As long time followers of this blog will know I am a huge fan of Sword Art Online but I have felt recently that things seem to be running out of steam a bit. The last book of the Unital Ring arc was, in my opinion, a lot of filler and added nothing and the up until now excellent Progressive series felt a bit stagnant in book seven. Character growth seemed to have stopped and the narrative threads seemed to be sinking under their own weight a bit. Still, I had volume eight of progressive on order and eventually it landed. Amazon seem to be really struggling to fulfil pre-orders of these at the minute so it was probably about a month after it released that I finally got it.
So book eight follows on immediately from book seven with Kirito, Asuna and Argo unravelling the mysteries of the gambling level whilst at the same time hoping to help Kimzel as part of the Elf Quest story line. We have another bath scene with the girl which gives Abec the chance to do some more excellent drawings but it does strike me as odd that such a big thing is made about Asuna and baths in the progressive arc yet it barely is mentioned in the fatal bullet, excalibur, mother’s rossario, alicization or unital ring arcs. Is it something she’s grown out of or is it just an easy way for a swimsuit fan service scene? I don’t have the answer but it seems a bit out of place in the wider narrative thread. Following this we get Kirito roaming round the beast pens, nearly getting caught and then being roped into being a bodyguard for a bit. This ends badly when his patron his wounded and shock horror is revealed to be a vampire.
To be honest I have been expecting vampires to pop up for a while; after all they are an RPG staple and a big part of the european culture which aincrad is based on (according to Asuna); so the reveal was not a huge shock. To save the vampire patron it needs a drop from the floor boss and there is only a few days to do it. Kirito decides to get the two rival factions involved by winning the casino’s powerful sword and then selling it to the one which fights the best. He does this by dressing up as a masquerade ball character with Asuna, winning the jackpot and then it is off to the boss. Of course they win but the price is high as the sword turns out to have a catch attached and Kirito needs to be bitten by the vampire patron to win; in essence becoming a vampire.
As you can tell I have skipped a lot; but that’s because a lot of this book was just not memorable and felt very laboured. Normally I will binge a new SAO light novel in an hour but I put this one down for nearly three weeks before finishing. The whole thing just felt very bloated and slow for me. There is potential here what with what is essentially a cursed item (very Baldur’s Gate), the vampire element and the casino investigation but it just never really flies. There is also very little growth for Argo and Asuna (again). They get plenty of page time but not much really happens with it and the whole Kimzel story line feels like it has been put down and forgotten to a degree.
I wrote on an early review of a progressive volume that I wondered if the author would be able to pay off the narrative debt he is building and that concern is growing. Off the top of my head the progressive arc is eight books in and needs to either set up/pay off:
- Kirito and Asuna separating and him becoming the loner
- the Dark Elf quest
- the assault team formation
- The laughing coffin arc
- Argo and what she is trying to do
- This new vampire element
This is in addition to getting in the characters we know and tying in with the existing story such as the Knights of the Blood etc (unless we are going down a Fate route of the same story in different ways – I hope not) and I just don’t see how that can be paid off at the current rate.
Hopefully I am wrong and the next book picks things up and drives the story forward but as for volume eight? Well it was a disappointment saved only by the excellent Abec art work and if things continue on this vein then I may need to consider if I continue with the series.
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