Sword Art Online (Japanese: ??????�?????

, Hepburn: Sodo Ato Onrain) 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 protagonist Kazuto "Kirito" Kirigaya
and Asuna Yuuki as they play through various virtual reality MMORPG worlds.
Kawahara originally wrote the series as a web novel on his website from 2002 to
2008. The light novels began publication on ASCII Media Works' Dengeki Bunko
imprint from April 10, 2009, with a spin-off series launching in October 2012. The
series has spawned nine manga adaptations published by ASCII Media Works and
Kadokawa. The novels and seven of the manga adaptations have been licensed for
release in North America by Yen Press.

An anime television series produced by A-1 Pictures, known simply as Sword Art
Online, aired in Japan between July and December 2012, with a television film Sword
Art Online: Extra Edition airing on December 31, 2013, and a second season, titled
Sword Art Online II, airing between July and December 2014. An animated film titled
Sword Art Online The Movie: Ordinal Scale featuring an original story by Kawahara
premiered in Japan and Southeast Asia on February 18, 2017, and was released in the
United States on March 9, 2017. A spin-off anime series titled Sword Art Online
Alternative Gun Gale Online premiered in April 2018, while a third season titled
Sword Art Online: Alicization premiered in October 2018. A live-action series will
be produced by Netflix. Six video games based on the series have been released for
multiple consoles.

Sword Art Online has received widespread commercial success, with the light novels
having over 20 million copies sold worldwide. The light novel series had good
reviews, mainly on later arcs, while other series like Progressive were praised
since the beginning. The anime series has received mixed to positive reviews, with
praise for its animation, musical score and exploration of the psychological
aspects of virtual reality, but criticisms for its pacing and writing.

Contents
1 Synopsis
1.1 Setting
1.2 Plot
2 Production
3 Media
3.1 Light novels
3.2 Manga
3.3 Anime
3.4 Video games
3.5 Live-action series
4 Reception
5 Cultural impact
6 References
7 External links