Kuroyukihime (Photo credit: pullip_junk)
So I finally finished the final few episodes of Accel World, which I started on Neon Alley ages ago. I had to buy it on physical media to watch those last few episodes in English, but since the price had dropped by half, it was totally worth it. Accel World is similar to .Hack and SAO, about a massive online VR social space and fighting simulation. Those who play in the "accelerated world" call themselves "Burst Linkers". Time in the "accelerated world" flows differently, more slowly than in the real world. It even enables its users to invoke a kind of "Bullet time" in the real world, though this ability is used sparingly. "Burst Linkers" form an elite and somewhat secretive society. Those not involved with it know nothing of its existence. Those who lose all their points in Accel World lose their ability to Burst Link and lose all memory of ever having been a part of that world. Not quite as harsh as SAO, but still relatively high stakes.
Not unlike SAO, the anime series Accel World (アクセル・ワールド Akuseru Wārudo?) is also a form of male power fantasy. The protagonist, Haruyuki Arita (有田 春雪 Arita Haruyuki?), is an overweight high school sophomore who uses a little pig character as his social avatar, a self mocking reflection of his own self esteem. He finds an unlikely friend and champion in the person of Kuroyukihime (黒雪姫?, lit. Black Snow Princess) a.k.a. Black Lotus (ブラック・ロータス Burakku Rōtasu?) a.ka. The Black King. Kuroyukihime is a very attractive, slender High School girl who is a senior in her last year of school. She befriends, then falls in love with Haru. Haru also loves her but shows his love through devotion to her in her battles as The Black King.
Haru has some other friends, Takumu Mayuzumi (黛 拓武 Mayuzumi Takumu?), and his girlfriend (and Haru's childhood friend) Chiyuri Kurashima (倉嶋 千百合 Kurashima Chiyuri?). Both of them are also Burst Linkers. Despite having a boyfriend, Chiyu still has some unresolved romantic longings for clueless Haru, who never noticed that she liked him and never responded to her hints and flirtations. She relented to Takumu's overtures only after it was clear that Haru either didn't pick up on her liking him or wasn't interested in her. At one point in the series in a moment of high drama and tension, Chiyu unbuttons her shirt to let Haru see her in her bra, offers to let him touch her, confesses she's always wanted it and always loved him.
Unfortunately for Chiyu, Haru only has eyes for his senpai, Kuroyukihime.
The ultimate goal the characters are striving for is to reach legendary Level 10 status and meet the creator of Accel World. Black Lotus is Level 9 and almost there. She is a "King", along with the few other Level 9 players in the game who rule their own guilds and territories. She has a temporary truce with the Red King, who is a sweet, twin tailed redheaded Middle Schooler on the outside, but a foul mouthed Tsundere hot head in the accelerated world. The main antagonist is the rather sociopathic Seiji Noumi (能美 征二 Nōmi Seiji?) a.k.a. Dusk Taker (ダスク・テイカー Dasuku Teikā?)
He's a freshman at the school who possesses strange abilities and who seems to cheat at Kendo, which Taku picks up on quickly. Haru also notices that Noumi's strange abilities extend into the virtual world as well. His name doesn't appear on the normal "match" lists; he seems incredibly formidable, overpowered for his ostensible age and level. He's also very manipulative, crafty and vindicitive and utterly cynical. He plans to gain enough power to wipe out all the Kings and upend the social heirarchy inside Accel World.
The anime resolves around a chess-like battle of wits and skill between Haru and Noumi; they struggle for position and power inside the Accel World and also in real life. Noumi makes it clear he has no qualms about playing dirty, and Haru's high minded morals let Noumi take advantage of Haru, who has to learn some hard lessons and overcome many setbacks.
It's a fun little series and I'm glad to have picked it up on DVD for a reasonable price. The DVDs also include an Extra in Part 2, a small collection of short anime done in "Chibi" style using the main characters doing comical skits of mostly nonsense. I do wonder why VIZ bothered to include this material in their release, since it's clearly aimed at a Japanese audience. They also took the extra step of letting the English voice actors dub their character voices for the shorts as well, but again, one has to wonder why. It's clear that much of the intended humor comes from puns and wordplay in Japanese, which to a native speaker are possibly hillarious, but the lame attempts to reproduce English equivalents mostly fall flat...like mixing up Panties with Pannini...really guys? really? Anyway, this bonus material can be skipped. Watch it if you like, but sub-only is probably the way to go. This material wasn't for us, i.e. the North American audience. I can only speculate it was included at the insistence of the Japanese license holder. The decision by VIZ to dub it seems pointless to me, but maybe it was a welcome and challenging exercise for the ADR script writers. The shorts are only a few minutes long, so the total commitment time of the voice actors was probably minimal for these segments.