It’s time for a quick Sword Art Online adventure. Of course that means Kirito gets to take the center stage once more so that’s always fun. I thought that going back to the classic days of Sword Art Online was a brilliant decision but it’s a shame that it takes so long for these titles to come out. I want them to adapt all the floors already! Well, in the meantime this is definitely a fun title although it is held back quite a lot by the random fanservice thrown in. The series is quite shameless when it comes to this area which is too bad.

The mini series starts with Asuna challenging Kirito but she is taken down very quickly. This discourages her quite a lot since the gap should not be quite this big. What she lacks is confidence more than skill. It’s hard to just obtain that though and Kirito is no help since he has always been able to show up in the big moments. Asuna will have to just try to keep on moving forward. Unfortunately there appears to be a weird underground group that is trying to stir up tensions between the two big armies in the Sword Art Online world. Everyone is stuck in this death game until it is cleared so who would be causing trouble like this?

Kirito and Asuna spend part of the volume trying to get to the bottom of this mystery while also just hanging out and making memories. They visit a nice cafe for drinks and even collect some treasure. At this point they have a solid amount of trust between the two of them but it isn’t absolute yet. A good example of this is when Kirito decides to head off into the caverns alone to deal with the villains instead of bringing Asuna along. Kirito says all the right things but it comes down to him not trusting her enough to be a part of that fight without slowing him down.

Sure enough, it wasn’t Asuna’s best moment as she allows herself to be disarmed which grants the villains a powerful weapon but she does make up for the blunder. Asuna also gets to fight against Argo one on one which was pretty fun. I would have expected Asuna to have done better but I suppose this was pretty early on in her career. Give it a few more months and Asuna would easily be claiming victory here.

While Asuna does panic a lot, she is definitely better than in the last volume. She blew up at Kirito way too many times in that one and just didn’t seem as mature as she should be given the circumstances. In this volume, while she panics in dangerous situations a bit, at least you can see the improvement and character growth. She is gradually gaining more confidence.

Meanwhile Kirito looks great as always. He was absolutely not going to let the villains get away with their plans and found a way to manipulate both sides into doing what he needed them to. It wasn’t a solo effort as Argo helped a lot with the information and they both had allies to help. Kirito is just the guy with enough ability to make it all work together. He is completely indispensable in that area. I’d have liked to see him take the two saboteurs down himself though. In every encounter there was some kind of extenuating circumstance that prevented a true fight.

With 3 volumes there isn’t too much time f a lot of adventure but they squeezed in a good amount of Kirito and Asuna bonding moments. Additionally the whole third volume is for the floor boss which was a good decision because that boss as really intense. I really enjoyed the theme that he got in the movie and the manga definitely makes him an imposing figure as well. So the manga’s final volume really flies by. The pacing is super fast and you can’t go wrong with nonstop action. The enemy is rather huge so there isn’t a lot of hand to hand action this time around. Think of it more as a platforming challenge as Kirito and the others have to keep jumping around and trying to dodge all of the blows.

Now like I mentioned before, the fanservice does hurt the series quite a bit here. This would be an easy 7-8 just for the fun action and all but the constant fanservice does knock it down a few pegs. It’s not as extreme as the last one but does keep this as being in the middle as a passable series rather than being a good one all the way. It’s a shame that every Sword Art Online product seems to have an asterisk next to what would otherwise be known as an incredible adventure. At least we have a video game coming up which shouldn’t run into that problem.

In some ways the series s also going to be a bit limited in what they can add in the early floors. We already know that Laughing Coffin will turn out to be the name of the organization to which the two saboteurs are a part of. I’m looking forward to the big war since that is generally off screen in the Aincrad story. That said, you can’t really add a rival to Kirito and there aren’t too many humans you can add without dramatically changing the tone of the series. So we’ll see what they do to keep the ideas fresh as we go through the series but a part of me doesn’t think we’ll ever even make it to the 10th floor so it’s probably a non issue.

The artwork is really good here, I think it has improved from the last one. The action scenes are really sharp and there is always a lot of detail here. Naturally that does backfire when you have some of the fanservice moments since less detail would be good there but this doesn’t feel like some kind of cash-in/tie-in manga. It feels like a legit adventure so I appreciate the effort there. The pacing is good and it’s definitely a reminder of how much you can get done in a 3 volume series.

I’ll also give a quick nod to Kirito and Asuna still being one of the few pairings that actually works. The shipping is done well and this is the kind of slow burn style that I like to see. The characters are taking their time and so you get to really believe in the bond between them. I enjoy the banter and they never take it too far. Their personalities are also quite different and just work together. I guess what I’m saying is that this romance really works in every possible way and I imagine that is where a lot of the appeal for the Progressive series comes from. It’s a chance to see the two of them hanging out a lot without the constant end of the world stakes from the main arcs.

Overall, I can’t fully recommend this one but it is a cool novelty to see Kirito and Asuna fight. The outcome may be obvious from the start but it doesn’t make the experience any less entertaining. Hopefully next time we can get a longer battle though as this one ends almost instantly. You’ll finish the volume wanting more Sword Art adventures which shows that this one did a good job on the intrigue at least. Stay tunes for the next manga title!

Overall 5/10