#Yes this is just an excuse to write about Big Brother Reki

[reki-of-the-valley]

Brainrot time! - Kyan Family Edition

Reki has been doing errands and groceries for his mom since he was 12. It was a way of giving him little responsibilities and teaching him about money. His mom would give him a list of things she needed him to pick up, not too much because he was still young, and she'd give him money. He was allowed to keep the change as pocket money, which he almost always spent on sweets

As he got older, and as the family grew, the amount of things he had to get and the frequency grew. At 12 he loved it since it was the first time he had that much freedom, but at 16-17-18, it feels a lot more like a chore, not that he really minds doing it. He rather get groceries than clean a bathroom

His mom still gives him the money and lets him keep the change, but he doesn't keep it anymore. He gives everything back and when she won't accept it, he'll just dump it back into her wallet without her knowing. And from time to time, he'll use the money he makes at DopeSketch to pay for groceries, in hopes of giving his mom a break from expenses.

However, he still buys sweets whenever he's at the grocery store. The only difference is that he doesn't buy them for himself anymore; he buys them for his sisters. At first, when he was 13-14, he would share what he got with Koyomi. Then he started buying sweets for the twins because they always seemed so excited when he came home with a bag of sweet treats.

As Koyomi got older, he'd tease her by telling her to get her own sweets, that he shouldn't have to buy her anything. So she stopped asking him to get her things at the store because he always said no. (He'd say no, but he still got her whatever she wanted unless she was particularly mean to him. That was his little revenge - not giving her anything while Chihiro and Nanaka bounce with their treats - but then he'd feel bad and go out to get her something. And after everyone's gone to bed and it's just the two older Kyan siblings awake in their rooms, he'd poke his head into her room and give it to her. She pretends to be mad at him, taking whatever he's handing her, mumbling out a thanks, but he knows she's grateful and that she loves any strawberry sweets he gets her. Reki knows it's just because she's a teenager and it's not cool to love your brother)

When Reki is out and he comes across things he thinks his sisters might like, he doesn't hesitate to buy it if it's a reasonable price. It's often little things, like a funny pen he thinks Koyomi might like. A cute toy Nanaka had been looking at when everyone was out together. A replacement dress for the one Chihiro ripped while playing outside. Reki never minds spending his money on his family because he loves them. He never minds spending money on the people he loves.

The only person he doesn't put a price range on is his mother. If he sees something she might like and he can afford it, he will buy it for her. Because she buys him so many things. She takes care of him. She's his mom and he just loves her so much.

Reki is the best at dress-up and tea parties. Every Saturday afternoon he'll have a princess tea party with the twins (sometimes Koyomi will play along too if she's feeling up to it or the twins pester her enough).

Obviously, he's the prince that all the princesses love. He even puts on the crown that the twins made him out of construction paper and a ton of stickers. Or at least he's the prince until Langa plays once with them and suddenly Langa is the prince that all the princesses love

R: "What do you mean only Langa can be a prince?? What am I then?" N/C: "Reki is a princess too!" R: "Do I look like a princess to you?" L: "you can be my princess"

So Reki is stuck being a princess from that moment on and he absolutely hates the smug look on Langa's face, especially when he reminds him that he's supposed to be head over heels for the prince (Langa is living for this because 1) teasing Reki, 2) Reki has to pretend to be in love with him. If only it could be real and not just a game)

Langa is super awkward with the twins, he doesn't really know how to play princess tea party, but he quickly learns that teasing Reki, calling him a beautiful princess makes the twins giggle, so he just does that because it's easy. It's very easy to tease Reki and Reki can't do anything about it, he can't kick Langa to get him to stop because that would be setting a bad example. So he just has to endure the torture that is having his best friend dressed up like the prettiest prince he's ever seen, upgraded to an actual plastic crown (which, admittedly, Reki bought for the twins), and """pretend""" to be head over heels in love with him. Because the twins find that hilarious. They find it absolutely hilarious and have planned out a whole royal wedding for the two, inspired by their favorite princess show.

Koyomi definitely helps the twins plan the wedding because she sees how Reki looks at Langa. And she also sees how Langa looks at Reki. And she will never let them live it down, constantly reminding them of their beautiful wedding over tea, especially after they get together.

Langa Bonus:

It doesn't take long for Langa to be known as the trash can at the Kyan house, aka he will finish everyone's plate

At first he held back, not wanting to eat absolutely everything, but that didn't last very long, not with Mrs. Kyan always pushing food his way. So it's not long that he's collecting bowls and plates, finishing off whatever isn't eaten. He honestly will eat after anyone as long as they arent sick and even then, it's the worth the gamble. (Ok, maybe only if it's Reki. He'll eat after Reki no matter what, even if he has the sniffles and is literally fighting Langa to keep him away because "Dude! No! You're going to get sick if you eat after me! It's bad enough that I have a cold!")

There will be no waste around Langa. All food will be eaten and enjoyed.

However, Langa won't explicitly ask if the plate is done. If someone isn't paying attention to their food and he wants something, he will pick off their plate (except the adults because respect and all that. but Langa will pick off of both Reki and Koyomi's plate. The twins is eeehhh, he'll let the kids eat.) So that piece of meat that Reki was going to eat but got to heated in an argument with Koyomi? It's gone when he wants to eat it. Those vegetables Koyomi was pushing around her plate because she didn't want them? Langa solved that problem.

Langa will eat anything and won't stop until the table is completely cleared.

[recentanimenews]

Sword Art Online, Vol. 21: Unital Ring I

By Reki Kawahara and abec. Released in Japan by Dengeki Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Stephen Paul.

This is the first book in the “main” Sword Art Online series that was not adapted from the webnovel that Kawahara wrote years earlier. As such, it’s the first one where we should have raised expectations, and for the most part the book delivers on those expectations. No, sorry, Kirito haters, he still gets to have the big climactic finishers, but honestly, if you’re a Kirito hater but still reading Sword Art Online at Volume 21, I’m going to put the blame on you there. And, if it helps, he spends most of the book in just his underwear. That said, the prose feels smoother, the cast all get things to do that don’t involve mooning over Kirito, and some of them even get really cool things to do on their own, without Kirito at all! Yes, that’s right, More Deban has finally paid off, if only for Silica. As for the plot, well, let’s take all the SAO-style games in the world and dump all its players in a blender? Sounds about right.

We pick up in the fall, a few days before Asuna’s birthday and a couple of weeks before Kirito’s. After having to essentially spend an entire month doing homework because “I was in a coma after being stabbed, but it’s a state secret” is a poor excuse for your high school teacher, Kirito is back at his log cabin preparing to help Liz and Silica do some grinding. Unfortunately, right after Asuna and Alice arrive (yes, Alice is now a regular, and is trying to get a dragon mount in ALO), a huge system crash causes all of Aincrad to disintegrate. Our heroes are barely able to steer the falling cabin to a water landing, but it’s still pretty smashed. Worse, they appear to be inside a new game, Unital Ring, which has taken over ALL the games that use Kayaba’s “Seed”, and promises a huge reward to whoever gets to the goal. But Unital Ring is a survival game, where you have to make your own rope and knives, and our heroes are suddenly level 1. Can they figure out what’s going on? More importantly, can they save the cabin?

I will admit, it’s a lot of fun seeing Kirito depowered through a large chunk of this, though of course by the end he’s starting to get back in business. Honestly, the book feels like he’s been reading his fan mail and taking its advice. Kirito and Suguha/Leafa, for the first time in the entire series to date, actually feel like an older brother and younger sister. Yui, in the new Unital Ring, is back to being a real live girl… though that also means she has real HP. It’s not a death game per se, but apparently when you’re killed off you can’t get into the game again, so there is a lot of tension for our heroes. And then there’s the last four pages, which I will try not to spoil. But really, if you’;re Kawahara and are starting to write the first non-webnovel book in the main series, what’s the very first thing you’re going to import from the other works? Correct. The other character introduced is a bit of a “I won’t tell you about her till the next volume���, but Accel World fans may find their name very familiar, especially those who just read the last volume in December.

Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait a bit longer to see the outcome of that double cliffhanger, as Vol. 22 is a short story volume, containing four short stories that were released as exclusives with various DVD anime packages in Japan. That said, one of the characters who showed up for the cliffhanger will be in the first of those short stories. In the meantime, I was very pleased with this SAO. Let’s keep it up.

By: Sean Gaffney