Infodump time!
What They Say:
A Duel Avatar called Cyan Pile is seeking to challenge Kuroyukihime in battle within Accel World.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Haru’s ability to process what’s going on isn’t exactly the best and it’s hard to blame him considering the way his life has gone. While the whole Accel World aspect is certainly mindblowing in its own way for what it allows him to do and the challenges he faces there, it’s nothing to the change now going on at school. With the encounter with his childhood friend and Kuroyuki unfolding quickly, it’s made plain his life is going to be harder when Kuroyuki proclaims him her boyfriend and they’re heading off on a date. It’s simply not something Haru is capable of handling in a calm manner, especially once the ripples from those statements make it out further to the school body.
With there being such an intriguing world hidden just out of sight, we do get some explanation as to why it’s like this and the adults don’t know. Kuroyuki’s explanation is certainly passable enough due to the newness of the Burst Linker and the tight conditions needed to be able to participate, which is also age based as well since you have to have the Neuro-Link installed since birth and it hasn’t been around that long. And any time it starts to percolate to the adult realm, it’s just dismissed as childish fantasy. Kuroyuki does a decent job of taking some exposition time with all of this to do an info dump and to showcase how the rankings and levels go with what you can achieve while also highlighting how she’s survived the last two years even without going out onto the main net, instead sticking to the local school net. It’s a decent sequence overall but kind of amusing since there aren’t any moving lips since it’s all done through the link
While the episode is very, very dialogue heavy, it’s useful because of all that it covers and is the kind of information Haru needs to know. So many shows just throw a kid into a situation with no knowledge of what to do and we “rally” behind them as they learn as they go. But here, Kuroyuki is filling him in relatively early after his initial encounter with a good deal of information that helps him form a real perspective about what’s ahead. The show does move away from this realm though as he ends up on a “mission” to see Chiyuri to try and find out whether she has a program in her that could be causing a lot of trouble. With her not being a games person, he has to believe that she’s being taken advantage of and wants to find out the truth. It’s hard to imagine him being this forward as we see in her bedroom, but it’s the kind of odd situation that can arise from childhood friends like this with such physical differences in their bodies.
In Summary:
While it is easy to write this episode off as an infodump, it’s not really a bad thing considering the way the world here works and what all is involved. It’s not something that’s just clean as there are confusing elements to it to be discerned and seeing Kuroyuki actually explain things to Haru is a big positive in my book. Rather than make him struggle, he gets the rough edges to things and knows what’s involved, though surely there will be surprises ahead as well. The relationship between him and Kuroyuki is really fun to watch and I like the new bits we get with Chiyuri here that does change things just a little bit and adds a touch more nuance and complications. It’s an interesting group of kids in general but that’s just one piece of the puzzle. Hopefully things will be more forward going soon with the larger story at hand.
Grade: B-
Streamed By: Viz Media
Review Equipment:
Sony KDS-R70XBR2 70″ LCoS 1080P HDTV, Dell 10.1 Netbook via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
