When I started watching this anime I wasn’t expecting much. I
was expecting just another typical anime that would be forgotten after
I’d finish watching it. This anime broke that expectation within the
first few minutes of watching. What initially grabbed me was how well
the characters are presented. Almost immediately I am presented with a
conflict between two characters. This initial conflict made me
immediately start to care for the well being of the main character,
Huruyuki. As I was introduced to the other characters, the attachment
only increased. I even shed a few man tears during one particularly
emotional scene between Huruyuki and Kuroyukihime. Even though the
characters were good, they weren’t exactly perfect. Huruyuki was a bit
too much of a stereotypical chubby video game otaku to be believable,
and Kuroyukihime was a little to faithful in some of her decisions.
However, these minor imperfections can be looked over and disregarded.
Accel World’s premise wasn’t anything too original, but yet nothing
too cliche either. The story line actually slightly reminds me of High
School DxD. In both anime we have someone who is at the bottom of the
social ladder of whatever school they go to. Then both of these people
are discovered by a majestic and beautiful heroin, who also happens to
be at the top of the social ladder at whatever school they go to. I’m
not saying that the similarities to High School DxD are bad in anyway,
just saying they are there.
I absolutely love the art style of this show. The colors they picked
for the Accel World and real world fit perfectly. The virutal world was
dark and “techno” looking, while the real world was really bright and
vivid. It was overall really enjoyable to look at. The sound track is
decent, but it’s not the greatest thing I’ve ever heard. There was
enough variety in the sounds so it didn’t get repetitive and it sounded
nice enough, but it didn’t wow me. I did notice that one track that was
played during one of the first few episodes sounded very similar to
Lilium from Elfen Lied. I’m not sure if the composer of that particular
track meant for it to sound a bit like Lilium, but I liked it.