Creative Staff:
Story: Reki Kawahara
Art: Hima
What They Say:
In order to cleanse Silver Crow (aka Haruyuki), Kuroyukihime and the rest of Nega Nebulus launch an operation to rescue Ardor Maiden. In the midst of this dangerous mission, Silver Crow manages to make contact with Ardor Maiden, but in doing so, he invades the forbidden territory of the Imperial Palace. There he has a vision of Chrome Falcon and Saffron Blossom–but what do they have to do with Haruyuki?!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
These two volumes help put the bowtie on the Chrome Disasters Arc of Accel world at least one would presume. To date, Haruyuki defeated Chrome Disaster only to acquire the armor. Said armor, Chrome Disaster, is known to turn their users into monsters with no thought and constant killing tendencies that will not only harm users but the people that are close to it. The Seven Color Kings have all deiced that Haru must either purify the armor or be destroyed. As such, Haru, not wanting to be destroyed, sets out to purify it. The person that purify it, Arbor Maiden, is trapped in an infinite loop at a castle and Haruyuki as well as Nega Nebula must set out to rescue her if he is to purify the armor.
One thing I appreciated in Volume 7 was the backstory to chrome disaster. We were expecting a deep backstory for the armor as its existence in the accelerated world was still a mystery. For a lot of readers, we would normally expect this in Volume 8. However, by getting rid of that issue upfront in Volume 7, we had to get an appreciation for what happens next in both volumes. Seeing the story of how the power to help the ones that they love end up driving part of the person to the brink when that love is shattered is a tragic story that overall makes sense for the armor. This event plays out in Volume 8 as a back narrative to Haruyuki’s actions. If Volume 7’s great strength was this backstory, the character balancing in Volume 8 matches it in necessity.
In this case, less is more, and in the case of volume 8 they spend less time on most characters but she humanized him more efficiently. For instance, we get a good scene between Ui and Haru when they go to feed Hoo. It allows readers to wonder about said event while allowing Reki Kawahara to guide us to said point. Another instance is the sleepover with Takumu. We get the background of the childhood dynamics of Chiyuri, Takumu, and Haruyuki from the parental side. It’s cute and a nice happy scene to transition us to the more important event while developing said characters. I will give credit to Kawahara that allowing Takumu to be more vulnerable and even act against a typical male gender norm. It just hurts that this action among others for character development could tighten up for better reading if Kawahara didn’t waste his words.
In both volumes, the main issue is wordiness. The author could easily condense some of his thoughts, however, he opts to be more liberal with the usage of his words. For instance, a lock of the justifications for Haru’s actions does not pay massive backstory. While it kind of comes off as smart in one-way, is shows that Haru’s constantly thinking, he kind of dumbs down these motives for the audience. Instead of opting for showing, we get a sense of dialogue bombs that really do a lot less than what they need to. They don’t transition between ideas well and linger on the past too much.
One pet peeve of mine in both volumes: breaks within the intermediary. In both volumes, the end with a to be continued, which really would not be necessary for both volumes if Kawahara would focus on just wrapping “on-time”. It feels that he breaks apart these volumes because there is a limit to how much she wants to put inside each volume, however, it is not as necessary to be page limited if you’re trying to carry out ideas for the audience. Some people would enjoy taking a longer drive through the story if it concludes properly. Instead, at both times in both volumes, it doesn’t conclude it’ll way that feels satisfactory. In fact, because of doing this break apart, it actually hurts the concept of “To be continued” for the series.
Kawahara maintains his knack for action scenes in both volumes. The various fight scenes between the avatars that Haru faces as Silver Crow feel vibrant, giving a sense of intrigue to see the scenes. They go through feel amends enough that the task seems daunting, but Kawahara knows how to keep us on our toes with each blow each special move and each new trick that comes up the sleeves of the Nega Nebula crew. It makes for certain scenes such as the mission to get Arbor Maiden exciting with the action that occurs to get inside as well as outside the castle that keeps her.
Hima’s drawings in this volume still maintain its quality. Yes, there’s the obligatory fan service shot, but unlike other volumes, it’s considerably toned down. More importantly, the drawings in this volume articulate the scenes of importance in the volume. We get to see the action between Haruyuki and his opponents as well as the comedic scene between Haru and Kuroyukihime. They fit accordingly with the pace of the story and are enjoyable to see. It is somewhat disappointing that certain scenes did not get drawing. One intimate scene in Volume 8 between Haruyuki and Kuroyukihime in the Accelerated World, would have done wonders to have it drawn. It’s these little issues that would improve the experience but do not detract from it.
In Summary:
The major disappointment about these volumes is that they could have been more than just a standard affair. They could have tied together this story of Chrome disaster neatly. However, it looks like Kawahara has other plans and wanted to extend a little bit more to get out what he truly feels is worth the major point of the arc. It would make sense if not for his wordiness of his writing. The action the drawings, and the overall feel of development such as the back stories and the character development make said wordiness almost bearable. Let’s hope that Haru and Kawahara will fare better in the next volume.
Grade: Volume 7: B Volume 8: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: September 20th, 2016 / December 13th, 2016
MSRP: $14.00 each
