The Sword Art Online Anime and Light Novel has become one of the most popular anime in recent years. Thinking about it, I decided to share several curiosities, Easter Eggs and secrets involving the entire franchise.
Sword Art Online emerged as a web novel (written on the internet) by Reki Kawahara. The success was so great that its story became a Light Novel and then received a manga, anime and even a remake and spin-off. The Light Novel was published in 2009 and has over 20 volumes.
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The Origin Story of Sword Art Online
It's good to understand a little bit of Sword Art Online's origin story, which came about through a web novel. The author of the work Reki Kawahara started publishing his stories in 2001. In 2009 he joined the publishing house Dengeki Bunko after passing a contest with the draft of Accel World. Its editor suggested also releasing Sword Art Online which ended up being more successful.
The success was fast that in 2012 it won an anime adaptation soon after receiving an adaptation of Accel World in the previous season. The work works a kind of short arcs that ends up displeasing some fans.
Author Reki Kawahara wrote both Sword Art Online and Accel World in the same universe, with crossovers, with mentions of technology and maybe even relationships between characters that still generate a lot of mystery among fans.
Reki created an amazing universe, but it could have been better worked on in the animations. After seeing his mistakes in the first 4 arcs, he got it right in the fifth arc, making a very long and well-crafted one, looking like another anime.
Because of criticism of his speed in writing the favorite Aincrad arc, he ended up writing a version called Progressive which covers in detail all the events of the first arc of Sword Art Online.
Curiosities about Sword Art Online
There are 10 unique skills in Sword Art Online, we only know 6 of them which are: Infinite spear, Shurikenjutsu, Battoujutsu, Darkness Blade, Holy Sword and Dual Blades (Kirito). The dual sword skill that Kirito gains can only be given to the individual who has the fastest reaction time in the game.
In the Sword Art Online extra, during Kirito's interview, the cell phone shows the time of 8 hours 23 minutes and 45 seconds. This is the sum total of the time of all episodes of the first season together (excluding the openings and endings).
In the first episode of the anime appeared an easter egg from MyAnimeList which is a site where you can create lists and track information and comments about anime. In GGO, when kirito enters the game, you will find the Bandai Namco logo on a TV.
When Reki was creating Kirito, he wanted to make a character who would do whatever he wanted without thinking about the consequences. Heathcliff is a tribute to actor Heath Ledger, who played the Joker in “Batman: The Dark Knight”;
- In episode 4 of the second season of Oreimo, appears some action figures of Kirito, Asuna and Liz;
- Kirito's computer has about 24Ghz of processing. Today's processors average 3.4GHz;
- Originally Asuna's brother was going to play Sword Art Online, but he had to go on a business trip and Asuna decided to play instead;
About Sword Art Online characters
Silica's name stands for silicon dioxide. Ayano Keiko (綾野珪子) chose this name for her character because her real name is based on silicon, the 14th element in the periodic table. The ideogram of his name keiko (珪) makes up several words involving silicon. She even ties up her hair to symbolize the oxide atoms that are attached to her.
Asuna's Weapon is called Lambent Light. This sword is Asuna's final sword that she uses in Sword Art Online. This requires an almost maximum level of one-handed skill, combined with Asuna's lightning-fast speed earns her the nickname 'flash'.
The Villain of ALO Oberon, King of Shadows and Elves, is one of the main characters of William Shakespeare, who appear in his work A Midsummer Night's Dreams. It was because of the works of William Shakespeare that the villain kidnapped Asuna.
- In the anime Lizbeth's hair color is pink, this color represents an often cheerful character, to the point of being annoying;
- Kirito's favorite food is teriyaki chicken burgers. He doesn't like onions unless Asuna cooks them for him;
- the weapon of Sinon exists in real life and is called PGM Hecate II, sniper rifle used by the French army;
The article is still halfway through, but we recommend also reading:
Trivia from SAO's Light Novel
Sword Art Online is not the author's only work related to online games. Accel World follows the same genre of games, but with a failed character instead of "Badass". Both series take place in the same universe. So much so that in episode 22 of the Accel World anime the Never Gear helmet from Sword Art Online appears.
Sword Art Online author wrote an extra chapter and erotic involving Kirito and Asuna in their light novel, chapter 16.5; The events coincide with episode 10 of the anime and chapter 16 of the light novel.
In the original web novel version, 50,000 people would be trapped in Sword Art Online. This number was reduced to 10,000 at the launch of the Official Light Novel. Leafa has big boobs not because of the author, but the editor suggested that she would work better if she were busty.
The Light Novel Illustrator from Sword Art Online is known as ABEC. He had no interest in working with SAO until he read the story. He revealed that it takes 10 to 30 hours to make a single color illustration of the Light novel.
There are many other facts about Sword Art Online that I don't remember. Do you know of any? Comment here and share with friends!
What order to Watch Sword Art Online?
Sword Art Online is not that difficult to watch, below in summary we will show you the arcs of SAO:
- Sword Art Online
- Sword Art Online Extra Edition (film)
- Sword Art Online 2
- Sword Art Online: Ordinal Scale (film)
- Alternative Gun Gale Online (spin-off)
- Accel World
- Sword Art Online: Alicization
- Sword Art Online: Alicization - War of Underworld
- Sword Art Online: Alicization - War of Underworld - Part 2
The original Fandom recommends watching Accel World (another anime by the same author) before Alicization to facilitate the understanding of the game present in the Alicization arc. But in the Accel World timeline it takes place right in the future.
Sword Art Online - Aincrad Arc
The first arc takes place in the first season of the anime, between the episodes 1 to 14. Aincrad is where it all started, 10,000 players are trapped inside a game called Sword Art Online and to get out they will have to finish the game.
For this they need to go through 100 different floors, each with a boss at the end. The big problem is that in this game there is no Respawn, if the player dies in the game he also dies in real life. The anime focuses on the protagonists Kirito and Asuna.
Despite the most popular saga, it is one of the smallest composed of only 2 volumes of the Light Novel, and much of it is present only in the first volume. There is a more complete version called SAO Progressive.
Alfheim Online (ALO) - Fairy Dance Arc
In volumes 3 and 4 of the Light Novel, the second arc called Fairy Dance takes place, where Kirito manages to leave the Sword Art Online game, but I discovered that his beloved is still trapped somewhere inside the NeverGear device.
In this arc your sister/cousin is the new heroine, who helps her brother to find and save her in the game ALO, a world of fairies and magic. The arc was adapted into the remainder of Sword Art Online's first season from episode 15 onwards.
In this arc we have the typical story of a princess trapped in a castle where the protagonist has to do everything to save her. With no death threat, the protagonist still needs to pass an impossible test to achieve what he seeks.
Sword Art Online: Extra Edition - Movie
It is a summary of the first season with flashbacks along with a cliche story with ecchi where the friends from season one try to do an underwater dungeon quest. An optional extra that does not affect bows at all.
Guns Gale Online (GGO) - Phantom Bullet
In the same way as the first season, the third arc of the series is present between episodes 1 and 14. It all starts with rumors of people dying in real life within a game called Guns Gale Online, it is an open world FPS .
Kirito is requested by an old government friend to enter the game and invest the currenc13xd3c. Upon entering the game, his character appears with long girly hair, yes, that's what we follow throughout the arc. Why? I have no idea...
The development of this arc takes place with another heroine named Sinon who is afraid of weapons but plays an FPS. After that arc we have a little extra 3 episodes where they look for a sword called Excalibur or Caliber.
There is also a Spin-Off that takes place in Guns Gale Online with other characters and another story. It takes Sword Art Online in the title, but it has no relationship or even the characters of the original cast.
Mothers Rosario Arc + Ordinal Scale Film
This part of the story tells the story from Asuna's point of view in the second part of the second season after Caliber. Where it shows the mother of an Asuna as a rival of her relationship with Kirito and her days at school.
Right after this arc, a movie that mixes augmented reality takes place, similar to the items in the anime Accel World. Despite being an original film, it was made with the help of author Reki Kawahara and became canon in the series.
Underworld - Project Alicization
One of the biggest arches of Sword Art Online, in this Kirito arch is attacked by a villain of previous seasons that leaves him in a coma. His government friends promises to save him by placing him on a virtual reality machine that speeds up the brain.
While in real life some time passes, within the game Kirito lives for more than 10 years and has a whole life and history. The world is divided into two territories that are about to go to war, meanwhile real-world villains intrude.
In fact, the story is much more complex than that, involving Artificial Intelligence, terrorists and much more. Unfortunately I don't want to go into details to avoid spoilers, but this is the best arc of all, well done and very different from the previous ones.
This arc had a first adaptation with 25 episodes, followed by another adaptation (War of Underworld) divided into two seasons of 12 episodes, totaling 50 episodes in a single arc.
Unital Ring (UR)
The most current arc in Sword Art Online as of the writing of this article. The author promises to be as big and good as Alicization was. It's still in release in the Light Novel, so it hasn't received an anime adaptation, and it probably won't anytime soon.
In the story Kirito, Asuna and Alice end up involved in a mysterious game called Unital Ring. The brutal “survival MMO” that brought together all the other VRMMOs created over the years by the Sword Art Online base program “The Seed”.
Why Do Many Hate Sword Art Online?
If you follow anime news sites and forums, whenever you read a post or article about SAO there will be someone commenting on some nonsense, criticizing and complaining about the anime. In its year of release it was super hype, but then it all fell apart.
The anime came up with a new idea, but it didn't work well with its arcs and characters. So much so that a Light Novel relaunch with all floors of Aincrad was required. Another big hate factor is simply the passion of the fans.
That's right, where there are many fans, there will always be those against that they hate. I myself have been a person who said several times that he hates anime, I hate Naruto from the bottom of my heart without ever having watched it, the fans fault.
Of course, to generate great hatred and criticism even from those who watched it, the anime needs to make a lot of mistakes. What will be the problems present in Anime Sword Art Online? The opinion below is not mine but that of another writer, because I like SAO and I don't like to criticize it.
Poor plot and character development
Plot is like a chain of events, which will give direction to a story, such as events and character development. And Plot, or at least its central idea, is not bad! But it didn't go very well, mainly because it was something simple, like, “let me get this over with, I have other things to do”. Some would say, “Kirito-kun, you really… are lazy…”.
It would be the same as saying, "From the cover, I already know everything", almost like that. Also, something that leaves something to be desired is the changes in the characters. A good plot is also made by good characters, and good characters are made by good plots.
In the case of SAO, the characters are the same, from the first appearance to the end of the story, especially in our secondary friends. But this is a bit generalized, but a good point for this accusation would be that changes and emotions presented were always superficial.
Why... You don't know what the character feels without him saying it. For anger also disguises itself as sadness and sadness disguises itself as joy. Even so, these things have not been well explored.
It is common in anime for the main characters to be extremely powerful, but maybe the story would be better if it were more worked, show how the character evolved and not skip months of events within the anime.
quality loss
In 12-episode anime the quality is one, from start to finish, with exceptions. But in a production with more than 20 episodes, the loss in this regard is evident. A studio always has a budget for a production, so they'll never have an idea if they'll get the proper return. Therefore, considerable loss is common. But if it was just that, it wouldn't even be discussed here.
After the first arc of each season of SAO, the story gets boring, unfocused. Many started to hate SAO for that, but many from the beginning. But of course, these many are also many who love him. I don't even need to comment on the second season, which despite not being so bad, it's not good!
Things seem to have improved in Sword Art Online Alicization, where the animation turned out to be quite nice. Unfortunately as usual some have fiercely criticized this season, but they are just haters not worth listening to.
What do people like about Sword Art Online?
We saw above some points that make people hate Sword Art Online, but what makes many love this work with flaws?
Great animation, ambiance and nice story
We said above about the loss of quality in anime, but even if it happened in SAO, it didn't make a difference. Animation is not the “Hyper” of animations, but all the cuts, scenes, camera placement, focus on characters… This is also SAO. There's nothing to complain about that.
4 Games, 4 worlds. And these worlds were very well represented in SAO, a vast world, caves, forests... Everything very well planned, just like the game tower, maybe the most well planned thing!
The story, despite containing holes, is still good. Mainly for those who want to watch for fun and not to analyze the anime. Plot is great, it just hasn't been used, so all you have to do is connect things and make it enjoyable.
Physique of characters and novels
The characters are well made, enjoyable, and really fit the story. Although not all characters are liked by everyone. So it's worth checking out the anime because of that.
One thing that leaves nothing to be desired in SAO is the characters' expressions. All of them were represented very well, such as expressions of pain, anguish, sadness, anger... Even though the characters' actions don't do justice to the expressions.
And if you're a fan of light novels, you should definitely watch Sword Art Online. A platonic romance between the characters, between Kirito and Asuna. Despite him having a harem in the gaming world and his reality afterwards. In a poll, Kirito's harem was among the most desired by fans.
Soundtrack Sword Art Online
The soundtrack is fantastic! Both in its Opening and Ending, as well as throughout the anime. Music that lived up to fight scenes, music that lived up to sad and happy moments. The soundtrack composed by Yuki Kajiura (the same as Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica). Yuki Kajiura would be like a Jun Maeda of the soundtracks, so it was not to be expected less in this regard in SAO.
Sword Art Online fights
The fights are perfect, with the quality of the animation we feel even better about having to watch an anime, in this case SAO. Even though there aren't that many fights, they are short fights and not very expressive, this is still SAO. From the beginning it was something light, so the fights are great, but it's worth remembering that in the Light Novel we can feel the real fear of the characters, as well as everything the series is.
Despite having more mistakes to be commented on, and some holes in the story, SAO is an anime that you should watch to comment. The story is great, the plot wasn't good, that's because if one arc is good and the other isn't, both end up being bad.
But we also had positive points, and one of them is that SAO is pleasant. You wouldn't watch something that wasn't pleasant at least, right? There will always be points to criticize, I remember the time when people complained about Mad House's Hunter x Hunter.
Where to buy Sword Art Online Manga and Light Novel?
Suki Desu has a partnership with Amazon Brazil, so we recommend that if you want to read the original SAO material, buy it through our manga and light novel showcase below. In addition to the books, we will also share action figures and games:
