Manga: Sword Art Online Hollow Realization 2

SAO Hollow Realization Volume 2 
Rating: 3/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy 
Source: Copy courtesy of the publisher in exchange for an honest review! 

After a harmless dungeon-crawling adventure with Premiere escalates into a high-level battle called the "Ground Quest," Kirito discovers remnants of the floating castle of Aincrad-a world that should have been destroyed long ago. Determined to find more clues to the puzzle and uncover Premiere's identity, Kirito decides to delve deeper into this mysterious quest...Just where could it all lead? 

My goldfish brain appreciated the little refresher at the beginning of this volume, before we dove in to the story. Of course something went wrong with the safety measures....I can't say I was surprised. There's obviously something messed up with the game and the quests and everything, this is SAO after all, but there's something suspicious about Premier too. The majority of this volume, however, was spent with our characters in game, going to school to learn the basics of the game and how it works...but in a school setting. I wasn't entirely sure of the point to this, it seemed just like an opportunity for Yuki to get to experience what school is "really like" as they have to complete various quests to help the ghosts move on. As well as letting Premier experience it too to reinforce how human she seems. 

We do have a new big quest triggered in the second part of this volume, but I'm not really sure what the point of the flash forward was after it, to then go back and carry on. I could understand if it was at the beginning of the volume, but it was right after one section of the story ended and we started another...we flashed forward...and then went back. It just seemed a little unnecessary. Maybe I'm just irritable because Genesis is getting on my last nerve. 

Once we get past the rather mundane first half of the volume, we do get some action as we have a raid and a face off with Genesis, followed by a shock ending as a familiar face pops up! For the most part I feel like a lot of this volume was a bit....meh.