Accel world takes place in the year 2046 and technology that allows humans to manipulate their senses has been developed. The technology has become so widespread that people can gain access to the Internet in order to enter their virtual worlds using a device called a Neuro-Linker. The main character is the story is Haryuki ‘Haru’ Arita who is a little boy that is short and fat and has pretty low self-esteem because of the constant bullying the he suffers. As an escape he turns to the world network of a virtual squash game where he plays on his own and always scores the highest score.
Haru’s playing of the game attracts the attention of Kuroyukihime, the vice-president of the student council. She offers Haru a secret program called Brain Burst that accelerates the brainwaves in the real world to make time appear to be standing still. Brain Burst can only be used a certain number of times as each burst costs Burst Points. It is possible to win more points, and the primary way of achieving this is to fight against other users in a massive virtual reality fighting game. Fighting is a risky business because if a player loses all of their points then the program uninstalls and it is not possible to re-install it after this. There are more rules to using Brain Burst as well. Each person that uses the program may on give a single copy to someone else. If strict rules are not met then the installation may fail, but it will still count. The qualifying conditions are that the person must have had a neuro-linker put in at birth and must have a brain that can handle the heightened brain activity associated with using the program.
The ongoing storyline is set around Kuroykihime and her quest to reach level 10 to meet the person that invented Brain Burst and to find out what the ultimate purpose of the Brain Burst is, but to achieve that she must beat the five other level 9 users who are the ‘Six Kings of Pure Colour’ and the leaders of the six most powerful factions within the world of Brain Burst. Haru decides to help Kuroyukihime to repay her for the gift of Brain Burst and to try to overcome his low self-esteem.
An anime adaptation of the story was created in 2012 consisting of 24 episodes that we aired in Japan. However if you missed them or don’t live in Japan then you can catch up with your favorite characters at anime on hand. The episodes are available as streaming media so you can watch them on the go on your smart phone. Compatible handsets include the iPhone and iPod Touch and Android devices such as the Samsung Galaxy S3. If you know that you are going out of range of a wifi signal or a good 3G or 4G signal then you can also download episodes to use with the ‘watch later’ feature that is offered by AmineOnHand.com.
