Sword Art Online

Sword Art Online (Japanese: ソードアート・オンライン, Hepburn: Sōdo Āto Onrain) is a Japanese light novel, manga, and anime series originally written by Reki Kawahara and illustrated by abec. The series takes place in the 2020s and focuses on Kazuto "Kirito" Kirigaya and Asuna Yuuki as they play through various virtual reality MMORPG worlds, and later their involvement in the matters of a simulated virtual civilization. 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 twelve manga adaptations published by ASCII Media Works and Kadokawa. The novels and the manga adaptations have been licensed for release in North America by Yen Press.

In July 2012 an anime adaptation produced by A-1 Pictures and licensed by Aniplex, was first released and has since had 3 seasons, 4 movies, and a spinoff series. As well as several video games which have been released for multiple consoles. A live-action series based on the light novels is set to be produced by Netflix.

Despite the criticism it has received for it's pacing and writing, Sword Art Online has remained one of the most popular anime series' of its time, in addition to the light novels having over 30 million copies sold worldwide.