Yesterday I had trouble sleeping and read volumes 1-4 of Sword Art Online (ソードアート・オンライン) novel series by Kawahara Reki ( 川原礫).
Original story of SWO Aincrad was written in distant 2002 and - I checked - it is also the year when famous .HACK: SIGN anime series aired.
You can easily spot similarities in SWO and .HACK. But if .HACK features a single person trapped in a virtual MMORPG without option to log out, SWO tells us a story of a world with around 10,000 people of the same fate.
While .HACK focuses on phenomena of virtual world, virtual life and tries to speculate what life (in real and virtual world) is, SWO focuses on subjective drama of main characters.
Main characters which are, of course, high school students. .HACK went further than that. Ok, ok, I'd try to refrain from comparing to .HACK too much, but analogy is too obvious to miss.
So, we have a main character by the nickname Kirito, a lonely swordsman in a game where to get back to real world and real life characters in-game must beat 100 levels of dungeons and bosses.
He meets a girl by the name Asuna from a mighty guild and they become engaged in a relationship while trying to escape the game.
That's pretty much it. The whole story simplified (or maybe not really simplified).
Let me tell you that in .HACK we had a big group of main characters, though the main plot evolved around a character unable to log out from a game world - a world where something like that shouldn't happen. That is a difference, I agree. In .HACK being unable to return to a real world is considered a peculiarity and something impossible too, while in SWO the fact is forced upon all players. That is a clay from which one could build a good story - but sadly Kawahara focuses on affairs of teenage love more than on anything else.
Yes, yes, I know. It is a light novel, it is supposed to be plain. And entertaining. As author wrote in annotation: 'I'm sorry it goes on like this [romance stuff], but 40% of my readers like it too much'. xD
Back to the book.
Original volume - SWO volume 1 Aincrad tells a story of main characters trying to escape the game.
Volume 2 Aincrad alternative story is alternative story and prequel to volume 1 which tells small stories about what happened to main characters before volume 1.
Volumes 3 and 4 Fairy Dance continues when main character(s) escaped SWO and came to real world only to continue action in another MMORPG where this time magic is introduced.
I haven't touched volumes 5 and 6 yet and have no urge to. I didn't like many aspects of volumes 2-4 and I personally believe that one is fine reading only the original thing since it is the best of all 7 volumes that are out now.
If you're looking for easy reading and you played MMORPGs SWO can be your choice.
Though I personally believe that fan service is killing creativity in Japan. Oh yeah it is.
-------------------------English translation of volumes 1-6 can be found here.
I also know where one can find Russian translation of volume 1.
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