Kuroyuki gets her much needed side story.
What They Say:
Kuroyukihime is challenged to a Brain Burst match by two girls named Ruka and Mana. Kuroyukihime easily wins the match, but learns that the girls were actually testing her to see if she was powerful enough to help solve their problem.
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
While this stretch of episodes has definitely been a bit of a predictable lull, focusing more on Haru’s growth and getting him to realize his potential and expand it, it’s also been missing something important for many viewers. While Haru is a rather fun and engaging lead character simply because he’s not an obvious wallflower or someone who could be quite the popular guy if he had the confidence, a lot of people are drawn to Kuroyuki. She’s been a strong presence at the start and had a smattering after that while Haru leveled up. And then she took a bigger backseat to events, but now looks to get a bit of an episode of her own as she’s off on her class trip to the beach.
Class vacation episodes always have a bit of fun and a show like this has a good reason to play up the fanservice as it does since it’s obviously appealing without being all flaunting about it. The show has some good fun just in the first bit as she and Megumi play on the beach, deal with the pleasures that come from having your own hotel room and then doing shopping along the ocean side resort town. It’s almost to the point where you’d want an entire episode about this kind of mild enjoyment and fluff just because it’s a welcome change from the last few episodes and because it looks and flows very well. But that can’t last as Kuroyuki gets challenged to a Brain Burst from two girls, Ruka and Mana, and finds herself dealing with those challenges.
While we get that brief burst of action, most of the episode is made up of more thoughtful moments. Whether it’s with Kuroyuki dealing with Ruka and Mana in the real world a bit by enjoying a drink with them or just thinking on her own past, explaining what it is that keeps her anchored to the real world. It’s rather nicely done in its own soft and tender way to reinforce how close Kuroyuki and Megumi are with each other and the depth of that relationship with how both sides of them feel. This ends up being a lot more interesting than the supposed main story involving Kuroyuki helping Ruka and Mana with a problem they’re having, which makes that feel like a rather dull point when it starts to shift more towards that at the end of the episode. But at least it should stand out better in the next episode.
In Summary:
While Accel World continues to have an uneven feeling for me with what Haru is going through, I definitely enjoyed the start of this side story that involves Kuroyuki. She’s a character I can completely get behind so having more time with her away from everything else is a huge plus. Even better is that we see a better cementing of her relationship with Megumi which is what really made this episode work for me. With the fight we get here involving Ruka and Mana and their end goal with Kuroyuki, it’s little more than setup for the next episode and it felt like it was lost underneath what we get from the other part of the story. It’s one that may play better when watched together at least. The whole thing is a welcome break from Haru and it’s good to see Kuroyuki again.
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.
