A 2009-current light novel series written by "Kawahara Reki":[https://twitter.com/kunori] and illustrated by [[Bunbun]]. It has multiple manga adaptations, multiple videogames, a three season anime, and three movies.

The series takes place in the near future and focuses on protagonist [[Kirito]] and [[Asuna (sao)|]] as they play through various virtual reality MMORPG worlds.

Initially written in 2002 for the ASCII Media Works’ Dengeki Game Novel Prize (now Dengeki Novel Prize), the author refrained from sending it in due to exceeding the page limit.  Kawahara Reki published it as a web novel and later added 3 more volumes and short stories to the series.  After winning the Dengeki Novel Prize Grand Prize in 2008 for [[Accel World]], ASCII Media Works requested that aside from Accel World if they could also publish Sword Art Online as well. The author agreed and withdrew the web novel version. The series was republished in light novel format in 2009.

The series received an anime adaptation in 2012, which later became highly successful. And went on popularize a whole subgenre of Japanese media known as [[isekai]], which involves having the main character(s) originated from modern world being reincarnated into other worlds.

A movie, [[Sword Art Online the Movie: Ordinal Scale]], was released on February 18, 2017. The movie features a new original story that takes place some time after the second season of the anime.

A second movie, [[Sword Art Online Progressive]], was release on October 30, 2021. The movie retold the original story from the first two episodes of Aincrad Arc but through the perspective of [[Asuna (SAO)|]].

h4. Story arcs

* Aincrad (First Arc, SAO)
* Fairy Dance (Second Arc, ALO)
* Phantom Bullet (Third Arc, GGO)
* Caliburn / Mother's Rosario (Side Story Arcs, ALO)
* Ordinal Scale (OS)
* Alicization (Fourth Arc, Project Alicization)
* Unital Ring (Fifth Arc, UR)

h4. Copyrights
* [[Sword Art Online The Movie: Ordinal Scale]]
* [[Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online]]
* [[Sword Art Online: Alicization]]
* [[Sword Art Online: Alicization - War of Underworld]]
* [[Sword Art Online Progressive]]

h6. Videogames

* [[Sword Art Online: Infinity Moment|Infinity Moment]] - 2013 (PSP)
* [[Sword Art Online: Hollow Fragment|Hollow Fragment]] - 2014 (Vita), 2015 (PS4)
* [[Sword Art Online: Code Register|Code Register]] - 2014 (iOS, Android)
* [[Sword Art Online: Lost Song|Lost Song]] - 2015 (PS3, Vita, PS4)
* [[Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization|Hollow Realization]] - 2016 (PS4, Vita)
* [[Sword Art Online: Memory Defrag|Memory Defrag]] - 2017 (iOS, Android)
* [[Sword Art Online: Fatal Bullet|Fatal Bullet]] - 2018 (PS4, XOne, Switch, PC)
* [[sword_art_online:_alicization_lycoris|Alicization Lycoris]] - 2020 (PS4, XOne, PC)

h4. Related tags

* [[NerveGear]]
* [[AmuSphere]]
* [[Augma]]

h4. See also

* [[List of Sword Art Online characters]]

h4. External links

* "Sword Art Online Wiki":[https://swordartonline.fandom.com]
* "Wikipedia: Sword Art Online":[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_Art_Online]
ソードアート・オンライン ソードアートオンライン SAO 刀劍神域 刀剑神域