Alternative
Name: 刀剑神域 (Dāo Jiàn Shén Yù)
Genre: Adventure, Romance, Fantasy, Drama, Action, Sci-Fi, Fighting,
Survival, Tragedy, Virtual Reality, Online Game/MMORPG,
Alternative Version
Description:
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 eventually falls in love
with. 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 has still not awakened yet.
Following a clue about Asuna's whereabouts in another VRMMORPG called Alfheim
Online (ALO), Kirito also logs in there. Kirito soon learns 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. Helped by his sister Suguha, Kirito stops Nobuyuki's plans and 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. Kirito, assisted by a female player
he meets in the game called Sinon, eventually identifies and exposes the
culprits who include some former members of a murderous guild he had previously
encountered in SAO.
After solving the murders in GGO, Kirito is
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 thousands of
times faster than in the real world. However, Kirito 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. As Kirito begins to
have his memories entangled with his experiences in the game, it becomes more
difficult for him to tell reality and fiction apart. Meanwhile, Asuna, Suguha
and Sinon also log themselves into UW in an attempt to help him.
Episode
Season 1: 25 episodes + 9 Special + 1 Movie + 1 Special
Season 2: 24 episodes + 1 Special + 9 Special + 1 Movie + 1 Special + 1 ONA + 1 Special
Season 3a: 24 episodes + 1 Special + 1 Special
Season 3b: 12 episodes + 1 Special
Season 3c: 11 episodes + 1 Movie + 1 Movie
Original Run
Season 1: July 7, 2012 – December 22, 2012
Special: October 24, 2012 – June 26, 2013
Movie: December 31, 2013
Special: April 23, 2014
Season 2: July 5, 2014 – December 20, 2014
Special: October 22, 2014 – June 24, 2015
Special: October 11, 2014
Movie: February 18, 2017
Special: September 27, 2017
ONA: February 8, 2018
Special: March 20, 2018
Season 3a: October 7, 2018 – March 31, 2019
Special: February 17, 2019
Special: October 6, 2019
Season 3b: October 13, 2019 – December 29, 2019
Special: July 4, 2020
Season 3c: July 12, 2020 – September 20, 2020
Movie: October 30, 2021
Movie: October 22, 2022
Studio: A-1 Pictures (Series) / Studio 3Hz (Alternative Version)
