Accel World – 23

September 15, 2012Guardian EnzoUncategorizedAccel World, Anime, reviews

You have got to be kidding me.

I can’t be the only one, can I? After this whole arc being about Haru and Taku finding their own strength and beating Noumi without relying on Kuroyukihime, she shows up and saves them just as they’re about to get their asses handed to them – I can’t be the only one who finds that to be shockingly anti-climactic. I mean, really, what was the point of the whole arc, then? Why make us suffer through the whole thing (though the last couple of eps and the Sky Raker cutaway were quite good) if Snow Black was going to literally ride in and save the day? I feel cheated, to be honest.

Another thing that sort of bothers me, aside from the whole dependence on Snow Black thing, is that it’s apparently OK to cheat if your opponent cheats. I mean, she certainly wasn’t supposed to be part of the duel as agreed. Yes, of course Dusk Taker cheated too, by bringing in Black Vice (Tobita Nobuo) – but Dusk Taker is a Scooby Doo villain who’d be twirling his mustache when he laughs maniacally if he wasn’t 13 years old – of course he’s going to cheat. Maybe it’s asking too much to have truth and justice triumph over evil without copying its methods, but the whole thing just feels kind of deflating to me.

As for little Noumi, he continues to rack up personality points, not just sneaking in a ringer but torturing Chiyuri (I pity the neighborhood squirrels on his block) when the going gets tough in his battle with Taku. But you knew there had to be a back story coming, and it’s Noumi’s nasty big brother, who beat him up and stole his burst points from him and generally made his life heck. I’m not sure where we’re supposed to go with that information, but in terms of sympathy for Noumi I think that train pulled out of the station a while ago. It does make sense given the rules of the game that Noumi’s RL would have to have been pretty unpleasant for him to get an avatar like Dusk Taker, but I think it was obvious from his personality that the elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top floor.

Well, I can’t really see any way this arc can end now in a way that will feel satisfying, which is a shame because after the last two episodes I had a bit of hope. We all know how it’s going to turn out, so I vote we get it over with next week so at least the series can go out with a one-shot that hopefully covers some different ground. For all that eps like this one frustrate me, Accel World has been pretty good a decent percentage of the time, and it really deserves to go out on a better note than anything Noumi-related seems likely to provide.

Guardian Enzo

28 comments

K

Kinny Riddle
September 15, 2012 at 7:37 am
Reply

To be fair to KYH, she did still allow Haru the dignity of finishing his own fight with Noumi by removing Noumi's unfair advantage via her stalling of Black Vice, no?
admin
September 15, 2012 at 8:02 am
Reply

Yeah, but the point is still the same – I thought this was all about the teardrop kids taking care of business without turning to the big bad butterfly for help?
A

Anonymous
September 15, 2012 at 5:03 pm
Reply

Was this in the manga/LN? I thought Chiyuri was supposed to play a part in this somehow other then being the damsel in distress? Why is she helping him ruin her beloved friends if not because she had a secret plan of some kind?
t

tenshi no hone
September 15, 2012 at 11:17 am
Reply

There is no way she could have timed this right. She activated unlimited burst one minute before she arrived – how did she know when they'd be fighting? Acceleration means it is impossible to show up when others do without deliberate synchronisation. Ridiculously huge plot-hole alert!
E

Eternia
September 15, 2012 at 1:03 pm
Reply

This plot hole has already existed when Megumi helped our butterfly girl. The author told us that 1.8 seconds in the real world equals 30 minutes in the accel world, didn't he? When Megumi sneaked into the cafe, walked to the girls, picked up a cable, plug it on herself, just how many seconds has passed?? The battle of Kuroyuki x SulfurPot would have ended long ago when she finally joined in, because it seems like they fight for only 20 minutes to me. Lol.
A

Anonymous
September 15, 2012 at 1:08 pm
Reply

Classic flaw of Japanese Sci-Fi where they set up the rules to the world only to completely contradict it. *cough*GuiltyCrown*cough*
K

Kinny Riddle
September 15, 2012 at 2:42 pm
Reply

Well, just me doing some number crunching, there might be a way around the Megumi loophole:

1. In nearly all drama ever written, be it animated or live action, inner dialogue never follows real time, and most of the time it's usually slowed down for the convenience of the narrative. e.g. If there's a bomb that's about to blow in 10 seconds and our hero needs to figure out which wire to cut to defuse it, we would see him think for minutes before cutting the correct wire, and all without the bomb exploding until he's done his thinking.

So if we follow this rule, the time that actually passed Megumi's inner dialogue when coming in and opening that Burst Link book could actually be shorter, perhaps 10-15 seconds, which would calculate to 2-4 hours inside.

2. The time it took for the Okinawan girls to bring KYH to Crikin as well as for them to chat up before going to confront Sulfur Pot must also be taken to account. So perhaps that'll shave about 1-2 hours.

3. That still leaves about an hour or so for the fight with Sulfur Pot. Maybe the time it takes for Crikin's cute minions to collect his mecha material takes a bit more time than the episode would suggest.
t

tenshi no hone
September 16, 2012 at 4:34 am
Reply

Of course that doesn't excuse the impossibility of this episode!
A

Anonymous
September 15, 2012 at 1:05 pm
Reply

If the fans reaction to Daryl in Guilty Crown was any indication, I feel that the swarming masses of Accel World fanboys/girls will eat Noumi's sob story right up, and only the people that know better will be incredibly pissed off that they're shoveling down this manipulative tripe to emote sympathy towards a raving psychopath.
I

Ishruns
September 15, 2012 at 2:53 pm
Reply

After being so wrong about Koi to Choco I have gained enlightenment in anime.

We cannot berate people for enjoying something that we find disdainful, as long as it does not harm us or those we care about.

f they enjoy it, it is because they were part of the demograph and we are not. Much like they would not enjoy a show we watch because they are not part of that demograph.

We are all different and thus should enjoy the range of choices we have in our entertainment without mocking other forms (except Jersey Shore, the people that watch that deserve federal prison time)
K

Kaioshin Sama
September 15, 2012 at 3:28 pm
Reply

Unfortunately we've entered a sad era in anime fandom where civil discourse and discussion is becoming a thing of the past. Now it's all about the snap knee jerk judgements without thought, explanations or references, watching shows based on hype and popularity as opposed to finding something to truly enjoy for oneself, failing to note the technical intricacies and failings of a story along with the emotional ones and just generally not treating peoples differing tastes with anything approaching respect. Also a show is either gods gift now that everyone with half a brain should be watching or utter shit that a person is clearly a moron for daring to appreciate. Respect for your fellow fan? What's that?

Basically like many fandoms nowadays anime fandom fails completely and miserably in almost all categories and is truly truly ugly to me now with very few exceptions in reasonable well-mannered and thoughtful people I've managed to come across. God help us all, but hey at least you get it there Ishruns.
A

Anonymous
September 15, 2012 at 10:59 pm
Reply

I think you're projecting your current dissatisfaction of the anime fandom in something that has nothing to do with anything of the sort.

It's interesting to talk about respect and taste, but that varies with people and not just limited to any particular medium. If you're like me and abhor evil of any form, then you will never sympathize with a murdering psychopath, no matter what his sob story is. Just because Daryl's daddy didn't hug him enough doesn't make it okay for him to MURDER WOMEN AND CHILDREN. It's not even about taste anymore; I'm shocked to see so many people feel sorry for this character it borders on Charles Manson levels of psychotic.

Noumi could've been beaten up by every member of his family and it still wouldn't be okay the things he did.
A

Arabesque
September 16, 2012 at 12:25 am
Reply

''Noumi could've been beaten up by every member of his family and it still wouldn't be okay the things he did.''

Not if they did like it was with Sojiro! The way they treated him made me sympathize with him even when he ended up killing his whole family and went on to become Shishio's apprentice due to the way it was presented.

Maybe that's what Noumi needed … he already had the pretty boy looks, just the right story to makes us understand why he was so broken.
I

Ishruns
September 16, 2012 at 1:43 am
Reply

Again you are missing the point if an anime or a show or book is created with a certain type of people in mind, including people who simply want a high octane form of entertainment and don't care about things like plot holes, then it doesn't seem right for those not in the demograph to complain.

I dislike GC and AW with all of my mind and I hate the characters and Swiss cheese plot. Thus I don't watch it because I know that it will not entertain me in the slightest.

To me watching a show I dislike makes no sense because I know that I will have no fond memories of it. If you're just curious about what happens read an episode summary here rather than watch it.

There are people who enjoy AW, and don't care about the problems in the plot and characters and we should not judge them for it. Nor constantly complain about AW.

Drop it or shut it. That wasn't very polite but it gets the point across.
A

Anonymous
September 16, 2012 at 3:17 am
Reply

That sounds a lot like "like what we give you or shut the hell up". I can understand there are some shows that are not in my demographic, but I don't see how we are suddenly not allowed to call out a bad show as bad. If people aren't allowed to critique, poor Enzo would be out of the job, and quite honestly, there'd be no joy in watching anime. Half the fun is social media, where people talk about what they like and don't like in each episode. The "put up or shut up" mentality is a disservice to our community, and frankly is a contributing factor to the decline of the industry. "If you don't like it, don't watch it." Well, guess what? No one's watching it.

And I also have to ask, what is the demographic of people that doesn't care about bad writing and plot holes?
L

Lotor IV
September 16, 2012 at 9:28 am
Reply

The masses?
K

Kaioshin Sama
September 15, 2012 at 3:20 pm
Reply

I emphatically 100% disagree with the assertation I've been seeing that KYH had to come and bail Haru out thus betraying the point of the arc as a growth one for him, and here's why. For starters Nomi cheated and brought in one of his superiors as an assurance that he would win. Now I'd be entering spoiler territory a bit if I said too much about Black Vice, but needless to say as implied he's way out of Haru and Taku's league and thus not something they should or could deal with on their own like Nomi, hence why KYH gets him and Haru if left to finish up Nomi as planned.

Now if Nomi was alone and KYH still showed up and did everything for Haru that would definitely defeat the purpose, but the fact that Nomi has a 3 on 2 going on and has resorted to all kinds of cheating and trickery, but the way I see it this both gives KYH something to do in the finale and allows Haru to finish his fight with Nomi, mano a mano the way it should be without having to worry about Black Vice getting in the way since he's going to be fighting Hime. I completely fail to see anything wrong with this particular setup or how it's Haru relying on KYH so much as KYH being there to even the odds back to how they ought to be before Nomi decided to cheat. Haru should not have to overcome Nomi's cheating lopsided team as a part of his growth IMO.
admin
September 15, 2012 at 4:29 pm
Reply

I've already explained why I don't think the "Noumi cheated too!" excuse holds up in the story, so on that we're just going to have to disagree.

If this was necessary to "give KYH something to do in the finale" I would argue that it was a mistake to write themselves into that hole in the first place.
K

Kaioshin Sama
September 15, 2012 at 4:46 pm
Reply

I just see it as the typical shonen battle style of matching the heroes up with their best suited counterparts on the opposing side. Haru is fighting Nomi, that's always what he set out to do and unless the show pulls a total shocker of an ending and he somehow still loses he'll have achieved his goal and "levelled up". I definitely don't see why he would need to take on Black Vice to accomplish this and why he can't still take things one step at a time. Nomi is his target for now, Black Vice who is an intruder into the feud at hand can be dealt with in the second season should there be one when the time is right and Haru is ready to face him. That's the way I see it.

So yeah I guess we'll have to disagree here as I just completely fail to see the hole here.
K

Kinny Riddle
September 15, 2012 at 5:06 pm
Reply

Kaioshin pretty much articulated what I wanted to say.

"it’s apparently OK to cheat if your opponent cheats"

I beg to differ on your definition of cheating.

By bringing Black Vice, Noumi created an unlevel playing field with the advantage tilting towards him.

KYH's appearance merely balanced the scale towards a fairer match-up. She didn't particularly do anything devious.

This is not a sports match where rules are paramount and refs are there to enforce them, this is practically a no-frills battle-royale fight, where rules and refs are pretty much non-existent, and relied only the honour of the participants to maintain the fairness of the fight.

Noumi attempted to destroy that honourable fight, KYH rectified it by restoring it. I don't see how she's cheating.
admin
September 15, 2012 at 5:17 pm
Reply

I think this is close to devolving into a circular argument, but just to reiterate: my main issue here is that this development completely undercuts what – by all appearances – seemed to be the main theme of the entire arc. If Haru and Taku can't face down Noumi without Snow Black's help, the entire thing seems like filler to me. You could have contracted the whole arc down to two episodes and just had her show up right after Noumi pulled his initial double-cross – the rest of it was just padding.
A

Arabesque
September 15, 2012 at 5:27 pm
Reply

This arc had it's moments where I felt like facepalming (and at times actually did) but on this particular issue I'm sort of with Kaioshin

See, I do agree with you Enzo that the goal here ultimately was for the teardrop kids to 'find their own strength and beating Noumi without relying on Kuroyukihime'' … but to a point. Looking back, this entire arc was meant to be more of litmus test for both Haru and Taku to see how well they do without KYH helping them along the way and for them to raise above their limitations and do well … but not TOO well, because there is still more stuff and plot lines to come in the future, more stories to be told and more development for the duo before they could become truly independent and strong on their own to face off against the truly stronger foes. After all, Noumi is nothing more than a stock villain from hanna barbera, and we can't have our main duo gain a huge leap in confidence and drastic change in character against him can we? Nope that's an important event that needs to be saved for when they face off against one of the Kings/Queens of AW.

So, from that perspective, this arc had done it's job, the teardrop kids are have proven their worth and shown everyone that they are really tough and can put on the good fight … but they are still starting out in their road and need more time before they can truly become strong.

Of course, that doesn't mean I thought that the idea behind this arc was all that well done …

''If this was necessary to "give KYH something to do in the finale" I would argue that it was a mistake to write themselves into that hole in the first place.''

I agree with this, and looking at it from a meta perspective I think the problem with this arc was the way it was structured than anything else. He wanted for Haru and Taku to be testing their metal against an enemy while KYH was away, but at the same time didn't want it to be a major enemy since KYH was still a central character and needs to be involved during any important event, so he created Naoumi … and placed far too much importance and stake on the battle between them than he should have.

KYH could've been busy doing her own thing, but I suppose the writer realized that would've meant that he was dividing the narrative into two stories and that he had to give KYH a better (and more exciting) reason for staying away for this long, and also for him to give both of Haru and Taku a massive boost in strength and ability he wasn't ready to give quite yet. The end result was a story trying to find it's balance between not being too much of a confidence boost to too wimpy kids and not make it the villain too little of a threat.

Still, even though the concept had been faulty from the get go, what they managed to do within the eventual faulty construct had been good, I thought.
K

Kaioshin Sama
September 15, 2012 at 5:30 pm
Reply

Yeah for sure it's looking like we aren't going to find common ground here so this'll be my last attempt to clarify something I think you are disregarding here. I get what you are trying to say for sure, but what Kinny Riddle and I are trying to make a counterpoint of is threefold:

1) Haru is still fighting Nomi
2) KYH is fighting the other intruder onto the battlefield Black Vice
3) Ultimately while the show is about Haru climbing his way up the tier of manhood it's also about the crew working together as a team a lot of the time. The two do not look as if they are defeating each other here because of how the fighters are pairing off.

To me these are separate fights at the moment and Snow Black isn't helping Haru defeat Nomi so much as evening the fight back out to the way it should be, which is Haru vs. Nomi and who ultimately wins. However how about we do this to avoid any more potential circular arguments. If KYH starts to interfere with Haru's duel with Nomi and/or helps him in anyway other than keeping the other person that shouldn't be there occupied I will say that that you're point will have proved well made that he didn't succeed in defeating Nomi without her help. Otherwise we'll just agree to disagree I guess.
x

xRichard
September 15, 2012 at 6:45 pm
Reply

Once Noimi cheated the board was removed from the table and so did the rules. That's why I also don't mind KYH arriving to take care of Black Vice, whose "aura" hinted that he was quite above Noumi in PL terms. What I didn't like was the perfect timing and the over-the-top entrance.

It comes down to take the show as seriously as the anime thinks for itself.
H

Helen
September 15, 2012 at 4:55 pm
Reply

Oh my god, what do you mean this arc isn't finished yet?!? I guess the gang is lucky that Nomi monologues so much or there's no way KYH would have made there in time for the fight but seriously, I wish this arc was over episodes ago since I am just so tired of the gang coming up with a reasonable plan, fighting, and then OH NO NOMI THREW IN ANOTHER TRICK, WHATEVER WILL THEY DO? (answer: lose again). I'm of two opinions about KYH's entrance (I know a few things about Black Vise but hadn't realized until I saw Kaoishin's comment that he's that over-powered) but as long as they wrap this up in another episode I probably won't care either way.
A

Arabesque
September 15, 2012 at 5:31 pm
Reply

''I guess the gang is lucky that Nomi monologues so much or there's no way KYH would have made there in time for the fight''

At first I laughed.

But then I realized this was probably true. Kid just never seems to keep his mouth shut, so …
x

xRichard
September 15, 2012 at 6:57 pm
Reply

Great episode in a bad arc.

Visually stunning.
B

Beckett
September 18, 2012 at 4:19 am
Reply

I just… I don't even. Noumi is such an olde timey card carrying villain that I can kind of put up with his constant monologues. That's what EVVVVIIIILLLLL villains do. But when the so called protagonists start doing it too I just groan and die a little inside. Hey Taku, how about instead of psychoanalyzing Noumi, you bring your goddamn sword down on his head? How about that?

Needs more Pard, she understands efficiency.

Accel World – 23

Guardian Enzo

28 comments

Kinny Riddle

admin

Anonymous

tenshi no hone

Eternia

Anonymous

Kinny Riddle

tenshi no hone

Anonymous

Ishruns

Kaioshin Sama

Anonymous

Arabesque

Ishruns

Anonymous

Lotor IV

Kaioshin Sama

admin

Kaioshin Sama

Kinny Riddle

admin

Arabesque

Kaioshin Sama

xRichard

Helen

Arabesque

xRichard

Beckett

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

Lost in Anime

Guardian Enzo

Related posts

28 comments

Kinny Riddle

admin

Anonymous

tenshi no hone

Eternia

Anonymous

Kinny Riddle

tenshi no hone

Anonymous

Ishruns

Kaioshin Sama

Anonymous

Arabesque

Ishruns

Anonymous

Lotor IV

Kaioshin Sama

admin

Kaioshin Sama

Kinny Riddle

admin

Arabesque

Kaioshin Sama

xRichard

Helen

Arabesque

xRichard

Beckett

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply