannot distinguish it between it and the real world. It is hard to believe that technology had progresses that quickly but anyway, the volume starts off in a really strange way. The scenario is completely left field to the point where you wonder if the author will be able to give a satisfactory explanation on how it came to occur. This first section ends on a major event and then skips back to Kirito chilling with Asuna and Shino before jumping back into Underworld again. Noticeably, the author has transitioned into a full fantasy style of writing, losing all the technical jargon of his game mechanics in previous volumes. This feels jarring in some aspects as it doesn’t feel like Sword Art Online anymore, except for the fact that he ends up falling back to pulling up artefacts from Sword Art Online in order to power up Kirito without too much effort on his part. It can feel lazy in some ways but Kirito was always and will always be, overpowered so it can be overlooked. The Underworld melds together elements from real world and integrates it with game-type language and concepts, and it creates a world that’s interesting and makes you eager to learn more at how it works. While it is a slow burn, Alicization Beginning shows promise in Kirito’s new adventure but makes you wonder if other characters will return.
Rating: 6.5/10