Sword Art Online  

S.A.O, SAO, ソードアート・オンライン

In 2022, gamers will be thrilled as Sword Art Online (SAO), a VRMMORPG that offers an unprecedented gaming experience through NerveGear technology, launches. This innovative system enables players to fully immerse themselves in the game world by manipulating their brain waves. However, when SAO goes live, players' initial excitement quickly turns into terror as they realize that the game lacks a fundamental feature of any MMORPG: a log-out button. Trapped within the virtual world of Aincrad and with their bodies held captive in the real world by NerveGear, users are given an ominous choice: conquer all one hundred floors of Aincrad to regain their freedom. In SAO's distorted reality, "game over" equates to certain death-both virtual and actual.

Author Reki Kawahara wrote the first volume of Sword Art Online in 2002 and intended to submit it for the Dengeki Game Novel Prize, but refrained as he exceeded the page limit. He instead published the series as a web novel. Shortly after his other series Accel World won the Dengeki Novel Grand Prize in 2008, Sword Art Online was published in print.The series placed 1st on the Kono Light Novel ga Sugoi! ranking under Best Light Novel category in 2012 and 2013.Yen Press has been publishing the series in English under the Yen On imprint since April 22, 2014. It has also been published in Italian by J-POP since October 11, 2014; in Polish by Kotori since December 2014; and in Russian by Istari Comics since December 2015.