Sword Art Online Girls' Ops volume one (read for fun)

 This is the first volume of the Sword Art Online spinoff manga, Girls' Ops. It focuses on a trio of main cast members from Sword Art Online, Silicia, Lisbeth and Leafa, and one new character, Lux (real name Hiyori). This is the volume that introduces Lux. I enjoyed reading it but it has its share of flaws. To go into more detail... 

The story is framed by the release of a new quest in Alfheim online, Angel Rings. It is one that was present in Aincrad, and the new admins tweaked it to make it work in the world of the fairies. Lisbeth and Silicia invite Leafa to join them, and while on this quest they meet a dual-wielding sword-user wearing a black cloak. They assume it is Kirito, but it is actually "Kuro", an avatar created by Hiyori. 

This is one of the reasons that I find the first volume to be lackluster. Creating a copy of Kirito to anchor the plot feels like a narrative crutch. It is as though Reki Kawahara created a new (supporting) protagonist by flipping his main-story protagonist's gender and then justified it with a hero-worshipper angle. Silicia even convinces Lisbeth and Leafa to assist "Kuro" by suggesting they would be abandoning "a Kirito" if they didn't. However, it is more complicated than that.  

Hiyori has good reason to be emulating Kirito. This informs her decisions in this volume, gives weight to the plot, and it is funny to see her fangirl over simply meeting Kirito's sister. However, emulating Kirito obscures her actual personality and uniqueness.

One does not see the real Hiyori until she appears before her new friends as "Lux", which was her SAO avatar. The glimpse is in this volume was enough to pique my interest in seeing more of her, now that she was no longer role-playing The Black Swordsman. Indeed, the reader does not see an unobstructed view of Lux until volume 3. Trust me, it is worth the wait!

Anyway, about the other aspects of this volume. There are three or so stages of this quest for the Angel Rings. Each scene has a narrative purpose, and so the story has a nice structure and progression leading up to its climax. That was fun to read. 

 Another plus for this volume is the running gag about the Tsundere Angel. This is the name given to the NPC who is the quest giver for the Angel Rings quest. She is an angel who acts like a "tsundere", grumpy and rude at the start of the quest but becoming more affectionate and/or flustered to the player(s) at the end. The means of triggering the "dere" side of this Tsundere Angel is a fun little sideplot. 

The battle with the boss at the end of the quest was a little difficult to follow. The art style didn't convey action as well as I would have liked. Perhaps that was the fault of the boss itself; he's huge, and the players are human-size. The scale might might have been the problem. 

  Otherwise it was a fun and meaningful battle. The emotional content of this tough fight makes the fire-forged-friendship at the end feel more earned. Three of the four of them are SAO survivors, after all, so they know what it is like to depend on party members when fighting monsters. 

The art is good. It shows the cuteness of the main cast, but also the immensity and threat of the boss and the subordinate monsters. The panel showing what happened to the Tsundere Angel's rose pavilion is a stark image that shouts, "something bad has happened". 

Trickster Eric Novels gives Sword Art Online Girls' Ops volume one a B+

Click here for my next book review:  SAO Spinoff Girls Ops volume 2

Click here for my previous book review: Spiral, The Bonds of Reasoning volume 1

Brian Wilkerson is a independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).

His fantasy series, Journey to Chaos, is currently available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback.

Browsing the Library is more fun

Browsing the Library is more fun than browsing Amazon. Tracing my eyes over the shelves and side-stepping to move to the next shelf was more fun than clicking on "other customers viewed" or whatever. It was a striking yet low-key experience. 

 See, I went to my local library the other day to return a book. It was "So I'm a Spider, So What?" manga volume 2, in case you are curious. That was a simple enough process. Then I went inside to pick up a reserve book. That's a thing with me; whenever I return a book I want to pick up a book. That creates a cycle of library visits. 

Because of the COVID-19 Pandemic, I had gotten into the habit of reserving a book and then picking it up. That didn't happen this time. See, I had reserved a book that was at this library, already present at this location, but it was marked on the website as "in transit", as if it were moving from another location. So I decided to look for it where it would normally be, thinking it was "in transit" between shelves. 

I browsed the shelves looking for it and I spotted another series. This was Sword Art Online Girls Ops. Volumes 1-3 were available. I had read about that series and I was interested in it, so I picked up all three. Then I found another series that I hadn't heard of, but it looked good, so I picked it up too. Then I saw a book with the title, "I Kill Giants" with a beautiful cover illustration. So I picked it up and started reading it then and there. 

Eventually, I came away with five books total, including the one that I had originally come to pick up from the reserve shelf. I had also spent a lot more time at the library than I had planned for. However, I didn't regret it. 

For one, I accomplished my two objectives, dropping off a book and picking up a new one. More importantly, I had fun. Browsing the shelves was fun. It was more fun than a similar activity at an online place like Amazon. 

Amazon, and, I imagine, other online book retailers, use algorithms to provide links to the next book. All Amazon points me towards these days are isekai manga and light novels. I've even been routed into the Reincarnation sub-genre of isekai manga and light novels. That gets, I don't know, shallow? "You bought that so how about buying this too? It's very similar." That sort of thing, like a salesman pointing you to the next sale. 

Browsing at the library is a discovery thing. Books in a library are grouped by subject matter. That's how the Dewey Decimal system works. Physical books belonging to the same category are shelved together for the purpose of organizing the collection. It has nothing to do with patrons. Everyone who comes in sees the same thing. The exception, of course, is books that are checked out when a given person arrives. 

So there is no data funnel. There is no separation of people by the choices made by an algorithm. Everyone gets the same view of the books available at a given location at a given time. So everyone gets a chance to discover something entirely new. Something unexpected could be on the next shelf; something that an algorithm would never show you. And that could be your next favorite book. 

The reserve book I came to pick up was called "Sleepy Princess in the Demon Castle". It is a fantasy slice-of-life comedy. Sword Art Online Girls Ops is a Fantasy Adventure Shojo series. The fifth book was a realistic fiction detective manga. I found them all in the same corner of the library because they were all manga (Japanese comics).  They all belong to different subcategories and I found them all by browsing on my own. 

That is part of why I'm going to Barnes and Nobles the next time I want to buy a book. There are a host of reasons for why I'm shifting away from the Amazon-for-everything mindset. This is one of them. I can browse the physical shelves like I would the library, except, of course, no reading the material before I purchase it. 

That is a key difference, but if I go into that then I will diverge from the topic of this post. Browsing the library is fun. I wonder which books will be available the next time I visit. 

Brian Wilkerson is an independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor's degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).

His fantasy series, Journey to Chaos, is currently available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback (and might be available at Barnes and Nobles in the future ^_~). 

Spiral - Bonds of Reasoning, volume 1

I found this at my local library when I was looking for a different series entirely. I picked it up on a whim. I'm glad I did because I like it. 

This is a mystery series. It focuses on Ayumu Narumi, the younger brother of a famous detective. Said famous detective went missing researching the mystery of "The Blade Children", and the first chapter opens with Ayumu unwittingly getting involved in a case connected to these "Blade Children". 

There are three mysteries here, and the first two are presented in full. The third is a cliffhanger. I feel like this might be a thing going forwards, and that annoys me. I don't like cliffhangers. However, I get the feeling that this is not a hanging-from-the-cliff sort of cliffhanger. It feels more like a commercial break prior to The Summation. Like in Detective Conan, the show would present all the clues, indicate that Conan has solved the mystery, and then give the audience time to figure it out on their own. So in that case, the cliffhanger is fine. 

The mysteries are fine, suspenseful and clever and all, but what I like is Ayumu's supporting cast. I feel like Ayumu's interactions with the people in his life are where this manga shines.  The way Ayumu bickers with and yet shows concern for Madoka, one would think they would were blood-siblings rather than sibling-in-laws (Madoka being the wife of his missing older brother).  Also, his interactions with his sidekick, Hiyono, are always entertaining. Truly, they are my favorite part of this manga. It is a classic Energetic Girl and Savvy Guy pair, but it is greater than that. Hiyono, for instance, initially struck me as bubbly comedic relief; someone who would not contribute to the plot itself. She's actually really good at intel gathering, and Ayumu relies on her to find the information he needs to solve these cases. 

The art looks good. Hiyono is adorable, but the art style itself isn't focused on being cute, so it can look solid and/or serious as necessary for the right mood. 

If I had to point out a flaw, then it would be the lack of information about the "Blade Children". There is no information about them other than Ayumu's brother going missing searching about them, and something nebulous about a curse. This series doesn't show any other supernatural elements, so I'm not sure if this "curse" is really a legitimate curse. 

It feels like a macguffin, you know? Just something to link the mysteries together into one story. From what is in this volume alone, I get the impression the mystery of the Blade Children will never be solved. 

Trickster Eric Novels gives Spiral - Bonds of Reasoning, volume 1 a B+

Click here for my next book review: Sword Art Online Girls' Ops volume one

Click here for my previous book review: Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes

Brian Wilkerson is a independent novelist, freelance book reviewer, and writing advice blogger. He studied at the University of Minnesota and came away with bachelor degrees in English Literature and History (Classical Mediterranean Period concentration).

His fantasy series, Journey to Chaos, is currently available on Amazon as an ebook or paperback.