Sword Art Online 1: Aincrad (light novel)

A visual representation cannot capture the entire emotions or feels of story in the same way the original novel can. I say this because I've been watching Sword Art Online series since college. I've enjoyed it a lot however it's only recently that I started to read the light novels. I did try the rough transalations for a little while but I could never entirely get into them. I'm so glad to finally be diving into this series better late than never. The anime can't even compare with the original story. It's so beautiful and breathtaking. The way Kawahara describes the world and sets up the characters is so good. The world of Aincrad is so rich and developed so well. The story itself is told from Kirito/Kazuto's point of view only. That took a little getting used to. But he makes for a good narrator for the story. It's amazing to read and see his emotions and reactions to everything that happens. I've never felt more connected to the character than through this book. It also makes me appreciate the anime a bit more, but the novel, the original story, is superior. If you're wondering how Kirito feels and thinks, this really gives you a perspective to him as a person. It goes into the feelings and tender love he has for Asuna. I could never see him with another person more so after reading this. It was a beautiful story. I know this was the first novel and the author had wrote it in the beginning as a one-off story for a contest. So I can ignore the fact that it jumps ahead in the storyline and doesn't really spend lot of time in the beginning of the Aincrad journey. It's a bit of whiplash for us who are only anime watchers. But it's alright because it's still great. This particular book is more about Kirito and Asuna.It focuses a lot on the main plot. It's a really excellent read. Overall, I truly enjoyed reading this. I can't wait to jump into more of the series. I have always been fond of Sword Art Online. I know there are mixed opinions out there and a lot of naysayers. But I encourage anyone who is interested to give the novel a go. It's really a wonderful read and some of the things that frustrated me in the anime were either analyzed differently in the novel or explained more in depth. And don't think that this is a reboot of the series. This is the original novel that started it all so. Any perspectives you have on Sword Art Online and its story began here. And now if you excuse me I am going to keep reading this series and see where it takes me next.

I watched Sword Art Online when it first aired on Toonami and I liked it so much I bought the light novel when it was translated into English. To all the SAO haters out there, you need to read the light novel because most if not all of your complaints are due to the way the anime was adapted from the light novels. I will include these differences in my traditional three sections. I will examine Plot, Characters and Polish and then assign a grade. PLOT The general thrust of the book is that 10,000 players have been trapped in the VMMORPG, Sword Art Online and have to conquer the castle of Aincrad in order to escape. There are one hundred floors but the book only covers the point from the 74 and 75 floors. This is two years after the game began. You see, it's In Media Res. The first chapter is Kirito fighting an Elite Mook on the 74th floor. Then he flashesback to the first day up until Kayaba announces the start of the death game. Then he spends a chapter or so expositing on how the game works and general history: like how The Army got started and the four types of players in the game. After that, the plot goes directly to Kirito finding the Ragout Rabbit which would not happen in the anime until "The Sword Dance of White and Black". The content of episodes two through eight are all from other volumes. This is why there is no connection between them and the main story; they were created after the main story was published. They seem like filler because they were intended to be extra stories to flesh out the world and characters after the main story was completed. The main story as presented in the light novel is straightforward; possessing little fat or digressions. Even the "honeymoon" Asuna and Kirito take serves its purpose by demonstrating what life in Aincrad is like away from the front lines. Thus, providing both a traditional heroic reason to go back to the front lines as well as a temptation to stay away from them. It provides good emotional conflict without descending into meaningless angst or drama. For those that have a problem with the climatic battle, there's something here too. Kayaba talks about how one of the great things about an RPG is having "one's expectations betrayed" and that includes his own expectations. Afterward, he talks about how he dreamed of a world that could surpass the rules of reality, including his own rules. While he is as surprised as anyone both in-universe and out-of-universe by the seemingly impossible feat that our leading lady accomplished, he is not angry. That's how his world is supposed to work. For those complaining about the status of the player's real bodies, and what would happen to them during a two year comma, there's an explanation for that too. The epilogue goes into detail about such things: food, body waste, bed sores, muscle atrophy etc. The ending is good. The book's main conflict closed but personal conflict remains. In fact, it's a perfect sequel hook for the next adventure "Fairy Dance". CHARACTERS I see a lot of bashing of Kirito in the anime. It's the typical mary sue variety; overpowered, bland, somehow attracts many admires etc. That's not the case here in volume 1. --->Sure he's a powerful solo player with the inside knowledge of a beta tester, but he's not the "only" solo player or the only beta tester. He points this out himself as part of his self-depreciation. This just happens to be his story so it focuses on him instead of them. --->Sure he has the Unique Skill Dual Blades. In the anime it comes out of nowhere, but it's not as great as it seems. The light novel explains that he can't use it often or he'll be seen as even more of a "beater" than he is already thought to be, or be hounded by people demanding to know how he got the skill. Since he doesn't know, they might think he's lying and dislike him for it. Thus increasing his social isolation. There's sufficient foreshadowing in the light novel that he has before he uses it as well as an explanation of why he keeps it a secret: it's his ace in the hole. --->Overpowered character? He has to be rescued twice in this volume, runs away in fear from a floor boss, and he only clears the game because the final boss allowed him to. --->Bland badass? In the Light Novel, we see his thoughts because he's a first person narrator. There's rarely a time when he "isn't" scared, either for himself, Asuna, someone else, or all of the above. We also see his intense interest in and experience of VMMRPG, as well as a great deal of Heroic Self Depreciation. He's constantly praising others: Asuna, Klein, Heathcliff, but has a poor opinion of himself and his own skills. --->Too many female admirers? Asuna is the only girl in his life and they known each for two years before their Relationship Upgrade. There's a different perspective on Asuna as well. The anime introduces her during the raid of the first floor boss. This establishes her first as an action girl and then later episodes show her cooking talent and her love for Kirito. In the Light Novel while she is still the Sub-Commander of the Knights of the Blood Oath from her introduction and she finds Kirito because it's part of her job to find solo players for boss runs. Her first scene with Kirito is this recruitment followed by the Ragout Rabbit stew, which is then followed by exploring a dungeon with Kirito. Instead of an Action Girl that becomes girly, we have an Action Girl that is girly from the start; there is no separation. Unlike the anime where she floats in and out of the picture, she's a constant presence here and significant contributions to plot development. Because of the book's focus, Kuradeel is a bigger presence and a bigger threat. In the anime, the scope is smaller and he's just some one-off guy. Not so in the novel; in the novel is introduced shortly after the beginning exposition and reappears many chapters latter. POLISH This is a first person narration and the narrator happens to be a hard core VMMORPG addict. Thus, all the talk about the history of the game, the mechanics of the system, all of it is perfectly in character. There is a great sense of things because of this perspective. No spelling or grammar problems. Trickster Eric Novels gives Sword Art Online Volume 1 Aincrad an A+

The 1st light novel volume of SAO; the source material from which the anime we all know and love drew its story. As I sat down and prepared to read it, I knew from having seen the 1st 14 episodes of the anime that the number of surprises awaiting me would likely be minimal. And at face value, this proved to be 100% accurate. The sequence of events in the novel document all the major events of the Aincrad arc up until Kirito's final battle with Heathcliff through Kirito's perspective, and if you've seen the anime you know what to expect. However, I can honestly say that even though I had a general idea of the story (having viewed the anime version of Aincard several times), reading it in novel form was one of the most enjoyable experiences I've ever had. Although the side stories involving Silica, Lisbeth, Yui, and others are omitted while Kirito's account of Sachi is summarized in two pages and referenced periodically throughout, the level of character description/battle detail was such that I could envision what was occurring vividly in my mind. The actual names and effects of certain items and attacks provided a level of insight not present in the anime, adding to the seamless flow of the story as it progressed at a pace I would say was superior to the anime. Scenes that were emotional in the anime were even more so when reading them, partly due to the expert writing and partly due to the level of familiarity of said events. I won't spoil it but the 'death' of a certain character towards the end had me on the brink of tears even though I knew their fate wasn't ultimately going to be what it seemed at that moment. All in all, having watched the anime beforehand (even though it wasn't without its flaws) enhanced the experience tremendously. I could hear the characters' voices as I read what they said and envision the corresponding event in my head as though I were watching it instead of reading. I suppose the point I'm trying to make is, for someone who saw the anime first, reading the novel afterward will provide the full, completed experience of the Aincrad arc. The novel fills in any gaps that are present in the story, expands upon scenes/events that were compelling already from the anime, and give the reader excellent insight as to what Kirito was thinking or going through emotionally at any given moment. To those who haven't seen the anime and aren't sure about where to begin with SAO, the light novel is the source material and is beautifully written. However, for the complete experience and maximum enjoyment of the story I recommend watching at least the first 14 episodes of the anime before reading the novel. It's all up to your personal preference of course. Happy reading!

A first note of warning: if you are looking for the manga, then this is not it. This is a light novel, which is a book that will sporadically have illustrations throughout the text. It's the inspiration for the manga and anime of the same name, which in itself should be reason enough to read it, but I know that not everyone likes light novels over manga. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I didn't really know what to expect with this since the hype train for all things SAO is pretty loud and almost impossible to miss if you look up anime and manga items on the Internet. I'd been somewhat hesitant to start this series since it's fairly long and has a substantial fan base. It might sound hipster-ish of me, but I've had multiple instances where I've picked up an incredibly popular series... and just failed to get what all the hoopla was about. I'm sure that some of you have experienced this as well. I'm glad to say that this series is pretty easy to get into and better yet, the first book is self-contained and while the series does continue (the next book is a collection of stories), it's a nice safe entry point for the series. If you don't like it enough to want to continue, you can always stop here. I think that's part of why I enjoyed this volume so much- it got fairly straight to the point with things, especially the inevitable romance between our very good looking main characters. It does gloss over the game a little, but part of the beauty here is that the game is pretty standard RPG stuff and most won't really miss the lack of detail unless you are completely new to gaming as a whole. I'd definitely recommend this and it's a good all audiences type of work, as both teens and adults would get into this quite easily. I would recommend this for teens or mature younger children as there is a bit of violence in the work and there are some slight references to sexuality. It's nowhere near as bad as some of the other series out there, so I'd set this for teens starting around fourteen.

Honestly, reading this after watching anime, I feel like this is way more in depth in just a better story. You can feel and read the care put into the story rather than how the anime just skips over stuff and leaves it out to the imagination. The character arcs and the deaths are actually explained and the book puts emphasis on what is important.

idk who i got it from but it came pristine

To be fair, my rating is fairly strongly influenced by how much I loved the anime. That said, this was one of the best books I've read in recent memory! To everyone who has seen the anime, I would very much recommend you read this, whether you liked the anime adaptation or not. The thing about manga/comics and animation in general is that it is very difficult to effectively show a person's train of thought and reveal information the viewer doesn't already know when everyone in the fictional world should know it already. With a novel, especially one written in first person, you get a much better sense of the world as a whole and particularly the character acting as your interface to the world. There's also a few details here and there that just couldn't be expressed in the anime because of time constraints. Conversely, several events that happened early in the anime aren't told until later volumes since they were side-stories that didn't fit well into the first volume or were thought of later by the author to expand his world. To those who haven't seen the anime, while I would recommend you watch that, I would also say that you should read the books first. As I mentioned above, you get a much better understanding of the world, and Kirito in particular.

Over a decade old at this point and almost two on some counts, Sword Art Online v1 remains a trailblazer in the VRMMO genre and one that other series can and should still look to for how to get things done. Still, there are faults or shortcomings for SAO that other series or rather writers ought to learn from to make themselves better. Reki Kawahara, in my opinion, has learned from his mistakes in his other series (Accel World). SAO hits the familiar notes with the basic foundations of a growing VRMMO environment. Written before the MMO scene took off, Kawahara was impressed with the future potential of the genre. There is a bit of detail or information dumping at times that shows how excited he is about this and how he tries to explain it, however, I think, in some ways, it could have been cut or avoided as it comes across as clunky. Speaking of clunky, I found that the attempts at telling a story going through the genre was a bit chunky. I would have rather a more straightforward path with the backstories incorporated sequentially instead of being informationally dumped in tiny chunks in the present. The story would have been more emotional suspenseful if say Sachi and the real life friends club was told at the start and not in a backstory with Asuna over some romantic dinner. And romance, while it was nice after some suspenseful or traumatic experience, felt a little goofy, silly, hard to believe. Again this could have been solved by introducing the Asuna stumbling across Kirito scene as happen chronologically instead of in some backstory told to another character. One more thing, some of the romance descriptions were goofy (plugging lips as kissing? Describing her skin as tight as an animal’s? is that romantic?) Regardless, it is a good series and though it has these faults that do take me out of the story, I did enjoy it and the suspenseful solo vs team, survival vs game, moments throughout.

As someone who watched the anime first before checking out the light novels, I can hear the English VA's in my head with the majority of the story being told from Kirito's perspective. It's almost like I'm listening to an audiobook read by Bryce Papenbrook (the voice of Kirito in the anime) as I can hear his voice in my head everytime I read plus the fact that I can picture scenes from the anime in my head as well makes this one enjoyable read :) What else? Oh yes. The illustrations here and there are a nice touch too and there is more explanations of what takes place inside Aincrad that the anime did not address. I mean don't get me wrong I do like the SAO anime but I love reading the light novels even more as they explain things a bit better but I would highly recommend this for fans of the SAO anime who I do encourage to watch the episodes first before reading the light novels so you can hear the voice actors and picture the scenes from the episodes in your head as you read :)

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英語学習用に購入。TOEICとかいう楽しくない勉強を楽しくしてくれる。内容は既に知ってるが、英語で読んでもやっぱり面白い。ラノベよりサイズがデカいので、飾ると表紙の迫力が良いですよ。

Zustand hat gepasst und es kam eine Woche früher als angekündigt

El libro me gustó bastante, al igual que los siguientes que vienen a continuación. Me parece bastante interesante ver cómo el autor escribió el libro que después fue convertido en serie, y he disfrutado la lectura. Yo creo que estos libros le van a gustar a cualquier fan de la serie. Yo al principio, la duda que tenía era de si el inglés iba a ser sencillo o complejo; pero después de haberlo leído puedo decir que el inglés es de un nivel básico (nivel de la ESO o Bachillerato), aunque hay algunas palabras que tuve que buscar su significado (además, cabe mencionar que el inglés es americano). Otra duda que tenía a la hora de comprar estos libros era de cómo estaban distribuidos. Por si alguien se encuentra con la misma duda, he aquí la respuesta. Este primer libro corresponde con la trama principal de la saga de Ahincad, es decir, comienza un poco antes de que entren en el juego y acaba cuando el juego es finalizado; el 2º corresponde con el "relleno" de esa misma saga, y está dividido en 4 bloques, el que trata sobre Silica, el que trata sobre Lisbeth, el que trata sobre Yui y el que trata sobre Sachi; el 3º y 4º con el arco de Fairy Dance (a partir de ahora los libros sí siguen la cronología "normal"); el 5º y 6º corresponden con Phantom Bullet; y el 7º con Mothers Rossary.