Sword Art Online (ソードアート・オンライン Sōdo Āto Onrain) is a Japanese light novel series by Reki Kawahara, with illustrations by abec. It has
been adapted into three manga, an anime,
and a video game.
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're 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's 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 a small group of 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, 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's far more realistic and complex than the
previous games he had played. In UW, the flow of time proceeds thousands of
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's the real Kirito or an artificial intelligence modeled after
him.
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 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, 2012 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, lit.
"Dream World") 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 USA. The series is licensed in Australia by
Madman Entertainment.
Watch SAO trailer here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-ItVSknzi8
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