Sword Art Online

Sword Art Online (ソードアート・オンライン) is a Japanese light novel series written by Reki Kawahara and illustrated by abec. The series takes place in the near-future and focuses on various virtual reality MMORPG worlds. The light novels began publication on ASCII Media Works' Dengeki Bunko label from April 10, 2009, with a spin-off series launching in October 2012, and are licensed in North America by Yen Press. The series has spawned five manga adaptations. A television anime series produced by A-1 Pictures aired in Japan between July and December 2012. The anime has been licensed in North America by Aniplex of America and an English-language version began airing on Adult Swim's Toonami programming block on July 27, 2013. A video game based on the series was released on PlayStation Portable in March 2013. The novels and two of the manga adaptations have been licensed for release by Yen Press.

Plot
In the year 2022, the Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (VRMMORPG), Sword Art Online (SAO), is released. With the Nerve Gear, a virtual reality helmet that stimulates the user's five senses via their brain, players can experience and control their in-game characters with their minds.

On November 6, 2022, all the players log in for the first time, and subsequently discover that they are unable to log out. They are then informed by Kayaba Akihiko, the creator of SAO, that if they wish to be free, they must reach the 100th floor of the game's tower and defeat the final boss. However, if their avatars die in-game, their bodies will also die in the real world. The story follows Kirito, a skilled player who is determined to beat the game. As the game progresses for two years, Kirito eventually befriends a female player named Asuna with whom he ultimately falls in love. After the duo discover the identity of Kayaba's avatar in SAO, they confront and defeat him, freeing themselves and the other players from the game.

Upon returning to the real world, Kirito learns that Asuna and 300 other SAO players have still not awakened yet. Following a clue about Asuna's whereabouts in another VRMMORPG called Alfheim Online (ALO), Kirito also logs in there. Helped by his sister Suguha, known as Leafa in the game, he learns that the trapped players in ALO are part of a plan devised by Nobuyuki Sugō to perform illegal experiments on their minds to put them under his control, including Asuna, whom he intends to marry in the real world in order to take over her family's company. After Kirito stops Nobuyuki's plans, he finally reunites with Asuna in the real world.

Soon after, Kirito plays another game called Gun Gale Online (GGO) to investigate the mysterious connection between it and deaths occurring in the real world. Assisted by a female player he meets in the game called Sinon, he identifies and exposes the culprits, who include some former members of a murderous guild he had previously encountered in SAO.

Kirito is later recruited to assist in the development of a state-of-the-art game, UnderWorld (UW), which has an interface that is far more realistic and complex than the previous games he had played. In UW, the flow of time proceeds a thousand times faster than in the real world. However, he ends up falling into a trap set by one of the murderers from GGO and wakes up inside the game, unable to log out, with his real self left in a comatose state. Eventually he starts to question if he is the real Kirito or an artificial intelligence modeled after him.

Setting
The light novel series spans several virtual MMORPGs, not exclusively the eponymous world of Sword Art Online.


 * Sword Art Online (ソードアート・オンライン)
 * The first virtual game world, as well as the setting of the first arc of the story, known as SAO for short. The world takes the form of a giant floating castle called Aincrad, with 100 floors in it. Each floor has a medieval-themed setting and a dungeon with a boss, which has to be defeated before players can advance to the next higher floor. Like most RPGs, it implements a level-based system. However, the game is altered in a manner in which players are unable to log out, and if players die in-game, their real life body dies too.


 * Alfheim Online (アルヴヘイム・オンライン)
 * The setting for the second arc of the story, known as ALO for short. All players in the game have wings and are capable of flight. It is a large world, divided into separate 'homelands' for each of its fairy races. In Alfheim's center is a very large tree called the World Tree, and the goal of the game is to reach the top. It implements a skill-based system with players increasing their stats by developing both their combat and non-combat skills. Aincrad, the castle of the first game, is later accessible to ALO players as well.


 * Gun Gale Online (ガンゲイル・オンライン)
 * The setting for the third arc of the story, known as GGO for short. It is a virtual game world with a main focus on guns, although melee weapons like lightsabers and knives also exist. From all the games it is the most competitive one as the money earned there can be exchanged for currency used in the real world, drawing high-tier professional players to make a living from it.


 * UnderWorld
 * The setting for the fourth arc of the story. According to Kirito, it is graphically the most realistic of all VRMMOs to date. The flow of time in UW is variable and can be much faster relative to the real world's. Even so, it seems that even Kirito was misled as to the actual rate of UW's time flow, so it is still unknown. However, in the as of yet canon "There is but one ultimate way" side story, the rate is said to be safely up to 1,000 times faster than that of the real world, just like Accel World's Brain Burst.

Light novels
Reki Kawahara wrote the first volume in 2002 as a competition entry for ASCII Media Works' Dengeki Game Novel Prize (電撃ゲーム小説大賞), but refrained from submitting it as he had exceeded the page limit. He instead published it as a web novel under the pseudonym Fumio Kunori. Over time, he added three further volumes and several short stories. In 2008, he participated in the competition again by writing Accel World, this time winning the Grand Prize. Aside from Accel World, he was requested to get his earlier work, Sword Art Online, published by ASCII Media Works. Kawahara agreed and withdrew his web novel versions. The republication as a paper novel began on April 10, 2009. The paper novel excluded chapter 16.5 of volume 1 of the web novel, due to its explicit nature, which was originally an author-written fan fiction of his own work. On October 10, 2012, the first volume of the Sword Art Online: Progressive series was released. Progressive covers Kirito's adventures on the first and second floors of Aincrad, and includes a rewrite of two side stories: "Aria in the Starless Night" and "Rondo of the Transient Sword". At their Japan Expo USA panel, Yen Press announced the rights to publish the light novels; the first volume is scheduled for April 22, 2014.

Manga
There are five manga adaptations of the series, which are serialized in Dengeki Bunko Magazine and Dengeki G's Magazine. Sword Art Online: Aincrad, illustrated by Tamako Nakamura, ran from September 2010 to May 2012 and consists of two manga volumes. A comedy four-panel manga titled Sword Art Online 4-koma and illustrated by Jūsei Minami, was serialized in September 2010 with one manga volume published thus far. A third manga titled Sword Art Online: Fairy Dance and illustrated by Hazuki Tsubasa, began serialization on May 2012 after Sword Art Online: Aincrad ended with one manga volume currently published. A spin-off manga staring Lisbeth, Silica, and Leafa titled Sword Art Online Girls Ops and illustrated by Neko Nekobyō, began serialization on June 10, 2013. A manga adaption of Sword Art Online: Progressive illustrated by Kiseki Himura began serialization on June 30, 2013 in Dengeki G's Magazine. The Aincrad and Fairy Dance manga have also been acquired for release in North America by Yen Press. The first volume of Aincrad will be published on March 25, 2014.

Anime
An anime adaptation of Sword Art Online was announced at Dengeki Bunko Autumn Festival 2011, along with Reki Kawahara's other light novel series, Accel World. The anime covered the first four volumes of the light novels. The anime is published by Aniplex, produced by A-1 Pictures and directed by Tomohiko Ito with music by Yuki Kajiura. The anime aired on Tokyo MX, tvk, TVS, TVA, RKB, HBC and MBS between July 7 and December 22, 2012, and on AT-X, Chiba TV and BS11 at later dates. The series was also streamed on Crunchyroll and Hulu. The opening theme song for the first 14 episodes is "crossing field" by LiSA and the ending theme song is "Yume Sekai" (ユメセカイ) by Haruka Tomatsu. From episode 15 onward, the opening theme is "Innocence" by Eir Aoi and the ending theme is "Overfly" by Luna Haruna. The anime has been licensed in North America by Aniplex of America and an English-language dub premiered on Adult Swim's Toonami programming on July 27, 2013. The series will be released by Aniplex of America in four DVD and Blu-ray sets, with special extras on the BD sets, between August 13 and November 19, 2013. Manga Entertainment will release the series on BD/DVD in the United Kingdom in December 2013, whilst Madman Entertainment will release the series in Australia.

A year-end special, titled Sword Art Online Extra Edition, is set to air on December 31, 2013. The special will recap the previously aired anime series and include some new footage.

Video games
A video game adaptation, titled Sword Art Online: Infinity Moment (ソードアート・オンライン -インフィニティ・モーメント-), was developed by Namco Bandai Games for the PlayStation Portable. The game follows an alternate storyline, in which a glitch causes Kirito and the other players to remain in Sword Art Online despite defeating Heathcliff, and players from other VMMORPGs such as Leafa and Sinon get sucked into the game themselves. The game was released in both regular and limited edition box sets on March 14, 2013.

Asuna and Leafa will appear in the upcoming Dengeki Bunko Fighting Climax, a fighting game featuring various characters from works published under the Dengeki Bunko imprint.

Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment is an upcoming game for the PlayStation Vita, due for a 2014 release.

Reception
Richard Eisenbeis of Kotaku hails Sword Art Online as the smartest series in recent years, praising its deep insight on the psychological aspects of virtual reality on the human psyche, its sociological views on creating a realistic economy and society in a massively multiplayer online game setting, and the writing staff's ability to juggle a wide variety of genres within the series. Eisenbeis particularly noted how the romance between Kirito and Asuna is explored bringing "definition to exactly what love is like in a virtual world." However, at the time of this preliminary review, he had only watched the first 12 episodes of the series. He has since gone on to review the second half of the series, lauding its excellent use of plot twists and praising its well written and believable villain. However, he felt that some of the initial positive aspects of the series were lost in the second half, such as the focus on psychological repercussions and social interactions that could be realistically seen in an online game. Eisenbeis closes his review of the series by stating in regards to the two halves, "Both, however, are enjoyable for what they are."

According to Oricon, Sword Art Online was the top selling light novel series of 2012, with eight volumes figuring among the top selling light novels.