Ladies and gentlemen, David Bowie.
Hello again everyone. I thought I'd go ahead and do my monthly update post for this month since the month is almost over. As for why I chose the above David Bowie song, I've had had it stuck in my head off and on for the last few weeks. I kind of wish someone would use the song to make an AMV. Anyone remember when those were a thing?
Anyway, things in my life honestly could be better. I'm still having issues at my current job, and meanwhile my efforts to get a new job sadly continue to meet with failure. It has at least been a peaceful month though, with no family emergencies or any relatives requiring major surgery. Of course at the same time I seem to have entered a long creative slump with my writing. It also doesn't help that it's been suffocatingly hot out, but then that's just summer in the midwest.
Well, it's been another Sword Art Online themed month for me. I watched both seasons of the Sword Art Online Alternative Gun Gale Online anime.
I got the second season of the anime on disc earlier this year, but at the time I was still trying to finish the original light novel version of the series, so I purposely waited a few months after finishing the final volume to start over again with the anime version. I wanted to give my brain a chance to fully digest the light novel version. Getting back to the anime version, it really does have kind of a different vibe from the main SAO series. In fact the AGGO anime kind of reminds of another series I once watched years ago, but for the life of me I can't recall what that series was. It's sort of like when you meet someone at a party who seems vaguely familiar, and you end up spending the whole night trying to remember where you met them before.
I also read the ninth volume of the massive retcon that is Sword Art Online Progressive, which only came out in the U.S. late last month. While I do enjoy Progressive, I do have some mixed feelings about the series. They aren't as mixed as the feelings I have towards the Unital Ring arc in the main series, but I do have some issues. One of those issues is the simple fact that Progressive is a retcon. It didn't really start out being a retcon, but it turned into one pretty rapidly.
For those who don't know how Progressive even got started, it happened because of the SAO anime. The team working on the anime realized they didn't have any material from the original light novels that would make a good second episode, so they approached Reki Kawahara and asked him to write an episode for them. What we got was the episode showing Kirito and Asuna's first meeting, and the boss fight against Ilfang the Kobold Lord.
By the way, if anyone has ever wondered what the hell a kobold is, you can find out by clicking here.
Anyway, after working on the second of the anime, Kawahara decided that he wanted to expand on the early days of Aincrad, so he sat down and wrote the first volume of Progressive. Right off the bat he did change one thing that was in the anime. In the first volume of Progressive, Kirito meets Asuna for the first time by coming across her while she's on a self-destructive dungeon crawl. It's a minor change, and it's hardly uncommon for any anime adaptation to be just a little different from the manga or light novels it's based on. The thing is the changes don't end there, and the next change is a huge one.
The early volume of the main light novel series more or less state that Kirito and Asuna really only interacted with one another during major boss fights. Meanwhile Asuna had become this somewhat solitary guild commander who was hyper focused on clearing the game (by any means necessary, as the beginning of one of the anime episodes implied). The thing is in Progressive, it's revealed that Kirito and Asuna actually traveled together almost constantly through the first nine floors of Aincrad. This is partly due to them taking on a lengthy side quest known as the Elf War Quest. This is one change in continuity that I do have mixed feelings about.
On the one hand I do like the idea of Asuna being this strict no-nonsense commander who mellows because of Kirito, but at the same time I appreciate that Kirito and Asuna being traveling companions for such an extended length of time builds a more realistic foundation for their eventual romance. So while I grudgingly admit that this massive retcon in Progressive ins an improvement, I don't necessarily like it more than what we got in the original light novels and the anime. Of course my other big gripe about Progressive is the fact that volumes of the series are now being released at angonizingly slow pace. Volume 8 of Progressive was published in Japan back in 2021, while Volume 9 only came out in Japan last year! FYI, it seems to take an extra year for each volume to be published in English.
In any case, this slow pace is probably because Kawahara is working on four different light novel titles right now. There's the main SAO series, there's Progressive, there's Accel World, and then there's that fourth series of his that I have absolutely no interest in. It's also worth noting that volumes of the main series are being published at a somewhat faster rate than volumes of Progressive, so it seems pretty clear where Kawahara's priorities lie. So chances are we'll have to wait another three or four years for Volume 10 of Progressive to come out. I'm fairly confident in this estimate because it's clear that the main series isn't going to end anytime soon.
Kawahara's intention with Progressive has been to show all of the floors of Aincrad up to Floor 75 in greater detail, but at this point I'd rather he end Progressive much sooner than that. The perfect place to end it would be the point when Asuna leaves Kirito's side to become second-in-command of the KoB Guild, which I assume will happen after the whole Elf War Quest storyline is resolved. One of my reasons for wanting this is because I'm afraid if Progressive goes on for too long, it'll start to contradict more of the material from the main series. The other reason is now agonizingly slow pace that volumes of Progressive are being published at. Chances are we won't get such an ending, but at the very least I hope that Kawahara brings both the main SAO series and Progressive to satisfying conclusions before I reach the age of sixty... or before he croaks, whichever comes first.
Sorry that turned into such a long rant. I also didn't mean for my comments to sound so negative. I seem to have developed this love/hate relationship with both the main SAO series (well, at least with Unital Ring) and with Progressive, so I guess I can't help but vent about the issues I have with both titles.
I've also been playing the SAO video game, Fractured Daydream again during this month. They finally added some new content to the game around the time the month began. Of course at this point I only ever really play Fractured Daydream when I'm completely bored with all of my other video games and am waiting for something new to come out. In this case that would be the Switch 2 version of Digimon Story: Time Stranger. I have heard nothing but good things about that game. Unfortunately I still have to wait another two weeks for it to come out.
Another highlight from this month is that I rewatched Kill la Kill after I don't know how many years. Anyone remember that anime series?
I was kind of afraid that the series might've aged poorly, but it's actually aged like a fine wine. I find I appreciate it more from an artistic perspective compared to the first couple of times when I watched it. Studio Trigger really does some damn fine work. Of course as I was watching Kill la Kill this time around, I couldn't help but occasionally think of the Venom movies with Tom Hardy. There are certain similarities here and there.
I think that pretty much covers it for this month's post. For those of you who read my ramblings all the way to the end, I thank you. Until we meet again next time.
