While this show is fun, it doesn't have a lot of character logic. I'll let you guess which one is more important to me.
I've said before that Kawahara is great at creating believable futuristic settings but not so great at building compelling characters and relationships, and Accel World is a perfect example of this. What kept me coming back every week was the desire to learn more about the little details in the setting, but everything else--especially the one-note morality of the characters--dragged it down to the level of an average anime. A lot of the problems stem from the actions of the characters not holding up to even a little scrutiny, and it starts with the premise. A bullied, overweight kid named Haru is given an invitation to an exclusive VR game known as Accel World by the beautiful and popular Kuroyukihime. She's trying to reach the final level of Accel World to find out the meaning behind the game's existence, and she wants Haru to help her.
A big deal is made out of how Haru feels that he's sunk to rock bottom and that the only place for him to go is up, symbolized by the wings on his avatar within the game (and before you ask, apparently everyone's avatar in this game is symbolic of some sort of trauma). At first I was on board with this--it's the basic premise of the show, and I'm willing to accept a lot--but even in the first episode Haru's plight doesn't seem that bad because they give him another way out. His two best friends, Chiyu and Taku, clearly care about him; Chiyu even seeks him out to ask what's wrong. I can understand feeling embarrassed and not wanting to bother your friends, but when the entire show is based around the idea that the only way for the main character to solve his problems and gain a sense of self-worth, it feels insincere to give him another option.
Because of this, I could never really get attached to Haru as a character because I felt that he was whiny and preferred playing the victim as opposed to doing something to change his situation. Note that these are problems that I have with his character, not with his design; I think that we should have more fat protagonists in anime. Before starting the show, I thought that the design was pretty cute. However, as a character, the complete lack of self-esteem and no personality traits aside from "shy and likes video games" grates after a while, especially since Haru never really changes (despite characters' claims to the contrary). He gets better at the game, sure, but his self-inflicted put-downs never stop. At the start of this show, he based his entire sense of worth on a high-score in a game. At the end, I can't say that anything is different.
Speaking of high scores, a lot of this is also why I have a problem with Kuroyukihime's relationship with Haru. I like her a lot as a character--despite that her name (literally Black Snow Princess) sounds like it belongs in My Immortal--because of her take-charge attitude and calm logic in most situations (something that is lacking in this show) but her romantic interest in Haru confuses me. I get that love is blind and there's no rhyme or reason to who people fall in love with, etc., etc., but this show pushed it just a bit too far for me. Why would Kuroyukihime, who is presented as a near-perfect being, be interested in Haru, who is at the bottom of the social ladder in school? (And if you remember middle school, that detail is very important.) I'd be willing to believe that she was initially interested in him only for his gaming skills and that she grew to like him as she got to know him better, except that isn't what happens. The show presents Haru's skill at gaming as the reason why Kuroyukihime asked him to join Accel World as well as the reason why she likes him. No wonder Haru continues to feel insecure! If he screws up, the excuse for their relationship will fall apart!
This wouldn't be a huge problem except this is one of the key factors that drives the show forward, and like the premise, it has a flimsy foundation. Instead of focusing my attention on the battles and inner politics of Accel World, which the show clearly wanted me to, I was trying to figure out how this relationship worked. By opting out of gradually building up the relationship and no focus on chemistry, their "love" is exposed for what it really is: wish-fulfillment. It looks like it's directly targeting the kind of person who doesn't want to make an effort. "Someday, I'll find someone who's shallow enough to love me only for my skill in video games! She'll be totally hot and smart but not be even remotely interested in anyone else because high scores are the only thing that matters!" And that's not mentioning the awkward "parent-child" titles, which makes the entire thing stranger. The official English subtitles decided to translate this as "guardian," which was a smart move to get rid of the weird connotations.
Those are the big issues that I have with the show, but the other characters don't fare much better. Accel World likes to go for big displays of emotion without much weight behind them and cookie-cutter plot developments. Characters show severe flaws in their logic, taking the long way around a problem when another, far easier method is staring them in the face. The villains end up being more flat and cliched than threatening; the only thing the antagonist of the final arc needed was a mustache to twirl. Accel World runs straight into its overdone conflicts while completely forgetting to get the viewer to care about its characters first.
Clearly, I have a lot of problems with this show. However, these are problems that built up over time; there are specific scenes that I can point to, but there isn't any one episode that particularly set me off. It's the kind of show where at the end you look back at it and say to yourself, "Well, that was dumb. Why didn't they try X instead of Y? Why does Z care so much about A?" and so on. Once you're out of an episode, the whole thing falls apart.
But I do give credit to the series for what does work. Like I mentioned above, the setting for this show is fantastic in its detail; it's believable as a near-future story, with all the little details about technology that's become commonplace in that time but is still amazing in ours. It doesn't get to the point of technobabble either, so it doesn't cross the line from realistic to ridiculous. I really enjoy near-future visions of the world, and completely bought into this one. When it comes to characters, in addition to Kuroyukihime I also really liked the Scarlet Rain character for taking a common archetype and proving the portrayal is everything. I can't say much more without spoilers, but I do give her voice actress a lot of credit as well for a role that really shows her range. She's becoming a voice that I'd like to follow.
The animation and designs are solid, and Sunrise continues to be the studio to go to when the source material has a lot of flashy fight scenes. It doesn't have the same shine as its sibling Sword Art Online, but it's pretty good in its own right. Even as the character and paper-thin intrigue fell flat, the fight sequences that resulted were always well choreographed and fluidly animated. There is still a bit of standing around and posturing about attack moves and sitting in cafes with panning sequences while characters talk, but that seems to be a problem with the source material rather than the animation. But even during those scenes, there's usually something interesting to look at and I'm impressed at how much interesting content was conveyed regardless.
The show had an open ending, and apparently there's enough material to make another season if this does well, but even if that does happen, I've seen enough. Even considering the parts that I did like, this wasn't a show made for a fan like me in mind. People who enjoy action sequences and futuristic settings more than character development (or those who just don't really care about characters either way) will probably be able to forgive this more than I can. It's entertaining, but I like my shows to be just a little more dense. It great if you're looking for light entertainment, but look any deeper and you'll be disappointed.
Images from Hulu.com.
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Series:
Accel World
