Silvery Wings

Recently in our AP English Literature class, we have just finished reading Frankenstein, a novel centered around a humanoid creature with human emotions who ends up completely alone and neglected by even his creator. Last week, I compared him to another non-human creature: Saya. This week however, I will compare him to the main character of Accel World, a very human teenage boy: Arita Haruyuki.

http://timelessobserver.wordpress.com/2012/04/04/accel-world-1-2/

Haru is a person who is obese, short, and reticent by nature. His parents are also divorced and he lives with his mom, who is almost never awake or even at home when he is. As you have probably guessed by now, he has been bullied and is basically a social outcast. The only 3 reasons that he did not become vengeful or suicidal like Frank Jr are:

1) He has 2 close childhood friends that he could rely on after school hours.

2) He has technology; Accel World is set in the future where everyone has a NeuroLinker - a device that is basically like a supercomputer with internet access and the capability of full-diving into virtual reality worlds. Thus, he could play Virtual Reality games to relieve his stress and have indirect human interaction. Later he was introduced to Accel World and given the secret Brain Burst program, a virtual reality game unlike any that had ever existed. The program also gave the owner superhuman abilities in real life - at the cost of points that could only be earned in game. Once your points reach 0, you lose the program forever and cannot reinstall it as the central server recognizes your specific brain waves.

3) Someone else reached out to him and helped him with his school life. Although acting with ulterior motives and out of self-interest at first, she soon began to care for Haru as a person and made his in-school life slowly begin to improve (Starting with getting rid of his bullier.)

http://myanimelist.net/profile/Halktail

I believe that the reason for the disparity between Haru and Frank Jr is due to the fact that Haru looks more human than Frank Jr, while also having at least a few precious human connections during the darkest periods in his life. Haru was given the Brain Burst program and introduced to a completely new world by who appeared to be a complete stranger. He was at first confused as to why such a person would talk to him randomly out of everyone, but the two eventually become close friends.

Haru's avatar in Accel World is Silver Crow, the first avatar in Accel World with flight capabilities. The program scans your memory and builds an original avatar from scratch based on your emotional scars. His wings represent his desire to be able to fly, aiming for the sky and escaping the living hell that he has been through in his life.

The main point that I am trying to make here is that anybody put in Frank Jr's situation has only really one hope of changing it, and that is to find someone who can accept you and even like you for who you are. Haru was lucky, in that somebody like that found him, but Frank Jr should have scoured the countryside for someone who could see past his appearance and like him for his purity on the inside. Vengeance usually leads to unfavorable results for both sides, as Haru learns from the person who gave him Brain Burst (she turns out to be one of the 7 strongest players in Accel World: Black Lotus, go figure.)

Here's some awesome soundtracks from Accel World, from when Haru discovers his wings for the first time, and reclaims them the second time after they were stolen ( spoiler :l )

Silver Wing

Silvery Wings