SPECTRUM SPECTRUM | Page 37

Sword Art online Sword Art Online season 1 takes place in the year 2022 when the first VRMMORPG (Virtual Reality Massively Multi-player Online Role-playing Game) game has been released along with the nerve gear to be able to play it. The nerve gear, a helmet that connects with the user’s 5 senses so that the players can control their characters in the game with their minds. On November 6th when the players log onto the game for the first time and later discover that it’s not possible to log out unless you reach to the 100th floor and beat the game from Akihiko Kayaba , the creator of SAO (Sword Art Online) . But there is worse to come , if your character dies in game you die in reality too . One of the main characters Kazuto Kirigaya also known in the game as Kirito, is a very skillful boy in the game as well as in real life and is very determined to beat the game. Along with the game, which progresses for 2 years, Reki Kawahara (The author of SAO) introduces us, including Kirito to another character, Asuna in the anime which turns out to be female. Later in the anime it shows that those two appear to have feelings towards each other and as well as find more friends along the game. Proceeding to Sword Art Online season 2, the couple has made many friends and we’ve gotten to see a story behind each of the character, instead of just focusing the whole show only on one main protagonist. I find it genius how Kawahara has included all sorts of genres which fit very nicely with the manga and the anime. I like how he made his work interesting for both male and female audiences and balances it very well. Sword Art Online is one of my ultimate favorites as I got to know more about each character rather than just one. Yamato Nadeshiko Shichi Henge a.k.a The Wallflower The Wallflower is a manga revolving around four handsome guys and a girl who prefers herself to stay in her room surrounded by her anatomical models and darkness. Those four guys are Ranmaru Morii who’s always popular with the ladies, Yukinojo Toyama who’s often mistaken for a girl due to his pretty boy look, Takenaga Oda who’s c alm and collected unlike the other guys and finally Kyohei Takano who tends to attract many people because of his voice and extraordinary looks. These men are sent to live in a big mansion by their families with an overall reason to make them behave more like normal human beings instead of being a ladies’ man, too polite etc. When these men live in the mansion they are told by the owner who has a niece named, Sunako Nakahara, that they must pay rent in order to live in there. Since then the fellas have been trying hard to get money in order to pay their rent. Now this is where the real story begins, one day the owner arrives with her niece and tells them that they will gain tons of money if they turn Sunako into a real lady. The catch here is that Sunako is the complete opposite of a lady; she loves the dark and is very unusual compared to other people regardless of their gender. This manga itself is probably the most popular shoujo manga written by Tomoko Hayakawa, and it’s very interesting to see how she connects to her readers throughout small “Behind the scenes” sections. Attack on Titan A manga on a totally different level and style than the Wallflower is Attack on Titan, also known as Shingeki no Kyojin. The story takes place on Earth which is covered by Titans and has a very small town surrounded by Three walls. The walls are called Wall Maria, the biggest one, Wall Rose and finally Wall Sina all measured in height 50 meters tall. The story has its own very uniqueness to it as you go deeper and deeper into it discovering more knowledge. It revolves around a boy named Eren Yeagar, Armin Arlert which both have a great desire to kill the Titans once and for all and explore the outside world and finally Mikasa Ackerman, a girl who always does her best to save Eren and give appreciation towards him as she was saved by him once her parents were killed by some men. As the story progresses you find out more about each character.