| | |  | HAIKASORU | Home » » » Slum Online (Novel) | | | | | | | Description: | | L to R (Western Style). Reality bites for college freshman Etsuro Sakagami, but on the MMO Versus Town he's a karate master who can handle anything. Who will be his greatest opponent-the seemingly invisible Slasher Jack, or his would-be girlfriend Fumiko? Etsuro Sakagami is a college freshmen who feels uncomfortable in reality, but when he logs onto the combat MMO Versus Town, he assumes the personality of "Tetsuo," a karate champ on his way towards becoming the most powerful martial artist around. While his relationship with new classmate Fumiko goes nowhere, he spends his days and nights online in search of the invincible fighter Slasher Jack. Floating in between real and virutal, at last, Etsuro finds himself face to face with his most powerful opponent... | | | Features: | |
• ISBN13: 9781421534398
• Condition: New
• Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed
| | | Product Details: | | | Author:
| Hiroshi Sakurazaka | | Paperback:
| 200 pages | | Publisher:
| VIZ Media LLC | | Publication Date:
| April 20, 2010 | | Language:
| English | | ISBN:
| 1421534398 | | Product Length:
| 7.96 inches | | Product Width:
| 5.56 inches | | Product Height:
| 0.56 inches | | Product Weight:
| 0.49 pounds | | Package Length:
| 7.9 inches | | Package Width:
| 5.2 inches | | Package Height:
| 0.6 inches | | Package Weight:
| 0.5 pounds | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 4 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
A Fantastic "Slice of Life" ReadJun 23, 2010
After reading Yukikaze by Chohei Kambayashi I was both leery of and intrigued by the thought of reading another translated novel from Japan. Leery because Kambayashi, in my opinion, wasted some very intriguing ideas by falling back on trite stereotypes and unexplained "weirdness" as opposed to substance in his episodic military sci-fi novel. I was intrigued, however, because the same author had introduced us to a interesting setting - a world of hyperspace corridors leading from Antartica to another planet populated by an alien military force and resting upon the shoulders of the burgeoning artificial intelligence in an experimental combat plane.
While Slum Online does not reach as ambitiously for the stars in terms of setting, it instead succeeds far more then Yukikaze does in introducing an evoking a simple story of a young man searching for himself in an online game set against the backdrop of "mundane" city life in Tokyo. Hiroshi Sakurazaka's main character is similar on the surface to the protagonist to Rei Fukai in the sense that both are dysfunctional sort of "losers". But the difference is that Hiroshi's main character is much more likable then Fukai. Etsuro of Slum Online struggles to be the best fighter in the online game "Versus Town", while searching for a mysterious martial artist known as Ganker Jack, who is gunning for the venerable "Top Four" fighters of the game community. In the real world, Etsuro struggles in developing a relationship with a girl named Fumiko who has taken an interest in him and who has a quest of her own - to find the mysterious "Blue Cat" rumored to be seen around Tokyo's Shinjuku District.
Because of this, the humble stakes of "Slum Online" are both more real and more personal - having been in a relationship with someone who fed so much of themselves into an online game, I can identify with the story because it is more approachable and its characters are more relatable. Etsuro is just a marginally socially inept guy struggling to relate and understand other people in his life, while balancing both real and virtual priorities. Sakurazaka does a fantastic job of evoking a sense of mood and place, a hallmark of good manga and anime and now apparently of fiction as well. Placing us in the space, we are able to slip into the world more readily and enjoy a brisk tale.
The novel is not without its faults - Etsuro's fight outside the arcade is a little too anime for my tastes, and I had some difficulty grasping exactly what sort of world "Versus Town" was. Was it a sidescroller? Was it an over the shoulder 3d game? At times descriptions were contradictory and while the controller setup also seemed a little ridiculous, I have no idea exactly when the original novel was written (which may influence how the author portrayed the controls) in the end, I just subtly ignored certain descriptions and let the parts that did make sense flourish. In the end, it didn't greatly impact my enjoyment of the novel.
Thanks to Hiroshi Sakurazaka, I look forward to taking more risks when it comes to buying and reading Japanese novels once more when I'm in my local bookstores.
Recommended to teens, MMO fans, fans of "mundane" anime.
A rather interesting read.Jun 12, 2010
I've been going through just about every title through Haika Soru translations and have yet to be disappointed. Slum Online is definitely on the same high caliber of excellent design philosophy and a fluid execution making the reading very enjoyable. At least for me, I found myself some fifty pages into the book before I finally took noticed of my page number.
Etsuro Sakagami is a college freshman who feels uncomfortable in reality, but when he logs onto the combat MMO Versus Town, he becomes "Tetsuo," a karate champ on his way to becoming the most powerful martial artist around. While his relationship with new classmate Fumiko goes nowhere, Etsuro spends his days and nights online in search of the invincible fighter Ganker Jack. Drifting between the virtual and the real, will Etsuro ever be ready to face his most formidable opponent?
What I like most about it is the novel talks more about "gamers" then it does the game in question. And more appealing is it doesn't talk about gamers like they're the mislead and lost among society. While it openly acknowledges that games are a form of entertainment and ultimately only amount to personal value, it never talks down to gamers as if they've wasted everything. Furthermore at times the author puts forth the same argument of toiling away life and puts it back to the real world. And again it's not so much a nihilistic approach, nor is it trying to talk down to people. It's more an acknowledgment that people will value different things and in different standards.
While the theme of the book isn't exactly what I would call profane or a deep look into modern electronic society. It's at least something to talk about and is executed at a high level without pointing fingers of contempt on any one aspect of society.
Personally I would argue this is more a book for high school and early adult range, but even so it's very enjoyable and has a couple aspects and comments about society, value and obsession to give even the most high brewed crowds something to talk about.
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Slum Online -- interesting storyMay 28, 2010
I liked this story a lot. This is an easy read -- probably aimed at teen boys. The English version even with the bonus story is only about 210 pages long.
With most novels I know what is coming next, but this story takes unexpected turns. This is probably because it's a translation of a Japanese novel. It also has gives some insight into the Japanese Culture I think.
I don't want to say too much more. I'm giving it a 5 because I thoroughly enjoyed the story and was completely engrossed in it.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
The Hustler OnlineMay 12, 2010
Slum Online is an interesting novel, in that it's an idea I'm surprised hasn't been done before. The concept of a great quest inside a video game being the main focus of the story while reality plays out in a more mundane way around it, you would think with the rise in popularity of video games in the last decade that this would be the sort of story more people would have come up with.
That said, the novel is interesting in that it's actually rather deeper than the plot description lets on. The classic movie buffs reading the novel will instantly catch all the references to the 1961 classic "The Hustler" staring Paul Newman. If you haven not seen the movie, then you'll actually be missing out on some of the nicer details in the novel. They draw so many parallels between our protagonist's quest to find the infamous Ganker Jack and Fast Eddie's desire to beat Minnesota Fats that they flat out mention the movie on a few occasions. Comparing the two stories is part of the fun of the novel.
The book was a nice short read. Entertaining, but with many faults. While the story was deeper than I was expecting, some chapters seem to end rather abruptly and then suddenly two weeks of time will pass in-between the chapters. Also the constant use of "FX" as describing sounds in the real world got annoying. I understand that it was supposed to show how the main character felt more at home in the video game world, but it still was overdone.
For the American release there's a bonus short story after the novel, from the point of view of a side character. It's a nice little addition, and to be honest, in some ways it's better than the actual novel. It flows slightly better and ends on an interesting note that makes the reader consider how the story will truly end.
| | |
|
