Heh.

——

Accel World is really cooling off for me. Mind, it’s still a good show and I’m enjoying watching it, but it feels like we’ve settled into this expectation of mediocrity. I think a part of that is that Accel World is taking its time in progressing with the story. There are obviously huge gaps between story arcs, and it’s a little jarring. First, Haru has no idea what’s going on to going to Level 2 to Level 4. The progress isn’t what’s troubling; it’s that there are so many gaping holes between events, and the overall pacing is clunky at best. And all of a sudden, a new challenger appears? And then suddenly, the story takes its time? I agree that the introduction Scarlet Rain definitely deserves a more complete storyline, but I’d have liked to see this move a bit faster than this. It’s a strange thing to describe a show as being both simultaneously too fast and too slow, but Accel World is managing it.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a character like Scarlet Rain. It’s both surprisingly entertaining and predictably sickening to see the Fake Cutie trope in action, especially as a elementary school kid. I’m expecting the next couple episodes featuring Scarlet Rain to be a lot of fun, especially if she and Black Snow are going to have words. But let’s take a second to look at the fight between Scarlet Rain and Haru. Black Snow Princess said that not only can Rain not move, but she usually doesn’t have to move. And if Haru made her move off her spot at all, wouldn’t that be grounds for some serious shifting in story? It’s possible that it’ll come into play at some other point, but I can’t see how this detail was so casually acknowledged with nothing happening with it.

I feel like this is more of a “let’s wait and see” type of episodes. Nothing awesome happened and the fights weren’t terribly important. But if this was all just a set-up, I’d like to think something cool is going to happen in the next episode. 

GO Rating: 3/5