Characters / Sword Art Online Abridged - Antagonists

aka: Sword Art Online Abridged Kayaba

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Antagonists of Sword Art Online Abridged. Some spoilers may be unmarked.

For the original series, see here.

Introduced in Season 1

Bethesda and Argus

General (Unmarked Spoilers)

The publisher and developer of Sword Art Online, respectively. Bethesda contracted Argus to develop the game and allowed Argus to delay it twice, but were unwilling to extend the deadline any further, resulting in head programmer Kayaba Akihiko having only three weeks to finish the game. This resulted in the game releasing in a disastrously broken state and being filled with bugs, including one that kills players.

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• Acquired Situational Narcissism: Apparently happened with Kayaba's night janitor Reki after he mistook him for God while in his sleep-deprived state.
  Kayaba: On the plus side, I gave him a hell of an ego boost. Man was riding that compliment for days.
• Creator Cameo: Reki the night janitor is this for Reki Kawahara, the writer of the source material's light novels. Kayaba mistaking him for God due to his sleep deprivation is a reference to Reki actually being the God of the franchise.
• Creator Killer: In-Universe example. Sword Art Online winds up being this for Argus. Since it was an Obvious Beta invoked with many awful design choices and outright killing players who die in the game, Argus is said in Season 2 to have gone bankrupt, with RECT Progress buying up the source code to do their own thing with it.
• Deadly Game: Their first (and lastinvoked) fully immersive VR game became this when the overworked head programmer accidentally created a glitch which killed the players when their avatars die, then doubled down on his mistake and locked everyone inside until they finished it.
• Development Hell: invoked Sword Art Online was apparently delayed twice, and the three last weeks of its production were handled by one man. However, the actual hell didn't occur until the game launched.
• The Ghost: Bethesda is only briefly mentioned by Kayaba as the publisher of SAO. Other than himself, no employees of Argus are shown onscreen either.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Bethesda forcing Kayaba to finish the game in only three weeks despite needing far longer to polish led to the creation of the player-killing glitch and Kayaba becoming the Big Bad who trapped everyone in the game to use them as hostages and escape consequences for the glitch.
• Incompetence, Inc.: The entire conflict of the first season happened because Bethesda wouldn't extend the deadline for Argus and demanded Argus push out the game now, resulting in it containing a plethora of glitches, including one that kills players if they die in the game. Party because of this, Argus also implemented several bad design choices like clunky menus, bland dungeons, repetitive quests, a "seizure-inducing" crafting system, and more. So great was their incompetence that they ended up nearly killing the virtual reality industry.
• Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds: Despite Bethesda forcing Argus to rush the game, it's very obvious that they didn't mean to create the glitch that kills players.
• Mythology Gag: Reki the night janitor, whom Kayaba briefly thought was God as part of his sleep-deprived madness, shares a name with Sword Art Online creator Reki Kawahara.
• Obvious Beta: invoked For all the hype surrounding it, Sword Art Online was clearly too ambitious for the workers at Argus, and even after being delayed twice, it was chalked full of bugs, glitches, and poorly coded crafting systems that broke the immersion of many players. Not even three consecutive weeks of uninterrupted work by the head programmer Kayaba could solve these issues.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: In-Universe, Argus created the worlds' first fully immersive MMORPG of the world, but because of Kayaba Akihiko's poor handling of a deadly glitch, SAO is now remembered as a Deadly Game responsible for the complete collapse of the organization and the near death of the virtual reality industry as a whole.
• Tempting Fate: "Nobody's gonna notice a few glitches." Yeah, about that...
• Troubled Production: invoked Sword Art Online had an ongoing fight between its head programmer and its publisher, with Bethesda denying Kayaba a third extension despite the game being an Obvious Beta invoked at the time of its release, which ended in the game becoming a disaster.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Forcing Kayaba to release the game ahead of time regardless of how buggy it was led to him accidentally creating a new glitch (which kills the players when their avatars die) while trying to fix the other ones, which was the spark that ended up burning down the entire company after Kayaba went insane with sleep depravation and forced everyone to finish the game by locking them inside.
• Villainous Legacy: Aside from the NervGear hitting the second-hand market and nearly killing the VR industry, Argus' legacy mainly lives on in public memory because of "The SAO Disaster" through the SAO servers and source code they had sold to RECT Progress who sought to keep the still-comatose Players alive until they found a way to free them. They indirectly assist in Nobuyuki Sugous' plan through constant psychological torturing of those very same comatose SAO Players, causing more trouble for Kirito and Asuna even after the company's demise.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: While Argus is known to have collapsed into bankruptcy as a result of the utter disaster that SAO became and the deaths it caused, no mention is given to Bethesda and what consequences they faced for rushing the game out. Though its very likely that Bethesda cut all ties with Argus when the deaths began.

Kayaba Akihiko

Kayaba Akihiko / Heathcliff

"Alright, now that I have your ears as well as your spines, allow me to indulge myself for a moment and tell you all what every content creator has always wanted to say to their audience." [clears throat] "FUCK! ALL Y'ALL!"

Voiced by: Curtis "Takahata101" Arnott

Kirito: What’s wrong, McFly? Chicken?
Kayaba: Oh ho! Back to the Future! Yes! That is definitely what I’m gonna watch after I kill you. Let’s do this thing.

The main antagonist of SAO Abridged's Season 1. Posing as the leader of the Knights of the Blood Oath, Kayaba ends up trapping the entire player base in Sword Art Online and challenges them to reach the top of Castle Aincrad. Also an avid film expert.

For the original Kayaba, see here.

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Tropes applying to Akihiko (Unmarked Spoilers)

"Much like the World of Warcraft, none of you are here by choice anymore. Unlike WOW, however, you're being held here by me, not by your need to escape your empty f***ing lives."

Originally a normal game developer, Kayaba went insane due to sleep deprivation in order to make the game's strict deadline, and accidentally created a glitch that kills players when their characters die, with events snowballing out of control from there. After pretending he planned to trap the players in the game to save face, he comes to terms with what he's done and decides to hold the players as hostages to extort the authorities into not arresting him while inserting himself as Heathcliff to prevent as many deaths as he can, only to find himself challenged by the lethal stupidity of his game's player base.

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• 0% Approval Rating: After he single-handedly destroys Argus' reputation with the SAO disaster, his fellow VR companies such as REKT Progress don't want anything to do with him. Inside the game, when his true identity is revealed, his guildmates at SAO also turn against him. Kayaba himself points out at the end of Episode 11 that he's now the most wanted man on the face of the Earth, with even Kirito, who originally respected him as a Card-Carrying Villain, growing to view him as yet another fuck-up.
• Accidental Murder: Subverted. His master plan of "imprisoning players and killing them in real life if they die in the game" was actually a result of a glitch. Kayaba was just so sleep-deprived and overworked that he figured he'd just roll with it and claim it was all part of a grand scheme, only realizing how badly he screwed up once he caught up on his sleep. Kayaba tried to atone by putting himself in the game to save the remaining players but eventually grew to hate them and decided to leave them trapped in the game out of spite and resentment.
• Adaptational Dumbass: He's significantly more childish, petty, and short-sighted than he was in the source material, and his Machiavellian schemer front is nothing but a façade perpetuated to hide how much of a dumbass he truly is.
• Adaptational Heroism: While he's still the Big Bad, his attempts at leading the players to victory as Heathcliff stems from a genuine desire to save them, even if it was mostly for pragmatic purposes. In the source material, it's implied he only did so because he was bored. He also spends a good chunk of his time in the game trying to defeat player killers to make the game easier to get through, which wasn't as pronounced in the original anime as both Fluffles and "The King of Ashes" are canon foreigners.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Zig-Zagged. In contrast to the source material, where he maintains a consistently polite but professional demeanor, here he's much more personal with his victims, but he's also prone to insulting and belittling them when he feels they're not playing his game right.
• Adaptational Karma: His canon self essentially escaped justice by means of turning himself into a Virtual Ghost. Here, he's not only alive but on the run as "the most wanted man on the face of the planet." It is revealed by Yui that he is currently hiding out somewhere in ALfheim Online due to searching for ALO Players who previously played SAO to narrow down exactly where Asuna was inside of the game.
• Adaptational Name Change: The order of Kayaba's name has been switched around from the original "Akihiko Kayaba"; "Kayaba" is now his given name with "Akihiko" being his family name.
• Adaptational Sympathy: A lot of what happened was due to him going crazy staying up for three weeks straight programming and trying to make a deadline. The whole "you die in the game, you die for real" thing was due to a glitch, and him trapping everyone inside was because in his sleep-deprived mind, the best idea he had to cover up his previous blunder was to make it look like it was his master plan (a plan concocted while under sleep deprivation so severe that he thought the government was run by Mole Men), all the while using the players as hostages to try (and fail) to come up with a better idea that would let him fix everything while avoiding prosecution. When two thousand people died in the first month without even clearing the first floor, he formed the Knights of the Blood Oath to try and get people through the game. Ultimately Played With though; he claims that he didn't want to hurt anyone, but Kirito and Asuna immediately rebuke this, pointing out that he just killed them as well as another man for mildly sassing him. He does point out that he "ain't exactly the picture of grace under fire", and that the other guy was part of the mafia^note He was one of Don Fluffles' enforcers. He also refused to shut down the servers when he could have at any point but instead kept everyone trapped in the death game and kept lying to people to have them try and fulfill some arbitrary goal. Essentially, his motives are to cover his own ass and avoid taking responsibility for the mess he made, some sadly all-too-human traits, rather than For the Evulz.
• Adaptational Wimp: Not only is he much stupider than in canon, he's also a much more incompetent programmer to boot. While he did change the world with his revolutionary real-life virtual reality, his game is filled to the brim with immersion-breaking bugs and glitches that weren't present in the source material (though some of that could be chalked up to deadlines). That being said, he's a much better player than in canon.
• Affably Evil: For all his Exhaustion-Induced Idiocy, he at least tries to have some basic decency with his victims (unless they insult his game).
  • He traps all the players of his game within it at the risk of brain death but is rather nice towards a player who received an advance copy of the game. Though this is downplayed compared to his original version since he gets very snappy when players insult his game or his favorite films and even goes on a tirade against them for their incompetence.
  • All things considered, he's genuinely friendly with Kirito and respects the hell out of him as a player, despite admitting the latter's Jerkass behaviour drives him nuts. They even briefly bond over their shared love of obscure movies. In fact, Kirito is the only SAO player who Kayaba doesn't immobilize during his "The Reason You Suck" Speech to the other players, knowing he's smart enough to Know When to Fold 'Em.
  • Even though Episode 11 showcases his more negative qualities, he becomes this again by the third act by mellowing out and willingly putting an end to his mess of a game after Kirito beats him, admitting fault for everything that has happened and having a genuinely amicable chat with Kirito and Asuna before politely excusing himself to go have a Villainous BSoD alone.
    Kabaya: I’m going to miss our little chats, Kirito. I mean that sincerely, and frankly, I don’t know what that says about me. In any case, I suppose congratulations are in order. It wasn’t exactly an outright victory, but at this point, I just want this whole nightmare to be over. Consider my plans thoroughly foiled.
• All for Nothing: What his life-goal eventually amounted to. After losing his sanity over finishing the development of his latest and most hyped up MMO, he accidentally created a deadly glitch that completely sank the game's reputation, and then made the rash decision to trap everyone inside to save face. Because of this, the only player who admitted to liking the game (Kirito) was because he was in a miserable situation in the real world and sought escapism inside of it, while everyone else cursed the game's existence and what it did to their livelihoods. To make matters worse, Kayaba didn't even manage to fix all the glitches in the game, which overshadowed his achievement of "real life virtual reality" in the eyes of most players since their lives depended on the game working properly (which it often didn't), to the point where even Kirito himself eventually calling it "a Gordian Knot of terrible design". By the end, Kayaba was eventually forced to release all players from the game after Kirito beat him, ensuring that nobody would ever play it again, and turning his most anticipated release into an infamous disaster that caused the deaths of approximately 4000 people.
• Anti-Villain: He's a selfish fuck-up who caused untold amounts of pain, but he's also not evil so much as he is short-sighted and desperate. He's not without a sense of honor and morality and tried to save the players' lives, even if out of pragmatism.
• Artist Disillusionment: An In-Universe example; his time with SAO's players has made him loathe every single one of them due to their stupidity.
  Kayaba: Alright now that I have your ears as well as your spines; allow me to indulge myself for a moment and tell you all what every content creator has always wanted to say to their audience: FUCK ALL Y'ALL!!
• The Atoner:
  • In this version, Kayaba was an already overworked game developer who was pressed for time. He tried to do things rationally but to no avail, causing him to lose sleep on completing his game for a Christmas release. In his sleep-deprived state, he accidentally created a lethal glitch that kills players when their avatars die. Rather than shut down the server, he acted as if this was all part of a grand plan. By the time he caught up with his sleep, he realized what he did and that he was at a point of no return. After 2000 players died before clearing the first floor, he entered the game with an immortal avatar so he can rally the other players together and do something to help and atone for his actions. That said, the fact that he didn't just shut down the servers, leading to more people dying, still showcases his selfish side, since he's holding everyone hostage until he can figure out a way to avoid prosecution for his blunders.
  • Eventually, however, he does do the right thing by releasing everyone from SAO after Kirito finally defeats him, despite knowing that he's losing all his leverage against the feds and that he's now solidified his status as the most wanted man in the Earth. It doesn't change all the horrific things that he's done, but at least he prevented the deaths of about 6,000 people.
• Ax-Crazy: Beneath his Mask of Sanity, he himself admits he's "Not exactly the picture of "grace under fire"", exemplified by his Evil Is Petty tendencies. This all stems from his decision to spend three consecutive weeks working on the game non-stop after Bethesda refused him an extension.
• Baddie Flattery: He's pleasantly surprised to find out that most of the players of SAO are actually attractive twenty-somethings... and one fatty. He also can't mask his excitement when he discovers Kirito is as much of a movie nerd as him.
• Benevolent Boss:
  • When he realized his game wasn't going to be ready for the deadline Bethesda gave him, he worked restlessly on it himself instead of forcing his other programmers at Argus to work overtime, showing he at least has some integrity as a head programmer. He was also quite affable to Reki, his night janitor, during the process. However, it likely didn't matter in the grand scheme of things, as his poor handling of the game afterwards completely ruined the industry and likely got all of his employees fired.
  • Zigagged when playing as Heathcliff, as while he does try to exert some basic decency when dealing with his underlings, he also loathes them with a passion, and he's not above essentially pimping Asuna out to achieve his goals, or even ''killing'' one of his raid party members for calling him out on his screw-ups.
• Berserk Button:
  • Talking back to him, implying he's responsible for the deaths in the game.
  • Insulting Back to the Future.
    Asuna: That's a movie thing? Doesn't sound like a good one...
    Kayaba: YOU SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTH, WOMAN!! I CAN END YOU WITH A THOUGHT!
    Asuna: [disturbed] JESUS!
    Kirito: [dumbfounded] Yeah... Word to the wise: Don't mess with Zemeckis.
  • Stupidity in general is enough to make his skin crawl, as do player guilds who make a living out of killing other players over working together to survive, such as The King of Ashes.
  • While more subdued than other examples, Schmitt and the other players calling SAO a "hot mess" makes him (as Heathcliff) briefly break character and go on the defensive. This makes sense considering he had spent 500 uninterrupted hours of consciousness trying to patch all the glitches.
• Big Bad: Of Season 1. Kayaba starts the plot by imprisoning thousands of people inside his virtual reality game. However, his reasons for doing so are not malicious, so much as they are, at their core, incredibly banal. The whole thing just turned into a Snowball Lie that he more or less lost control over.
• Big Good: Invoked. He reveals that he originally expected Kirito to lead the other players and clear the game more efficiently, but he didn't expect the latter to become a solo player instead. Thus, Kayaba chose to be both the Big Bad and the Big Good to put an end to his own mess.
• Blaming the Victim: What his "The Reason You Suck" Speech directed at the SAO player base chalks up to. It's the video game equivalent of a kidnapper getting angry at his victims for inconveniencing him with the trauma he inflicted upon them. Even his point about the mafia spokesman's death being deserved falls flat since Kayaba is the only reason there even is a mafia in the first place.
• Blood Knight: Implied. When he kills Asuna, after playing the victim. Kirito gets angry for a moment, calls him a bastard, and picks up his sword with Tranquil Fury. His response to that (and Kirito ineffectually attacking him)?
  Kayaba/Heathcliff: There we go, get some fire in that belly, we'll finish this thing off right! (...) You are just determined to ruin this for me, aren't you...
• Can't Take Criticism: He gets real defensive when the flaws in SAO (such as being able to steal NPCs and the abysmal crafting system) get brought up, although it could be caused by a measure of guilt due to it being his incredibly sleep-deprived fuck up that created the player killing glitch in the first place.
• Create Your Own Hero: Subverted at first as Kirito stubbornly refused to lead the other players due to his misanthropy and love for the game, and Diabel, the other contender, died during his first mission, forcing Kayaba to take on the role himself as Heathcliff. Eventually, however, Kirito then snapped out of it and defeated Kayaba, saving everyone's lives in the process and cementing his role as the great saviour of Aincrad, which wouldn't have happened had Kayaba not caused the SAO disaster.
  Kayaba Though, I have to admit, I didn’t really get why you never tried to form your own guild. I figured with your skill and intellect, you should have been leading armies, clearing floor after floor with ease as the great saviour of Aincrad. But hey, if you were gonna just let a prime opportunity like that fall by the wayside, I figured I might as well have some fun and give it a shot myself.
• Create Your Own Villain: A rare example of another villain doing this: His trapping of the SAO players may have led to Kirito's redemption, but it also led to multiple other people losing their minds and resorting to killing other players or joining shady guilds such as Laughing Coffin or the mafia, with even Kayaba's personal guild hosting some of these sketchy people. While playing the hero role as Heathcliff, Kayaba had to personally deal with many of these rebellions himself.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Asuna points out he could have covered his ass while still saving everyone by lying and claiming that the glitch and his evil speech was just the work of some hacker group pretending to be him, since there wasn't much else connecting him to it. Kayaba says that the big flaw in that plan is that he didn't think of it and now it's too late to implement.
• Despair Event Horizon: Went screaming over this about a month into the game when he caught up on his sleep and realized that trying to make it look like he was some scheming mastermind with an Evil Plan instead of a sleep-deprived mess who accidentally released a game so glitchy it was capable of killing its own players, in addition to other factors (like the tutorial NPC being hijacked), led to two thousand deaths in the first month before the first floor was even cleared. He became Heathcliff and formed the Knights of the Blood Oath to try and organize the players into actually finishing the game, but is continually frustrated by them ignoring all his strategies, leaping heedlessly into danger, getting killed, and the survivors blaming him for their own stupidity, even if some of it is more accurate than he'd like to admit. And the fact that nobody except Kirito gets his movie references. By the time he finally releases the players and turns off and wipes the servers, he's so exhausted and worn down by the whole ordeal that he just wants it to end, though he also bitterly notes he is now the most wanted man on the planet and after Asuna mentions an easy solution that could have avoided most of the trouble, he says he's gonna go "scream at the uncaring void" for awhile before disappearing.
• The Determinator: Even after being denied an extension and with an unrealistic deadline to meet, he worked tirelessly on making Sword Art Online the revolutionary game it was hyped up to be, driving himself insane in the process after three weeks worth of sleepless nights.
• Digging Yourself Deeper: The real reason so many people died in SAO. Kayaba thought it would be better to be seen as competent and evil instead of an ordinary guy who made a big mistake and was too embarrassed to admit he'd been wrong once he got out of his sleep-deprived insanity. He then decided to keep the players as hostages to dissuade authorities from arresting him while he figured out a way out of his mess, but never did, costing more lives in the long run and getting himself into deeper trouble.
• Dirty Coward: Beneath his frustrations towards other players and his grandiosity, Kayaba's core motivation is to protect himself. Although Kayaba never actually intended to put anyone at risk and that it was just an accident that spiraled out of control due to sleep deprivation. He chose to keep everyone hostage until he figured a way out of his mess and chose to go into the game with an immortal status, only deactivating his immortality when Kirito kept aggravating him. Even though Kayaba could fight every boss by himself and is effectively immortal, he chose to form a guild so he wouldn't fight any of the bosses alone, as shown by his fearful expression when he saw the final boss kill two players in one hit. In the end, he only kills Kirito after the latter becomes too grief-stricken to fight back after Asana's sacrifice. After revealing Kayaba's identity to everyone, Kirito specifically calls out his cowardice by saying that the players were braver than him because they chose to put their lives on the line.
  Kirito: "Hey! At least they had the guts to be here without a freakin' cheat code! They volunteered to be here. Even though they knew it could get them killed! Which is just a few magnitudes more than I can say about you."
• Disproportionate Retribution: Kayaba murders a player when said player sasses him by pointing out that for all his complaints about everyone blaming him for all their problems, he genuinely is responsible for many of their problems.
• Ditzy Genius: Despite Kayaba's hair-brained scheme to pretend to set up a death game to save face over a bug that was more due to how sleep-deprived he was, he is still a genius programmer. Sugou states that despite Sword Art Online's buggy code, his team was able to advance virtual reality simply by studying it. Sugou's entire plan is based on the fact that Kayaba's code has the potential for video game stats to affect a person's real-life ability such as charisma allowing for real-life Compelling Voice. And the fact that he could have made a genuinely good game if Bethesda hadn't ordered him to finish the game before its deadline.
• Enraged by Idiocy: After dealing with the SAO players for so long, he has long since lost hope for them. His frustrations come from the fact that even with him genuinely attempting to help them survive the mess he made, they were so incompetent that many of his efforts were for naught. He lets all his grievances fly when Kirito exposes him.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • As Heathcliff, he spends most of his time in the game trying to stop insane players like The King of Ashes and Fluffles from their apparent Rape, Pillage, and Burn rampages, clearly unnerved by their actions.
  • Subverted when it comes to Kirito and Asuna. While he's often shocked at some of their more cruel and petty actions, he ultimately recognizes that he's no better, being responsible for far more senseless deaths, and outright calls them the textbook definition of "Lesser of Two Evils".
  • While he believes every SAO player to be Too Dumb to Live, Kuradeel is so pathetic in his eyes that he can't help but play clown music during his duel with Kirito.
• Evil Counterpart: To Kirito. Kirito sees humanity as made up primarily of despicable idiots, but over the course of his adventures in SAO regains faith in humanity and is repeatedly impressed by the skill and empathy of those he cares about (i.e., Asuna, Klein, Tiffany, and Lisbeth). Kayaba, meanwhile, majorly suffered from Good Cannot Comprehend Evil under his identity as Heathcliff, ultimately becoming something disturbingly close to a Misanthrope Supreme (outright shouting at one point how multiple players acting like Leeroy Jenkinses is "grounds to exterminate the species!"). Both of them are also probably the only people who actually liked being trapped in SAO (Kirito because it gave him an escape from his miserable home life, and Kayaba because he still took pride in his programming). Both of them are also incredibly arrogant and terrified of facing the consequences of their actions. And both of them have killed at least one person who managed to get under their skin with something they couldn't retort, then quipped up with "You're dead".
• Evil Gloating: After killing Asuna and defeating Kirito, he engages in a brief self-praising monologue before finishing the beta tester off. He gets his words thrown back at his face when Kirito kills him right back.
  Kayaba: I bet this isn’t exactly the way you pictured all this ending, but your fate was sealed the second you challenged me. It’s time to face reality, son. I’m the god of this world.
• Evil Is Petty:
  • Pay Evil unto Evil as it might've been, his murder of a guy for mildly sassing him proves he's not the Only Sane Man he claims to be.
  • After his motive it's revealed, him accepting Kirito's Duel to the Death comes off as this in retrospect, as he only accepted it because Kirito annoyed him.
• Exhaustion-Induced Idiocy: His whole "plan" was the result of being up for three weeks straight without a wink of sleep trying to finish Sword Art Online. The player death thing was a bug he never patched out as a result of not paying attention. Kayaba was so delusional in his sleep-deprived state — he mentions that he believed that the government was run by Mole Men — he was only concerned with the game getting a bad Metacritic score. As Kirito points out, Kayaba's sleep-deprived belief that the critics would be harsher on a game that accidentally killed a handful of people than one that intentionally murdered thousands was a rather misguided one. Kayaba, after having caught up on his sleep in the first month, agrees in hindsight.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: When Asuna asks why he didn't just blame everything on an anonymous hacker group, he starts to explain why that wouldn't work until his expression changes as he realizes that would have been a much better idea than what he came up with. He then decides he's going to go scream into the uncaring void for a bit.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • Arrogance (in a sense).
    • While most of his villainy is due to sleep deprivation making him act like an utter idiot, it's repeatedly shown that his pride is the true reason why SAO was kept going for so long, and if he had simply decided to own up to his fuck-ups or not stupidly double-down on his bad decisions, then none of the series events would've had to happen.
    • He also chooses to put himself in the game to save everyone and portray himself as a potential martyr to inspire the players. Even though it would have been a lot easier and quicker to have just fixed the glitch instead, or shut down the servers, or make everyone an immortal object. Instead, he chose to prolong everyone's misery and increase the growing body count, all so he could pretend to be a hero, impress everyone with his skills, and be recognized as a savior. Rather than be remembered forever as that idiot who caused thousands of deaths, all because he was too stubborn to admit that "he was just as big a fuck-up as the rest of us".
  • Overthinking and complexity addiction:
    • By Kayaba's own admission, he's not very good at handling a situation when he's under stress. He locked everyone in the game because he was under pressure from Bethesda to finish Sword Art Online for a Christmas release and was so stressed out and sleep-deprived that he overlooked a glitch that killed players in real life if their avatars were killed in the game. Rather than shut down the servers or work on the code to remove the glitch, he just doubles down on it and tells everyone he did it on purpose. As Asuna points out, it would have been way easier and less complicated if he had just blamed a hacker group instead and claimed they stole his identity.
    • In addition to this, He created Heathcliff so he could anonymously save the players from his mistake, but this just shows his overthinking. Again, rather than do the simple thing of just shutting down the server or working on the code to get everyone out as quickly as possible, he just puts himself in the game to clean up his mess personally but this ultimately does nothing to solve his problem and further angers him; all his heroism would be attributed to Heathcliff, nobody but Kirito knew who Kayaba was so the fake identity would get all the credit for Kayaba's "heroism", the players still ignored his help in favor of suicidal attacks, and it's not like the players were going to immediately forgive him for what he did (especially since he was the one who imprisoned them in the first place, so he shouldn't really be expecting any thanks for fixing something that shouldn't have happened in the first place).
• Friendly Enemy: He tries to be this to Kirito due to the respect he has for him, but the latter has none of it and takes the side of the idiotic player base over his, taking Kayaba by surprise. He becomes far more hostile to him afterwards, but returns back to it after Kirito defeats him and beats the game.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: He goes from a game developer to a mass murderer thanks to his death game. This trope is downplayed when it's revealed that he's still just a disgruntled and overworked developer and that he never intended for the death game to happen. Kirito even lampshades that Kayaba is just as clueless and fucked-up as the other players. However, he ultimately chooses to become a nightmare rather than a nobody in a misguided attempt to save face.
• A God Am I: "It's time to face reality, son: I'm the god of this world."
• Go Out with a Smile: Subverted at the last second. It seems he's content with dying to a Dungeonmaster reference. Then it turns out Kirito was actually quoting Mythbusters.
  Kayaba: "Oh… I was so happy there for a second." [dies].
• Graceful Loser: While it probably had more to do with Kirito's apparent ''Dungeonmaster'' reference, he shouts "nice!" when Kirito kills him, and later remains faithful to his word and frees his hostages from SAO.
  Kayaba: "In any case, I suppose congratulations are in order. It wasn’t exactly an outright victory, but at this point, I just want this whole nightmare to be over."
• Hanlon's Razor: His entire evil scheme was the result of a bunch of stupid mistakes and decisions made in his sleep-deprived madness, followed by him doubling down over and over again by the time he would have caught up with it. Kirito sums it up thusly:
  Kirito: "All this time I assumed he was some Machiavellian schemer, but in the end, he was just as big a fuck-up as the rest of us."
• Hidden Disdain Reveal: Once his true identity is exposed, Kayaba makes it clear that, rather than occasionally feeling frustrated or worn down by the game, he genuinely hates almost every single member of the Knights of the Blood Oath.
• Hidden in Plain Sight: The most wanted man, and what is his identity when playing ALfheim? Heathcliff.
• Honor Before Reason: He could have just fixed the glitch and shut down the servers but he instead put himself in the game so he can save everyone through the Heathcliff avatar.
• Hopeless with Tech: He's not this all the time (He created most of the game's assets himself, after all), but it certainly shows up from time to time.
  • He accidentally mutes himself while trying to disable the general chat in Episode 1.
  • In Episode 11, a Freeze-Frame Bonus shows that he had to watch a Youtube tutorial to fix the glitch that caused everything.
• Hope Crusher: His appearance in Episode 1 has this effect on the players. As seen in the first sentence spoken after he disappears: "We're fucked!"
• Hypocrite:
  • He strips the players of their avatar skins, which he refers to as "petty façades" to expose them for who they truly are. Later, he falsely integrates himself into the game by using his Heathcliff persona (complete with an avatar which doesn't look like him at all) to hide his true self.
  • He justifies his murder of one of his guildmates by saying he had it coming for being a mafia member, even though he was perfectly fine with having the guy in his raid party up until he mildly sassed him, and had also previously allowed Fluffles, a well known mafia leader, to join him in his council without any fuss.
  • As Kirito points out, he doesn't really have any right to accuse the other players of being stupid when he's easily the biggest fuck-up of the show.
• Hypocrite Has a Point: Kayaba is an even bigger screw-up than most of the player base, and Kirito points out he doesn't have a right to be so judgmental of them. However, Kayaba accurately points out that most of the players are guilty of near-suicidal stupidity and are utterly incompetent.
• Insane Troll Logic: Due to having lost his mind after three consecutive sleepless weeks, he believed that critics would be harsher on a game that killed a few people by accident than one that killed thousands on purpose. Basically, he chose to go down in history as the Big Bad instead of an Unwitting Instigator of Doom.
• Insanity Defense: Downplayed, as he doesn't believe it justifies his actions, but he uses this as a counterargument to Asuna and Kirito calling him out on his many lethal mistakes. He begins to do this again when Kirito reminds him of the mafia member he killed, only to end up shrugging it off as Pay Evil unto Evil.
  Asuna: What the fuck is wrong with you?!
  Kayaba: Hey, cut me some slack, okay? Can you two even begin to imagine 500 uninterrupted hours of consciousness? Forget mole people! About halfway through I swore I saw the face of God!
• In the Hood: His first appearance is as a giant shrouded in a hooded robe with smoke coming out of where the face should be.
• It's All About Me: His "The Reason You Suck" Speech to the SAO player base is chalked full of this; he only complains about how hard it was for him to lead them to survival, never mind that it was his fault their lives were endangered in the first place. Any suffering or PTSD they might've developed while being trapped in his game completely flies over his head as well. It's also revealed he had shielded himself with admin privileges before the Floor 75 raid, and left everyone else exposed to the boss' One-Hit Kill attack.
• I Meant to Do That: His "master plan" was a result of sleep deprivation and a string of very bad and selfish decisions. Sword Art Online was Christmas Rushed for completion, and Kayaba spent three weeks without sleep trying to get it done on time. He overlooked a glitch that would kill the player if their avatar died but was so tired that he just went along with it and clumsily proclaimed that it was all part of the plan. By the time Kayaba caught up on his sleep, he realised he lost control and was chin-deep in trouble. Since no player had any actual military experience, over two thousand players died without clearing the first floor. In an effort to redeem himself, Kayaba decided to anonymously create an immortal avatar so he could at least try to fix the mess he made while also trying to buy time to come up with some means of covering his own ass so he can avoid getting arrested.
• It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time: How he sums up his actions.
  Kirito: So, you thought critics would be harsher on a game that killed a few people on accident than one that killed thousands on purpose?
  Kayaba: That was my thinking process, yes.
  Asuna: WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!!
• I've Come Too Far: In a sleep-deprived state, Kayaba thought it was better to look like an evil mastermind than someone who had caused a few accidental deaths. After two thousand people died on the first month of trying to beat the game, he finally snapped out of it and tried to do something to help, though while also performing a stalling tactic by keeping everyone imprisoned so he could think of a way to avoid getting prosecuted.
• Jerkass: After Kirito exposes him, he reveals himself to not only be a murderous maniac, but also a petty and short-tempered asshole who lashes out at everyone who mildly sasses him, and who abuses his admin privileges to make himself invincible while allowing other players around him to die to his poorly coded game because he sees them as lower than dirt. He becomes more cordial after his outburst in Episode 11, but by then even he knows there's no going back on what he's said and done, and he goes down in history as a Psychopathic Manchild who single-handedly destroyed his company because he prioritized Metacritic over human lives.
• Karma Houdini: While his dreams get destroyed and his game ends up shutting down, tanking his and his company's image in the process and rendering all his efforts to save his and his game's image meaningless, Kayaba himself managed to evade the authorities and maintain his wanted status by hiding out in ALfheim, as shown by Yui's scan; though considering the poor coding of the game and the general stupidity of its player base rivals even that of his game, he might just be experiencing some Laser-Guided Karma while trapped there instead.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Him trapping Yui and making her watch all the suffering. Though after learning his real motives, it's likely he just forgot she existed. The fact that she's later revealed to be a bit Ax-Crazy herself kind of makes this action understandable in retrospect.
  • In his first appearance, after praising his subjects' beauty and congratulating them for subverting the Basement-Dweller stereotypes, he singles out a fat guy among the crowd and chastises him for "bringing down the curve".
  • A more straightforward example is him making some crude insults at Kirito over having killed Asuna, and only half-heartedly apologizing to him afterwards.
• Killer Game Master: He didn't intend to kill anyone at first, but his knee-jerk attempts at solving his mistake without taking accountability beyond trying to become a Card-Carrying Villain ended with the deaths of around 4000 people in SAO, all of which would've been spared had he not made the rash decision of trapping everyone inside. Becomes more clear when he executes the mafia member and kills Kirito and Asuna's Avatars (though he eventually allows the pair to leave the game regardless).
• Lack of Empathy: He prioritizes his game's critical reception over saving the lives of over 10000 people he unintentionally trapped in his own game. While it's implied this was all due to Sanity Slippage, the fact that he could've stopped what was happening at any point during the Aincrad arc but chose not to speaks volumes of how little he cares for their safety. In Episode 11, it's implied this was due to losing faith in humanity after being forced to witness the sheer stupidity of all SAO players for two years. It gets to the point where he shows no sympathy when he kills Asuna in front of Kirito, cracking a joke at his own expense and then being confused as to why Kirito isn't happy he's alive while his wife got killed in front of him.
• Laughably Evil: Like most abridged series villains, his dialogue is humorous. He descends into Black Comedy when he's given a sillier, but more believable motivation to be a villain.
• Mask of Sanity: He puts on a front as the sanest guy in all of SAO, and his speech about being Surrounded by Idiots also makes some valid points. Underneath, however, lies a Psychopathic Manchild who's angry that people don't like his game despite forcing everyone to play it at gunpoint and who sadistically killed a player for pointing out his Never My Fault demeanor (and actually tried to play it off as a Pay Evil unto Evil moment).
• Meaningless Villain Victory: Pretending that players dying when their avatars die was some sort of master plan accomplishes nothing; if anything, it makes the final outcome worse than the one he initially expected.
• The Millstone: He's this for Argus, which he leaves in bankruptcy after what was supposed to be a ground-breaking MMO turned into a massive disaster which got thousands of players killed.
• Mercy Mode: In-universe, he had to organize a guild because the players were Too Dumb to Live and because the most competent player wouldn't lead them himself.
• Misanthrope Supreme: What he's become by Episode 11, and one of the reasons why he didn't release everyone from SAO after fixing the death glitch.
  Kayaba: Do you know how many of you have died screaming “Leroy Jenkins”?! More than zero. Which, as far as I’m concerned, is grounds to exterminate the species!
• Moral Myopia: Ignoring any valid points his impassioned address to the SAO player base might have, it is abundantly clear that his "The Reason You Suck" Speech has no base to stand on. He unjustly accuses them of lacking the intelligence necessary to survive the game and chastises them for disregarding his strategies, despite the glaring flaws in his Deadly Game's design and the numerous bugs that render certain boss rooms reliant on luck rather than skill. Furthermore, he bemoans having to tolerate their shenanigans while he was pretending to be the Big Good, conveniently forgetting that he is the sole culprit of the entrapment of everyone in the game, and for a remarkably foolish motive at that.
• Murder by Mistake: While trying to kill Kirito, he kills Asuna as she jumps in front of him. She gets better.
• Mutual Kill: Kirito stabs him through the chest with Asuna's sword shortly after Kayaba impales him. They both shatter at the same time.
• My Rules Are Not Your Rules: The way he talks about going to watch a movie before eventually getting around to fix the glitched-out boss room in Episode 11 suggests that Kayaba's not locked into the game like the other players and can log himself out at will. Which makes sense, given that there's no reason in this continuity why he would trap himself as well.
• Never My Fault: After his true identity is revealed, he obstinately refuses to recognize that no matter how many problems his idiotic player base has heaped upon themselves, he's still the one really responsible for the whole debacle. In fact, when one of the players points this out, Kayaba responds by killing him. Additionally, the only reason SAO was kept running for so long was because he didn't want to own up to his death glitch. That all being said, he later averts when talking to Kirito and Asuna in private, admitting that he's responsible for SAO becoming an utter clusterfuck thanks in large part to his own arrogance and incompetence.
• Nice to the Waiter: Even while overworking himself into insanity, he was still nice to his night janitor Reki, and was pleased with himself after accidentally mistaking him for God in his insomniac state, giving him an ego boost.
• Oh, Crap!: Has a silent one when he realizes he might have doomed every SAO player by shutting down the servers before logging them out. Luckily, he hadn't.
• Only Sane Man: Tries to pass himself off as this after Kirito outs him, ranting about how stupidly the players act and how disgusted he is with them. However, it quickly becomes obvious that he's really, really really not the Only Sane Man in SAO; he's just another fuck-up, probably the biggest fuck-up of them all.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: He kills a mafia member after he insulted him. Disproportionate, but likely deserved.
• Pet the Dog: While he's not the "just and benevolent god" he claims to be, he does at least try to play fair with his subjects.
  • Despite his little outburst towards his raid party, he vows to fix the glitch that kept them trapped in Floor 75 (after having watched Back to the Future, of course).
  • Although allowing everyone to leave SAO after Kirito's victory can be seen as him being a Graceful Loser, he had no reason to extend the same courtesy to Asuna, considering she had died shortly before Kirito's victory.
  • Despite being in the middle of his Sanity Slippage, he was implied to have been very nice to his night janitor Reki, and was pleased when he accidentally gave him an ego boost by mistaking him for God.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: He mostly shows this sign of him as Heathcliff, so it's unclear how genuine this side of him is. However, after his identity is discovered, he tells Asuna to "shut her whore mouth" when she makes a jab at Back to the Future.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure:
  • Kayaba makes references to various movies and other video games, only to be frustrated by the SAO players' lack of knowledge of them. He even does it while under the guise of Heathcliff. Kirito uses this to determine his true identity.
  • invoked Kirito exclaims "I reject your reality and substitute my own!" Kirito was actually referencing Mythbusters, but Kayaba immediately attributes it properly to The Dungeonmaster, a story about an athletic genius programmer who gets trapped in a fantasy world where the dangers are real and can only escape back to reality with the woman he loves by defeating all the villain's challenges, and then the villain himself. Sound familiar, Kirito? Furthermore, Kayaba, who gets the source properly, is SAO's Dungeon Master.
• Properly Paranoid: He paralyses Asuna alongside the other players not because he thinks she's Too Dumb to Live like the others, but because he suspects that she'll try to kill him even in her frozen state. Sure enough, Asuna uses The Power of Love (and the game's glitches) to override his admin privileges and jump in front of his sword as he's about to strike Kirito, saving his life and ultimately allowing Kirito to defeat him.
• Psychopathic Manchild: How Kirito summarizes his character, that in the end, Kayaba's much like a bratty little kid lashing out at other children on a playground.
• Rage Breaking Point: The moment one player tries to attack him after seeing Kirito fail to even dent him, Kayaba drops his cordial tone, paralyzes everyone, and expresses his true displeasure at the stupidity he had to put up with for two years, dripping with rage. He is so incensed that he is prone to murdering anyone who tries talking back to him.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • Voices his exasperation at the many ways the players rack up their body count and refuse to cooperate or follow his guidance.
  • Receives one from Kirito in turn, that for all his criticism of the players, at least they had the bravery to show up to the boss fight without cheat codes on. And that Kayaba's essentially just throwing a giant childish temper tantrum and is refusing to take responsibility for his actions.
• Reed Richards Is Useless: As lampshaded by Sugou in Season 2, Kayaba's incredibly advanced programming expertise and skill in virtual reality was ultimately wasted on developing a MMORPG, when it could instead be potentially used to pioneer transhumanism (i.e., Sugou's Evil Plan to use ALfheim Online to give his real self a Compelling Voice).
• Sanity Slippage: He spent three weeks straight working on finishing the game after Bethesda gave him an unrealistic deadline, so when he accidentally created a glitch that killed players when their avatars died, he couldn't think of anything else but to embrace the role of villain and trap everyone in the game. After two years of finally catching up on his sleep, he's far stabler and reasonable, but clearly still has a few screws loose, ''especially'' when someone insults his work. After all, 500 hours of uninterrupted consciousness would take a toll on anybody's mental stability.
• The Scapegoat: Deconstructed and Played for Laughs; As the one who kept everyone imprisoned in the game, everyone is completely justified in blaming him. However, Kayaba was driven into further insanity by both this and his guilt. The whole reason as to why this happened is that Kayaba was so sleep-deprived that he overlooked a glitch that killed people and he chose to double down on it than fix it. Racked with guilt after thousands of people died before even clearing the first floor, he entered the game with an immortal avatar so he could save everyone from his mistake. However, he soon learned how stupid players can be and he grew increasingly frustrated by the other players and he quickly became disillusioned with his own goal because the players blamed him for everything, even when it was their own fault in the first place by performing death or glory attacks despite being told that will die in real life if they do it (though as one mafioso points out, they weren't technically wrong for blaming him).
  Kayaba: Do you have any idea what's been like trying to lead you people?! You ignore all my strategies, you ADAMANTLY refuse to work together, and then you blame ME FOR ALL OF YOUR PROBLEMS!!!
  Mobster: Well, to be fair, sir, you're responsible for at least a few of them.
  Kayaba: Ah, yes. I see your point. Although, and- and hear me out here, counterpoint...
  [Kayaba opens his menu and kills the mobster as the latter screams in the distance]
  Kayaba: You're dead... HA!!! (sighs) I tried, you know? LORD knows I tried. But there's just no helping you people. It's like you crave death! But not just any death! Nooooo! YOU fuckers seem to have some sort of pool going to see who can end their existence in the dumbest, most avoidable way possible! And you just keep one-upping each other! Do you know how many of you have died screaming "Leeroy Jenkins"?! More than zero. Which, as far as I'm concerned, is grounds to exterminate the SPECIES!
• Simple Solution Won't Work:
  • When asked why he didn't ask for an extension so he could fix the game, he responds that he did, but the distributor already delayed twice and weren't willing to give him another.
  • "Yeah, okay. See, Asuna, the problem with that... is that it's an EXCELLENT idea that I wish I had thought of two years ago."
• Skewed Priorities: Thanks to his sleep deprivation, he thought getting a bad score on Metacritic was worse than going down in history as a mass murderer.
• Spared by the Adaptation: Unlike the original, where Kayaba's physical body dies following the end of the SAO death game (Virtual Ghost notwithstanding), in this treatment it seems that Kayaba instead went into hiding as "the most wanted man on the face of the Earth." As of the second season, he's still playing video games as seen by a post from a Twitter bot on Kirito's computer.
• Speaks in Shout-Outs: He loves quoting and referencing various movies, but also gets irritated when most people don't get it.
• Sunk Cost Fallacy: The main reason why things got so bad. By the time Kayaba caught up with his sleep, he realized that he was in too deep into his lie to just give up and shut everything down. Even becoming Heathcliff was more of him just postponing the game rather than just ending it. If he owned up to his mistake, it would mean taking responsibility for his actions, something that he's psychologically unable to do.
• Surrounded by Idiots: Kayaba tried to atone by creating the Heathcliff avatar so he can rally the players under his own guild and free them by guiding them through each floor but a majority of the players were insanely stupid, caused their own deaths, and blamed him for their own decisions (Then again, as the mobster pointed out, Kayaba is responsible for at least some of their issues).
  Kayaba: I tried, you know? LORD knows I tried. But there's just no helping you people. It's like you crave death! But not just any death! Nooooo! YOU fuckers seem to have some sort of pool going to see who can end their existence in the dumbest, most avoidable way possible! And you just keep one-upping each other! Do you know how many of you have died screaming "Leeroy Jenkins"?! More than zero. Which, as far as I'm concerned, is grounds to exterminate the SPECIES!
• Tiger by the Tail: By the time Kayaba had the presence of mind to start making smart choices again, it was already too late. In his sleep-deprived madness, he claimed responsibility for the death game which went on to kill two thousand people in just the first month. At that point, he was a mass murderer and there was no chance of a good outcome no matter what he did. His actions from then on were essentially just to postpone having to suffer those consequences while trying to stop things getting too much worse in the meantime.
• Took a Level in Cynic: After hastily imprisoning every player in the game, he tries to play the Big Bad thinking that someone (likely Kirito) would step up and become The Hero to bring him down and save everyone. When that didn't happen, he chose to try it out himself as Heathcliff after realizing the other players weren't going to survive on their own, and he couldn't lose them as hostages. Eventually, however, he grew increasingly frustrated with the player base's sheer stupidity (of which he already caught a glimpse of back in Episode 1) and the increasing player revolutions and simply stopped caring about their safety altogether, becoming more of a Misanthrope Supreme than Kirito ever was. Unfortunately for him, Kirito had already undergone a Heel–Face Turn by then, and had restored his faith in humanity and the SAO players, meaning that the two never saw each other eye to eye.
• Tragic Villain: If he had just been given a few extra days to sleep, none of this mess would have happened. Subverted when you realize he could have ended the game much earlier and prevented far more people from dying, but refused to in a desperate and ultimately futile attempt to cover his own ass. It's still tragic, but it's more about a man trapped by his own hubris and refusal to take responsibility for his mistakes rather than someone who became the villain for reasons outside their control.
• Trolling Creator:
  • invoked Besides revealing all the players' true appearances despite having a character creation system in the game, Kayaba had also programmed music and sound effects to play specifically to humiliate a player even more. This includes a sad trombone, Goofy's "YAAAAAA-HA-HA-HA-HOOOOEEEEEEEY!" and circus music.
  • He also created Yui to care about other players then locked her away and forced her to watch them all suffer. Seemingly for no other reason than to be a sadist. Of course, with the reveal of his true motivation, one has to wonder if he'd simply locked her away while still being able to see what was going on during his delusional breakdown and simply forgot about her.
  • After giving up and explaining his motivation to Kirito and Asuna, he deliberately leaves it ambiguous whether they were going to survive the game or not, since Kirito hadn't technically won. This led to a harrowing moment between the couple that ended with an Anguished Declaration of Love. In the end, they do make it out, though.
    Kirito: Guy can’t make video games for shit, but he sure knows how to play.
• Unperson: He has unwittingly done to himself as he created the Heathcliff avatar to help everyone escape from the game. If Kayaba actually saved everyone, all his heroism would have just been attributed to Heathcliff.
• Villain Has a Point:
  • While calling every SAO player (save for Kirito and himself) an idiot is a bit of a stretch, and it undermines his role in the SAO disaster, it's true that a large majority of the player base is made of airheads, with even one of the more reasonable members Diabel essentially committing suicide after having to deal with their shenanigans for far too long. Regardless of his motive, Kayaba likely did save a lot of people while leading them as Heathcliff (though the fact he could have ended things at any point but didn't because of his ego and refusal to take responsibility undermines this).
  • He's not wrong to blame Asuna for getting herself killed by jumping in front of his sword to save Kirito, as she was supposed to be paralysed, and him and Kirito were having a one-on-one Duel to the Death which she interrupted. It's easy to imagine Kirito having the same reaction had this happened to Kayaba instead (and of course had the victim not been Asuna).
  • Though most of the blame for the SAO disaster lies on his poor stress management, he's right to criticize Bethesda for giving him and his programmers an unrealistic deadline for his game, which resulted in the final product being incredibly rushed and accidentally killing more than a few players even before an exhausted Kayaba decided to double down and make things worse. On the flipside, Bethesda rightfully pointed out that they gave him two extensions for the game and that if he couldn't deliver, they would have to pull their funding. And even then, they had every right to cut ties with him and the game after players began dying.
    Kayaba: ""The game’s already been delayed twice”, they said. “It’s a big open world! No one’s gonna notice a few glitches". Fuckin’ Bethesda..."
• Villain Respect:
  • He genuinely respects Kirito for his skill in the game and the fact that he's the only guy that gets (most) of his movie references.
  • He programmed the game to use appropriately humiliating sound clips for Epic Fails. That said, the fact that Lisbeth's smithing minigame is backed by Big Blast Sonic from Guilty Gear, which is a game built around Awesome Music invoked suggests he respects her skill as a blacksmith.
• Villainous Breakdown: Completely loses his cool when upon acknowledging his deception, players still keep trying to attack him anyway.
• Villainous BSoD: Upon realizing if he had just blamed the glitches and crazed evil monolog at the beginning on an anonymous hacker group, he could have avoided a lot of trouble for himself and being indirectly responsible for the deaths of well over two thousand people.
• Vocal Evolution: When Kirito reveals his identity, his voice begins to sound higher and immature matching his personality. Specifically, when posing as Heathcliff, his voice is closer to that of Perfect Cell, but after being outed as Akihiko Kayaba, he reverts to how he sounded in the first episode (which is his actual voice).
• Workaholic: An exaggerated version considering he spent weeks without sleep in order to get the game out on time. This leads to glitches like real deaths and leads to his Sanity Slippage.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: Downplayed. After two years of nobody getting his movie references, he's borderline ecstatic when Kirito makes what he thinks is a very contextually appropriate reference to The Dungeonmaster during his Heroic Second Wind. He's incredibly disappointed to learn that he was actually referencing Mythbusters and that he's never even heard of Dungeonmaster.
• You Could Have Used Your Powers for Good!: Kayaba feels this way about Kirito, wondering why someone as clever and talented who was capable of beating Dungeon Bosses on his own never bothered with forming his own Guild during the two years they were spent trapped inside of SAO.
  With your Skill and Intellect, you should have been leading ARMIES, clearing Floor-after-Floor with ease as "The Great Saviour of Aincrad".'
• You Will Be Spared: Even though he personally kills both Kirito and Asuna before being defeated by the former in a Mutual Kill, he eventually allows them to log out alongside everyone else (even though fellow developer Sugou later gets the latter trapped again).

Tropes applying to Heathcliff

"Truly, you are the voice of a generation."

The Commander of the Knights of the Blood Oath and de facto leader of the effort to clear Sword Art Online. He's by far the most competent and sanest of the players in the game, tendency to make obscure references aside. Unfortunately, he finds himself increasingly exasperated by everyone continuously refusing to follow his guidance and getting themselves killed as a result.

---

• Adaptational Badass: In the original anime, Kirito is on par with him, to the point where Heathcliff had to cheat to best him. Here, the more experienced Red Baron wipes the floor with the teenager in about four seconds. He also defeats the boy far quicker in Episode 11, even without his admin privileges.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Here, Kayaba is way worse at maintaining a Mask of Sanity than he is in canon. Even before his true motives are revealed, he shows no qualms exploiting his admin privileges and his only female board member to better clear the game's floors.
• All for Nothing: His entire peace-talk with "The King of Ashes" and his gangsters ended up being all for naught after Kirito did something to piss him off offscreen, breaking the truth and renewing hostilities between the two parties. Luckily, the game gets cleared shortly afterwards, so it probably wouldn't have mattered much anyway.
• Always Someone Better: He's the only rival in SAO that Kirito never managed to fully best. Even their Mutual Kill in Episode 11 wasn't exactly an outright victory, but at that point, Kayaba didn't care enough to complain about it.
• Anti-Hero: He's introduced as a Pragmatic Hero, being a noble and reasonable (if somewhat arrogant) leader whose main goal is to save as many players as he can from getting themselves killed, and who spends most of his screentime trying to quell rebellions and player-killing guilds, even if he's willing to offer up his only female board member in the process. He is soon revealed to be a Nominal Hero at best after his real identity and motivations are discovered.
• Authority Sounds Deep: As Heathcliff, he uses a considerably deeper voice than he did when he was announcing the death game in Episode 1. When he's exposed, he returns to his first voice.
• Bad Liar: Nobody buys it when he hastily tries to explain the 'Immortal Object' popup that shows up when Kirito stabs him.
• Beleaguered Boss: Like Diabel before him, the sheer idiocy of some of his followers clearly takes a toll on his already fleeting sanity.
• Berserk Button: A Spot the Thread-inducing one: He gets very defensive when people insult Sword Art Online.
• Big Good: The leader of a large guild and very proactive in clearing out SAO. Kayaba had to take on this role because of how idiotic the players were.
• Brought Down to Badass: After being outed as a cheater, Kirito gets him to disable his admin privileges and have a Duel to the Death. Even without his crutches, Heathcliff defeats the beta tester in seconds, and the only reason Kirito ends up winning is because Asuna broke free of admin paralysis and performed a Heroic Sacrifice.
• Cast as a Mask: Averted, unlike in canon. Takahata101 voices both him and his true identity, Kayaba in this version, though he uses his Perfect Cell voice to do Heathcliff.
• Distinctive Appearances: He wears full crimson armor, contrasting his red and white armored followers. It seems to only apply to him, as even Kirito is forced to wear the same Mook armor as the others when he's made to join the guild.
• Expy: Shares traits from Perfect Cell, having an identical voice, a gentlemanly manner, and an inflated ego. He also has a similar relationship with Kirito that Cell has with Goku, being a Worthy Opponent and the only one who Kayaba feels understands him.
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: Heathcliff believes in his core about the better nature of people, and keeps getting surprised when his standards aren't met. He becomes a lot more cynical as the story moves forward, to the point of becoming even more of a Misanthrope Supreme than Kirito.
  • He's caught off guard by Fluffles defecting to the King of Ashes to torture and maim players when he could instead help everyone get to the real world.
  • He eventually admits that his forming his guild was a hasty Plan B when he realized that Kirito would not step up as the "savior of Aincrad" despite having more than enough power and experience to do so.
• Horrible Judge of Character: He's not this all the time, as he does see that Kirito and Asuna don't fit in a diplomatic mission at all, but he still refers to their romance as "young love", and quips that he envies them.
• Knightly Sword and Shield: Fits his Knight in Shining Armor persona rather well.
• Knight in Shining Armor: His overall motif, although he ends up being more of a Knight in Sour Armor regarding the stupidity of his underlings.
• Light Is Good: He wears white armour and is the leader of the Knights of the Blood Oath. Unfortunately...
• Light Is Not Good: He's also Kayaba, who took in the role to stop the players from getting themselves killed too early, and also to maintain them as a bargaining chip in case the authorities caught up with him. Even without that, he still acts like a misogynistic asshole who has more than once tried to exploit Asuna and openly associates with the in-game Mafia.
• Master Swordsman: To the point of outclassing Kirito of all people.
• Mentor in Sour Armor: As it turns out, Kayaba only took in the role to stop the players from stupidly getting themselves killed, and the more time he spent trying to lead them, the more cynical he became.
• Nominal Hero: While he is overall trying to minimize the player death toll by neutralizing the more unhinged player guilds, he's also Kayaba Akihiko, meaning he's responsible for those guilds existing in the first place, and he could easily save everyone by shutting off the servers but hasn't because he needs his hostages.
• Noodle Incident: Kirito recalls him saying "I used to fuck guys like you in prison" in Episode 11. The context of this (as well as the identity of the person he's saying it to) remains unclear.
• Politically Incorrect Hero: Shown when he presents Asuna as a prize to Kirito, in return for the teenager's enrollment in the guild. He does this again offscreen by promising to exchange pictures of Asuna in a thong to "The King of Ashes" in exchange for safe passage through Floor 75 without even asking for her consent first, as detailed in rather awkward message, though it's unclear if his motivations are truly sexist or if he simply doesn't respect Asuna as a person.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: He's exasperated when no one reacts when he makes a Dr. Strangelove reference to try to defuse a tense situation.
• Properly Paranoid: During the peaceful negotiations with "The King of Ashes", he has Kirito sit the mission out out of fear that he'd cause unnecessary tension. His concerns turn out to be justified, as the teenager ended up enraging the terrorists offscreen anyway, even after the truce had already been settled.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: He's the leader of the Knights of the Blood Oath, the strongest guild in the game, and he's also the strongest player in the game; during a duel with Kirito he was able to curbstomp Kirito before he even knows what's happening. And that's even before taking his true identity as SAO's admin into account.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: One of very few. Kayaba decided he had to be this since the sheer stupidity of the players would never be able to beat the game without a strong unifying force.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Unlike his men, his armor is mostly red with black clothes underneath, and he's the Big Bad of the work.
• Red Baron: His impregnable defense has earned him the distinguished title of "Cheating Haxxor Faggot." Unbeknownst to everyone else, he is keeping himself alive with a cheat code.
  Sam: Distinguished?
• Rousing Speech: Gives one to his men during the apparently hopeless boss fight in Floor 75... just before the boss anticlimactically glitches out.
  Player: Oh… oh my god! You were right, sir! We did it!
• Shield Bash: Shatters Kirito's second sword with one of these.
• Shout-Out: Likes making references to classic movies (that usually no one else has seen). The fact that he shares this habit with Kayaba makes Kirito suspicious of him.
• Something Only They Would Say: What ultimately gives him away is his fascination with pop culture references, just like Kayaba.
  Heathcliff: Oh, so now you've seen TRON!
  Kirito: Of course I've seen TRO—wait, "now?"
• Stunned Silence: Does this in Episode 11 when the Floor 75 boss glitches out and dies on its own, clearly disappointed since he likely spent the major part of a month programming the damn thing.
• Villain with Good Publicity: He's respected as one of the most OP players in the game, and his true identity as the game's head programmer and Big Bad remains a secret for everyone.
• Walking Spoiler: He's actually the assumed identity of Kayaba Akihiko.
• Worthy Opponent: He's this to Kirito; wiping the floor with him in Episode 9 in the arena, and fighting him on equal grounds in Episode 11, where they both fittingly die together (in the game, that is).
• Younger Than They Look: Looks to be middle-aged, but he's really Kayaba, who seems to be in his mid-twenties.

The Mafia

General

I'm sorry, Don. We finally tracked down the one known as Kirito, but... we were beaten back by the legendary warrior BallsDeep69 and his men. The boy escaped us yet again. I have no excuse. But I promise you, we will get back what was stolen. What are your orders... Don Fluffles?

An organized group of unsavory individuals who scattered themselves across SAO and make sketchy deals with other players. They've been chasing Kirito ever since his former guild leader Keita conned them out of a rare item, but the boy managed to evade them every time.

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• Adaptational Villainy: The group Klein fought against in Episode 3 was called "Divine Dragons Alliance", and were only interested in beating other players to a rare monster drop that they were eager to collect. Here, they're a full blown mob who try to kill Kirito because his guild leader didn't settle a debt with them.
• Affably Evil: From what we see of them, they seem rather polite, respectfully explaining their motivation to Kirito before trying to kill him.
• Blond, Brunet, Redhead: During The Stinger for Episode 3, the three Canon Foreigner mafia members follow these respective patterns.
• Canon Foreigner: There was no SAO Mafia organization in canon. While some canon characters were repurposed as being Mafia members, the orgainization as a whole is an original creation of the Abridged series.
• Disproportionate Retribution: They try to kill Keita and Kirito for a rare item in a video game. The second example doubles as Misplaced Retribution, since Kirito didn't have beef with them before that.
• The Dreaded: For the Moonlit Black Cats, at least. Kirito tends to flee from them instead of confronting them head on, which is not something that can be said for Titan's hand or even Laughing Coffin.
• Face–Heel Turn: Many of them were normal SAO players before joining Fluffles.
• The Mafia: They essentially operate as this, much to Sachi's bewilderment.
• Mooks: For Don Fluffles.
• Karma Houdini: Unless Kirito, Heathcliff or Fluffles did something offscreen, they were logged out safely alongside every other player, with only one of them being confirmed deceased.
• Villain of Another Story: Aside from their beef with Keita, they only interact with Kirito onscreen once, and they're implied to have caused Kayaba some grief offscreen.
• Villain Respect:
  • They speak to Kirito with some respect before attempting to kill him.
  • One of them refers to Klein as "the legendary warrior BallsDeep69" after he beats the group sent to kill Kirito. He likely wouldn't be so flattered, though.
• Would Hurt a Child: They put a hit on the underage Kirito.

Fluffles

"Meow."

A cat that somehow learned how to play SAO. And somehow started the game's mafia. And somehow ended up on the KoB's senior council, only to betray them and rule alongside the King of Ashes over the ruins of Floor 75.

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• And Starring: The cast credits for the Aincrad arc end "And Don Fluffles [as] Himself".
• Anti-Hero: He's The Don of the Aincrad mafia, but he willingly participates in several raids to clear the game, and he briefly worked with the Knights of the Blood Oath. He drops the label after joining the King of Ashes, whereupon he laid waste to Floor 75.
• Arch-Enemy: To Kirito, oddly enough. He was responsible for the death of Kirito's entire guild, (including Sachi) And apparently, they've had many an offscreen battle (assuming Kirito isn't just trolling everyone).
• Art Shift: His scenes are always done in a different art style to the usual anime art, due to being original Flash animated footage for an original character.
• Ascended Extra: He was originally just a throwaway joke of a cat who learned how to play SAO, before becoming the second biggest threat in Season 1 after Kayaba.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He joins the Knights of the Blood Oath somewhere between episodes 3 and 9, but considering he had previously been seen as the leader of a player killing mafia, it's clear he's not to be trusted. Predictably, he turns traitor an episode later.
• Canon Foreigner: There's no mention of nonhuman players in the source material, much less cats.
• Cats Are Mean: Well, one doesn't become a mafia don by being nice.
• The Chessmaster: He somehow always manages to be one step in front of everyone else. Kirito calls him a "sly bastard" in Episode 9 after surviving a deadly encounter with him.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Fluffles tends to turn traitor the moment someone more bloodthirsty comes into power.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: After joining "the King of Ashes", he apparently suggested boiling several intruders in boiling oil.
• Cute and Psycho: Many players find him cute. The rest are scared shitless of him.
• Dark Is Evil: Fluffles is a black cat, and most certainly is mean enough to be considered "evil".
• Disney Villain Death: Subverted. Kirito claims that he last saw him go down a cliff, but it turns out he survived.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind: "Cat", but still applies.
• The Don: He is the leader of the mob Keita indebted himself to. The men under his command explicitly refer to him as this.
• The Dreaded: Keita would rather kill himself than be in debt to him and his mob.
• Evil Counterpart: To his supposed Arch-Enemy Kirito; both were nobodies in the real world (Kirito being a lonely computer geek and Fluffles being a common housecat), who nevertheless managed rise up the ranks and become highly respected and feared public figures while being trapped in SAO, as well as causing the game's head programmer Kayaba a large amount of grief. The key difference between the two is that Kirito eventually grew to bond with his fellow players (especially Asuna), and ended his journey as The Hero of Aincrad; while Fluffles became The Don of the Aincrad mafia, and thrived on exploiting, backstabbing, and killing other players to achieve his goals.
• Evil Wears Black: Or in this case, evil has black fur.
• Face–Heel Turn: When first introduced, he was trying to clear out floors and help the other players out of the game. Somewhere down the line, he became the feared don of Aincrad's mafia.
• Fair-Weather Friend: He seems to align with whatever guild he finds more suitable, before betraying them and joining someone else.
• Faking the Dead: After his fight with Kirito, he apparently did this by throwing himself down a cliff. He then went on to join the Knights of the Blood Oath.
• Fluffy the Terrible: He's an ordinary looking cat (appropriately named "Fluffles") who also happens to be the leader of the mafia.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Fluffles is a literal house cat. And yet he is able to go toe-to-toe with Kirito and ran the in-game Mafia, before eventually throwing in with The King of Ashes.
• Funny Animal: While presumably a regular cat in the real world, SAO's system renders him as a human with a cat's head, and he behaves like a serious crime lord rather than a beast (besides speaking only in meows).
• Guilt by Association: The reason he targets Kirito after his actual debtor Keita commits suicide.
  Mafia spokesman: Kirito. As the sole survivor of the Midnight Black Cats, the debt naturally falls to you. The don sends his regards.
• Greater-Scope Villain: He causes Kirito almost as much trouble as Kayaba in Season 1, but his status as a Canon Foreigner means he's little more than a background presence throughout the series.
• Hazy-Feel Turn: In Episode 9, he seems to have left the mafia in favor of joining the Knights of the Blood Oath. Not only is that decision questionable especially after it's revealed that there are many sketchy people in their ranks, (including their own guildleader and at least one of his subordinates) but he betrays them anyway in favor of their enemy in the next chapter.
• Intelligible Unintelligible: Despite only communicating with meows, he can command his men, Kirito can probably understand him, and apparently so can The King of Ashes. Nobody holding the Sanity Ball can. Heathcliff wonders aloud if Kirito can understand cat or if he just messing with them.
• Karma Houdini: He doesn't get his comeuppance as far as we see, at least in Aincrad. Jury's out on whether or not he shows up in ALfheim.
• Lethal Joke Character: Fluffles is a cat. A cat who is playing SAO and survived the entire ordeal. He also happens to be one of the most dangerous players out there.
• Mean Boss: After three of his mobsters return having failed to retrieve his rare item, Fluffles hisses at them.
• Mirror Character: He's on par with Jeffrey as the leader of one of the main villainous player organizations in SAO. Both villains are also introduced in the same scene and have similar antagonistic yet cordial relationships with Kirito.
• The Mole: Implied to be one for his mafia while in The Knights of the Blood Oath.
• Noodle Incident: His offscreen encounters with Kirito.
  Kirito: You know, I still have that knife you put in me... I've been meaning to give it back.
• No One Could Survive That!: One of his fights with Kirito ended with Fluffles going off a cliff. He survives with a contingency Kirito hadn't thought of. Maybe.
• Obvious Judas: In-Universe. Heathcliff refers to his betrayal as "a perhaps unsurprising twist".
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: If Kirito's story is reliable, he somehow managed to stab him at one point and then survive falling off a cliff. Pretty impressive for a cat.
• Offscreen Villainy: Most of his atrocities are heard of from a third party, and he's never seen in action.
• Orcus on His Throne: When in the mafia, he sends his fellow mobsters to deal with other players for him while he schemes from a distance. It's downplayed since he's implied to have done his own dirty work, but those instances are never shown onscreen.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: All things considered, he does give Keita a chance to replace his rare item after he failed to duplicate it, even after he had sold it. He stops being so reasonable after Keita's death though, targeting Kirito instead.
• Sadist: If The King of Ashes isn't projecting, he apparently recommends boiling intruders in oil.
• Shout-Out: That isn't just any old cat's head photoshopped onto a human body, it's Amanojaku from Ghost Stories.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He has less than a minute of screentime, but he's responsible for the deaths of The Moonlit Black Cats, and his underlings occupied Floor 75 for most of Episode 10.
• The Stoic: He emotes as much as a particularly aloof cat.
• The Unintelligible: He's a cat, so he only communicates with meows and other cat noises.
• Villain of Another Story: This cat somehow went from a regular Assault Team member, to forming a mafia, to fighting The Hero and faking his death, to joining the KoB's senior council, to betraying them in favor of laying waste to Collina with "The King of Ashes". Despite this, he only appears onscreen for brief periods of time.
• Villain Respect: He "sends his regards" to Kirito before pulling a hit on him, and is later shown cordially "interacting" with him after becoming a senior council member.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: After the negotiations with Kayaba, he's not heard from again outside of a minor comment that he "thankfully" wasn't present on Floor 75 at the time of the boss raid.
• Worthy Opponent: Unless he was trolling everyone, Kirito sees him as this, which isn't uncalled for considering he's a Godlike Gamer.

Mafia Enforcer Spokesman

Come on, sir. Do you really think any of us would still be playing if we didn't have a gun to our heads? Ya gotta admit, this game is kind of a hot mess.

A mafia enforcer spokesman who somehow infiltrated himself in the ranks of the Knights of the Blood Oath. Kayaba made sure he didn't get away with his past crimes.

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• Adaptational Villainy: He originally wasn't a member of the mafia, but a normal Assault Team member.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Kirito (his attempted victim) angrily calls Kayaba out for murdering him just for mildly sassing him.
• Anti-Hero: He was a mafia member, but he did assist in the raid against the Skull Reaper, which could've killed him if the boss hadn't glitched out and died on its own.
• Asshole Victim: Kayaba justifies his murder of a player for making a point against him by saying he was in The Mafia. Considering he and his guild had previously tried to kill Kirito for being associated with a debtor, it's hard to argue with him.
  Kayaba: That guy was in the mafia, that's, like, a freebie.
• Back for the Dead: After appearing in Episode 3, he returns in Episode 11 for the final fight to escape SAO, only to be killed by Kayaba for talking back to him.
• Brutal Honesty: He criticizes both Sword Art as a game and Kayaba himself with no hairs on his tongue. He pays dearly for the latter.
• Deadpan Snarker: He's quite sassy when talking to Heathcliff, even before finding out he was actually Kayaba.
• Death by Adaptation: Kayaba doesn't kill him in the source material, since he wasn't so unstable and the enforcer kept his mouth shut.
• Enemy Mine: If he wasn't The Mole or a defector, he's probably this towards the Knights of the Blood Oath.
• Hazy-Feel Turn: It's unclear whether he defected from the mafia, if he was The Mole, or if the Mafia became an ally of convenience. Kayaba couldn't care less.
• Hope Spot: He survives the deadly encounter with the Skull Reaper, but is killed by Kayaba a few hours later. To add insult to injury, he's the last confirmed SAO player fatality.
• Innocently Insensitive: In Episode 11, he insults SAO's game design and calls the game itself "a hot mess", not knowing that the man he was talking to was the game's creator, who unbeknownst to him had spent three consecutive weeks trying to perfect the game.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: Though he gets away with persecuting Kirito for most of the season, he's killed by Kayaba late in Episode 11.
• The Mole: Implied to be this for the mafia while clearing floors with the Knights of the Blood Oath.
• Red Shirt: After a small appearance in Episode 3, he gets a little focus in Episode 11 before being shattered.
• Punch-Clock Villain: His brief rant at Heathcliff surrounding the game makes it clear that he wouldn't even be playing SAO if he wasn't trapped, implying that his actions are mostly for the sake of survival.
• Sound-Only Death: We only hear a sizzling sound followed by his screams of agony before he shatters.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He appears for less than a minute, but his death is implied to have motivated Kirito's decision to challenge Kayaba to a Duel to the Death and prevent any more unnecessary bloodshed.
• Too Dumb to Live: He really shouldn't have tried to argue with a clearly deranged Kayaba, who could literally end him with the push of a button.
• Villainous Valor: Despite his flaws, Kirito points out that he, alongside the other Assault Team members, had the courage to willingly sign up on the mission to defeat the Skull Reaper, despite the high chances of dying.
• Villain Has a Point:
  • When Kayaba accuses him and the other players of bringing their own deaths upon themselves with their stupidity, he correctly points out that Kayaba is just as responsible for trapping them in the game in the first place.
  • Earlier, he was also not wrong to say that SAO's game design was incredibly messy. Even Kirito (who loves the game) comes to agree with him on that.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: He survived two years trapped inside the buggy death dungeon that was SAO, only to be killed by Kayaba for a petty reason two minutes before Kirito freed all the other players.

Titan's Hand

General

Kirito: "HA! Titan’s Hand? Wow, I thought you were someone dangerous, like Laughing Coffin! I’ve never even heard of you!"

One of the most feared orange guilds on the lower floors.

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• Big Bad Wannabe: They all talk big game, but they're nothing but incompetent bullies who so desperately want to be like Laughing Coffin.
• The Dreaded: To Silica, anyway. Then again, she thinks slimes are terrifying too, so...
• Evil vs. Evil: They try to kill Kirito, who at that point was at his absolute worst in terms of moral compass. He wins.
• Overly Narrow Superlative: They really are the most feared orange guilds on the lower floors, meaning that the only people they can frighten are kids like Silica.
• Player Killing: The first onscreen guild which actively tries to kill other players.
• Shadow Archetype: To Laughing Coffin, another murderous guild who, while still imprefect, would prove to be far more effective in their crimes than them, even though they're still outsmarted by Kirito.
• Starter Villain: They're the first player threats to Kirito before Laughing Coffin, Kuradeel and Kayaba enter the picture. They're also the most ineffective.
• Would Hurt a Child: They try to kill the underage Kirito, and it's implied they would've killed or hurt Silica as well.

Rosalia

"And to top it all off you play the tough guy, this invincible warrior you can never hope to be in the real world. Getting stuck in this game was probably the best thing to ever happen to you."

Voiced by: Alexandra "puccagarukiss" Curtis

The leader of Titan's Hand and the antagonist of Episode 4. Stupider than she looks. She prides herself in her ability to manipulate and accurately psychologically diagnose others. Silica decides to quit her guild when she tries to convince her to hand over Pina, her pet dragon, to skin her for leather pants, and she later gets into a confrontation with Kirito that ends badly for her.

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• Adaptational Badass: When facing Kirito, she doesn't last a second longer than her canon counterpart, but she dies throwing the last jab at his character instead of letting him have the last word, and it has long term emotional damage on Kirito.
• Adaptational Dumbass: She was already an overconfident Smug Snake in the original anime for underestimating Kirito's abilities, but this version of Rosalia takes it to another degree by continuing to taunt an obviously deranged and bloodthirsty Kirito even after he's proven himself to be immune to her men's weaponry.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: A mild example; While she's still part of an orange guild, she doesn't go out of her way to express her Lack of Empathy in this version, instead spending most of her screen time giving a surprisingly accurate "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Kirito. She's also not as much Dirty Coward in this version (instead having the opposite problem) and she takes her death at the hands of Kirito with complete acceptance.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Even though she was a petty pet skinner and an attempted murderer by proxy, her death at Kirito's hands shocks Silica so much that she completely cuts ties with him after their mission is over.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Her Break Them by Talking strategy seems solid on paper, and it sure takes its toll on Kirito. The problem is that the plan completely relies on her men being able to defeat the target after she's done poking at the armor. When Kirito turns out to be a bit too strong for them, the tables are turned rather quickly.
• Bad People Abuse Animals: Her Establishing Character Moment consists of her wanting to skin Pina, a cute little pet dragon belonging to Silica, to use her skin to make leather pants.
• Big Bad: Of Episode 4. While she's not a threat to Kirito, she tries to steal the Pneuma flower and kickstarts the events of the episode by driving Silica away from her guild, causing Pina's death.
• Big Bad Wannabe: She so desperately wants to be the leader of a respected player-killing guild like Laughing Coffin, but as Kirito puts it, she's little more than a psych-student in her first year who can only scare players who think slimes are terrifying.
• Break Them by Talking: Her default tactic when dealing with players who are more skilled than her is to repeatedly poke at their self-esteem and reduce them to gibbering wrecks with her manipulation skills, before leaving them to be picked apart by her men.
• Bullying a Dragon: She orders her minions to attack Kirito even after one of said minions explains why Kirito might be a lot more dangerous than he looks. Then he proves it by being unfazed by their attacks, and she continues to taunt and antagonize him, provoking him to slit her throat and kill her.
• Death by Adaptation: Her canon counterpart just gets sent to prison with the rest of her guild. Her abridged self? Gets her neck cut open for pressing all three of Kirito's Berserk Buttons.
• Defiant to the End: As she is killed by Kirito, she proceeds to make one final remark to spite him, which evidently really gets to him. See "Facing the Bullets" One-Liner.
• Dirty Coward: Not as pronounced as in the original show, but she does have her men take on Kirito while she idly waits instead of participating in the charge, despite believing him to be an easy target.
• Distaff Counterpart: She's as eloquent, overconfident, and self-absorbed as Kirito, but they have a contrasting skill set: Rosalia is much more smooth, perceptive, and eloquent than him, and her speech is much more refined to boot, but completely relies on her men to fight her battles for her. Kirito, on the other hand, is a much better fighter (in SAO at least), and insists on accomplishing things by himself, but his insults are much more shallow and superficial, and much more akin to common bullying than Rosalia's psychological analyses. Fittingly, Kirito technically won the battle against her, but she obliterated him during their Snark-to-Snark Combat.
• Dying Curse: Delivers a brutal one to Kirito after he stabs her:
  Rosalia: Enjoy this while you can. It's the deepest you'll ever be in a woman [shatters].
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Doesn't understand why Silica might be upset at the prospect of skinning and wearing her pet.
• Evil Redhead: She has a blood-red head and she's the leader of a murderous guild.
• Evil Is Petty: Not only does she try to skin Silica's pet to make herself some pants, but she later tries to steal the pneuma flower from her to stop Silica from reviving her, with the implication that she wanted to revive Pina herself to turn into leather immediately.
• "Facing the Bullets" One-Liner: "Enjoy this while you can. It's the deepest you'll ever be in a woman."
• Failed Attempt at Drama: Her villainous entrance gets ruined when Kirito notices her player name poking out at both sides of the tree she was hiding behind. Happens again when her entire "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Kirito gets cut short by him slicing her throat with little fanfare (although she does get the last laugh on that one).
• Faux Affably Evil: She acts rather cordial with Silica and Kirito during their first encounter, all the while intentionally needling him and poking at his weak spots. Kirito tries this with her during said meeting, but quickly gives it up.
  Kirito: Rosalia! Oh my god! How are yo- oh wow, that’s enough of that. Jesus, how do you keep that act up all day?
• Foil: To Silica, a former member of her guild. Silica is an excitable child who treasures her pet dragon and who naively trusts Kirito (at least at first) despite his abrasive demeanor. Rosalia, on the other hand, is a Soft-Spoken Sadist who only sees the dragon as a source for leather pants, and who immediately sees Kirito as the Empty Shell that he is. Both of them also allow her fellow men to fight off their enemies, though Silica does it out of necessity due to being an inexperienced little girl, while Rosalia forces her men to do her dirty work for her.
• Fun with Subtitles: She's introduced in the subtitles as "Pet Skinner".
• Genius Ditz: She seems to be very good at psychological analyses, not so good at strategizing or planning ahead. Unfortunately for her, this isn't enough to survive in Aincrad.
• Hiding Behind Your Bangs: The scheming version. Her hair covers her right eye.
• Hypocrite: She taunts Kirito by implying that The Hill of Memories is over his level. In the third act of the episode, she ambushes an overpowered Kirito alongside her men, even though his stats are far bigger than hers and her men's combined. This lack of self-awareness gets her killed.
• Interface Spoiler: In-Universe. Her attempt to ambush Kirito is foiled because he can see her nametag hovering over her head, poking around the sides of the tree she's behind.
• I Shall Taunt You: She goads Kirito into helping Silica by insinuating he's underleveled. Kirito falls for it. Then, when they have the pneuma Flower, she tries it again to throw Kirito off his game. It... ends badly.
• Jerkass: On top of being a sadistic thief and attempted murderer, she also takes great delight in taunting Silica and Kirito, and is implied to have kept the former around just to bully her (and for her leather-skinned pet).
• Joke and Receive: She attempts to insult Kirito by suggesting that Silica finally found a party member closer to her level, but as the end of Episode 4 shows, that's more true than Rosalia could have known.
• Karmic Death: She gets killed by Kirito after she sends her men to kill him.
• Kick the Dog: She's introduced trying to convince Silica to hand Pina over so they can skin her and make dragon leather pants.
• Lesser of Two Evils: At the end of episode 4, Silica calls Kirito "the worst person I've ever met", implying she regards him as a worse person than Rosalia, since he killed her, since he had sadistically killed her despite her having no feasible way to defeat him.
• Manipulative Bitch: She gets Kirito to accompany Silica on her quest for the Pneuma Flower by insulting his Pride, then ambushes the pair to steal the item for herself.
• Ms. Fanservice: Her teammates were very much looking forward to seeing her in leather pants.
• Mugging the Monster: She grossly underestimated Kirito, thinking he was all talk and that her Breaking Speech managed to take even that away. Then Kirito shrugged off all her minions' attacks and casually killed her. She also underestimated Silica, who turned out to be powerful enough to make even Kirito terrified of her rampage.
• Pet the Dog: A small example. While she tries to skin Silica's pet to make herself some leather pants, she offers to make a pair for Silica too. However, it's implied she only said this to get Silica to hand over the dragon, which she refused to.
• Shadow Archetype: To Suguha, Krito's Little Sister Bully who makes her debut in Episode 12. They're two of the few people who can bring out the worst in Kirito by poking at his insecurities, and eventually left him without a comeback. However, Kirito killed Rosalia at the end of her rant, and her effects on him were shown posthumously; while Suguha's Motive Rant in Episode 17 actually got through to him, and caused him to reflect on his choices.
• Slashed Throat: How Kirito offs her in this adaptation.
• Small Role, Big Impact: As much as Kirito doesn't want to admit it, her "First-year Psyche-School bullshit" was an accurate assessment of Kirito's pre-Character Development.
  Rosalia: And to top it all off, you play the tough guy; this invincible warrior you could never hope to be in the real world. Getting stuck in this game was probably the best thing to ever happen to you.
• Smug Snake: She thought Kirito was all bark and no bite when that definition only applied to her and her low-level guild.
• Surprisingly Sudden Death: As she's getting ready to throw another barrage of insults at Kirito, the boy dashes forward like a flash and slices her throat. Despite the sudden shock, Rosalia still manages to throw in a Dying Curse.
• Too Dumb to Live: It really wasn't a good idea to taunt an already unhinged Kirito by intentionally pressing all his Berserk Buttons all at once. What's worse, she continues insulting him even after he no sells all her guild's strikes.
• Villain Has a Point: Her "first-year-psych-student bullshit" turns out to be quite the accurate character deconstruction for Kirito, and the latter can't help but remember it when reflecting on his Heel–Face Turn in the finale. She was eventually proven wrong about the "the deepest you’ll ever be in a woman" part, though.
  Kirito: [as he finishes having sex with Asuna] AH, SUCK IT ROSALIA!
• Virgin-Shaming: Rosalia's dying words after Kirito stabs her is "It's the deepest you'll ever be in a woman." This gets under Kirito's skin because he's unable to come up with a snappy comeback.

Rosalia's Minions

"Uh, boss? A thought occurs. This guy thought he was going up against Laughing Coffin, but he still just brought himself and a small child. We sure we wanna mess with this guy?"

The thugs working for Rosalia. They prove to be far more competent than their boss when they show hesitation in attacking Kirito.

---

• All Men Are Perverts: One of them is not subtle about his opinion on Rosalia's plan about crafting leather pants out of Pina's skin.
  Minion: Come on, Silica! Leather paaants!
• Break Them by Talking: Ironically, despite this being their leader's preferred strategy, it's their target Kirito who breaks them via Implied Death Threats. One of them even is even driven to tears.
• Broken Tears: One of them is driven to tears after Kirito is done giving his A God Am I monologue.
• Conservation of Competence: Rosalia's mooks start getting worried when they realize Kirito initially thought they were in Laughing Coffin, and still only brought himself and Silica. Rosalia dismisses their concerns, much to her detriment.
• Dual Wielding: One of them used twin axes in the "fight" against Kirito. This becomes a plot point later on.
• Mook Horror Show: One of them starts crying when Kirito reveals his character level and how utterly screwed they all are.
• Mugging the Monster: To their credit, Rosalia pushed them into it.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: The guy who dual-wielded axes ended up causing Kirito to unlock the Dual Wielding skill after being attacked by him, which saved the ALF's lives when Kirito finally listened to his conscience.
• Only Sane Man: One of them points out that Kirito thought they were the Laughing Coffin and still only brought himself and a girl for backup. He was right to be afraid.
• Properly Paranoid: Rosalia really should've listened to the guy who warned her that it wasn't a good idea to mess with a guy who brought himself and a little girl to what he thought was a fight with Laughing Coffin.
• Punch! Punch! Punch! Uh Oh...: Or rather "Slice! Slice! Slice! Un Oh.." when a bloodthirsty Kirito No-Sells their attacks
• Small Role, Big Impact: Kirito attributes his dual-wielding skill to when he saw one of Rosalia's mooks using such an ability.
• Smug Snake: They snicker when they think they've caught Kirito and Silica off guard. The former is quick to reduce them to tears with just words.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: While Kirito states that he's "fresh out of mercy" after dealing with them, the only one he kills onscreen is Rosalia after she foolishly decides to taunt him again, so it's not clear if he disposed of the others as well or if he let them go after having scared the pants off of them. Later in the episode, Silica says "you did just kill someone", implying Rosalia was his only victim.

Laughing Coffin

General

"Boss won’t get off your back? Girlfriend won’t stop nagging you? Did that fuckstick Tiffany sell you a bullshit dagger that broke almost immediately, despite the fact you spent half your goddamn col on it? Have you considered… murder?"

A deranged group of PKers-for-hire feared throughout SAO, though they're having trouble attracting clients due to a branding problem.

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• Adaptational Dumbass: Even ignoring Jeffrey's visions of an evil Jesus, these guys are far more stupid than their original counterparts, and they also doom themselves by making their address public as a "business strategy".
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Apart from the playful banter they have during their Establishing Character Moment, this adaptation of Laughing Coffin willingly hand their prey over to Kirito as payment for his business advice instead of leaving out of cowardice like in SAO proper.
• Adaptational Wimp: They're depicted as a lot more incompetent, being easily manipulated by Kirito into letting targets go.
• Affably Evil: If one thing can be said about them, is that they're never rude to other players. They even make an ad campaign for their job!
• Calling Card: The "Bible-quoting serial killer" theme. But because of Jeffery's Cloud Cuckoolander tendencies, people don't seem to take them as seriously as they should because of it.
• The Dreaded: A gang of high-level player killers who terrify pretty much anyone who isn't Kirito.
• Even Evil Has Standards: They have no problems at all with paralyzing and murdering players, but even they don't approve of "that fuckstick Tiffany's" cons, if their ad campaign is anything to go by, right down to giving Tiffany devil horns and viciously flipping him off.
• Greed: Save for Jeffrey, this is their main motivation. Thanks to Kirito, this becomes their downfall when they reveal their location via an ad campaign.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Their Greed comes back to bite them in the ass when the army use their own ad campaign to track them.
• In the Hood: All of the Laughing Coffin members wear cloaks.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: While they fail to kill the Golden Apple members, they get off scot-free in Episode 6 after their encounter with Kirito. That is until Episode 9 where we hear they had been jailed / Killed Offscreen by the Knights of the Blood Oath.
• Laughably Evil: While they're still genuinely dangerous and intimidating, due to the series' nature, their scenes are usually a riot to watch.
• Malevolent Masked Men: Both Johnny Black and Red-Eyes XaXa have masks in addition to their hoods.
• Psycho for Hire: They try to be this, but Jeffrey's outlandish motif drives most of their clientele away.
• Tracking Device: A self-inflicted one: As a marketing strategy, they sent an email with their exact location to every player in the game.
• Too Dumb to Live: No seriously, they just told everyone where their guild of assassins was located. Even more foolishly, they came up with this idea themselves.
• Uncertain Doom: In Episode 9, Kirito mentions that most of them had been jailed, but Kuradeel later says that the former's advice got them "a blade through their hearts", implying at least one was killed during the raid.
• Villain Respect: They hand over their prey to Kirito after the latter teaches them how to Do Wrong, Right.
  Jeffrey: You’ve given us much to think about, young man. As payment, the lives of these sinners are now yours to command.

Jeffrey

"Oh my god! You guys can see it too?! So I’m not crazy! Isn’t that great, Jesus?!"

^{Click here to see his imaginary Jesus}"That’s right, Jeffrey. Now, kill them all".

Voiced by: Stuart "LordMegatronG1" Hutson

Laughing Coffin's religiously fanatical leader and one of Aincrad's most dangerous assassins. He's better at some parts of his job than others. He hallucinates a vision of Jesus Christ who instructs him to kill people, leading him to create Laughing Coffin.

---

• Adaptational Early Appearance: In the original version, the leader of Laughing Coffin didn't appear until Episode 6, whereas here he appears as an ordinary player in Episode 2.
• Adaptational Sympathy: The canon PoH had no known mental conditions and was just pure evil by choice. This version is depicted as having schizophrenia that compelled him to become a killer.
• Adaptational Wimp: In canon, PoH had immense charisma in rallying all of the Player Killers into a single guild and was a Professional Killer in real life which made him a contender for World's Best Warrior. This guy by comparison is depicted as a poor sap who succumbed to his psychosis induced hallucinations and formed a poorly thought out Murder, Inc. that Kirito easily toys around with.
• Adaptation Name Change: In the original, the leader of Laughing Coffin's real name is Vassago Casals rather than Jeffrey, and his username was "PoH", which stands for "Prince of Hell". It's unknown what his username is in this version.
• Affably Evil:
  • Outside his killer persona, he's tolerant with Johnny Black's outburst, but he is comfortable using his normal voice with him. He's polite and cordial towards Kirito; and when Kirito gives some seemingly helpful advice, Jeffery does spare the lives of the sinners, offering them as slaves to Kirito.
  • Same applies to his imaginary Jesus, who tells him to kill people with a gleeful tone and two-finger guns.
• As the Good Book Says...: Likes to quote scripture as part of his persona. Unfortunately he likes to pick verses completely randomly, regardless of the context actually fits and apparently doesn't even know what is in the Bible in the first place, given his reaction to Johnny Black.
• Ax-Crazy: He doesn't think so, but his constant visions of a genocidal Jesus say otherwise. The fact that he obeys said vision's every command doesn't help matters.
• Baritone of Strength: Whenever he's in his killer persona, his voice is much deeper and menacing.
• Benevolent Boss: When Johnny Black lets out a sigh at his introduction, Jeffrey quickly drops the act to ask him what's wrong. Despite eventually throwing a fit and reasserting his position, he still calmly listens to his subordinate's complaints, even letting him suggest a new verse to replace the one he didn't like.
• Call-Forward: Evil Jesus inspires him in Episode 2 to create Laughing Coffin.
• Cloud Cuckoolander: As dangerous as he is, his cheerful "Jesus tells me what to do" dialogue makes him less scary to anyone who meets him in person.
• Composite Character: The Abridged Series combines the leader of Laughing Coffin with one of the random nameless Assault Team members seen in Episode 2.
• Creepy Monotone: What he tries to accomplish with his bible quotes, though Johnny Black thinks it needs some workshopping.
• Evil Sounds Deep: His deeper voice is rather gravelly, but inverted when using his normal voice, which has a higher pitch.
• Expy: To Heath Ledger's Joker, whom Jeffrey sounds remarkably similar to when using his killer voice, and it gets more apparent when he converses with "Detective Kirito" trying to gruff his voice like Batman.
• Failed Attempt at Drama: His introductory scene completely ruins Johnny Black's nightmarish vibe.
• Freudian Excuse: He's schizophrenic and trapped in a glitch-infested Deadly Game where the only medical help available is an equally insane psychiatrist AI (who either was locked away during his Sanity Slippage or simply refused to help him). A month in, and he's already seeing visions of a genocidal Jesus who commands him to kill everyone in his path.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Was an ordinary player with an imaginary Jesus in Episode 2, but quickly formed the most feared player killing guild that even Kirito admits was really dangerous, and even looks far more imposing in Episode 6.
• Funny Schizophrenia: His schizophrenia and visions of Jesus are mostly Played for Laughs due to how exaggerated they are.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Gotten a scar on his face in Episode 6.
• Hearing Voices: An imaginary Jesus is ordering him around, as seen in episode two.
• Hidden Depths: To Johnny's delight, his last quote (Ephesians 2:8) was actually quite effective and fitting for the situation, showing he's not as hopeless as a Holy Hitman after all.
• Holy Hitman: Tries to be one, with mixed results.
• Jesus Was Crazy: The Jesus in his head is a gleeful genocide who encourages Jeffrey to kill as many people as he can.
• Knight Templar: Every murder he does, is in the name of (a hallucination of) Jesus, referring to his victims as sinners.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: His whole gimmick revolves around being a soft-spoken "Holy Hitman", but he hasn't actually read the bible.
• The Leader: He founded Laughing Coffin, and calmly asserts his authority as guild leader over Johnny Black in regards to whose religious verse is better, and Johnny Black refers to him as "Boss" at first.
• Nightmare Retardant: In-Universe, this is everyone's reaction to his introductory verse.
  Jeffrey: And Samson said, “With an ass’s jawbone, I have made asses of them. With an ass’s jawbone, I have killed a thousand men.”
• Psychopathic Manchild: He's a murderous lunatic, but he throws a hissy fit over his men not liking his Holy Hitman act.
• Religious Bruiser: His introductory scene in Episode 5 shows him wielding a cleaver while he unironically quotes Samson 15:16.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: For a little bit he was convinced that he was crazy because one of the other players appeared to be a cat. He's very relieved to tell his giant homicidal hallucination of Jesus that the cat player was real, so he's not crazy.
• Silly Prayer: Treats his imaginary Jesus like a friend, even attributing his verses to him.
• Shout-Out: His beloved imaginary Jesus is Buddy Jesus from the film Dogma.
• Soft-Spoken Sadist: As the leader of Laughing Coffin, he speaks with a cold baritone to contrast Johnny's Evil Is Hammy persona and XaXa's The Quiet One.
• Start of Darkness: He already had a few screws loose, but after the fight with Illfang, Jeffrey gets convinced that he's not delusional when Fluffles the cat player was revealed to be Real After All, disrupting his sense of reality and causing him to trust all the voices in his head unconditionally.
• Token Religious Teammate: A variation. Nobody in his team believes his Jesus shtick is real, and think he's simply making it up. The original version of the script also confirmed Johnny Black as an atheist.

Johnny Black

"Aw, this is great! I’m a huge fan! Tell me, do you remember a user by the name of... Johnny Black?"

Voiced by: Cole "Sonicring123Dubs" Petty

Jeffrey's long-suffering lieutenant, and not at all a fan of Piece of Schmitt Games.

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• Affably Evil: When out of the job, he's rather cordial with other players. Fittingly, he's the one to voice their business commercial.
• Arch-Enemy: He seems to be one for Schmitt, whom he wants to kill for panning a game he liked in his review show.
• Ax-Crazy: He's the one who left the "meat toboggan" threat on Schmitt's channel, and sounded very eager to make good on it upon recognizing him.
• Blade Enthusiast: His poisoned daggers are his weapons of choice. He likes them enough that it's possible he may have been conned by Tiffany into spending half his col on a bullshit dagger that broke almost immediately.
• Blood Knight: He kills people for fun and profit.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Unlike Jeffrey, he knows what he's doing is evil but doesn't care, and is only in the murdering business for the thrill of the hunt and the money it gets him. He even makes a commercial about it!
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: Of all the people to be this, it's the cloth sack over their head-wearing player who is most definitely not sane in any sense of the word in the original material. He's this to Jeffrey.
• Co-Dragons: To Jeffrey alongside XaXa.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: Even Kirito, king of the Internet Jerks is impressed by his "meat toboggan" threat:
  Kirito: You hear that, Asuna? "Meat toboggan." Yeah, try getting that one out of your head. Gripping his entrails like the reins of Santa's sleigh, streaking through the fresh morning snow on a trail of bile and gore, as his eyes beg the same question as the horrified children in his wake: "Why?"
• Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: His response to one of Schmitt's less positive reviews was threatening to "chop off [his] limbs, rip out [his] intestines, and ride [him] like some sort of meat toboggan." He seemed pretty serious about it too once in the game.
• Disproportionate Retribution: He threatens to disembowel Schmitt for giving a bad rating on a game Johnny liked.
• The Dreaded: Schmitt is in constant fear of him appearing to make good on his death threats, and when he actually encounters him, he can barely speak out of shock. Unfortunately for Johnny, Jeffrey pops up and ruins it with his Failed Attempt at Drama.
• Do Wrong, Right: He briefly stops his sinister persona to lecture Jeffrey on the proper use of creepy bible verses.
• Evil Is Hammy: He acts like an excitable child when he paralyzes Schmitt. This is all part of his persona though; the real Johnny is actually much more self-conscious.
  Johnny: One down!
• Evil Laugh: Lets out one when he finally catches his prey.
• The Faceless: Wears a cloth sack over his face, and his hood obscures his eye-holes.
• Faux Affably Evil: He's notably upbeat with Schmitt when he meets him, acting like a Loony Fan of his show, before he reveals his identity as the "meat toboggan" guy.
• Flipping the Bird: Display's one in his ad campaign towards Tiffany.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: As it turns out, he used to be an active hater of Piece of Schmitt games before becoming a member of Laughing Coffin.
• Greed: Jeffrey seems more interested in following the Lord, while Johnny seems far more eager to sell out for a big profit, as well as the fun of it.
• Hidden Depths: Despite being confirmed as an atheist in an early version of the script, he seems to be more knowledgeable about religion compared to Jeffrey, having read the Bible, and gets irritated with Jeffrey's mishandled quotes.
  Johnny: Have... you actually ever read the Bible?
• Internet Jerk: Before Aincrad, he was just a mentally unstable nethead who left mean comments on Schmitt's show.
• It's Personal: He's mostly motivated by Greed, but Schmitt from ''Piece of Schmitt Games'' is number one on his hit list.
• Lack of Empathy: He's very casual when talking about his job as a Psycho for Hire, and instructs his leader on the correct way to instill fear in his victims.
• Master Poisoner: Just like in the original, he uses poisoned daggers to paralyze players.
• Number Two: To Jeffery, he has a fair bit of autonomy with the Laughing Coffin ad campaign, always trying to promote their guild, and is relatively rational compared to Jeffrey.
• Pet the Dog: He takes the time to congratulate Jeffrey on the verses he finds appropriate, such as when he quotes Ephesians 2:8 as a send-off to Kirito. He also allows Schmitt to go unharmed after his boss hands him out to Kirito as a slave, despite his hatred for him.
• Psycho for Hire: While he doesn't like doing low-paying jobs, he agrees to kill three people for Grimlock in exchange of a measly 50 bucks (presumably to divide between the three members), presumably due to his hatred for Schmitt.
• Sadist: He toys with Schmitt before trying to kill him, and seems to take great pleasure in tormenting him.
• Villain Respect: Admits that Kirito's idea for his guild's trajectory gave him chills, and willingly hands Schmitt up to him as payment.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Doesn't verbally say it, but it is his usual reaction towards Jeffery's verses and even Kirito's intrusion.

Red-Eyed XaXa

One of Laughing Coffin's highest-ranking members.

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• Ambiguous Situation: Whether he's delusional like Jeffrey or Only in It for the Money like Johnny is unclear, though he seems to take some enjoyment in his work.
• Co-Dragons: To Jeffrey alongside Johnny Black. He's much more obedient than the latter, though.
• Extreme Doormat: Unlike Johnny, he doesn't question Jeffrey's amateurish Holy Hitman act, and leaves Schmitt alone with no fanfare once Kirito changes the others' minds.
• The Faceless: His skeletal mask hides most of his face.
• Malevolent Masked Man: His skull mask and hood only highlight his creepiness.
• Master Swordsman: Talented with a sword. He uses it to threaten Yolko and Kains while his partners deal with Schmitt, but is unable to do anything else with it before Kirito pops up and ruins the party. After being led away, he makes a show out of folding it seemingly to compensate.
• No Name Given: Unlike Johnny and Jeffrey, XaXa only has his canon name to go by.
• The Quiet One: Out of the three highest-ranked members of Laughing Coffin, he's the only one who doesn't speak at all, and doesn't even voice his opinion on Jeffrey's choice of verse during the latter's argument with Johnny.
• Red Baron: "Red-Eyed" XaXa.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: As befitting his username; His mask is adorned with glowing red eyepieces.
• Sadist: His evil smile as Jeffrey is looming towards Schmitt with nefarious intent suggests this.
• Skull for a Head: Well, "skull for a mask".
• Slasher Smile: One of the few expressions he has, shown when Jeffrey makes his dramatic entrance.
• The Voiceless: Doesn't make a single sound and seems to let Jeffrey and Johnny do all the threatening.

Other Antagonists

"The King of Ashes"

Voiced By: Spencer "BuddyVA" Downs

A player who, upon being disappointed by the Curb-Stomp Battle of Heathcliff vs Kirito, led a riot which burned down Floor 75 and set himself up as the ruler of the tribal society that was established after him and his acolytes ran out of things to burn down. He strikes a friendship with Don Fluffles and the two of them rule Floor 75 as a dictator, forcing Heathcliff to send Kirito and Asuna on a couples retreat for fear of them ruining the peace talks.

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• Ax-Crazy: Most of his dialogue is barely coherent violent screaming.
• Big Bad Wannabe: He wants to be the most feared threat, but Kirito is too busy dealing with bigger problems to give a crap about him.
• Blood Knight: His entire reason for rioting was being let down by an anticlimactic fight.
  King: WE PAID FOR BLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD!
• The Cameo: In Episode 12, the King of Ashes is seen leaving a threatening tweet on Kirito's twitter, Kirito doesn't seem to care.
• Canon Foreigner: There are no characters who went by "King of Ashes" in the canon series.
• Disproportionate Retribution: He leads a riot in Floor 75 because of the gladiatorial combat he was so eager to see ended anti-climatically. The worst part? He had been offered a full refund.
• The Dreaded: For everyone who isn't Kirito.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Subverted. Fluffles suggests doing something involving boiling oil, which earns a surprised response but it turns out he loves it.
• Eviler than Thou: He's so insane that Kayaba of all people had to intervene to stop him from massacring the other players.
• Evil Counterpart: To Asuna; though they're on opposing teams of the SAO civil war, they're both Ax-Crazy players who have an obsession with Kirito (motivated by love for Asuna and wrath for King) and burnt down an Aincrad Location (Lizbeth's Smith Shop for Asuna and Collinia for King) due to an emotional reaction to an event he was a part of. By ALO, Asuna has effectively become him when she goes on multiple psychotic rampages against Sugou's guards.
• Evil Is Hammy: Especially when rallying his people to action.
• Evil Laugh: Lets out an incredibly hammy one once he orders his men to bring out boiling oil to torture his prisoners.
• Foil: To his companion Fluffles. Both are Canon Foreigners who started off as normal players only to become leaders for sketchy organizations in SAO. The main difference between them is their demeanor: "The King of Ashes" is a loud-mouthed psychopath who screams all his dialogue, while Fluffles is mostly Intelligible Unintelligible. Furthermore, The King of Ashes is a deliberately ominous screenname to highlight his evilness, while "Fluffles" is an ironic name for someone seen as The Dreaded.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: Starts off as a particularly unhinged member of an angry mob, before rising in the ranks and becoming the "monarch" of his small society of psychopaths.
• The Ghost: Other than his Twitter avatar (which his just the Burger King mascot), he has yet to make an appearance onscreen.
• Greed: Subverted. The Knights of the Blood Oath offer him and the rest of the crowd a full refund after the fight they were watching ends anti-climatically, but he throws a fit anyway, since he only cared about seeing two high-ranking players maim each other and he was left down.
• Hidden Depths: Assuming it wasn't just an excuse to get Asuna in a thong, apparently he and some others were planning on putting together a charity calendar for cancer research. Also a fan of Pictionary.
• Internet Jerk: What he seems to have become after leaving Aincrad, sending Kirito death threats on Twitter after tracking down his page. He was already a fan of doing this in SAO if Kirito's messages in Episode 11 are any indication.
• Karma Houdini: Episode 12 reveals he's still alive and plotting to kill Kirito, meaning he got away with all the Rape, Pillage, and Burn he committed on Aincrad.
• Mirror Character: To Kibaou. They were both ordinary but irritable players with a particular hatred for Kirito who somehow rose in the ranks and became Player Killing tyrants, causing a lot of trouble for the Knights of the Blood Oath and the Aincrad Liberation Front respectively.
• Misplaced Retribution: The outcome of Kirito and Kayaba's fight was decided by the combatants, not the announcers. The King of Ashes targets the latter duo anyway.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Kirito snarks at the ominous nickname.
• No Indoor Voice: He screams all his dialogue. Makes you wonder how peace talks were even possible with this guy. This extends to text as well, as everything except the hashtags is capslocked.
• Rape, Pillage, and Burn: What's implied to have gone down in Collinia between Episodes 9 and 10.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After Kirito pisses him off, he breaks the truce with Heathcliff and has Kirito hunted down. He's still searching for him during Season 2, though his biggest action is just a few Twitter threats.
• Sadist: He's not subtle about his love for Fluffles' idea of boiling two intruders alive in oil.
• Villain Team-Up: He and Fluffles take over Floor 75 following Episode 10.
• The Voice: He is only ever heard from afar.

Introduced in Season 2

RECT Progress and Ubisoft

General

The developer and publisher, respectively, of ALfheim Online and main enemy faction of Season 2. RECT, run by Asuna's father Shouzou, purchased the Sword Art Online servers to build their own title using the source code. They are partnered with Ubisoft, who is providing uPlay to run the game via RECT's Amusphere device, despite the VR industry as a whole being dead since the SAO disaster. Noboyuki Sugou hopes to use the game to experiment on the SAO survivors for his own purposes.

---

• Artist Disillusionment: In-Universe example. If the back of the box of ALO is any indication, at least one of the game's developers disowns it completely.
  Get ready for a world of Learn-venture™ as you make your way through nine amazing biomes like forest, desert, cave, another forest, and circus!
  Alright, sir. That's about the most positive write-up I can think of for back-of-box stuff. Considering the game has been the biggest soul-sucking shitshow of my career, I think this sells it pretty well!
  But at least it's all over now. I can finally get back home and sleep in my own bed again! A bed that is now empty because DEBRA LEFT ME! SHE TOOK THE KIDS, MAN!
  But what the fuck ever. Can you just look this over and get back to me with any changes/corrections ASAP? I just wanna wash my hands of this weeping anal fissure of a "game".
• Ambiguously Evil:
  • Is Ubisoft involved with RECT's human experimentation? uPlay is stated to be the extent of their involvement with RECT but considering the state of VR after the SAO Disaster, RECT had to offer them something to get Ubisoft to enter a dying industry.
  • It isn't clear if the rest of the company is in on Oberon's plan to uplift himself with the Charisma skill and rise to political power. While Oberon has some of RECT's employees helping him, there's no indication that either Asuna's total asshole of a father or even Ubisoft is aware of anything being amiss.
• Adapted Out: In the actual Sword Art Online series, RECT Progress is just a subsidiary of the more diversified RECT Inc. RECT Progress seems to be their own company and only focuses on game development in the Abridged universe, to the point where they aren't even the game's publisher.
• Amoral Attorney: Averted. Shouzou's lawyers are so far the only employees we hear about who actually try to keep their boss from doing horrible things (namely, killing his daughter by taking her off life support simply because it costs money).
• Back from the Brink: After Kayaba "deep-sixed" the VR industry, there was no future with VR Gaming until ALO came into being. They even somehow roped a major AAA company like Ubisoft to contribute to its development, entering an industry that was all but dead like the dodo. It implies RECT (if not both companies) are trying to invoke this in order to rebuild VR's reputation and dominate the industry after everyone else abandoned ship.
• Big Brother Is Watching: A Freeze-Frame Bonus in Episode 15 shows Shoji and Kyle looking down on the players while the sky was glitching. Sugou also claims to have been tracking Kirito's account since he logged in.
• The Chew Toy: Every employee assigned to guard Asuna has been cannibalized by her at least once, to the point of quitting their job over it.
• Evil, Inc.: Whereas Bethesda and Argus caused thousands of deaths through incompetence and hubris, RECT Progress is engaging in actively malicious human experimentation with the comatose SAO survivors, trapping them in terminals to induce fear and other emotions, and helping a sexual predator in their ranks imprison a young woman and brainwash her into becoming his housewife.
• The Ghost:
  • Ubisoft is only mentioned to be providing uPlay to run ALO.
  • Save for Shoji and Kyle, none of Sugou's RECT Progress workers (like Trisha and Sean) are seen onscreen, although they're heard of from external sources.
• Incompetence, Inc.: While not to the degree of Bethesda and Argus, and their evil side is more focused on, they don't seem to be very competent at game design, and unlike Argus, they weren't Christmas rushed (and didn't even have to start from scratch due to buying SAO and its servers), and most of the issues come from bad design choices rather than bugs.
  • They included advanced aerial combat and the ability to have sex in a game targetted at children so young that they may not know how to spell their own name and consider "What's 2+2?" to be a difficult math problem.
  • The back of the box description was apparently just copy pasted from the email the writer sent without bothering to actually read it (meaning they left in the guy's rant about how the dev cycle has ruined his marriage).
  • There is apparently no moderation outside of the profanity filter, resulting in a single group of friends dominating the game's politics, almost the entire playerbase being split in two because of a single messy break up between two members of said group, an entire faction getting griefed out of existence simply for trying to stop this, and a vicious racial conflict that seems to transcend roleplaying (the last of which seems to be something they encourage). Beyond that, you also have people hunting other players for sport and engaging in erotic roleplay in a game targeted at children.
  • Players from SAO keep their stats from that game, meaning Kirito is able to go toe-to-toe with one of the most experienced players in the game after only about a day or two of playing (most of which was spent travelling rather than fighting).
  • Their attempts to teach history is full of insane conspiracy theories, and any child smart enough to point out those theories are nonsense get torn apart by psychic bears.
  • Their attempt at an anti-drug message ended up encouraging people to do drugs (which got so bad that, in a rare show of competance, they had to patch it out). Said attempt also allowed players to do drugs in a game targeted at children, with the drugs having no negative effects, resulting in a massive ingame riot when they announced they were patching it out.
• Punch-Clock Villain: At least several RECT Progress employees are aware of Sugou's brainwashing plot, with many being used to perfect the brainwashing process and others serving as guards for Asuna's cage, but most of them treat the situation as if it were a normal job at ALO, with at least one being subjected to a Soul-Crushing Desk Job.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After Asuna's many break-outs lead to them getting tortured and cannibalized by her, most of Sugou's employees who worked inside ALO (save for Shoji and Kyle) ended up quitting their jobs inside VR out of fear and paranoia. This allowed her to reach Sugou's administrator console in Episode 16 and steal a system admin access code for Kirito.
• Sole Survivor: RECT was the last company to still be involved with VR gaming after the SAO Disaster dug the industry's grave. Sometime before Season Two, they somehow scored a partnership with Ubisoft.
• Uncertain Audience: In-Universe example. Apparently, RECT Progress can't advertise or focus on just one demographic to save their lives. The Abridged version of ALO is supposedly marketed towards children, but the blurbs on the back of the box flip flops between kid-friendly activities advertising community and friendship and encouragement of inciting conflict and aerial combat. Also colouring. And later on, the game is revealed to allow blowjobs and full-on racial conflict.
  Kazuto:...Who is this for?!
  Tiffany: My guess would be the cast of Lord of the Flies, but I doubt that's a big enough market.
• Unfortunate Implications: In-Universe; ALO has a huge case of Artistic Licence – History in the history hall, punishes its players with public nudity when they fail The Math Tree, and has an NPC that used to hand out drugs to serve as abilities for the players. It got so bad that the last one had to be patched in Episode 17 due to backlash. And let's not mention the locations of "Kandy Kane Kavern" and "Kandy Kane Kapital", which have an unfortunate abbreviation.
  Kirito: (while fighting his way through the The Very Definitely Final Dungeon) Golly gee! If only I had an army of offensive racial stereotypes with which to combat you, but I think that’d be just a little too appropriate for this game!
• Villain with Good Publicity: RECT Progress scored themselves a lot of goodwill by buying the SAO servers to keep the players alive during the SAO Disaster. Considering Argus was going under at the time, they likely didn't have to pay too much for the servers in the first place.

Nobuyuki Sugou

Nobuyuki Sugou / Oberon

"The thing is, it doesn't matter how sharp your tongue is... because this little lollipop... belongs to me now."

Voiced By: Scott "KaiserNeko" Frerichs

Sugou Do not forget, my dear, that I am the King of this world. Your consent is strictly a courtesy.

The antagonist of Season 2 and Asuna's prospective husband, thanks to her father marrying them off. He is an employee in RECT Progress and the creator of ALfheim Online, an MMO he developed mainly as an experiment in mind control. His goal is to master the mechanics of the Charisma skill and make himself able to bend others to his will in the real world, and he has decided to use this to turn Asuna into a submissive housewife.

For the original series, see here.

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• Abhorrent Admirer: Asuna obviously hates his guts, and since she's known for not being very forgiving towards people she doesn't like, his goal is to get rid of this emotion by brainwashing her into a submissive slave.
• Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable: He insists upon calling Asuna "Ti-TAN-ya" and mispronounces his own handle as "O-BEAR-on".
  Asuna: It's pronounced "OH-beron!" Y'know? Like "moron?"
• Accidental Misnaming: His boss mistakes his name for the brand name on a briefcase, much to his annoyance.
• Adaptational Intelligence: While he's (almost) every bit as vile as he is in the original show, and a much more incompetent programmer to boot, his plan to use the previous game's assets to brainwash Asuna into "willingly" accepting their Arranged Marriage when he releases her from ALO is a much more sound one than to keep her in a coma indefinitely while sexually assaulting her in the game. At the same time, he doesn't execute his plan in the most convenient and effective way, which results in several near-successful escape attempts by the more experienced Asuna.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: An absurdly mild example, but he actually seems to look out for his employees, paying their psych bills, which are very high due to them having to deal with Asuna's rampages. This was not a detail present with his canon counterpart. Of course, the reason his employees are in need of psychiatric attention in the first place is because he can't stop antagonizing Asuna. His dialogue around her is also much less overtly predatory than in canon, and the scenes in canon where he gropes her while in ALO are omitted. Of course, this is less about him being nicer than it is about Asuna being meaner.
• Adaptational Wimp: He's much less in control of his prey than in canon. In his attempts to molest Asuna, he got spat on the face, almost got his hand bitten off, and apparently got his nutsack stomped on at least once. This is on top of being a much more incompetent programmer than in canon, with his game being a broken mess and his staff ranging from apathetic to woefully incompetent.
• Age-Gap Romance: What he plans to have with Asuna once he's got his Compelling Voice and she can't refuse him. He's already legally engaged to her in the real world and keeps her mind caged inside his video game.
• Arch-Enemy:
  • Kazuto outright calls him his true nemesis in Episode 13, since he kidnapped Asuna and made him go through the hell that was his game to rescue her. He soon falls down in favor of "''ALfheim'' naming screen guy" invoked, though. From Sugou's perspective, Kazuto is little more than a nuisance, but he holds him in special contempt for being Asuna's "fake online husband" and being bestowed the title of "The Hero of Aincrad", both of which Sugou feels entitled to.
  • Also for Asuna, since he kidnapped her, caged her, and continuously harassed her with the goal of brainwashing her into becoming his wife and Sex Slave. It became even more personal for her when he revealed he planned to break Kirito during his rescue mission. He's aware of her hatred for him, which is why he plans on brainwashing her into worshipping him.
• Aroused by Idiocy: Played For Black Comedy; he plans to brainwash his future wife/Sex Slave Asuna, who while not brilliant is certainly not a Brainless Beauty in addition to being extremely strong-willed, and rewrite her personality to a mixture of "Leave It to Beaver and hardcore porn." Naturally, this is played as a predatory act and drives in how despicable Sugou is.
• Arranged Marriage: After Asuna's father gets sick of paying her hospital bills, he marries her off to him in exchange for a large sum of money.
• Ax-Crazy: While he knows how to play the gentleman, he's really a depraved rapist with dreams of world domination. He also spends a large chunk of his screentime in Episode 15 laughing at the prospect of crushing Kirito's hopes when he reaches the completely impregnable gates, complete with Nightmare Face.
• Bad Samaritan: He was the one who paid to keep the SAO servers running for two years, though it wasn't out of the kindness of his own heart - as in canon, he's keeping some SAO players' consciousnesses prisoner to use as test subjects.
• Benevolent Boss: Downplayed. He's mostly a Mean Boss, but he apparently pays for his team's psych bills, which are really high due to Asuna's constant rampages, but his constant leching on Asuna is why these rampages happen in the first place.
• Big Bad: The main antagonist of Season 2. He's captured Asuna's mind in ALO, and plans to use data from the game to influence his real-world self to be so charismatic that people will do whatever he says.
• Big Bad Wannabe: He tries really hard to be The Chessmaster, and his plan is rather solid. However, he's clearly way out of his depth when dealing with Kirito, Asuna, and Yui, and the former outsmarts him time and time again. The only part of the Big Bad archetype he nails is the excessive Evil Gloating which always backfires on him regardless.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: He acts like a sheepish gentleman around his boss, but he's a standoffish and petty asshole around everyone else, even his pastry chef. This is on top of being a rapist and brainwasher.
• Bizarre Taste in Food: His planned wedding cake alternates between layers of chocolate, vanilla, and foie gras. The combination causes the pastry chef he is ordering the cake from to break down in tears.
• Bond Villain Stupidity: A classic example. While he has he locked up, he breaks down his entire Evil Plan to Asuna, thinking that it won't matter once he's brainwashed her. It spectacularly backfires on him almost immediately.
  Asuna You’re insane! Thankfully, you’re also an idiot. Why would you tell me any of this? You really think I’m just gonna sit around and wait for that to happen?
  Sugou (chuckles) Oh, my dear, Titania. You’re lucky you’re pretty. By all means, give me your best shot. But if you really think you can overpower the system admin, then I dare say, you’re even dumber than I- [turns to see that she's gone] where did you go?
• Book Dumb: If he was behind the Artistic Licence – History riddled mess that is his game's "history hall", then he's either ignorant or doesn't know basic history. If the Math Tree is any indication, he at least knows that 2+2=4.
• Bratty Food Demand: In Episode 17, he is seen demanding a cake with foie gras the morning of the wedding and yelling at the chef over the phone.
• Bridezilla: Groomzilla variant. He's a Control Freak who manages every detail of the wedding, changes the date on a whim, and yells at a pastry chef who started crying after he told him to make a multilayered cake which included one made of Foie Gras the morning of the wedding. The creators wanted to make him hateable but felt that constantly going back to his creeper aspect would be uncomfortable and not entertaining.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: He's not all that brilliant of a programmer, but he's very good at manipulating people and taking advantage of the assets he has at his disposal, and his plan is a scarily sound one. Despite this, he's content with just arranging his wedding and creeping on Asuna while his men do all the work and have to deal with her constant rampages. The fact that he could keep Asuna in brain form like the others but refuses to likely to continue harassing her is what cements this, as most of his employees quit their jobs out of fear, and if it weren't for the few he had left, she would've escaped with him being none the wiser.
• Can't Take Criticism: Downplayed. He deflects Kazuto' and Asuna's snarky comments rather easily, but that's because he knew he was holding all the cards (and Kazuto wasn't at his sharpest in that moment due to shock), but in Episode 15, he has a minor Villainous Breakdown when Asuna sadistically breaks down everything she planned to do to him. It shows up again when aarguing with his pastry chef in Episode 17.
• Card-Carrying Villain: He obviously doesn't show this aspect of himself in public, but he relishes in his fetishes with the unconscious Asuna behind closed doors. It doesn't take long for him to spur Kazuto into action through disgust.
• Caught Monologuing: It's a recurring flaw with him. In Episode 14, after laying out his Evil Plan to Asuna and gloating about he's protected by his status as ALO's system admin, by the time he's turned back from looking into the distance, Asuna's already out of her cage and massacring his guards. In episode 15, he does the same thing to Asuna's threats when she's acting like a Violently Protective Girlfriend towards Kirito, and Asuna breaks out again, killing his guards even more violently.
  Sugou: But if you really think you can overpower the System Admin, then I dare say you're even dumber [turns back around] than I a— Where did you go?
  [sirens blare]
  Guard: [offscreen] OH GOD! IT'S LOOSE!
• Compelling Voice: His goal. After he learned that the Nerve gear could analyze the player's real-life abilities and translate it to video game stats, he wants to reverse it so the game stats will influence a person's real-life abilities with a focus on charisma to make people do whatever he wants.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: Kayaba was just some overworked schmuck who tried to pretend he was a brilliant mastermind after having accidentally killed thousands of people while scrambling to get the rest out of the mess he created. Sugou meanwhile, is a calm manipulator who puts up an image of a savior for the victims of SAO in order to use them as test subjects for his own ends and use the game to enhance his charisma, allowing him control over others as he sees fit.
• Control Freak: As if he wasn't already the God of ALfheim Online, his master plan involves using SAO technology to make himself irrefutable even IRL, thus efficiently enslaving the world, with special investment in his captive Asuna, whom he wants to marry and turn into a Sex Slave. As if that wasn't enough, he's the worst Bridezilla ever.
• Corporate Conspiracy:
  • Unlike with Kayaba and Argus, here it's Played Straight. Aside from being a game developer, he paints himself as a hero to the public by buying the SAO servers and keeping them operational, thus maintaining the lives of its players until Kirito saves them all from the inside by completing the game. He also marries (read: buys) the comatose Asuna but with the consent of her father. As it turns out, however, his real plan involves keeping 300 of the SAO players (including Asuna) in comatose, locking their minds inside his game, and using them as test subjects to conduct experiments on SAO's charisma stats, which will make everyone around him cater to his every whim, even in the real world. At least a fraction of his RECT Progress employees are part of this conspiracy, albeit with some resentment.
  • If the "History Hall" is any indication, he believes the Moon landing to be one of these.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Not as much as his boss, but still an example. He's the director of RECT Progress and the man responsible for the kidnapping and torture of 300 SAO players and, by proxy, the Cold-Blooded Torture of many of his employees. He's also a huge sex offender although, unlike other examples of this trope, it's a key component of his Evil Plan. He's also an asshole to his pastry chef.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Downplayed since he doesn't see Kazuto as an actual obstacle to his "marriage", but he shows this side of him when he plays ventriloquist with Asuna to degrade him, calling him a "fake online husband" who is much less hot than he is (and has half his penis torn off).
• Cut Lex Luthor a Check: How he views the SAO disaster regarding Kayaba. He considers him a Ditzy Genius who almost single-handedly created the means to bend the masses to his will, and whose potential was wasted on video games aimed for "a bunch of greasy imbeciles begging for nudes".
• Didn't Think This Through: On the track of becoming this with his desire to unlock the master code from Sword Art Online that allows for the players to upgrade their real-life stats using the game stats, a code that he had moved over into ALO. Unbeknownst to him, this also means that any SAO Veterans that transfer over to ALO also have most of their own Stats and Inventory from the previous game left intact for them to use... Stats that allow Asuna to constantly break out of her cell in an attempt to escape and torment and torture all of Oberon's guards within the World Tree. And an inventory that allows for Kirito to summon in his and Asuna's adoptive daughter Yui: the Psychologist AI from SAO that had been granted Admin privileges for both games, and is fully intent on killing Oberon "By any means necessary" for holding her Mommy hostage.
• Dirty Coward: Like Kayaba, he uses admin privileges to protect himself while visiting Asuna in her cage, as he's smart enough not to lock himself in with her without some kind of shield. The only time he's willing to harass her physically is in the hospital, while she's in a coma.
• Ditzy Genius: He really is quite The Chessmaster, and knows how to use the SAO disaster to his advantage while keeping his true plans under the radar. However, he's a huge victim of Bond Villain Stupidity that bites him in the ass every time.
• Domestic Abuse: Considering he views Asuna as his fiancée, he's not a very attentive partner to say the least.
  Sugou: Look at all that I’ve done for you. I’ve made you my queen, draped you in fineries, given you this wonderful cage. I ask you, what more could you possibly want?
  Asuna: My freedom!
  Sugou: Oh, the petty gripes of a woman.
• Do Wrong, Right: Sugou plans to do what Kayaba accidentally accomplished with SAO, become a god and bend the masses to his will. Ironically, Kayaba did it better by accident.
• Dragon with an Agenda: Other than being the lead developer of ALO, he's an employee for Shouzou, but has a plan involving mind control (and Shouzou's daughter) that his boss has no knowledge of.
• Driven by Envy: When he's not lusting after Asuna, most of his dialogue has him comparing himself positively to Kayaba and Kazuto, sometimes to the point of engaging in childish power-scaling with the latter.
• Dude, She's Like in a Coma: It doesn't seem to bother him that Asuna's unconscious; he still intends to marry her. Turns out it's because he's the one keeping Asuna trapped in his virtual world.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: In the real world Sugou has very pale skin and dark brown hair, and is as dastardly as they come.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Regardless of how many times he corrects him, Mr. Yuuki keeps calling him "Versace" because that's the brand of the briefcase he kept all his money in, and because it sounds fancier than his actual name. It's also the name Kazuto hears when introduced to him, leading to this line:
  Sugou: Enter stage right: the real hero of this tale… Nobuyuki Sugou. Oh, that’s right. You still think I’m a briefcase. I’m Nobuyuki Sugou.
• Entitled Bastard: His ultimate plan involves forcing everyone around him (both in virtual worlds and the real one) to cater to his every whim, using the technology extracted from SAO's Charisma Hat to give him a Compelling Voice.
• Entitled to Have You: He feels that since he talked Shouzou into buying up the Argus servers during the Aincrad clusterfuck, the SAO survivors owe him their lives, so he's entitled to some "satisfaction" in the form of Asuna.
• Evil Counterpart: He's an adult version of his own forced fiancée Asuna if she had the resources and didn't really love Kirito for who he was. Both are sadistic, petty stalkers and Bitches in Sheep's Clothing with a jealous streak who are very possessive over their love interests (or potential Sex Slave, for Sugou) and aren't above using other people to achieve their goals, or threaten their love rivals into backing off. However, Asuna is a Yandere whom Kirito actually likes, and who gets together with him through their combined weirdness, while Sugou knows he'll never win Asuna's heart so he elects to brainwash her into marrying him. For added contrast, Asuna was the Supreme Chef of SAO, while Sugou wants foie gras with his cake.
• Evil Gloating: Much like in canon, Sugou simply cannot help himself, and gleefully rubs it in on what he's going to do with Asuna and how Kirito is powerless to stop him. His attempts with Asuna are less successful, to his guards' despair.
• Evil Is Petty: In addition to torturing and imprisoning hundreds of innocent people and trying to turn Asuna into a sex slave, he's also a horribly obnoxious groomzilla, reducing a chef to tears with his unreasonable (and bizarre) orders. He also goes out of his way to rub his marriage to Asuna all over her and Kazuto's faces, even when it directly puts his plans in jeopardy.
• Evil Laugh: A particularly chilling one to punctuate his complete humiliation of Kazuto in Episode 12.
• Faux Affably Evil: Quite polite and civil while rubbing in how powerless Kirito is to stop him and how he's going to break Asuna's mind. But when Asuna shows that she won't be contained so easily, Sugou/Oberon is just as quick to start screaming that he's the king, and what he says goes.
• Foil:
  • He's one to Kayaba, the Big Bad of the previous arc.
    • They're both terrible game developers who trapped players inside their respective MMOs against their wishes but, while Kayaba was a Lethally Stupid manchild who managed to kill thousands of people completely by accident and reckless negligence, Sugou is a Card-Carrying Villain and a Smug Snake who repeatedly fails at keeping his one conscious prisoner under control. Moreover, Kayaba is noted to be a Bunny-Ears Lawyer who, despite all his failings still created a technological marvel intended for people's enjoyment, while Sugou claims to be utilizing his technology to it's greatest potential in service to his own desires, and his game is a poorly made rip-off.
    • When it comes to dealing with their plans, both have Skewed Priorities (For Kayaba, it's movies, while for Sugou, it's planning his wedding) but Kayaba still actively participated in his own game despite its glitches, and went insane in the first place because he worked three weeks straight to finish the game on its deadline when no one else would; while Sugou was an Orcus on His Throne who never bothered to fix his game's Fantastic Racism problem (although RECT did fix the game's broken Drugs Are Bad aesop at the very least), usually allowing his workers at RECT to handle the game while he drools over Asuna.
    • Kayaba was a Friendly Enemy to Kirito who respected him as a player and briefly bonded with him over their shared love for pop-culture movies. On the other hand, Sugou constantly belittles and insults the boy at every chance he gets, and Kirito has nothing but contempt for him in return.
    • While he respected her enough to have her as a board member, Kayaba hated (and feared) Asuna for her insane personality, and had no problem using her as a pawn to achieve his goals (or simply getting her out of the way), while Oberon's main goal is Asuna, as he intends to marry her and brainwash her into being his wife and Sex Slave. Asuna loathes both men, but Sugou holds a special place in her Arch-Enemy list.
    • Kayaba intentionally made himself look like the Big Bad in a sleep-deprived motivated attempt to save face after his mistake gets several players killed. Sugou, meanwhile, is notably Faux Affably Evil to his co-workers, only saving his true self for Kazuto and Asuna. Both painted their characters (Heathcliff and Oberon) as the Big Good of their games, though Heathcliff pretended to be a player, while Oberon is the fairy king whom every player yearns to encounter (if Sakuya's story is reliable).
    • Kazuto's witty humor immediately gets through Kayaba's skin and motivates him to accept the duel that would eventually result in his defeat, while Sugou instantly shuts down every snarky comment Kazuto makes towards him, soon leaving him without comebacks. The fact that Kazuto met him IRL also emphasizes their power dynamic, which was is more clear compared to his somewhat equal standing with Kayaba. This showcases how out of his element the teenager was outside of SAO.
  • He's a flip version of what adult Kirito would be like in the real world. Though they're both major Jerkasses and Smug Supers (IRL and in ALO for Sugou and in SAO for Kirito) who were betrothed to Asuna much to her chagrin. They also both yearn for people to look up to them, but don't want to put in the effort (at least at first in Kirito's case). However, Kirito was a borderline Chaste Hero who wouldn't even imagine laying a finger on Asuna while she slept, while Sugou... doesn't have said standards. Furthermore, Kirito was The Chew Toy in the real world, and preferred to stick to himself even in SAO, while Sugou was a Villain with Good Publicity who forced his RECT Progress employees to do most of his dirty work while he was out planning his wedding. In addition, Kirito never pursued Asuna, even hating her at first, but grew to like her as they bonded in SAO; while Sugou only lusted for her and kept her caged in ALO to await brainwashing, but hates her rebellious and Ax-Crazy personality, and wants to forceflly transform her into a Brainless Beauty. Finally, Kirito loathed SAO's charisma hat, and gave it up to Klein after acquiring it as a monster drop, while Sugou plans to use the hat's code to make himself irresistible via Mind Control (and brainwash Asuna into marrying him).
• Four Eyes, Zero Soul: He wears glasses in his civilian form, and is the arc's villain. He drops them for his Oberon self.
• Green-Eyed Monster: It's implied by his tone in his first conversation with Kazuto that he resents the fact that the boy is known as the Hero of Aincrad, as opposed to himself, who convinced his boss to buy up the servers to keep the prisoners alive for the sake of PR and tech resources. He also doesn't seem to particularly like his boss for constantly mistaking his name for a briefcase.
  Sugou: (while moving Asuna's lips and talking in falsetto) You're SO much hotter than my FAKE online-husband!
• Groin Attack: According to him, Asuna stomped on his balls at least once when he tried to approach her in her cage.
• Hate Sink: Just like his canon self, he is a sexist, repulsive sexual predator who wants to turn Asuna into a submissive Sex Slave and experiments on victims of a traumatic Deadly Game to give himself mind control powers. He also only shows token concern for the mental health of his employees while being perfectly fine with Asuna "indulging her baser urges" with them and firing one for asking a simple (if dumb) question. While he has scenes of comedy, every scene he is in further drives home how disgusting and loathsome he is, and the jokes are at his expense.
• Hope Crusher: Episode 15 reveals the reason that he doesn't just ban Kirito's account right away is because Sugou wants to see Kirito succumb to despair when he fails to save Asuna.
• Hypocrite:
  • He uses a profanity filter as the host of ALO to censor everyone, but that doesn't stop him from making crude sexual propositions at Asuna both in and out of the game.
  • If Kyle's claims are of any indication, he has a list for misdemeanors such as sexual assault, which Shoji apparently got put on after being falsely reported for molesting Asuna. This is laughable considering Sugou has probably violated every sexual harassment law in the book himself.
• It's All About Me: This man just loves to talk about how much of a Machiavellian genius he is, and makes his entire Arranged Marriage to Asuna all about himself.
  Sugou: "Everything is going to be perfect for my big day. I mean... OUR big day. No. You know what? I stand by it. I've earned this."
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: His hint that Asuna should "put that tongue to better use" should tell you everything you need to know about his interests, and that's before you add in her audible shuddering. Keep in mind Asuna is still only 17.
• Jerkass: Machiavellian scheming aside, he's easily the biggest prick in the series. He childishly rubs his Arranged Marriage to Asuna in her boyfriend's face and goes out of his way to be an asshole to her while she's trapped. The only person he's not an asshole towards is his boss, with whom he adopts an Extreme Doormat demeanor.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Not only does he plan to turn Asuna into a slave, but he also tells Kazuto to buy her a sandwich press as a wedding gift.
  • Instead of keeping Asuna in brain form like he does with the other test subjects, he traps her fully conscious avatar in a cage so he can routinely visit her to antagonize her and try to sexually assault her as his employees finish up the brainwashing process. He continues to do this even after she escapes numerous times and butchers many of his guards.
• Lack of Empathy: Aside from trying to brainwash Asuna into becoming his Sex Slave, he keeps 300 other players alive and suffering in ALO to use as test subjects.
• Laughably Evil: He's a predatory scumbag, but he leans so hard into being a blatant misogynistic asshole that it loops back around to being hilariously over-the-top. It helps that he's astoundingly incompetent when it comes to actually keeping Asuna captive.
• Manipulative Bastard: He plays his twit of a boss like a fiddle, even getting him to sign away his daughter (although granted, Shouzou cares about money more than her). He also makes an MMO all as a front to hide his nefarious activities.
• The Man Behind the Man: He's the one who convinced Shouzou to buy up the SAO servers and keep them operational through RECT Progress tech. It's also implied that he often bribes or manipulates his boss into doing his bidding, although he wants to raise the level via acquisition of the mind control technology.
• Mask of Sanity: Like Asuna, he's a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing who is much more unhinged than he lets on. However, he takes it up to eleven with his Evil Plan to brainwash her.
• Mean Boss: While he's not in charge of RECT Progress, Sugou still works as ALO's administrator, and ropes many of his employees into assisting him with his brainwashing scheme, guarding Asuna, and organising his wedding. The few times we hear of his employees, they're either jaded and desperate to get the game over with (like Sean and the game's box artist), driven to tears by his bizarre demands (like his pastry chef), or straight up suffering from PTSD and in need of therapy (like Shoji). Furthermore, when Asuna escapes for the nth time in Episode 15 and starts assaulting his guard Shoji, Sugou just shrugs it off and goes back to picking out a China pattern for his wedding. At least he pays for their psych bills.
• Mirror Character: SWE invoked referred to him as "Grimlock 2.0" during a stream, since they're both insane misogynistic scumbags played by KaiserNeko, on top of having a thing for sandwiches. However, Grimlock irrationally killed his wife for showing the first sign of independence, and was delusional enough to confess to Kirito and expect him to back him up, while Sugou plans on brainwashing the rebellious Asuna into becoming his Sex Slave, and is smart enough to maintain the operation under wraps.
• Narcissist: Even if he didn't strive to have complete control over other people's bodies and minds, he genuinely believes that, in perfecting Asuna's brainwashing, he's somehow earned the privilege of having complete control over their wedding preparations. Since his attraction for her doesn't go beyond possessive lust, it's implied the only reason he's staging a whedding in the first place is to boost his image to the public.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: By openly visiting Asuna on her hospital bed to gloat to her (in-game) husband Kazuto about his arranged marriage to her, he indirectly gives Kazuto the information he needs regarding REKT Progress' doings, which later allows him to deduce that Asuna is trapped in his game, and strive to rescue her. Somewhat subverted when it's revealed Sugou knew about Kazuto's infiltration of his game but still refused to ban his account because he deliberately wanted to Yank the Dog's Chain once he reached her, which is another example in itself. He makes the same mistake with Asuna when he not only allows her to have an avatar inside his game but also constantly rub his Evil Plan on her face, which screws him over almost immediately when Asuna then proceeds to turn her cage into a Cardboard Prison and escape several times. She outright calls him an idiot after the latter example.
• Not So Above It All: Despite claiming to be The Chessmaster (and having the Machiavellian Evil Plan to boot), he's childish enough to get into a fight with his pastry chef over whether to put foie gras in his cake.
• Not So Stoic: Asuna breaks his composure for the first time in Episode 15, though he regains it soon.
• No Sense of Personal Space: No matter how many times Asuna insults him, spits on his face or stomps on his balls, he doesn't know when to back down. Luckily, he stops visiting her cage after Episode 15, which gives her time to attempt an escape. In Episode 17, he wisely chooses to speak to her via intercom lest she try anything on him again.
• No Sympathy: He doesn't seem to care that Asuna is slaughtering his guards every time she tries to escape. When she does it in episodes 14 and 15, Oberon doesn't even raise his voice as Asuna violently kills his guards off-screen.
• Oh, Crap!: The first time Asuna escapes her cage. By Episode 15, he's used to it.
• Orcus on His Throne: Despite having administrative privileges over the world of ALO, he chooses to sit back and plan his wedding instead of trying to handle Kirito or Asuna himself.
• Perverted Sniffing: He sniffs a lock of Asuna's hair when she's in her hospital bed. Kazuto finds it disgusting.
• Pet the Dog:
  • While he's mostly a terrible boss, he pays for his employees' very expensive psych bills and tries to encourage Asuna to stop ganging up on his technician Shoji so much. Of course, once she does it again, he doesn't seem to care much.
  • An absurdly mild example mostly Played for Laughs, but he allows Asuna to choose the China pattern for their wedding (in which she'll be brainwashed into a slave). Subverted in Episode 17, where he throws a fit over Asuna's approval of a red and black wedding dress, implying he gave her as much freedom with that choice as he did with everything else surrounding their wedding.
    Sugou: Red and black?! What is this, a whore's funeral?!
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Along with his perverted actions with the comatose Asuna, Sugou also demands that if Kazuto is going to buy them a wedding present, to make sure it's a sandwich press. There's also the bit he tries to force her to pick out the china pattern for their wedding.
• Properly Paranoid: By Episode 17, he's relegated himself to communicating with Asuna's cell via a speaker, which makes sense considering he can't stop her from spitting, biting, or kicking him whenever he visits personally. Even before this, it's all but stated that he has the same admin invincibility that Kayaba had, which spared him from being a victim of her rampages. The fact that he was still terrified of her despite this only cements how scary Asuna really is.
• Psychopathic Manchild: As in canon, this is one of his defining character traits. He rubs in just how much control he has over Asuna via mockingly voicing her to Kazuto and bragging about how she's going to like him more. His game world that he created to imprison Asuna in is a Sugar Bowl populated by fairies. When Asuna challenges his authority in Episode 15, he essentially throws a temper tantrum. And his appearance in Episode 17 has him making a Bratty Food Demand to his pastry chef, loudly demanding a wedding cake with foie gras on the morning of his wedding and fighting with the chef over it.
• Slasher Smile: Could rival Kuradeel when it comes to this. In Episode 15, he smiles sadistically at Asuna once he's done explaining how Kazuto's rescue mission is going to fail. Asuna soon wipes it off his face with her promise of a Cold-Blooded Torture for him.
• The Sociopath: A high-functioning example; he's a hedonistic narcissist who takes advantage of a tragic event to achieve his goals, which include brainwashing a rebellious young girl into becoming a submissive Sex Slave, and he's willing to use 300 innocent people as guinea pigs for the process. Furthermore, despite being able to put on a charming front, he's a sadistic bully who gleefully torments both his slave and his slave's boyfriend for kicks.
• Smug Snake: When Kazuto points out that his marriage to Asuna can't possibly be legal because she's still got her Nerve Gear on, Nobuyuki points out the ways he saved everyone from SAO, though it's only to rub it in Kazuto's face. He tries to act the same way towards Asuna herself, often engaging in Evil Gloating over how much control he has of the situation both in the game and the real world, and how there is nothing she can do to stop him from marrying her. Asuna, however, fails to be very impressed by this and instead continues to make a fool of him and his security team by treating her cage as a Cardboard Prison and responding to his boasting with graphic death threats, something which is shown to seriously get under Sugou's skin, despite his attempts to pretend otherwise.
• Smug Smiler: He's sickeningly smug when he thinks he's holding all the cards, and he has the shit-eating grin to boot. The first onscreen time he meets with Asuna in ALO, she wipes it off his face by spitting on him.
• Smug Super: A smug snake who happens to be a system administrator, meaning that he has access to all the admin perks that Kayaba had in SAO. Asuna makes graphic threats to his well-being in Episode 15, but she probably hasn't carried them out for this reason.
• Too Clever by Half: As ingenious and methodical as he is, he makes the mistake of locking Asuna, easily one of the most proficient MMORPG players in the world after her experiences in SAO, in another MMORPG. He also repeatedly prioritizes planning his wedding over the safety of his co-workers, which almost bites him in the ass had it not been for Kyle and Shoji.
• Unknown Rival: While Oberon is completely aware of Kirito's presence in ALO and his intent to free Asuna at any cost, he doesn't know that during Kirito's adventures in Sword Art Online he and Asuna managed to adopt SAO's Psychologist AI Yui as their daughter, or that Kirito managed to download Yui directly into his NerveGear helmet which he used to port her into ALO^note since ALO works off of the same coding as SAO as a companion... a companion that has Admin Access to everything within ALO just like he does, and is actively helping her Daddy to save her Mommy, and has already added Oberon as one of her primary targets to kill "by any means necessary".
• Viler New Villain: Kayaba was mainly Played for Laughs at first, and while his threat was taken seriously in the final battle, he is ultimately revealed to be an overworked developer whose villainy and larger body count stem largely from factors outside his control (at least initially, until he let his pride and cowardice get the better of him). Sugou is an outright sexual predator and mass torturer who, while the subject of a lot of jokes at his expense, is played noticeably more seriously as a threat.
• Villainous Breakdown: He has a minor one in episode 15. Asuna is a Damsel out of Distress who is turning his tower into a Cardboard Prison with her constant attempts to escape. Sugou manages to keep it together until Asuna threatens Sugou's life in a horrific manner, at which point he resorts to screaming at her that she's going to obey him, in spite of her attempts at rebellion. After Asuna escapes again, Sugou manages to recompose himself.
• Villainous Crush: On his boss' daughter, Asuna. This kickstarts the entire ALO arc.
• Villains Out Shopping: As he's mostly an Orcus on His Throne, he spends most of the ALO arc prepping for his wedding with Asuna; picking out China patterns, moving up the cake, and choosing "appropriate" wedding dresses. He even uploads his updates on his Facebook page.
• Villain Has a Point:
  • After being introduced to Kazuto, he puts an end to his attempt at snark to remind him that being a Godlike Gamer doesn't do shit for you in the real world when you're up against a Corrupt Corporate Executive. In Episode 17, Kirito himself admits during his Darkest Hour that his potential vanished when SAO's servers were deleted.
  • His deconstruction of Kayaba Akihiko is surprisingly on point, as he's one of the few RECT Progress employees who sees the potential in his admittedly ground-breaking technology, and doesn't allow Kayaba's many missteps to let it all go to waste. Of course, Sugou is only using said technology to turn a girl into his slave along with using it to try boosting his own public-speaking ability to allow him to Take Over the World, so he doesn't really have room to talk.
  • He's also not wrong to summarize the SAO player base as "a bunch of greasy imbeciles begging for nudes", especially when taking this line from Episode 2 into account.
    Diabel: "If they ask female players for pics of their boobs, front lines."
    Player 1: OH BULLSHIT!
    Player 2: THATS DISCRIMINATION!!!
    Player 3: BOOO!!!
  • He rightfully fires his tech support representative Sean for his incompetence in keeping Asuna and the other hostages trapped.
• Villain with Good Publicity: He's the one who purchased the SAO servers that kept everyone alive for two years. As such, he figures the public will approve of his marriage to Asuna, or at least not interfere, since he's owed a "debt of gratitude".
• Wicked Pretentious: His boss and the general public may see him as a Wealthy Philanthropist, but Kirito, Asuna, and his pastry baker, know that he's a sick monster who brainwashes people, sexually assaults minors, and fills an entire wedding cake tier with foie gras.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?:
  • Discussed. Due to being the main admin of ALO, Sugou admits he could easily ban Kirito's account from the game and instantly foil the attempts at rescuing Asuna. But Sugou prefers to break Kirito's spirit and crush his hopes by allowing him to continue his quest, completely unaware that the gates at the top are impregnable, thus crushing Kirito's hopes at the eleventh hour.
  • Also applies to Asuna. Although he has the option of keeping her "in brain form" like all the other test subjects, he designs her an avatar and a cage to drooling her and taunt her while keeping her locked. This leads to her managing to escape and routinely cannibalizing on Sugou's men, though for Sugou it's no hair off his back since she cannot log out regardless (though she comes close to in Episode 11).
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: When he finishes his Villainous Breakdown only to find out she has escaped him yet again and is now rampaging through his guards.

Shouzou Yuuki

"It's good of you to keep visiting her like this. Like a watchful guardian looking after a slumbering princess. Lying there like a perfect, beautiful little parasite, SUCKING THE MARROW FROM MY VERY BONES!"

Voiced by: Logan "BlazingAzureCrow" Laidlaw

Asuna's father and the CEO of RECT Progress. He is a greedy, corrupt, and selfish man who marries the comatose Asuna off to one of his employees, Noboyuki Sugou, to avoid paying any more medical bills without having to kill her outright. He also loves Ferraris.

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• Abusive Parents: Much like how Suguha gives us an idea of where Kazuto's issues came from, Shouzou shows us where Asuna's came from. He's actively contemptuous of Asuna (going so far as to call her a parasite and expressing a desire to cut off her life support so he wouldn't have to keep paying medical bills, while shortly later casually talking about buying a new Ferrari), and seemingly has zero issues marrying her off (while she's in a COMA, no less) to a man whose name he doesn't even know.
  Shouzou: It's good of you to keep visiting her like this. Like a watchful guardian looking after a slumbering princess. Lying there like a perfect, beautiful little parasite, SUCKING THE MARROW FROM MY VERY BONES!
  Kazuto: I'm not letting you pull the plug, sir!
  Shouzou: Ah, sorry. Force of habit. You can relax. My lawyers have advised me that killing my daughter to get out of medical bills would cause more problems than it would probably solve.
• Adaptational Villainy: Does not even appear to love Asuna, given that he's willing to let his daughter die to avoid paying for medical bills and then marry her off so someone else who can pay for them.
• Awful Wedded Life: It's implied in Episode 10 that his wife used to be very stubborn and always refused to compromise, resulting in their divorce. Then again, it's not like Shouzou was much better.
• Brief Accent Imitation: Like father, like daughter apparently. Shouzou puts on a hilariously bad Italian accent when talking to his Italian contact, Enzo, probably explaining where Asuna's weird insistence on talking to Tiffany in rather broken Jive Turkey came from.
• Conspicuous Consumption: He off-handedly implies that he's bought several Ferraris.
• Contempt Crossfire: Neglectful parenting and self-centered personality aside, he doesn't care enough about his prospective son-in-law to learn his name, instead calling him by the name of the briefcase he brought the money in.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Apparently, he wanted to cut off life support from his own comatose daughter, solely because he found the medical bills too expensive to support his Ferrari-buying habits. His lawyers had to talk him out of that idea. Instead, he is happy to marry her off to an obvious lecherous creep twice her age and provides that same creep resources for horrific mind control experimentation.
• Hate Sink: While not to the extent of Sugou, the single scene he is in establishes him as a cruel, uncaring father to Asuna who greedily marries her off to an obvious creep so he can stop paying her medical bills without killing her, and seems to have no problem letting Sugou use his company for inhumane medical experiments. He is also an Upper-Class Twit who speaks in an exaggerated Italian accent to his Ferrari guy. Basically, all of Asuna's psychological issues are a result of his poor parenting, and unlike Suguha, who is responsible for Kazuto's issues but is a complex character, Shouzou has no Freudian Excuse to speak of.
• Horrible Judge of Character: He calls Sugou - a man who wants to own Asuna like a sex slave and is exploiting his corporate privileges to that end - a "nice gentleman". Then again, given just how scummy he is, for somebody like him, Sugou probably is a nice gentleman.
• Faux Affably Evil: He has some superficial charm that doesn't go beyond your average corporate executive, but he instantly drops it the moment he remembers how much money Asuna's situation is costing him.
• Greater-Scope Villain: Of the second season. He only physically appears once in the first episode while his employee Sugou is the main villain, but Shouzou is the CEO of the company who marries off the comatose Asuna to Sugou to get out of paying medical bills and is presumably supplying Sugou with the means to perform his mind control experiments with no care for anything but his profits.
• Greed: While he does pay for his daughter's life support, he complains endlessly about it, makes it clear he would rather waste that money on endless Ferraris, and apparently would've unplugged her out of force of habit on more than one occasion had it not been for Kazuto. In fact, the entire arc is kickstarted by him selling Asuna to one of his deranged employees.
• It's All About Me: His rationale for deciding to marry off Asuna to Nobuyuki. He no longer wants to foot the bill for keeping his comatose daughter on life support but is all too happy to use the money to buy more Ferraris instead.
• Jerkass: Even if he wasn't fantasizing about killing his daughter, he's still a grade-A asshole. He essentially sells Asuna to a rapist in front of her boyfriend and then excuses himself to go buy a Ferrari. The prick doesn't even remember the name of his employees, even the one he plans to marry his own daughter to.
• Lack of Empathy: He doesn't seem to quite grasp why Kazuto would be upset at his comatose girlfriend getting sold to a man twice her age, treating the whole ordeal like an ordinary business transaction.
• Mean Boss: He doesn't bother to hide his lack of interest in Sugou's life, only remembering the name of the briefcase he kept Shouzou's money in. When corrected on this, he just flat-out tells him to keep the wrong name because he likes it better. Keep in mind, this is after he agreed to make him his son-in-law.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: He seems to be just as racist as Asuna, but he lacks her redeeming qualities.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • He didn't take his daughter off life support to save money, if only because he'd be charged with murder otherwise.
  • He took Sugou's suggestion to buy and maintain the servers holding the SAO players, keeping them alive, but only for the sake of getting good publicity and keeping up with the technology.
• The Sociopath: He resents his comatose daughter for making him pay for her life support, and casually states to Kazuto that he's marrying her off to some creep from his company, despite having enough money to waste on Ferraris.
• Upper-Class Twit: It is made pretty clear that not only is he none-too-bright and has a rather limited attention span, but also that his money has allowed him to live a pretty sheltered lifestyle, leaving him blissfully unaware of how society at large actually functions. He treats setting up an arranged marriage for his daughter against payment and without her consent as if it is a perfectly normal and acceptable thing to do. He also mistakes the brand on Sugou's briefcase for his name and speaks in an exaggerated Italian accent to his Ferrari guy.

Shoji Yanai

Kyle! Kyle! What do we do?! I can already feel my grip slipping!

Voiced by: Grimmjack69

A bumbling henchman working under Sugou who helps keep Asuna captive. Or he tries to, at least, but frequently finds himself the victim of Asuna's vicious rampages. He appears as a slug in-game thanks to his bullying of the modeler, Trisha.

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• Adaptational Dumbass: Here, Shoji is a massive idiot who gets himself blacklisted and reported for sexual assault after he couldn't come up with a better alibi as to why he was releasing Asuna. To be fair, it doesn't make much sense that one of Sugou's underlings would be against such a felony considering what their boss' ultimate plan regarding Asuna is.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: Downplayed, as he's still a petty Jerkass, but he's not the deranged sexual predator his original counterpart was.
• Adaptational Sympathy: In the source material, Asuna was an innocent victim of sexual harassment during her encounter with the slug. Here, however, the slug (Shoji) is the (not so innocent) victim of blackmail and a self-inflicted False Rape Accusation. The event ends with Shoji crying of embarrassment as he loses his friend and possibly his job.
• Adaptational Wimp: Shoji's grip is much weaker than in canon, as he worries that Asuna might actually free herself if she struggles enough.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: When Asuna goes loose for the nth time, Shoji begs for mercy. It doesn't work.
• Alas, Poor Villain: As much of an asshole as he was, it's hard not to feel at least some pity for him when he breaks down crying as he "confesses" to having molested Asuna. The fact that he did so to prevent his dog from being murdered adds sympathy points.
• Anti-Villain: Downplayed, since he's implied to be a prison guard for Asuna as well as a technician, on top of being more overtly malicious towards his co-workers compared to Kyle. However, he's too ineffectual to be taken seriously as a threat.
• Asshole Victim: This guy has a habit of asking for retribution from women. He works as one of Asuna's jailers and regularly steals the medicated yogurt belonging to his co-worker Trisha, who also happens to be ALO's model designer. As a result, he is the subject of Asuna's more sadistic impulses and Trisha has made his character a giant slug.
• Bad Liar: He could learn a thing or two from Asuna when it comes to covering his ass.
  • In Episode 15, when Asuna asks Sugou if he's in that day:
    Shoji: NO! Uh... I-I-I mean... (falsetto voice) Shoji's out sick today! (forced giggle) Uh...
  • In Episode 17, he blames Trisha for him taking her yogurt, because "she doesn't label them", despite the fact that he never brings yogurt to work himself. Kyle is quick to point this out.
  • The Embarrassing Cover Up he comes up with to save his dog is as half-baked as can be, but Kyle believes it anyway.
• Break the Haughty: Presumably the reason for Asuna targeting him. It works, and by Episode 17, Shoji is a Nervous Wreck who's left in tears after she's done with him.
• Bullying a Dragon: As Shoji soon finds out, antagonizing and harassing your avatar's modeler is a good way to get yourself screwed when you work inside an MMO.
• Bullying the Disabled: His favorite pastime; Trisha and "her high horse" (read: wheelchair) is just too easy of a target.
• The Bully: Towards his co-worker Trisha.
• Bumbling Henchman Duo: Alongside Kyle, they're a pair of goofy slugs who have humorous dialogue with each other and frequently fail to keep Asuna imprisoned, suffering darkly hilarious misfortunes as a result. Shoji is the dumbest of the duo by far.
• Butt-Monkey: Shoji spends most of his days at work having his avatar mercilessly mutilated and cannibalized by Asuna. As if that wasn't enough, said avatar then gets turned into a tentacled slug by a vengeful co-worker, and, after being forced into an Embarrassing Cover Up, he gets reported for sexual assault by Kyle after getting his beloved dog threatened. He also gets uninvited to Kyle's son's christening.
• Canon Character All Along: Shoji, in his debut, seems to be a voice-only original character created as one of Sugou's employees. Episode 17 reveals him to be one of the giant slugs who molests Asuna in canon (Here, he merely pretends to have done so to explain why he is letting her go, because he doesn't want to say that Asuna threatened his dog). To add more to it, his full name is listed in the credits as Shoji Yanai, which, if not directly states, then at least strongly implies that he is the character of the same name from the source material's Alicization Arc.
• The Chew Toy: Literally for Asuna, who cannibalized him when making her escape, giving him a much harder time than his co-workers. Outside of that, everything that happens to him is one Humiliation Conga after another.
• Despair Event Horizon: After Asuna is done with him, he's left a bubbling mess repeatedly calling himself "dirty boy".
• Determinator: Say what you want about Shoji, but the guy keeps attending his job even after being routinely targeted (and cannibalized) by Asuna and having his avatar turned into a giant slug. If Asuna's claims are any indication, the same can't be said for a large majority of his fellow guards.
• Didn't Think This Through: When he spots her at the admin console, Shoji grabs Asuna with his tentacles and lifts her into the air. He instantly regrets this decision when she predictably starts squirming to get free, as his tentacles aren't strong enough to fully restrain her.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Shoji is a self-centered asshole who keeps stealing a disabled coworker's medical yogurt "by accident" because it tastes better than his. But when faced with the threat of violence against his dog Biscuit, he's willing to let Asuna go.
• Even Evil Has Standards: He's a bully and a terrible friend, but he's horrified by Asuna cannibalizing him and his co-workers and then threatening to do the same to his dog.
• Evil Is Petty: In addition to imprisoning Asuna and torturing numerous innocent people, Shoji messes with Trisha, a wheelchair-bound coworker with special dietary needs, usually by stealing her medicated yogurt. He also denies responsibility to an implausible degree.
• Eye Scream: His eyes had apparently being pulled out (or eaten) by Asuna during their previous encounter, forcing his modeler to replace them with yellow ones. In Episode 17, Asuna later threatens him by asking him what color he wants for the next pair.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Shoji is clearly not very popular within the workplace. Other than his beef with Trisha and Kyle's brief abandonment of him, his boss Sugou prioritizes prepping for his wedding over his safety twice. Once when Asuna escapes in Episode 15, and again when he's struggling with her in Episode 17. He's not getting any more popular anytime soon, especially after he's made to "confess" to molesting Asuna.
• Gory Discretion Shot: In Episode 15, Asuna does this to Shoji after breaking out of her Cardboard Prison yet again. In Episode 17, it's implied she ate his eyes.
• It's All About Me: When informed that the yogurt he's been stealing was medicated, Shoji casually says that he knew, and that's the reason he took it. It brings out the raspberries, you know?
• Jerkass: Shoji is the worst co-worker you can ever have. While stealing yogurt from a co-worker is already a dick move, intentionally targeting medicated yogurt for a woman with special dietary needs who is in a wheelchair is just plain awful. No wonder Asuna wanted his head so bad.
• Karmic Transformation: His and Kyle's avatars in ALO have been locked into the form of giant purple slug creatures, as Trisha's revenge on Shoji for stealing her medicated yogurt, making it his only way of interacting with the game.
• Larynx Dissonance: Shoji briefly does a falsetto voice in Episode 15 to try to convince Asuna that he wasn't working that day. It doesn't work.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Shoji repeatedly antagonized his disabled coworker out of apparent prejudice, so it's only fair that his avatar gets turned into a massive purple slug with tentacles that are apparently very hard to utilize, effectively making him disabled as well.
• Named by the Adaptation: The depraved slug henchman in SAO proper didn't have an onscreen name.
• Nervous Wreck: Having been on the receiving end of several of Asuna's escape attempts/rampages, which apparently included not only her horrifically killing, but even eating parts of him (well, his avatar) several times, Shoji's nerves around her are frayed, to say the least, and it takes pretty much all of his willpower to simply not run screaming away from her. He also mentions that he has had to see a therapist in an attempt to cope with the traumas she has inflicted upon him.
• Never My Fault: Shoji adamantly refuses to take responsibility for stealing Trisha's yogurt, which got him and his friend's avatars turned into slugs as a result.
  Shoji: Well, she doesn't label them, how am I supposed to know?
  Kyle: Did you bring yogurt, Shoji?!
  Shoji: I hardly see how that's relevant.
• Oh, Crap!: When he realizes that Asuna knows the name of his dog.
• Pet the Dog: Literal example. He cares very much for Biscuit, his dog, and gets himself humiliated and likely fired to ensure his safety.
• Punch-Clock Villain: Downplayed when compared to Kyle, but he still behaves like a (particularly mean) retail worker, and seems to have a normal life with his dog outside of ALO.
• They Killed Kenny Again: Since ALO is not a Deadly Game, Shoji can just log back in once his avatar is torn apart or eaten, and since Asuna hates him the most out of all the guards, he gets this treatment a lot. Despite this, the process is still incredibly painful for him.
• Those Two Guys: With Kyle in Episode 17.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Shoji couldn't come up with anything better than "I was just molesting her" when asked why he is letting Asuna go (really because she threatened to eat his dog), which gets Kyle to report him for sexual assault.
  • On a related note, it really isn't a good idea to bully your avatar modeler if you're working inside an MMO.
• Villains Want Mercy: In Episode 15, after his Larynx Dissonance act fails, Shoji resorts to screaming for his life as Asuna is tearing him apart or eating him.
• We Used to Be Friends: After believing he molested Asuna, Kyle cuts ties with him and reports him for sexual assault.
  Kyle: I thought I knew you. Consider yourself uninvited to my son's christening.
• With Friends Like These...: Shoji displays no remorse over getting Kyle turned into a slug, and even blames him for not having his back during his beef with Trisha.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: It's implied he was starting to improve on his mental health with the help of his psychologist, only for Asuna to kick that can down the drain and leave him traumatized for life (and with no friends).

Kyle

Alright, alright! Everything's fine! I have a plan!

Voiced by: MyToasterIsMoist

A technician for Sugou who has the misfortune of working with Shoji, and sharing MMOs with Asuna. He was turned into a slug by Trisha for being Shoji's friend, though he insists that he never wanted anything to do with their beef.

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• Adaptational Intelligence: The slug in canon wasn't exactly portrayed as an idiot, but here, he's the Only Sane Man between him and Kyle, although this is partly due to Shoji getting the opposite treatment.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: While still a villain, he's far more sympathetic than their original incarnation. The slug in SAO proper was also against his friend harassing Asuna, but only for pragmatic reasons. Here, he's legit horrified and cuts ties with Shoji when he thinks he molested her.
• Adaptational Sympathy: You won't be feeling bad for his canon counterpart anytime soon, but you might feel bad for the Humiliation Conga Kyle goes through in the abridged version. It helps that he's much nicer to boot.
• Adaptational Wimp: As the situation with Shoji was clearly not under control, Kyle comes across as more of a Dirty Coward in this version when he logs out to report Asuna's escape, while in canon, he was simply reporting her recapture.
• Affably Evil: He defends Trisha from Shoji's bullying, even after she unfairly turns him into a slug as well, and would easily qualify as a Nice Guy if not for the fact that he works in a mind control factory as a brain technician, meaning he's aware of at least some of the horrors going on in ALO.
• Anti-Villain: Kyle might be complacent in the ALO brainwashing process, but he's mostly a regular technician doing his job, and seems to abide by his moral code.
• Asshole Victim: He might be nicer than Shoji, but he's still complacent in Sugou's master plan, so one can't blame Asuna too much for maiming him alongside the other employees.
• Bumbling Henchman Duo: With Shoji, though he's much more competent than the former.
• Butt-Monkey: Not only did he have to deal with Shoji's beef with his co-worker Trisha for quite a while, he also ended up being directly affected by it when she turns his avatar into a slug as well just for being friends with Shoji.
• Determinator: Like Shoji, he still shows up to work even after all the other guards had quit over being cannibalized by Asuna. Downplayed, since we never see Asuna target him.
• Dirty Coward: Despite coming across as the Only Sane Man between him and Shoji, when they're confronted with a feral Asuna, Kyle's main plan is to bail to get Sugou for help, even if it means leaving his terrified colleague alone with the dangerous captive.
  Shoji: Kyle, Kyle, what do we do?! I can already feel my grip slipping!
  Kyle: Alright, alright! Everything's fine! I have a plan!
  Shoji: Okay, okay, l-lay it on me!
  Kyle: I'm gonna go—
  Shoji: I hate this plan!
• Disappointed in You: He tells Shoji "I thought I knew you" after he falsely confesses to molesting Asuna.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Kyle, who doesn't seem to have a problem with helping keep Asuna trapped inside ALO, uninvites Shoji from his son's christening after Shoji (falsely) confesses to have been attempting to molest Asuna.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Despite being part of Sugou's group, Kyle is disgusted by Shoji stealing yogurt from one of their coworkers. He's also disgusted at his self-imposed False Rape Accusation, vowing to report his behaviour. The latter might fall into Moral Myopia though, considering who they work for.
• Guilt by Association: Trisha turned Kyle into a slug because he was friends with Shoji.
• Karmic Transformation: Subverted. Kyle expresses his annoyance at having been subjected to this punishment by Trisha alongside Shoji, noticing that it seems to have been inflicted upon him simply for being on friendly terms with Shoji, especially seeing how he expressively stated that he didn't want any part in Trisha and Shoji's beef.
• Named by the Adaptation: Like Shoji, his canon counterpart didn't have a name.
• Nervous Wreck: Not as much as Shoji, but still loses his composure when around Asuna, down to abandoning Shoji in a whim.
• No-Respect Guy: Nobody seems to acknowledge his efforts to avoid drama. Trisha gave him the same punishment she gave Shoji, and Sugou refused to listen to his concerns regarding Asuna because he was planning out the wedding.
• Only Sane Man: The only onscreen RECT Progress employee with anything resembling a moral compass.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Even after Trisha turns him into a slug for being friends with Shoji, Kyle still calls out the latter for bullying her, showing sympathy for her situation.
  • However frustrated he might be with Shoji, he still comes back to help him out after Sugou proves to be of no help.
• Punch-Clock Villain: While he's well aware of the horrors going on in ALO, he treats the whole situation as if it were a regular retail job, and doesn't seem to harbor any ill intent towards the test subjects they're meant to keep stable (save for Asuna).
• Those Two Guys: With Shoji, although Kyle might be putting a few feet between himself and him after the latter falsely confesses to molesting Asuna.
• We Used to Be Friends: Kyle instantly cuts ties with Shoji after believing he molested Asuna.
  Kyle: I thought I knew you. Consider yourself uninvited to my son's christening.
• With Friends Like These...: After having a deal with Shoji's bullshit for too long, Kyle readily abandons him to deal with a bloodthirsty Asuna while he logs out to warn the boss, though it's Downplayed since he does come back for him shortly afterwards.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Well, What the Hell Anti-Villain, but he calls out Shoji for bullying his disabled co-worker Trisha.

Trisha

The model designer of ALfheim Online. She turned Shoji and Kyle's in-game models into slugs because Shoji keeps picking on her and stealing her medicated yogurt.

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• Anti-Villain: From what we hear of her, she seems like your average model designer, even if the avatars she models are used to facilitate brainwashing and sexual assault.
• Canon Foreigner: While there was most likely an avatar modeler for ALO in the original anime, there's no evidence of them being disabled. The name Trisha is also never said in SAO proper.
• The Dog Bites Back: She designs Shoji and Kyle's avatars as ugly giant slugs and locks them in said avatars as revenge for Shoji constantly stealing her dietary yogurt and making fun of her for being disabled.
• Evil Cripple: Downplayed. She's stated to be bound to a wheelchair, and she's an avatar modeler in a game that traps former SAO players against their will to use as test subjects. However, she is never seen and seems to be a Punch-Clock Villain at most.
• Evil Is Petty: She turned her co-worker Kyle into a slug for being friends with her bully, even though he had apparently defended her against him.
• The Ghost: She's only mentioned in episode 17 by Shoji and Kyle, the former complaining about her while the latter refuting that it was all his fault that they ended up as slugs.
• Ill Girl: She is wheelchair bound and has special dietary needs that require her to eat medicated yogurt.
• Misplaced Retribution: Kyle had apparently made it clear that he wanted no part in his friend's beef with her. This didn't stop her from applying Guilt by Association and turning his avatar into a slug alongside Shoji's.
• Lost Food Grievance: Turned Shoji and Kyle into slugs because Shoji keeps stealing her yogurt and Kyle is Shoji's friend. To make matters worse, the yogurt was medicated due to her special dietary needs.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Prior to Episode 16, she modeled the avatar of her bully Shoji into a slug after he stole her medicated yogurt for himself.
• Punch-Clock Villain: While we never see her, she seems to be more invested in messing with her co-worker Shoji than in Sugou's plan.

Sean

I'm sorry Ma'am, I'm gonna need to transfer your call... please hold

Voiced by: Chase "Coffinjockey" Corbin

The Technical support representative of ALfheim Online. Asuna briefly and mistakenly calls him while trying to log herself out.

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• Affably Evil: He's quite apathetic, but he tries to be cordial to Asuna as a tech support representative. He even apologizes to her for not being able to help her when Sugou fires him.
• Aloof Ally: Despite working for a monstrous sexual offender who essentially lobotomizes players, he seems pretty casual when processing Asuna's request to free all their hostages. This gets him fired pretty quickly.
• Anti-Villain: He operates and behaves like your average Technical support representative, even if it was all in aid of Sugou's master plan. He doesn't even seem to be all that invested in the brainwashing process regardless.
• Canon Foreigner: Since Asuna never fat-fingered her way into Tech Support in SAO proper, there was never any evidence of Sean existing.
• Cat Girl: His profile picture is of a white-haired cat girl.
• Disposable Intern: Sugou fires him upon asking if he can let the captives and Asuna out.
• Friendly Enemy: Despite Asuna being one of his hostages, he acts rather casual with her, and actually processes her request to free the other test subjects. On her side, he's the only RECT Employee whom she treats cordially (while she would've otherwise threatened him or his loved ones if he weren't to release her).
• Lack of Empathy: If his casual demeanor when talking about freeing or retaining their test subjects is any indication. He also doesn't process Asuna's desperation when she asks him for help and simply gets his co-workers to detain her.
• Nothing Personal: He only antagonizes Asuna due to his job being on the line, and apologies to her before forcing Shoji and Kyle to deal with her.
• Otaku: Implied by his anime catgirl profile.
• Punch-Clock Villain: He couldn't care less about what happens to the ALO test subjects: Log them out, keep them trapped... It's all just part of his job as a Tech support representative.
• The Slacker: Not wanting to deal with Asuna escaping, or Sugou's wrath, he passes the responsibility of dealing with her to Shoji and Kyle.
• Soul-Crushing Desk Job: Given how monotone his voice is when replying to Asuna, it seems that he isn't enjoying his job as the representative of tech support.
• Vocal Dissonance: His voice has a perpetually bored and apathetic tone coming from the profile picture of a cute Cat Girl.