Review: #919
Title: Sword Art Online: Progressive Vol. 6
Series: Sword Art Online: Progressive – 6th volume
Author: Reki Kawahara
Comments: The second part that finishes the story of the sixth floor. While the author claims in the afterword that he was forced to split it into two parts due to its length, after finishing this volume, you’ll come to realize that it could have fitted into one volume after all. This is because of the author’s extreme tendency to find every opportunity to regurgitate the characters’ current predicament as well as summarizing everything that has happened up until now. You’ll find blocks of paragraphs that do this and it gets tiring. Ignoring that, there is also the theme of all the NPCs not acting like your typical game AI but rather more like humans. Considering that this game was the first of its kind and very far from when the Underworld arc and its “true” AI would have happened, it’s hard to believe and breaks the immersion. The player killing gang remains a major antagonist but sits more in the background. Rather, Kirito and Asuna focus on spending time with Kizmel, befriending a new group and then continue on solving that floor’s story quest so that they can challenge the floor boss. There is a lot of filler content that ultimately becomes inconsequential, from the excessive detailing of food to the same tired angle of NPCs being individuals as well, and that they have histories spanning to before the game started. All this combines into a slightly above average story but nowhere near as good as the early volumes.
Rating: 6/10
