⭐Sword Art Online Warmth of the Heart Chapters 1-2 (Part 1) : Read Along & Analysis
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Sword Art Online Warmth of the Heart Chapter 1:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/144XBJi3RGJiJ2Xl78x0I0Qmdukcrky52/view?usp=sharing
Sword Art Online Warmth of the Heart Chapter 2:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/13VOh_wDk4jIcWOTZbKV5HroGu-ApXNyO/view?usp=sharing
Comments
Small stories are «adding on top of that beautiful meal» – and this is so true. Even though anime managed to more or less line up the stories into chronological order, altering them here and there while adapting it, the books themselves – they very much rely in details on things you already know from previous ones, and cannot be reordered in chronological way. Reki never forgets to use moments from the future in a clever way to enhance the experience now, well knowing that you already seen these future events. The Progressive especially hits you so much with that kind of stuff too – it’s like when you read about flowers in previous story, and immediately went «back» years into future of Kirito, but made specifically to do that. Yeah, Kirito is definitely Libra – my birthday is just a day before his, and because of time zones, partially same evening :D The sad thing – Kirito didn’t even put his sword the sharp edge toward the Lisbeth’s best sword – «laid it flat on the shop counter». How *could* have he predicted that it’ll brake xD I guess, his strength stat was way too huge for that more agility-based blade… Liz looks at Kirito – *he doesn’t look that powerful, does he have money for such an order? *. Kirito looks at Liz – «wouldn’t it be better if I got metals myself? I don’t want anyone dragging me down». I love that reverse, especially because of the fact that they are dressed abnormal to average player for completely opposite reasons. For Liz, it’s to attract the players, to make her business better, no matter how she herself feels about it. For Kirito, it is to close himself from other players (literally the bonus to Hiding skill because of the texture and color) and to fit both his personality and fighting style. Chapter 2: «Hardcore gamers» saying that Reki knows nothing about videogames or haven’t played them much – are probably just kids who think they know *all* about videogames, while haven’t played that much of a variety of them. Or ever reflected on how they play and why. The arguments toward SAO as a «badly» designed game that I’ve seen are usually just trying to move the point of the story into the realm of game-centric topics only, bringing things like cost of the development... Yeah. At the same time, they completely ignore the level difference in battles that Kirito participates in, and view him as OP if he ever goes on lower floors and feels invincible there. What «hardcore» gamer never, ever, experienced it? Fight a dragon that previously was a tough boss to beat, but now, 20+ levels higher and with some top equipment – suddenly you can take it out alone… Is that weird? Or, in games like Dark Souls, it is a common tactic to grind levels until bosses are easy for you to beat. Of course, not everyone does that, but it is not rare, especially once you know more about the game. And given the high stakes in SAO, that’s the tactic that everyone tries to use. What’s wrong with that?.. But what’s truly important to me in how Reki writes SAO, is the gamer’s philosophy that he explores with it. And not even in SAO alone, but in his other books too. His stories make me reflect on how I play games in ways I haven’t thought about myself, and over time, to look beyond the virtual world into the real one to apply what I’ve learn there. He helps me to evolve my personal philosophy using the language that speaks to me the most – my own gaming experience. That is the best evidence for me to show how much Reki understands games, to be able to do so much through writing about them. And thus no one will ever make me think otherwise. Just a day ago, I’ve seen some people on the internet literally laughing from deaths while watching SAO. And not for the first time. This reminded me of a conclusion I made a long time ago – in Reki’s stories, every death is either a tragedy, or a place for moral dilemma. Even the death of most of the villains or in any way opponents to protagonists. Which is a huge contrast to what we see these days in movies and games, media in general – where characters brutally killing others is the primal source of fun. And sometimes it is fun to experience them, relaxing to change the tone a bit, but it’s important to remain the mindset switch between games and stories that are not like that. And people oftentimes don’t do that, because they simply do not understand how to, I guess. This makes me think, that a portion of haters just cannot switch from «popcorn» to «empathy», and this becomes the source of misunderstanding for them. Which is sad in itself.
Саша Одинец
2021-10-25 18:21:41 +0000 UTCWarmth of the heart Chapter 1: Of all characters in SAO, Liz is probably one of the very few we know to fit the description of someone who plays the role of her avatar whenever she interacts with random people. And we see that it wasn’t her first choice, but something she came to over her years in Aincrad. She is probably just as clear-thinking as Kirito is, but unlike him, she is way more pragmatic over her choices. That lead her to where we start the story – in a front of the mirror, thinking of her identity. The more I think about it, the more I see this whole part of the book as Lisbeth’s journey through identity crisis. I’m nowhere close to psychology, so I’m only using this term in the simplest form. But let’s just look at her – she knows who she is on the inside, and who she is on outside perfectly well, and sees them as almost different people – one that she had gotten used to – Lisbeth the blacksmith, and one she is always present inside. And her real personality she describes as someone who breaks through the role from time to time in front of people. SAO being a virtual world makes this problem very pronounced, since everyone in this world literally wears the avatar of themselves. But at the same time, it could be easily applied to the real one too, the one outside the book I mean. Whether the reader could see it in themselves, past or present, or we can see it at times in public people – who could wear one personality in front of fans/customers and another back home. Maybe that’s why Reki’s writing feels so real, that he explores so many real problems?.. Moving slightly to a different topic, I think Reki also manages to capture well, that even people who are good at something – at tech, games, school, work – ones that we already met at this point – they still have the problems of their own, no matter how successful they are in what they are doing. They all are still human beings. Who have insecurities, feelings, family, and conflicts in both feelings and family to resolve. It is understandable, that some of the problems in these books are in their extremes in comparison to average person, but it is precisely the freedom that stories have, to make them more pronounced for us to see and to think about. Seemingly impossible situations like being trapped in the virtual world, is what brings the very real problems to the surface. I can relate to many characters not just in SAO but in other books of Reki’s, because I can see that I went similar paths and was only few steps from having them worse, and it makes them all that much more real. I might go slightly ahead, but since it was brought up many times because of anime version, it’s not something totally new. But for example, Asuna’s problem of expectations from the family? I had finished school as best at my school, one of the best in my region in some of the subjects. And I maintained to be in first 1/3 of students on my faculty at university years. I know well of both expectations people have, and of comparison to other good at something students that I «could’ve being better than». Or how other children/students might interact with or view you because of your stats – theme also explored in SAO. But the pressure from it never was as bad, because for some things I purposefully tried to balance them out, and for some – because we always had a good communication with my mom (yep, something that took some time for Asuna, since it was a bit more on extreme sides). I worked hard at times, knowing well that I like what I’m doing, as Silica said to Kirito that his sister probably likes what she’s doing too. All this and more – is what allows me to relate to SAO on many levels, and I guess it could also be something that turns some people away from it to hate, because they might not have as much common ground with protagonist, but instead with people who put the pressure on them. Looking back at that wall of text – it is most likely an outcome of the recent release of audiobook of this precise volume, that I already listened through 1.75 times… The audiobook of the first volume had Kirito’s dub voice actor – Bryce Papenbrook, as a narrator. And it was good, but I felt like it was just a bit incomplete without Asuna’s voice in it. It was a pleasant experience that I knew some fans would be happy to experience, but I did not mention it much even inside the fandom. After all, audiobooks still feel like even more specific type of media to like than anime or novels. Volume 2 answered to my call for Asuna, and brought Cherami Leigh to share the work with Bryce. I did not immediately notice it through Silica’s story, but when this chapter started and she voiced Liz – I guess my emotions went through the roof – so amazing her voice acting turned out to be in enhancing the content of the book. Now I’m ready to tell this to anyone, and I do so from time to time, that it is something very much worth it to experience. It is a work that I would gladly pick over anime adaptation without much consideration, although it’s probably combination of all 3 (anime, novel and audiobook) that made this experience so rich. And I highly recommend to try it to any SAO fan who knows English. This audiobook brought new colors to the story I already love, made me see it under a different light. Just like these readalongs, which is an interesting coincident that it started so timely alongside each other – a great time to be SAO fan :D Going into the Progressive volumes, I would say, is way too early at the moment. For the most part – because up until V9, whenever Aincrad times are brought up, the memories of characters still have no Progressive events in them. So, it’s better to override them later, than try to do it on the first read through the main series :) I haven’t heard of SAO in any form up until a bit more than 3 years ago. I never purposefully watched anime, only randomly met ones in my childhood, like Sonic X, without knowing it is somehow considered different from just cartoons. So my first meeting with it was through my gaming interests. And for the same reason – I watched it without most of the expectations that people would’ve had if they watched the genre a lot. I even went and researched if there’s a source material or not before starting. So, after I finished with, at the time, all 2 seasons, I immediately went for the books I already knew existed. Thankfully, I had a ton of free time back then, so I did the deep dive into the novels, literally stopping myself well past midnight to go and sleep :D You see the world through Lisbeth’s eyes, and you see just how different of a media she likes in contrast to Kirito. Kirito was always more on gamer’s side of things – even when Heathcliff asked him for a duel, he first thought of gamer’s pride. Liz – she associates the situations, facial expressions, with the special effects from manga and movie stars. I love that contrast, it brings a fresh layer to a story within a fantasy world, reminding of both real worlds inside and outside the book, makes it easier to relate to her.
Саша Одинец
2021-10-23 09:28:52 +0000 UTCYeah, next two books will explore that :D
Саша Одинец
2021-10-22 06:16:40 +0000 UTCAlso another side note, Shuffle is absolutely a harem, lol. It was originally a Harem Eroge Visual Novel, so there is a path for each girl in the game. SAO just has multiple heroines, but yeah Asuna has been girl one since day one, and Kirito has no romantic feelings toward any of the other girls, so yeah not a harem.
MasterAries7
2021-10-21 22:05:00 +0000 UTCJust a note. I am pretty sure it is said that Kirito built his computer from spare parts laying around the house. It is implied that his foster mom(aunt) is a technophile of some sort. So it would make since to have parts and bits of old machines laying around.
MasterAries7
2021-10-21 21:38:10 +0000 UTCProgressive is an interesting tale. The movie is going to be a remake of episode 2 season 1, but better adapted to the novels. However, it does look like there will be a lot of deviation from the novels, so IDK how that will be handled. It’s apparently being written by Reki himself, unlike the changes made to Alicization, so I’m sure he’ll figure something out. As for OVA’s, I have mentioned before that there was that Sword Art Offline mini-series which isn’t canon, and there is that recap movie that also has extra content. That’s about it for SAO content (I think). As for sword details, he doesn’t go too much into that in the novels, but I have seen him explain things about that on twitter. I guess he just doesn’t think he can fit that stuff into the novels or something, but he usually has some kind of explanation to things people ask him. One detail that I don’t know how canon it is, is that in the Hollow realization manga (I don’t remember if it’s said in the games too) it is shown that Elucidator is a weapon that was made by the Dark Elves inside of Aincrad (I guess in this case, before Aincrad was made). Alicization does mention some stuff about Kirito’s earlier weapons at some point, but it’s never that much explanation. Asuna’s weapon is pretty important for progressive though, but that mostly happens during the “Rondo For A Fragile Blade” arc of progressive. (The second arc). Also, fun fact, apparently Kirito’s second weapon, “Dark Repulsor” is actually a mistranslation on his part. He actually meant to call it “Darkness Repulsor” since he wanted it to mean “The one that repels darkness”. Apparently he got so traumatized by that mistake that he took two hours working on the names for the new equipment for Asuna and Kirito in Unital Ring. Since I’ve already mentioned Progressive and the dark elves, I did want to bring up the NPC topic. So, Progressive goes deeper into SAO’s campaign mode (Which it has). It revolves mainly around the elves, “The Great Separation”, and a bunch of other quest stuff. Because of this, there are a lot of NPC’s. One of them even becomes, basically, a main character in progressive. They also became a fan-favorite for many LN readers. This NPC however, acts a lot more like Yui does, which means that there are actually a lot more NPC’s that have some sort of feelings in Aincrad, Pina being a similar example to that. That character doesn’t appear until arc 3 of Progressive “Concerto of Black And White” so unless you get to the novels, you won’t be seeing them any time soon. Just rest assure than they do go deeper into NPC’s. Also, the whole “Great Separation” stuff won’t really be explained in the novels any time soon (Probably). Lore wise, that’s the explanation as to why Aincrad was build and how there are so many floors with so many differences between them. If you want an explanation for that, you will have to play “Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization”. That entire game is about “The Great Separation” and the game they play in that one takes place before Aincrad was built. It also tackles a lot of things about NPC’s since this time they are the ones that if they die they never come back. This also has a manga which is pretty good, but I’d say you should play the game first. I wanted to bring something up when it comes to why so many people like Kirito. Oddly enough, I feel like the person who explained it the best in the series was one of the villains—Vassago. He said, “Hate? I thought you, of all people, would understand how much I truly love him. In this world full of assholes, he’s the only person you can unconditionally believe in. He never broke down, no matter how much I tormented him. Never gave in to temptation, no matter how much I invited him. He always brought me hope and joy.” Like he said, it’s the fact that regardless of anything, Kirito tries to be there for everyone that makes him likable to others. It isn’t just because he is really strong that everyone is dumbstruck and fall in love with him, it’s because he brought the people he connected with hope and joy. From Silica, Lizbeth, and Asuna, to later Leafa, Sinon, and even Eugeo. All those people found hope and joy from Kirito, and at the same time, those people allowed Kirito to have the willpower to keep moving forward and spread that hope to everyone else. The worst part of that is that a large reason as to why he became this way by the trauma he suffered from childhood all the way until losing Sachi and the Moonlit Black Cats. There’s also some other stuff that you don’t know about yet since the anime cut it out, but yeah, all of those things are what made Kirito who he is by the end. Well, that was a lot of rambling, anyway, speaking of Reki playing games, he’s definitely played a lot of games. The main reason eh made SAO was because of his love for MMO’s. His main inspiration for SAO was Ultima Online, which I tried to play, but for some reason it wasn’t working properly on my computer. He goes into more detail about this in his Afterwards so I hope you get to read those. Also, another big point of hate towards SAO that I just remembered is Sachi. Mainly, the fact that Sachi’s death supposedly doesn’t matter after the Aincrad arc. There as so many ways to prove this wrong that I won’t even get into it, but the thing that I’ve seen is that it mostly comes from people that prefer shonen. Not to say this is bad or anything, but many shonen tend to do those flashbacks to a certain important event or the character itself mentions that event to explain why they are doing something. Unlike those, mainly because SAO isn’t a shonen, this series doesn’t tell you any of that, it shows through the character’s actions and you are the one who has to pick up on those details yourself. Still, that is a point that is used over and over again. Which stems back to the SAO: Abridged series. Honestly, getting into all of that is a mess in itself. I would recommend watching the abridged series up until the end of the Aincrad arc, then going on YouTube and searching something along the lines of “SAO Abridged better” and you will have a cascade of hate videos. This might cause you a few headaches to watch, but yeah, that might be useful to learn more about SAO hate. Also, I doubt this is very important or means anything, but I find it kind of weird that Kuroyukihime’s name is Sachi (Or nickname I don’t really remember if it was just the way that her friends called her). I don’t know, I just feel like giving two characters from the same universe the same name is pretty odd. It probably means nothing. This was actually pretty long…
Gen
2021-10-20 08:08:41 +0000 UTC
