The Spring 2024 Manga Guide

Sword Art Online Re:Aincrad

What's It About? 

Die in the game, and you die in real life. The only way out is clearing the massive floating castle Aincrad. The pinnacle of heroic sagas kicks off here!  

Sword Art Online Re:Aincrad has a story by Reki Kawahara, art by KIMI, composition by Mito Satō, and character design by abec. This volume's English translation is by Stephen Paul. Viet Phuong Vu lettered this volume. To be published by Yen Press (May 21, 2024).

Is It Worth Reading?

Sword Art Online Re:Aincrad is a retelling of the original Sword Art Online story. For a frame of reference, this volume covers roughly the first three episodes of the anime, with about a third of the book being either original material or extended scenes. CA retelling isn't completely out of the question because the original anime is over a decade old, and the franchise is still strong, with various installments. The artwork does a good job of emulating the style of the anime adaptation, with some panels looking like they were ripped whole cloth. However, if I'm honest, I think I prefer the way this manga tells the story's opening chapters compared to the anime.

The first chapter is nothing new, Kirito and a bunch of other people throughout Japan log into the game Sword Art Online, only to find out that they can't log out and if they die in the game, they die in real life. As I mentioned before, some scenes are extended, and it almost feels like there was an attempt to elaborate further on things that either weren't made fully clear or were just not mentioned in previous tellings of the story. New characters, such as data brokers and NPCs, are introduced that I know for a fact were not present. There's nothing here that completely contradicts the major storytelling beats of the original, but it does help bridge those story beats together in a much more organic way.

We learn how Kirito gets his first major weapon, and there is a better explanation of the skill system utilized in the game. There's also more elaboration on what it means to be a beta tester, which is a good buildup for one of the first major conflicts in the story about the discrepancy between regular players and beta testers. The world generally feels much more fleshed out, and this helps humble Kirito a bit as a character. He honestly feels a lot less generic here as every encounter, both new and old, gives more insight into where his head is during all of this due to the addition of an internal monologue.

My favorite scene in the book is when he's doing a side quest to get a weapon and ends up connecting with an NPC who reminds him of his sister. We see him worry and agonize about how his mom and his sister must feel about him being trapped inside this game. We also flesh out the introduction between Kirito and Asuna, which now has a better foundation for how their relationship will evolve moving forward.

I like this book a lot and would probably recommend it as a stronger entryway into the Sword Art Online franchise. It doesn't have a lot of advantages that come with watching a well-animated television series, but the writing feels tighter and more fleshed out.

It may be hard for us elderly fans (by pop culture standards) to imagine that anyone missed out on Sword Art Online, but the fact of the matter is that it came out ages ago in internet years. That means that there's a very good chance that there's a market for this retelling of the original Aincrad arc. I hesitate to call it a “reboot” because it frankly doesn't do a whole lot to expand upon the original premise or the drawn-out one in SAO: Progressive; instead, it simply starts from the beginning of Kirito and Asuna's time in the game and offers it to a new generation of fans.

And let me tell you—after some of the knockoffs we've seen in more recent years, reading the story that helped to jump-start the VRMMORPG isekai trend feels particularly interesting. Although Reki Kawahara's original light novels and subsequent adaptations have their problems, they also set the stage for a lot of what came after, and this book practically looks like Shakespeare when compared to imitators thrown together by using a set of established tropes held together with bubble gum. The reasoning for why people are trapped by their NerveGear is thought out (even if it doesn't make logical sense), attitudes of those stuck in the game are varied, and we can see both Kirito and Asuna starting their journeys to the characters they'll become by the end of the arc. It may be far from perfect, but it tries earnestly to establish a core mythology, and even one at least a little different from originating books like Vivian Vande Velde's User Unfriendly, which arguably established (or at least helped popularize) the genre in the 1990s.

The story pacing falls somewhere between the original SAO and Progressive, putting in more details and scenes but not trying too hard to establish absolutely everything. Asuna's opening role is more interesting than Kirito's, if only because she's a lot more conflicted about both versions of her life, in and out of the game. She reads like a better character here, and while there is some mild fanservice of her as the only main female character, it's not distracting, nor does she fall immediately for Kirito when they meet up. This volume takes us to just before the boss battle for the first floor, which feels about right, and the art is pleasant even if fight scenes aren't all that dynamic. It's a good place for someone new to the franchise to start and a decent read, even if you're fully aware of where the story is heading.