"Slum Online" by Sakurazaka Hiroshi (2005)
**One of my favorite 'balancing the real world and an online world' stories, told with fun and respect for the subject** Some of you might recognize the name Sakurazaka Hiroshi. He's most well-known for having written "All You Need is Kill", which was adapted to the movie "Edge of Tomorrow" (also apparently just got an anime adaptation? I should watch that) For those that don't know, "All You Need is Kill" is a story about a soldier in a future war against alien invaders, who discovers that every time he dies, he wakes back up that same morning. He uses that time loop to become a better soldier, make new contacts, and try to win the war. The movie was actually a decent adaptation of the first two-thirds of the movie--although the setting changed from Japan to Europe, the general structure of the idea was pretty close (and then they completely changed the ending, which changed the entire story, and I'm grumpy about it, but that'...