Sword Art Online [TV]
In the year 2022, the gaming industry has reached a new height after the development of the NerveGear, a helmet-like controller that allows the user to fully dive their senses into the world of virtual reality. After a closed beta with only 1,000 testers, the Virtual Reality MMORPG Sword Art Online is launched. The game takes place within a floating castle of steel called Aincrad where thousands of monsters are found in its 100 floors, and the players are given an array of medieval inspired weapons to use.
The story follows Kazuto Kirigaya, a reclusive gamer who was one of the lucky beta testers and the first 10,000 players to avail the official game. However, in an unexpected turn of events, the players find themselves unable to log out and return to the real world. After everyone was force teleported together into one place, the game master Akihiko Kayaba appears. He announces that the players are deliberately trapped inside the game, and the only way to log out is to clear the 100 floors of Aincrad. To make matters worse, he reveals that when an avatar dies inside the game, the player is also killed in real life.
Amidst the panic and confusion, Kirigaya accepts his harsh new reality, and starts his struggle for freedom with the help of his past beta testing experience.
About the Show
Sword Art Online is an anime adaptation of the adventure, action, sci-fi light novel series under the same name, written by Reki Kawahara and illustrated by Abec. Produced by A-1 Pictures, the anime series aired a total of 49 episodes (divided into 2 seasons), between July 2012 and December 2014. It has also been adapted into a movie, Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale, and was based on by four different videogames. The light novel has sold over an estimated 19 million copies since its publication on 2009.
Characters
Kazuto Kirigaya (IGN: Kirito)
During his time in the real world, Kazuto Kirigaya mostly kept to himself inside his room and spent most
