sword art online 7 mother's rosario reki kawahara

This interplay between virtual reality and the real self connects these two strands together strongly, and the character development that Asuna experiences over the course of this story feels well-earned as a result. This is explored well in this volume’s two plotlines - the first following Asuna as she takes on The Absolute Sword, and the second concerning Asuna’s rocky relationship with her overbearing mother who is opposed to Asuna spending time in virtual reality. A running focus of this series has been exploring the effect that virtual reality and online games have on the lives and psyche of real people, and this is continued very strongly in Asuna’s tale in this volume. Utilizing a different type of protagonist as a lens for the reader would mean much less if this did not complement the story effectively, but thankfully Mother’s Rosary delivers a compelling story which takes the best elements of Sword Art Online’s virtual reality setting to explore some very tangible and grounded emotional themes in a satisfying manner.

This allowed this volume to tackle some very different story beats with Asuna as the star, immediately grabbing my attention right from the start. This served to differentiate this volume very well from the legion of other light novels which star sparsely characterized or emotionally bland protagonists who are little more than stand-ins for the reader in the worst sense. Much to my enjoyment, Asuna made for an engaging protagonist because of the way that we immediately get a sense of her personality coming through in her observations of the world. This immediately give the story a very different sort of flavour in exploring her perspective, and allowing us to see the world through her lens was quite compelling in terms of exploring a different person’s view of Alfheim Online and virtual reality in general. 7 (“ Mother’s Rosary”) switches things up significantly by making Asuna the star of the story as she goes on an adventure of her own. After six volumes following the adventures of Kirito, Sword Art Online Vol.

Sword art online 7 mother's rosario reki kawahara