NOTE: AT THE TIME OF THIS REVIEW, ONLY UP TO CHAPTER 8 HAVE BEEN RELEASED.
What I find to be the strong point of this fic is how the protagonists are handled.
Fairy Dance of Death is written in third person, so far telling the story through four different characters. These are:
Kirito; he is a very hard character to handle due to having many Marty Stu traits. So far he only serves to push the plot without participating much. And it somehow works. We know Kirito is strong, so we don’t need to be reminded constantly and early on Kirito serves as a pair of eyes to see how the world of ALO works. I expect that as the fic advances, Kirito will become less trivial. But so far, his role works very well early on and is a nice way to avoid his Marty Stu tendencies.
Asuna; she serves to show how people are reacting to the game and her plot revolves around this. We are not dealing with Asuna The Flash, sub-leader of Ko B. We are dealing with Asuna Yuuki, a teenager that hasn’t touch a game in her life. Her story is the more slow paced and IMO least interesting, but it serves its purpose well and as Asuna’s character develops, I expect the same to happen to the her story.
Klein’s story, like Kirito’s, allows for the viewer to see the state of the many races in ALO as the events unfolds.
Finally, and incredibly enough, Argo. If only because her character is fleshed out into a badass social character, I find her story the most entertaining. She serves as an exposition to the more intangible elements of the setting, such as the political status of the races and such. While the other three characters are fairly fleshed out in the original material, Argo is not and IMO Catsy does a wonderful job with the character. Plus, she totally owns, socially, two different characters.
As a whole, the story is very well written with a strong main cast that, once again, so far helps develop the story. And it is interesting seeing how the world of ALO is brought to life in this setting. As the story progress the characters will need to develop out of their current role, but I’m positive Catsy will be able to make the transition.
What if the novels were called ALO instead of SAO?
NOTE: AT THE TIME OF THIS REVIEW, ONLY UP TO CHAPTER 8 HAVE BEEN RELEASED.
What I find to be the strong point of this fic is how the protagonists are handled.
Fairy Dance of Death is written in third person, so far telling the story through four different characters. These are:
Kirito; he is a very hard character to handle due to having many Marty Stu traits. So far he only serves to push the plot without participating much. And it somehow works. We know Kirito is strong, so we don’t need to be reminded constantly and early on Kirito serves as a pair of eyes to see how the world of ALO works. I expect that as the fic advances, Kirito will become less trivial. But so far, his role works very well early on and is a nice way to avoid his Marty Stu tendencies.
Asuna; she serves to show how people are reacting to the game and her plot revolves around this. We are not dealing with Asuna The Flash, sub-leader of Ko B. We are dealing with Asuna Yuuki, a teenager that hasn’t touch a game in her life. Her story is the more slow paced and IMO least interesting, but it serves its purpose well and as Asuna’s character develops, I expect the same to happen to the her story.
Klein’s story, like Kirito’s, allows for the viewer to see the state of the many races in ALO as the events unfolds.
Finally, and incredibly enough, Argo. If only because her character is fleshed out into a badass social character, I find her story the most entertaining. She serves as an exposition to the more intangible elements of the setting, such as the political status of the races and such. While the other three characters are fairly fleshed out in the original material, Argo is not and IMO Catsy does a wonderful job with the character. Plus, she totally owns, socially, two different characters.
As a whole, the story is very well written with a strong main cast that, once again, so far helps develop the story. And it is interesting seeing how the world of ALO is brought to life in this setting. As the story progress the characters will need to develop out of their current role, but I’m positive Catsy will be able to make the transition.