I picked this up because it was a used copy and therefore relatively cheap. I knew nothing about it or the author's other works.
Synopsis:
Yggdrasil introduces a near-future world (this volume was originally published in 2006, the story takes place in 2010) in which the Leaves operating system is hugely popular. Wood Soft, Inc. bundled Leaves with a free-to-play MMORPG, Yggdrasil, which likewise exploded in popularity. Some players' avatars have even become popular in the real world.
However, something strange is going on in the game. Monsters have been spawning in areas they're not supposed to. The Phantom, a powerful avatar whose player is rumored to be a professional programmer who created nearly 30% of all of Yggdrasil's magic spells, often appears whenever these strange monsters do.
This volume introduces four major characters: Koki, a high school student who spends too many hours playing Yggdrasil; Haruna, one of Koki's friends/classmates, who is nursing a secret crush on him (so secret she won't even admit it to herself); Gyoku, an annoying Yggdrasil player who types with an accent and hits on all female avatars; and Aoi, a Yggdrasil newbie.
Review:
To be honest, this bored me. I've seen this kind of setup before, complete with the same types of characters. Of course Haruna has a crush on Koki. Of course Gyoku is a lech. I correctly guessed the real world identity of Teal, a famous singer who built her fanbase via Yggdrasil. I came close to guessing the real world identity of the Phantom (or one of them, at least, since there may be more than one). The only reason my guess wasn't quite right was because I thought “it couldn't be that simple.” Yes, it could.
