×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
REVIEW: Sword Art Online Novel 1


Goto page 1, 2  Next

Note: this is the discussion thread for this article

Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
TUSF



Joined: 11 Oct 2013
Posts: 191
PostPosted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 12:02 pm Reply with quote
Quote:
but at least the infamously bad Chapter 16.5, which was an addition Kawahara wrote later rather than part of the original story, is, thankfully, not included. (Seriously; even if you are a completest, you are best off forgetting that this exists.)

Hahaha.
I just want to point out that the, "wrote later" means, he wrote it while SAO was still a web-novel.

And yeah, everyone should forget it exists (Even Kawahara wants everyone to forget it exists)


edit:
Quote:
Aincard 1 has all three

It's "Aincrad" (do the editors even read the forum posts though?)
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Knight-Hart



Joined: 27 Mar 2014
Posts: 266
PostPosted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 12:36 pm Reply with quote
What was chapter 16.5? Judging from chapter 16, was it some kind of extended H scene?
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Key
Moderator


Joined: 03 Nov 2003
Posts: 18135
Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley)
PostPosted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 12:37 pm Reply with quote
Yes. And clearly written by someone who has not the faintest clue how to properly write such scenes.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website My Anime My Manga
GrayArchon



Joined: 28 Feb 2011
Posts: 393
PostPosted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 12:50 pm Reply with quote
Knight-Hart wrote:
What was chapter 16.5? Judging from chapter 16, was it some kind of extended H scene?


You know how some romance novels will actually write a sex scene for the bedroom scenes instead of cutting the scene before hand and picking up sometime afterwards? The author tried his hand at that. It was not very good and he seems to have long ago decided that was not a path he wanted to go with his writing. Thanks to the power of the internet, that particular short story not only still exists, but has been translated. And thanks to people being seemingly unable to not talk about it, despite it not appear in any actual published version of the novel, it's widely known.

I'm actually quite disappointed that Theron mentioned it. It's not part of the novel, so it's quite absurd to breathe a sigh of relief at it's lack of inclusion in the novel. It's as irrelevant as all the other cuts and changes along the way from the web published stories to the formally published print stories. All including does is say to the people who have only seen the anime but are now curious about the novels "Hey guys, check out this really crappy piece of writing the author did a decade ago that isn't part of this novel!"
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Knight-Hart



Joined: 27 Mar 2014
Posts: 266
PostPosted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 1:06 pm Reply with quote
Yeah... It seems weird to mention it. Every writer makes a mistake now and again. I'm glad that they didn't decide to continue down that route, because the writing and story of SAO is generally quite wholesome compared to other stuff.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
c933103



Joined: 20 Feb 2010
Posts: 64
PostPosted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 1:17 pm Reply with quote
Knight-Hart wrote:
What was chapter 16.5? Judging from chapter 16, was it some kind of extended H scene?


1. the original SAO story is being put on writer's website back in year 2002.
2. There are multiple section on author's site, for example a forum, a web novel section, a section that host doujin of SAO that isn't written by him, and there are also a section which you would not be able to click to from the main site, but still put under the same URL, called Wordgear Reverse.
3. Wordgear Reverse hosted a number of 18-R material, including a number of 18-R doujin written by others, the 16.5 written by himself, the warmth of the body collaborative written by himself as well as some other, some 18-R Q&A time, as well as some 18-R illustrations drawn by himself and others. The section is deleted from the site now.
4. Later the novel's author Kawahara Reki admitted the existence of the 16.5 passage, but hope people treat it as "black history" and forget about it, although he does made some non-reference to 16.5 in a few latest non-18-R SAO doujin wrote by himself.
5. Since it is published in a non-related section on the author's website, I don't think it could really be considered as part of the novel. However, in the original web version of SAO, there're some description like "In that night, I and Asuna do everything that the system permitted" (not exactly remembered how its actually written but something similar) which no longer exist in any other version afterward (excluding the web SAOV which I had not check for if it have those lines or not, but the line vanish from everything afterward including light novel and manga and anime), and that pretty much hinted something mature happened that night
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime
GrayArchon



Joined: 28 Feb 2011
Posts: 393
PostPosted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 2:37 pm Reply with quote
Knight-Hart wrote:
Yeah... It seems weird to mention it. Every writer makes a mistake now and again.


Indeed, and this feedback is a good illustration as to why mentioning it was a bad idea. Seven posts in, and not a single one of them about anything that's actually in the novel that's being reviewed.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Zac
ANN Executive Editor


Joined: 05 Jan 2002
Posts: 7912
Location: Anime News Network Technodrome
PostPosted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 2:39 pm Reply with quote
"Don't mention this thing everyone mentions when they talk about the SAO novel, that everyone interested seems to already know about and focus on, because then people will focus on it".

I guarantee you the first post in this thread would've either been a joke about it or asked if it were included in the book, and then all the following posts would also have been about it. Once people get it out of their system, the discussion can move on, but telling the writer he just should've pretended it didn't exist is silly.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website My Anime
GrayArchon



Joined: 28 Feb 2011
Posts: 393
PostPosted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 2:52 pm Reply with quote
Zac wrote:
"Don't mention this thing everyone mentions when they talk about the SAO novel, that everyone interested seems to already know about and focus on, because then people will focus on it".

I guarantee you the first post in this thread would've either been a joke about it or asked if it were included in the book, and then all the following posts would also have been about it. Once people get it out of their system, the discussion can move on, but telling the writer he just should've pretended it didn't exist is silly.


Obviously "everyone" doesn't mention it as the second post was someone asking about it. Indeed, it's quite common for people who have only watched the anime to not know about it.

And yes, the writer should have pretended it didn't exist as it does not exist in the novel he's reviewing. It's one thing for users to be derailing the topic of the review. It's another for the reviewer themselves to encourage that derailing. Furthermore, not everyone reads the discussion, plenty of people only read the review. Including mention of something not actually in any published edition of the novel will only cause confusion for them, and force them to look up some writing that's long since abandoned and doesn't reflect the actual content of the series.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Zac
ANN Executive Editor


Joined: 05 Jan 2002
Posts: 7912
Location: Anime News Network Technodrome
PostPosted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 3:27 pm Reply with quote
GrayArchon wrote:

Obviously "everyone" doesn't mention it as the second post was someone asking about it. Indeed, it's quite common for people who have only watched the anime to not know about it.

And yes, the writer should have pretended it didn't exist as it does not exist in the novel he's reviewing. It's one thing for users to be derailing the topic of the review. It's another for the reviewer themselves to encourage that derailing. Furthermore, not everyone reads the discussion, plenty of people only read the review. Including mention of something not actually in any published edition of the novel will only cause confusion for them, and force them to look up some writing that's long since abandoned and doesn't reflect the actual content of the series.


In my opinion, it isn't a big deal to mention it, especially given that it's kind of an elephant in the room when it comes to this material anyway. It's come up in literally every discussion or article about the novel I've ever read. Mentioning that this infamous piece of the novel is not included is sort of skipping over the inevitable question before it's asked.

Kinda like how if there's an excised episode of a TV series that comes out on DVD (like with the original Gundam) that everyone knows about, it's all people will ask about until it's addressed. Really not a big deal to talk about it briefly in a review of the release.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website My Anime
Utsuro no Hako



Joined: 18 May 2012
Posts: 1032
PostPosted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 4:09 pm Reply with quote
GrayArchon wrote:
And yes, the writer should have pretended it didn't exist as it does not exist in the novel he's reviewing.


By that logic he shouldn't have compared the novel to the anime or mentioned the side stories that aren't included in the book. That's not how criticism works, at least not since that brief bout of lunacy in the '60s when academics decided the cool way to look at stories was by pretending nothing outside the text exists, including the author.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Letthemeatraep



Joined: 16 Dec 2009
Posts: 161
PostPosted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 7:12 pm Reply with quote
I'd never heard about Chapter 16.5 until I read this review. Just finished reading a translation of it now and it is amazing. I couldn't stop laughing through it.

Thank you for bringing this to my attention ANN Laughing
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14746
PostPosted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 9:30 pm Reply with quote
Letthemeatraep wrote:

I'd never heard about Chapter 16.5 until I read this review. Just finished reading a translation of it now and it is amazing. I couldn't stop laughing through it.


We made it into an audio book - now ya can listen to it in your car! Laughing
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Ojamajo LimePie



Joined: 09 Nov 2007
Posts: 762
PostPosted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 11:15 pm Reply with quote
Zac wrote:
Kinda like how if there's an excised episode of a TV series that comes out on DVD (like with the original Gundam) that everyone knows about, it's all people will ask about until it's addressed.


It's different, because 16.5 was never in any official release of SAO.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Chagen46



Joined: 27 Jun 2010
Posts: 4377
PostPosted: Mon Apr 28, 2014 11:18 pm Reply with quote
I am looking to buy this solely to support LN localizations. Though it appears to be out at my closest Barnes&Nobles...must have sold fast. And they said LNs don't sell.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page 1, 2  Next
Page 1 of 2

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group